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Guest essay by Eric Worrall
In the wake of revelations by whistleblower Dr. John Bates, Congressman Lamar Smith, Chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, has renewed demands for access to documents and correspondence relating to the release of the flawed Karl “Pausebuster” paper.
US Congress launches a probe into climate data that duped world leaders over global warming
- Republican Lamar Smith has announced an inquiry to acting chief of NOAA
- He has demanded for all internal documents and communications between staff
- It follows an investigation by the Mail on Sunday and information leaked by Dr John Bates
By David Rose for The Mail on Sunday
PUBLISHED: 13:14 +11:00, 19 February 2017 | UPDATED: 19:10 +11:00, 19 February 2017
Revelations by the Mail on Sunday about how world leaders were misled over global warming by the main source of climate data have triggered a probe by the US Congress.
Republican Lamar Smith, who chairs the influential House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology, announced the inquiry last week in a letter to Benjamin Friedman, acting chief of the organisation at the heart of the MoS disclosures, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
He renewed demands, first made in 2015, for all internal NOAA documents and communications between staff behind a controversial scientific paper, which made a huge impact on the Paris Agreement on climate change of that year, signed by figures including David Cameron and Barack Obama.
…
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4238806/US-Congress-launches-probe-climate-data.html
The following is the letter sent by Congressman Lamar Smith to Acting Administrator of NOAA Benjamin Freidman.
Source: https://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/02.14.17%20SST%20Letter%20to%20Acting%20Administrator%20Friedman.pdf (h/t E&E News)
This is getting serious. NOAA defied efforts at Congressional oversight when President Obama was in charge. I doubt NOAA will enjoy the same immunity from oversight under President Trump.
You can’t prosecute a scientist for making a mistake. You can potentially prosecute a civil servant if they are grossly negligent, cut corners, and provide misleading information to the public.
NASA GISS, along with a good number of executive branch agencies, have been stonewalling Congress for years. Perhaps now they will have to comply with the investigations. Without the President supporting their defiance, stonewalling cannot continue.
Tom Halla:
You’ll notice that “communications between or among” NOAA employees
and OTHER non-NOAA governmental agencies like NASA and their
employees concerning the “Karl study” before, during or after it was
published in Science are NOT covered by the Committee’s subpoena.
Not specifically covered are logs of FOI requests received by NOAA about
the “Karl study” or the various databases used in whole or in part therein.
This may be just the beginning of a long, winding path to clarity.
Every shred of text in emails send by those email addresses belong to the government
With NASA climate biting the dust, it appears that the Republicans have chosen NOAA as their preferred scientific body to keep a watch on climate. That’s the carrot – if NOAA staff play ball and return to good science, they get to not only keep their job, but do NASA’s as well.
The stick is these investigations – which means that those who have been most responsible for the corruption of science and scientific standards within NOAA will know that if they don’t jump or fall on their sword, they’ll have it done for them by these investigations.
In other words, these investigations will be just as long as they need to be to cleanse the place of corruption – there is no need to totally trash their reputation (unless that is what it takes).
What’s the betting NOAA takes a leaf out of Clinton’s play-book and delivers only hard-copy to the inquiry.
Yes, on unnumbered pages all mixed up ! Thousands of them.
More likely they take a leaf from the IRS playbook. Any bets on how may hard drive crashes and backup tapes lost?
With Trump in office I would suspect massive firings.
Hard copy that was stored in shredding bins
“This is all that is available”
I find it hard to believe NOAA rely on DLTs as backup media with their budget.
Hard drives wiped with a sledge hammer?
You can also prosecute a civil servant for blatantly ignoring the law.
NOAA and NASA and the rest of the leftist fear-mongering chicken littles have built their whole AGW edifice on .. bullsh|t:
YOU CAN prosecute a [scientist] who makes systematic “mistakes” for years. It’s simply fraud. It matters not that he gives this bad results to a government employee, the latter just becomes another indictable person.
Error so egregious as to constitute deliberate fraud.
Kinda hard to prove flawed when we took the suggestions made by judith curry and compared K15 to the best data…Argo , satellites and buoys. And found….K15 is an improvement. ..
The new land data? Had zero impact…
The argument that, “we did a flawed study, but here is another study that supports it,” is not very convincing. There is no reason to believe the new study is not flawed as well. It smacks of a game to overwhelm with so much information that nobody can sift through it all. Another phrase would be “snow job”.
Just like a magicians slight of hand…look here while doing something else over there.
A great way to rid one of pesky inquiry was to ‘snow’ the enquirer with raw ‘data’.
This then flooded the enquirer with information.
Just pop them a link full of numbers and move on.
Accuracy, reliability,repeatability, accountability,validation…’Trust Us, we checked and all is well’.
When requests were made for archived information back 20 years, we were told this was not needed and not expected anyway.
In this case the search is only 8 years, but will uncover information leading back to the beginning of the pause.
Judging by the memoranda this committee has teeth and means business.
No small FOI request and its your fault if they don’t want to give info, no presidential cover up, no glass ceiling, no emails hiding information on personal servers, no personal confidentiality clauses and privilege.
Talk about a clean sweep.
Hopefully science will be the winner.
Gish Gallop?
They did the same bait and switch with Common Core. When a state rejected Common Core, the government said, “No problem here’s another program that is not Common Core,” while essentially slipping the Common Core program into a different cover.
“There is no reason to believe the new study is not flawed as well.”
For a start that “as well” reveals that you have concluded the first is flawed before the evidence is in. Second, there is no reason to suppose the second study is flawed. Usually one would require some evidence to conclude a study was flawed. Simply because it disagrees with your preferred result is not a good reason to assume flaws. Third, the “second study” is not really the second study, but just one more that is consistent with Karl2015.
you have concluded
===========
when NOAA’s withholds subpoenaed documents from its congressional oversight committee, as the oversight committee has now placed into the official record, there is only one conclusion possible.
NOAA get billions in public funds each year. In return it is legally required to submit to oversight. Personally, I would think the best answer is for congress to simply de-fund NOAA for failing to comply. Stop the paychecks until the documents are produced in full.
Seaice1
What would you expect the report to say since they probably used the Karlized information as their principal data source, they could only conclude similar findings
seaice1, what are you on about? It has been methodically proved a dozen times over ever since the Karl study came out that it was flawed from the start and politically motivated. The recent Bates whisteblowing is just the nail in the coffin but it was certainly not the first line of evidence. At this point anyone still arguing that the Karl et al 2015 numbers are not fraud is either in on the game or blinded by some higher motivation.
I like your posts, they usually make me stop and reconsider my own biases. I was always taught to look at every subject from more than one angle, there are usually other sides to the story. However, in this case I think you are missing the forest for the trees.
1. The new study was done at the suggestion of Judith Curry
2. She suggested, for example, that we compare ERSSTv4 with an ALL BUOY record.
To help you understand. Before there was ERSSTv4, there was ERSSTv3. In V3, they just
averaged Ships and buoys, But buoys are better data.
In v4 they added and adjustment, based on the fact that water measured inside a ship is warmer than the same water measured by a buoy.
So, science proceeds by testing hypotheses.
IF version 4 ( where ships and buoys are adjusted to each other ) is worse than version 3,
where Ships and Buoys are merely averaged..
Then comparing Version 4 (ships and buoys) to BUOYS ONLY should reveal that
So that study was done.
In discussions here, Anthony suggested that we look at the most current data , through 2016..
Well, on one hand people want data to go through a CDR process ( Bates) and on the other hand people demand we use the lastest data possible ( Anthony)
Here is the freshest data
version 3… Old stufff where Buoys and Ships are averaged
Version 4… Where buoys and ships are adjusted based on the measured bias
Buoy only
https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/834069858270670849
lets see if this works
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The point is pretty simple
It will be hard to show a fraud when
A) you take take a proposed test by Critics!
B) you do that test PLUS 3 other tests.
C) you post your data and code for people to examine.
D) you are challenged to do yet another test and update the last few months of data
E) you accept THAT challenge and the analysis still shows that V4 is better
This is why John Bates had to recant his claim that there was some kind of fraud
I suspect that everyone who is brought to testify under oath, will likewise avoid unwise and actionable claims.
You are invited to make actionable claims here… go ahead
Rob a bank, and give the money back, you STILL robbed a bank …
“This is why John Bates had to recant his claim that there was some kind of fr aud:”
UNDER penalty of overbearing, brow-beating reputation-trashing Climate Astrologists; no, I’ll would rather trust his FIRST ‘call’ on the matter, thank you.
Mr Mosher,
I have to ask a couple of questions regarding the Zeke Hausfather Twitter graphic
https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/834069858270670849/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
First…Is the “Bouy” data the adjusted data or the unadjusted data?
Lets try this again…dang computer…
Mr Mosher,
I have to ask a couple of questions regarding the Zeke Hausfather Twitter graphic
https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/834069858270670849/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
First…Is the “Bouy” data the adjusted data or the unadjusted data?
Second…if it is the unadjusted data, why did it need adjustment as it appears to already agree with V4?
Third…If it is the adjusted data, wouldn’t the unadjusted data be in better agreement with V3?
Fourth…wouldn’t it appear that Adjustments were only needed to bring it into agreement with V4?
Fifth…Any ideas what went wrong with V3 early in the 2000’s that skewed it into reflecting the Hiatus?
“…you have concluded the first is flawed before the evidence is in.”
There is a wealth of evidence that KARL-15 was wrong, even fraudulent. Thumb on the scales. Cooling the past. Studies commissioned with the purpose of supporting KARL-15 are inherently flawed in concept themselves and can’t be used to defend it.
Mosher writes
Here they are http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/
Buoys being better data is very far from being a given. There are hardly any buoys in the Southern hemisphere’s oceans at all. There are none in the Southern ocean. There are none in the Indian Ocean. There are essentially none in the Arctic Ocean. Furthermore almost all of the buoys are next to a coastline with the main exception being the buoys that appear to be used for ENSO monitoring.
They’re not representative of the oceans, Steve. They’re not obviously “better” at all.
This is such equivocating crap from SM. If it made no difference, then the post-Karlized data would agree with the satellite data, as it did pre-Karlization. It doesn’t. I trust the new study no more than I trust the original. The authors clearly have an agenda.
Stephen Mosher has provided a detailed and clear explanation. The update blows out of the water the objection that the data were cherry picked to coincide with the El Nino. The other objections display a lack of understanding. Please read Mosher’s explanation if it still seems dodgy to you.
See, that’s the funny thing. Where did they get the idea that satellite data agrees with ERSSTv4 and not the other global SSTa datasets? Satellite data specifically DISagrees with ERSSTv4 and agrees with e.g. the (itself satellite based, AVHRR) NOAA Reynolds OIv2 series:
ARGO also appears to very much agree with Reynolds OIv2 and not ERSSTv4:
In fact, the people behind the construction of the global ERSSTv4 dataset managed to “bust” the Pause through ONE adjustment only, by suddenly, simply and conveniently (but inexplicably) lifting the data en bloc by ~0.05 degrees in the first part of 2006, and leaving everything else (from today) pretty much equal to the combined HadISST1+OIv2 dataset (the one used by GISS before they switched to ERSSTv3b) all the way back to about late 1976:
Tim, ship based readings are almost entirely from the various shipping lanes. Which is where most of the ships are.
So which would you refer to as better?
Data from accurate and well maintained probes in a few known and fixed locations.
Or
Data from less accurate and maintained hapazardly at best probes from a few but more or less random locations.
MarkW wonders
It makes no difference if one is better than the other if neither data set is capable of answering the question asked of it. And that would be the position we’re in with surface SST measurement today.
Its not surprising to me that the two data sets give different results.
higley7 February 21, 2017 at 5:28 am
They did the same bait and switch with Common Core. When a state rejected Common Core, the government said, “No problem here’s another program that is not Common Core,” while essentially slipping the Common Core program into a different cover.
It was the states that initiated Common Core, led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, what ‘government’ are you referring to?
After an admittedly brief internet search I can find no where that says Dr. Bates recanted his statement. Does anyone have a source for this? I did run across a rather scathing response to his critics from Judith Curry at her blog. It was a very interesting read.
https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/06/response-to-critiques-climate-scientists-versus-climate-data/
JGRiggs – in response to you comment as to whether Bates has walked back his comment. – Skeptical science is quite adament that his comment was taken out of context, and the dispute was only a minor disagreement. However, reading his initial comment on Judith curry’s blog, I dont see how he was taken out of context nor do I see any wiggle room to walk back the comment without saying his initial comment was a lie.
I have attached the links to SK for reference
One other point – SK is claiming that the Karl study now lines up with other temp records. That is a little baffling in that the Bates study was on of the first to “bust” the pause, Since it was the first, it would be subsequent studies that lined up with Karl and not Karl lining up with the other studies.
Skeptical science has three or four articles defending the Karl/noaa study and pointing out that the Bates comment was overblown.
https://www.skepticalscience.com/rose-launches-first-salvo-latest-war-against-climate-scientists.html
https://www.skepticalscience.com/bates-knew-people-would-misuse-accusations-to-attack-climate-science.html
https://www.skepticalscience.com/this-is-why-daily-mail-unreliable.html
I have also attached a link to Bates original comment on Judith Curry’s blog
https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/04/climate-scientists-versus-climate-data/
jgriggs3 – To the best of my knowledge the first “Bates recants” story was in E&E News:
http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060049630
In an interview with E&E News yesterday, former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration principal scientist John Bates had a significantly more nuanced take on the controversy that has swirled since a top House Republican hailed his blog post as proof that the agency “played fast and loose” with temperature data to disprove the theory of a global warming “pause.”
Bates accused former colleagues of rushing their research to publication, in defiance of agency protocol. He specified that he did not believe that they manipulated the data upon which the research relied in any way.
“The issue here is not an issue of tampering with data, but rather really of timing of a release of a paper that had not properly disclosed everything it was,” he said.
I am not inclined to put too much stock in bates back pedal of his prior statement. The article was posted at E&E which also included a link to the story on the russian hack of the vermont electric grid.
on Judith curry’s blog, Bates was prety direct as to the issues, then the retreat/backpedal describing the early release of the study as the only thing wrong. That simply doesnt jive with his prior comments.
With the greatest of respect, this has nothing to do with the science as far as I can see. This is about ignoring scientific and institutional protocols to promote a scientific conclusion as a political policy.
I’ll repeat the analogy I made in an earlier post; if you were criminalised and jailed by the police and they ignored their internal protocols just because they believed you were guilty, wouldn’t you consider that a violation of your rights? The integrity of the police, the public’s faith in them and the law would be breached, even if you were subsequently found guilty of the crime you were accused of.
The whole point of this particular case is that it encourages others to ride roughshod over processes designed to ensure conclusions can’t be criticised. And with the best will in the world, it should be the alarmist community most critical of Karl’s behaviour, not the sceptical community. If proven that Karl has done what he’s suspected of, it undermines NOAA itself and all its scientific work.
How many other studies have been rushed through in the same manner? Refusing to comply with earlier requests for information merely deepens the suspicion. Where else might this investigation lead, that’s the really important question.
My analogy instead is: the studies that demonstrated a new drug is safe and effective are examined carefully and it turns out they do not comply with Good Laboratory Practice regulations. Would the safety and effectiveness of the new drug NOT be questioned at that point?
+1 HotScot ……
Sorry no protocols I know of have been violated. I searched everywhere. I searched my prior records for what NOAA required when publishing research. I cant see which protocol .–chapter and verse–was violated. which one? name and number please.
if you are claiming that specific individuals violated specific protocols, then citing names and specific protocols would be nice..and responsible. Otherwise you are like the fake media randomly accusing our current administration of unspecified bad deeds.
When for example we accused Jones of Violating certain rules ( like respoding to FIOA) we quoted the actual rules.
When we called out Lewandowsky, we cited specific rules..
Given that republicans are now in charge of NOAA, it will be helpful to cite the specific rule. That way they can be more effective in enforcing it. And if there is no specific rule, then they can avoid the embarassment of making false claims against employees. That would not be good
Steven,
Bates claimed that Karl and his group didn’t follow NOAA protocol in “the way data was handled, documented and stored, raising issues of transparency and availability.” Presumably he knows more about NOAA protocol than you do.
Before his recantation, if that’s what it was, Bates also stated that he thought the study was rushed “to influence the December 2015 climate treaty negotiations in Paris.”
Mosher,
It is generally acknowledged that the buoy data tends to run colder than the ship data. The blue line is the average of the hot and cold. How is it that the cold data plots higher than the average? Is this the infamous “New Math?”
Mosher,
Let me re-state my question so I’m more sure you understand it. If you plot a series of high temperatures, a series of low temperatures, and the average, the low temperatures should plot below the average. Why are the buoy temperatures plotting higher than the average?
The claim is that the computer that was processing the data was lost, together will all the data, source code and output. The mind boggling level of incompetence this suggests in the operators is quite amazing. Apparently nobody has been fired for it. And yet I have seen no claims that this is not true.
The fact that there is now no data to support a major paper demands that the paper be withdrawn on the grounds that there are no facts to support it. Any policy made on the basis of a withdrawn paper also needs to be cancelled.
Steven Mosher
February 21, 2017 at 1:06 pm
Sorry no protocols I know of have been violated
___________________________________
Lies lies mince pies
“Tom Karl liked the maturity matrix so much, he modified the matrix categories so that he could claim a number of NCEI products were “Examples of “Gold” standard NCEI Products (Data Set Maturity Matrix Model Level 6).” See his NCEI overview presentation all NCEI employees [ncei-overview-2015nov-2 ] were told to use, even though there had never been any maturity assessment of any of the products.”
https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/04/climate-scientists-versus-climate-data/
@Stephen Mosher,
I suspect other have answered your quite aggressive reply to mine. However, I would add that it’s highly unlikely Bates would blow the whistle were there not something to blow it about. To my understanding, he didn’t challenge the actual science, but, as he was responsible for archiving research, and, according to him, basically wrote the regulations for it, I strongly suspect the guy has a genuine beef with Karl.
And whilst I respect your efforts to find the protocols Karl may have violated, I also strongly suspect it’s an almost impossible task within an organisation the size and complexity of NOAA.
So please don’t get upset when a credible scientist calls out another scientist for not following procedure. If the data isn’t archived properly, no one can find it to challenge it. You have experience of that first hand, you searched for protocols which may, or may not be published, which allows you no opportunity to challenge them.
And as Hivemind points out, when yet more data is ‘lost’, a now recurrent theme amongst alarmist scientists, even Karl’s theory can’t be challenged.
Find the ‘lost’ data for us all and I’ll find the protocols for you.
So when people talk about “Buoy Data”, just what exactly are they talking about ??
I’m under the impression (maybe mistakenly) that the ARGO buoys, are buoys which can go up and down in the ocean, apparently floating freely, but able to dive deep down to -2,000 meters or more, and take measurements of who know what.
But then I believe there are floating surface buoys (maybe tethered ??) that sit on the surface, and can measure simultaneously a near surface (-1 m) water Temperature and a near surface (lower troposphere + 3 m) air Temperature.
These are the buoys that John Christy et al reported on in Jan 2001 after about 20 years of data gathering, so since about 1980 much like the satellite era.
They found that the water Temperature are NOT the same, and they are NOT correlated, so you can’t reconstruct oceanic lower troposphere air Temperatures from 150 years of buckets of water on windy decks on ships at sea not even knowing what water they are in (even if in a known GPS location.
Ocean rivers meander (currents) so returning to the same spot is not seeing the exact same water body you were in six months ago.
So I don’t believe ANY oceanic global Temperature data before 1980; to me it is all total garbage.
But izzere any other “Buoy Data” that I don’t know about ??
G
HotScot February 22, 2017 at 3:39 am
@Stephen Mosher,
I suspect other have answered your quite aggressive reply to mine. However, I would add that it’s highly unlikely Bates would blow the whistle were there not something to blow it about. To my understanding, he didn’t challenge the actual science, but, as he was responsible for archiving research, and, according to him, basically wrote the regulations for it, I strongly suspect the guy has a genuine beef with Karl.
He was said to be very upset that Karl demoted him by removing his supervisory role a few years ago, apparently due to complaints about his attitude towards those he supervised.
Yeah if you end with El Nino 2014\15\16 sure
By the way, who is this “we” you talk about?
One of the most important questions in our post-normal world.
Mosh, thanks for your detailed reply to me over at Judith’s. My recollection is you indicated you believed K15 had no affect on Paris. Above David Rose alleges “a huge impact on the Paris Agreement”. Your thoughts? Thanks.
In Mr. Mosher’s apparent absence perhaps I might add my two cents worth?
David Rose simply makes stuff up. Period!
AFWetware (@AF_Wetware)
February 21, 2017 at 2:20 pm
In Mr. Mosher’s apparent absence perhaps I might add my two cents worth?
David Rose simply makes stuff up. Period!
________________________
Lean startup, fail fast, well done. I was looking for a good example of that for trainees. You started light on facts and crashed immediately
Read John J Bates’ own words
https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/04/climate-scientists-versus-climate-data/
You won’t though will you. lol
Mark – I did read these words allegedly uttered by one John J. Bates:
http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060049630
The issue here is not an issue of tampering with data, but rather really of timing of a release of a paper that had not properly disclosed everything it was
Did you? Mr. Rose seems not to have read them either. If he’s read them he certainly hasn’t reported on them in the Mail on Sunday!
Where are your lucky trainees located? Sweden? Or should that be Norway?
I hope they are not in Sweden after what happened last Friday. I would hate to think of them being traumatised.
SeaIce – Perhaps I do him a disservice, but I cannot help but wonder if @POTUS knows how to spell HellSinkEee by gum!
AFWetware (@AF_Wetware)
February 22, 2017 at 3:35 am
Mark – I did read these words allegedly uttered by one John J. Bates:
__________________________________
Are you implying that it was not John Bates that posted on Climate ect?
I see, so deny what bates in his own post on Climate ect said by using the report of some journalist and then you mention David Rose in the same breath. laughable
I never mentioned David Rose or the Daily mail, I cited Bates himself and you are in denial, you use the words of some writer to tell us what Bates said, instead of bats own words LMAO
I am wondering if you banged your head. Thinking is certainty not for you.
The trainees are reading this now and laughing at your failure to process simple information
Stupid fat thumbs 😀
It is always good to demonstrate how preconceptions and little information can be dangerous to disastrous. Thanks for the second example
Mark – If you scroll up to the top you’ll note that Eric’s OP mentioned David Rose as did the comment of mine upon which you are commenting.
To reiterate. David Rose makes stuff up. Do you deny that?
I sincerely hope your trainees are ROFLTAO. Where are they located by the way?
Nice to see that satellite data belongs to the best data……..
Mosher, isn’t this just the same argument that was used to support Mann’s hockey stick? ‘It doesn’t matter how bad or flawed the paper was, because it’s been replicated.’ Except we now know the replications where just as flawed as the original, unless you’re one of the Climate Faithful who still believe despite all evidence that the little ice age and the various Optimums were ‘regional’.
I would think you of all people would remember the lesson of Millikan and Fletcher’s oil drop experiment.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drop_experiment
Huh? I think Millikan and Karl are quite different cases.
The value of ‘research’ in this area comes not from its academic viability but from its PR and political impact . Hence why poor science is more than accepted if it produces the ‘right result ‘
commieBob writes
I think the point schitzree is making is that Karl puts the stake in the ground and now it takes considerable time and effort to move away from that result even if its incorrect. Meanwhile other results will tend to cluster around the original and move in the “right” direction slowly.
Feynman said this about the Millikan experiment and I think its relevant
Half of them are arguing breach of protocol (without even mentioning the effect it had on data selection)
The other half are denying any protocol breach and making it about John bates having some gripe.
It’s beyond pathetic. It is akin to a twitching corpse after a beheading
Link ?
Kinda hard to prove flawed or more importantly validate when they fail to archive the data and now claim to have “lost” it.
Any “Paper” basing it’s findings on what is now “Lost Data” should be removed from consideration for reference for subsequent papers until it can be replicated from original data sources. If it can’t be replicated then it must be retracted as well as any subsequent publication which references it ir it’s “Lost Data” as source information
That’s how normal science works. Unfortunately we are dealing with post normal science.
Bryan,
The whole HadCRU temperature reconstruction should be thrown out for the same reason.
in those immortal words of Yul Brenner as Pharaoh, “So let it be written, so let it be done”
The bouy data was adjusted to fit the ship data. The ship data was not adjusted to fit the bouy data. The bouy data is universally considered more accurate than the ship data. That is the fundamental problem with the paper and nothing can rationalise it away.
All the ‘old’ data is fundamentally flawed. It was never intended as data for a global temperature but simply as local temperatures, the land data for general monitoring and local decision making and the ship data was to do with engine cooling. The land data had the UHI bias, constantly increasing as more concrete and bitumen aggregated in towns and cities and the ship data had a motive to understate ( engine operating power -> speed->get to port quicker-> not miss berth slots etc).
The whole lot has had to be ‘pasteurised, homogenised and had permeate added’ to make it fit for CAGW consumption. It is no surprise at all that the fiddled data shown an continuing uptrend and the satellite,ballon sets do not.
Anto
“The bouy data was adjusted to fit the ship data. The ship data was not adjusted to fit the bouy data.”
That’s not a problem, since what they were investigating is the long term trend. Failure to make the adjustment for a known cooling bias is what would result in an unreliable trend.
The Ship data was LOW RESOLUTION,which means it was much less credible to use than ship buoys. Yet Dr. Karl adjusts the Buoys temperature data up. Which means he thought the ship data was better than buoy data.
The only “evidence” for this so called cooling trend was that the buoy data did not match the ship data.
better or worse, the bouy data was more likely adjusted to the ship data because the ship data was statistically warmer and the “Missing Heat” was supposed to be hiding in the oceans
MarkW
“The only “evidence” for this so called cooling trend was that the buoy data did not match the ship data.”
That’s what confirmed the cooling bias.
As I understand this, the previous SST record used by NOAA was based mainly on ship data up to a certain time, then mainly on buoy data after that time. Then came the discovery that ship and buoy records taken from the same locations showed different absolute temperatures.
It really doesn’t matter to people who are interested in studying long term trends (i.e. climate scientists) whether you adjust the difference down in one set or up in the other. They use anomalies. They aren’t interested in absolute temperatures.
The important thing is that you make the adjustment. If you don’t do either or, then you let a known bias falsely influence the long term trend.
Are folks here saying that if Karl15 had shifted the ship temperatures down instead of shifting the buoy temperatures up, which would have had zero impact on the long term trend, there would be no problem?
Ass DWR54 reports, since the buoy data was cooler than the ship data, this confirmed that the buoy data was cool biased, so the good data was adjusted to match the lower quality data.
MarkW
“Ass DWR54 reports, since the buoy data was cooler than the ship data, this confirmed that the buoy data was cool biased, so the good data was adjusted to match the lower quality data.”
___________
As has been repeated here many times now, it makes absolutely zero difference to the long term trend whether you adjust the errant data set down or the corrected data set up.
The important thing is that you make the adjustment one way or the other.
Failing to account for the observed difference is what introduces the trend error.
Sunsettommy, there’s no evidence from published air temperature records that BEST understands instrumental resolution, nor NOAA, nor GISS, nor UKMet, nor UEA.
They each and all completely neglect the idea that instruments have finite resolving power. It’s absent from all their work, they never mention it, and instrumental resolution limits are never included in their uncertainty bars.
Pat Frank
February 21, 2017 at 12:28 pm
Sunsettommy, there’s no evidence from published air temperature records that BEST understands instrumental resolution, nor NOAA, nor GISS, nor UKMet, nor UEA.
They each and all completely neglect the idea that instruments have finite resolving power. It’s absent from all their work, they never mention it, and instrumental resolution limits are never included in their uncertainty bars.
______________________
Pat ignoring the limitations is part and parcel of this nonsense. Hiding uncertainty and problems is their forte
It’s a peculiar aspect of group-think, isn’t it Mark-H, that makes scientists neglect attention to detail.
DWR54,
The title of Karls paper is
“Possible artifacts of data biases in the RECENT global surface warming hiatus”
Pay attention to that word recent. The entire point of Karl’s paper was that the recent hiatus was an artifact of the data. While your argument about one way or the other not effecting the long term trend might be correct it is moot. The issue is the recent hiatus not the “long term trend”. Karl’s choice to adjust the buoy data has a significant effect on the recent trend regardless of the long term trend.
Hi Steve, how did you find K15 improved on the Argo, satellites and buoys? What told you that?
geronimo
“…how did you find K15 improved on the Argo, satellites and buoys?”
I don’t think anyone claimed that, did they? Steven Mosher refers to the fact that Karl15 was ‘compared’ to evidence from Argo floats, buoys and satellite sea surface temperatures and found to be more accurate than the previously existing data sets.
See this paper published last month: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1601207
“The update from ERSST version 3b to version 4 resulted in an increase in the operational SST trend estimate during the last 19 years from 0.07° to 0.12°C per decade, indicating a higher rate of warming in recent years. We show that ERSST version 4 trends generally agree with largely independent, near-global, and instrumentally homogeneous SST measurements from floating buoys, Argo floats, and radiometer-based satellite measurements that have been developed and deployed during the past two decades.”
Sorry DWR54, but that paper is nothing but silly cherry picking. Look at what changing the end date does. The paper’s chosen date doubles the trend vs. ending before the El Nino.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1997/to/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1997/to:2014.5/trend/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1997/to:2016.0/trend
Richard M.
Sorry DWR54, but that paper is nothing but silly cherry picking. Look at what changing the end date does.
The paper is not about the trend per se. Altering the end date does not affect their conclusion. You are just slinging mud.
“…increase in the operational SST trend estimate during the last 19 years from 0.07° to 0.12°C per decade…”
These claims of measurement accuracy are not science. Not too be crude, but accurate – this is mental masturbation.
Richard M
“Sorry DWR54, but that paper is nothing but silly cherry picking.”
Then no doubt it their skulduggery will be exposed in due course…
DWR54,
They have already been exposed by a simple look at the data. It is always humorous to see the abject denial from the AGW cult.
@Seaice1 Yeah sure, lopping off the epic warming spike wont have an effect on the trend, sure. Ugh UGH!
Look at Mosher’s update above. The continuation of the data through 2016 does not affect the conclusion at all.
So let me get this straight. El Nino started in 2014 pal, 2015 and 2016 and you say those three years have no impact on a warming trend.
can you hook me up with some of that stuff? Hydroponic? 😀
@Seaice1 also can you or Mosh tell us why the CRU are wrong because they say NOAA is wrong.(without actually saying it) Pause real, ongoing
This research was ‘needed ‘ and has happened so often in climate ‘science’ data was ‘made available’ and the report with the ‘right result ‘ produced .
Mosher – the allegation which will hang them is not complying with a congressional subpoena!
SS,
One would hope!
If they have done no wrong, why are they so adamant about concealing the evidence?
…Argo , satellites and buoys.
are all adjusted data…how would you know?
“when WE took the suggestions”
If there is a “WE” and if they are indeed open to suggestions, then I have a few.
– Stop claiming science means working backwards from a predetermined conclusion and trying to prove it with data.
– Reject the tendentious mission statement of the IPCC and terminate all US participation in (and funding for) the UNFCCC and the IPCC.
– Stop looking for statistical climate trends with a tacit presumption that those trends represent actual atmospheric physics that may be extrapolated into the future ad infinitum.
– Throw away CGM computer models, which seem to be little more than Federal jobs programs.
– Stop the education bureaucracy from frightening primary school children with silly doomsday propaganda.
– Terminate all direct federal subsidies for wind and solar power generation and let them stand on their own economic feet.
I’ll quit there, since I could go on for tens, or hundreds more.
+1 Mickey! I suspect the “we” isn’t interested in your excellent suggestions!
Mickey, the paper supporting Karl15 does none of those things you suggest they should stop doing, so I guess you are in agreement with the conclusions?
Seaice1, although I can’t prove it, I suspect the Karl paper may violate the item of my 3rd suggestion, in that it had as it’s political objective to prove there is no “pause” in modern temperature trends. Why might they do that? Oh, perhaps to support NOAA’s alarmist climate agenda, in general, to expand their own budget, which has been on the CAGW gravy train for a long time, a thing I would hope even you can admit..
But quite frankly, I’m not interesting in proving anything with regard to their paper, nor am I worried about global warming, climate change, melting Arctic sea ice melting, or any other BS you’re peddling. I am interested in shrinking the US government and its expenditures. Big climate science seems destructive to our society, and should be among the 1st things on the chopping block. As a tax payer, I never wanted to fund a growing special interest within the Federal bureacracy, nor through grants, the same flavor of growing cancer on American higher ed. I want the “WE” that Mosher mentions, to stop using my own tax dollars to propagandize me (which is a total waste of money, I assure you), and more particularly, to stop propagandizing school children, which is quite effective in turning suggestive, immature little children into adults that are scared little chickens, whom I fear will be unable to fend for their own political freedoms and futures. Look at the college campus unrest today and tell me me with a straight face that rational, intelligent, balanced science is any part of those people’s pedagogical education. These are children who “believe” in CAGW before they’ve even had a basic science class. NOAA and GISS play a role in that, indirectly. I want the whole thing torn down. Do you follow me? Or will you now revert to regaling me with more fearful stories of some melting Arctic ice?
Lets ask them why the Met\CRU are wrong because it behooves them to show why the Met\CRU are wrong given they say the pause is there and not going away
I would assume “we” refers to Berkeley Earth
Steven Mosher:
The meme of a hiatus or pause appeared in about 2013 because the prospective data was tracking below the model aggregates. Climate scientists started to explain it. Mann and Steinmann wrote a paper invoking natural cooling in the Pacific, just for one example. When Karl et al published their paper in 2015, they presented it as an answer to the issue of the pause. My question is this: If the data had been tracking the models closely would Karl have made the same adjustments to correct “Possible artifacts of data biases” and published this paper in 2015? Is there a possible bias in the direction of warming in post hoc data adjustments, even if the adjustments make perfect sense in a given instance?
Berkeley Earth is privately funded by donations from various ultra-liberal foundations including the Koch brothers. Mosher is paid to state whatever might win BEST another donation. “Whistling past the graveyard,” much, Mosh???
Since when have the Koch Brothers been “ultra liberal”? Have I blinked and missed something? A “Road to Damascus” moment perhaps?
Uh, the Koch brothers are the exact opposite of ultra-liberal. Did you perhaps mean Soros?
BEST was indeed funded by the Koch brothers in the early days. However I think that source dried up once the initial results were revealed!
Aww, the old two wrongs make a right argument. But, what do two rights make?
A plane. 😀
But seriously, supposedly the software output shifts therefore that may no longer be true with today’s inputs.
Three lefts make a right.
ironargonaut, too Wright 🙂
Or is it perhaps ‘We are not amused”
Mosher,
Since the original data from K15 was lost, the paper can’t be replicated. So how can you be sure it wasn’t flawed? Isn’t replication a cornerstone of the Scientific Process? If it can’t be replicated, shouldn’t it be withdrawn until it can be redone?
CYA
Steven, you dont come to mind as the best source for confirming Karl’s numbers. You admitted in a post on JC’s site that you are just fine with fallacious methods of data processing. Your statistical chops need some fine tuning.
Forrest Gardener
February 21, 2017 at 12:55 am
By the way, who is this “we” you talk about?
______________
Didn’t you know, Mosh is a cheer leader for the team hence “we” even if he has to eat in the janitor’s lunchroom
The current new term for the entrenched Leftist Bureaucrats in the US Federal government civil service is:
Deep State.
Trump’s drain the swamp rhetoric has the Deep State fightin back for its survival.
Let’s make sure the deep state loses.
Hillary got just about her biggest margin in…D.C. This explains a lot.
+ 1.
I suggest that many more whistleblowers will be coming forth, now that Trump is President and there is the Congressional inquiry.
The motivation for whistleblowers will be:
1. It is safe to speak out, under the protection of the new Trump administration.
2. It is prudent to distance themselves from the fraudulent conduct of those who ‘adjusted” temperature data, “pal-reviewed” alarmist propaganda and/or otherwise contributed to false global warming mania.
This is a scam that cost society tens of trillions of dollars, damaged energy systems and cost many lives. One really does not want to be caught on the wrong side of the angels when the truth comes tumbling out.
So let’s hear it, ladies and germs! Cull your files for evidence and bring it forth. Come clean. Let’s hear the truth. Let’s get this done and over with.
Regards, Allan
This is likely a once in lifetime opportunity.
The Trump administration needs to prioritize and set objectives as opposed to starting a fight without a plan.
It might feel good to look for scape goats and try to make the guilty pay, but that will make the NOAA/NASA climate groups look like victims and stall solving the deeper, long term problem.
The objective is to get the general public and NOAA employees on the side of honest correct science and to make it known publicly that there is still widespread climate-gate type manipulation of climate data, climate paper analysis, and climate paper conclusions, as well as the standard blocking of climate papers that do not support CAGW.
The scientists under the Obama administration where caught between a rock and hard place. The Obama administration and their NGO friends wanted data/paper conclusions to push CAGW.
There is a difference between lukewarm warming which is primarily natural and CAGW. The observational evidence does not even support AGW. CAGW was a complete fabrication.
GISS is a good starting point as there is in your face evidence of non-science based manipulation, evidence that the ‘scientists’ willingly or were forced to put their finger on the scale to support CAGW.
Now THAT IS an expert letter head I may say.
Perhaps, a matter related to “Federal Taxes”. I.e. Capone was convicted on Federal Tax evasion, not murder.
KOL ETF anyone!
I’m more ROBG NDRS
Pardons for “nonviolent drug offenders” include the heads of three Mexican drug cartels. Under Obozo’s daffynition Al Capone would have been pardoned as a “nonviolent” tax evader… OBozo and soon his minions are now gone! Hurrah!
Along the same lines the largest IRS cheat at the time was issued a pardon for a “donation to the Clinton Library”. Unfortunately the individual fled the Country and never faced the Justice system. Furthermore the assistant AG who arranged for the pardon subsequently became US Attorney General as his reward.
“Marc Rich, a fugitive who had fled the U.S. during his prosecution, was residing in Switzerland. Rich owed $48 million in taxes and was charged with 51 counts of tax fraud, was pardoned of tax evasion. He was required to pay a $1 million fine and waive any use of the pardon as a defense against any future civil charges that were filed against him in the same case.”
Cheat on $48 million and pay a $1 Million fine, not a bad return!!!
“You can’t prosecute a scientist for making a mistake.”
But of course you can sue them. You would though have to prove that it was done intentionally, for personal benefit….but it’s doable.
Intentionally or through negligence, but since most if not all of them are employees you would have to sue the institutions or the government bodies or departments they work for.
An honest mistake, no. But this is a coordinated, decade-long “mistake” that the participants profited from. They collected many millions in grants. Yes, that can be prosecuted.
I say find the evidence and prosecute him and whoever else was involved.
Name another sca_m that has wasted $360 billion per year of societies resources. Sorry, nothing even comes close. This is the biggest rip_off in human history and someone has got to pay for it with everything that is on the books. Every one of them involved.
I’m with Bill on this one. Pitchforks and torches time!
Hopefully, real good staff work is done so a couple congressmen can actually ask penetrating questions. If so, this should resemble shooting large fish in a small barrel.
The average non-scientifically-literate citizen is going to need some help understanding just how this fraud has been used to manipulate them. Lying about data is easy to grasp; peer-vs-pal review, lack of scientific method, IR absorption spectrum, model CO2 sensitivity, blah-blah-blah are too “inside baseball” to have much impact.
You’ll know the worm is turning when people who couldn’t pass high school Algebra II start saying “yea, I suspected they had a data quality issue all along”.
It might be more effective to use the same information that was sold to the public against the sellers. Simply make a list of the most egregious “predictions” made by “government” scientists since 1985, put Pelosi/Schumer/Cummings/Whitehouse/Sanders etc. in a bus and drive them around. Start with the Westside highway which is now underwater. Be sure to fill the bus with reporters from the MSM, record everything, and then check their reporting. There is no reason to create more “propaganda” when you can use their own against them. You could end up in the West with a tour of all the closed ski resorts and California’s permanent drought.
Rather difficult to drive along the Westside highway these days it has long since been demolished. Sections of it had collapsed as early as the 60s:
http://www.preservenet.com/freeways/NYWestSideHwyCollapsedAtGansevoort.gif
I would like to see a forensic analysis of the computer that failed so horribly that the experiment cannot be replicated.
Some of these excuses are just weapons-grade stupid.
But then the lady at the IRS and a recent presidential candidate used & got away with it.
The “lady” at the IRS was said to be merely incompetent, and so there was no need for charges to be brought against her incompetency.
The computer didn’t fail the program did. In my college interdisciplinary project our version 1.0 was non-deterministic. That was a huge problem and fixing it was out top priority.
On Whistleblowing:
Introduction:
This article describes the big news in the Calgary oilpatch this week. The action against Lexin Resources is the most severe reprimand by the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) in the history of the industry.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/lexin-resources-shut-down-1.3984287
I initiated this matter when I reported the very dangerous critical sour gas situation close to the City to the AER last May.
Lexin’s conduct was remarkably negligent and put thousands of lives at risk.
This High River Times article provides background on the Lexin story.
http://www.highrivertimes.com/2016/08/25/aer-suspends-mazeppa-plant-operations-amid-concerns
_________________
Why Would Anyone be a Whistleblower?
Why did I blow the whistle on Lexin? Whistleblowing is not without risk. When I initially spoke about it with a few friends, as I conducted my research prior to reporting the matter, their reactions were interesting. One lawyer friend said, “Allan, you don’t have to report this, nobody will know that you know!” He was trying to protect me.
However, this was an easy call. A major sour gas release close to the City could have killed thousands. I completed my research in several days and reported the matter to the AER.
However, it is well-known that whistleblowers do not get rewarded – they get isolated and punished. One of my friends confided to me that his wife was Sharon Watkins of Enron fame, and it will well-known how Enron isolated her and punished her after she blew the whistle on their misconduct. Roger Boisjoly, the Morton Thiokol engineer who blew the whistle on the Challenger disaster, was reportedly shunned by his co-workers and also left his job.
More organizations are now adopting whistleblower policies to try to provide safeguards in the workplace, but peer pressure and career risk will remain major reasons that prevent people from coming forward. The fact is that most people are too frightened to step forward and report misconduct, and the greater the misconduct, the more frightened they are.
Just some thoughts, written too late at night…
Regards to all, Allan
You did the right thing Allan – I am impressed by your courage. Hydrogen Sulphide is nasty stuff, you likely prevented a lot of deaths.
Thankyou for sharing.
Thank you Eric,
Here is one map of Calgary wells – not a good map, but it tells the story.
https://calgaryrealestatereview.com/2012/01/12/sweet-oil-sour-gas-wells-locations-in-calgary/
The critical sour gas wells in Southeast Calgary are now shut-in , but what about the many more such wells in Northeast Calgary, and all the sour gas gathering and main pipelines?
These sour wells run up to 40% H2S, and less than 0.1% is instantly lethal. Since H2S is heavier than air, a large discharge hugs the ground and kills everything in its path.
The problem is that the city encroached over time on sour gas wells that once were distant from it, and city politicians and land developers collaborated over time to cause this to happen. Think “lobster in a slowly warming pot”.
The press has generally missed the main point of this story. The media focused on the cost of reclaiming the Lexin wells, including the sour wells and the many more uneconomic wells that Lexin dumped on the public when they bailed out.
That cost is a distant second priority. The first priority is public safety, and I am not comfortable with the safety of the critical sour wells and pipelines in Northeast Calgary. I suggest we need a public inquiry into the safety of this entire situation, with, if necessary, the power to shut it down.
Regards, Allan
Allan MacRae, P. Eng.
“H2S is heavier than air, a large discharge hugs the ground and kills everything in its path”
Hey, just like CO2!
“The problem is that the city encroached over time on sour gas wells that once were distant from it, and city politicians and land developers collaborated over time to cause this to happen. Think “lobster in a slowly warming pot”.”
SHADES of Love Canal. Look it up, folks …
+100
respect !
A close relative of mine was an engineer at Morton thiokol, and although Wikipedia says that roger boisjoly was shunned by his coworkers, its not that simple.
Nasa was determined to launch in late January, and would not accept recommended delays. The shuttle rocket motors had many successful static tests and successful flights under its belt. There were concerns expressed to thiokol management and Nasa that the o rings could fail under cold conditions but that was far from certain. It was expected that if they did fail it would occur on the launch pad, so even the mode of failure was not predicted.
Of course in the aftermath everyone was devastated, but a couple of people who were very vocal about the problem took it much father to the point that they were essentially calling everyone else murderers. This was an 11 year project to that point with an extreme amount of input from thiokol, Nasa, and other rocket experts all along the way. Thiokol engineers even recommended o ring redesign to nasa, but when that was put off indefinitely, they built in a second o ring to be redundant and insisted on a much more rigorous assembly protocol to make the best of the part that had been decided on. Even the presidential investigation found that the primary fault was caused by customer (nasa) demands, not with thiokol.
It’s easy to buy into a narrative that a whistleblower gets shunned because others felt guilty about doing something wrong, but what if the whistleblower is so incredibly patronizing and caustic to the people he’s supposed to continue working with that the work relationship crumbles? Who is shunning who?
I was involved in that launch via my father. Note that Reagan wanted to talk to the crew while they flew overhead. So it was co-ordinated to be at the right time for this stunt. A severe cold wave was bearing down on the East Coast. I live in NY and I called my dad in DC and begged him to tell everyone to stop the launch.
The turbulence from the wind was severe with cross winds, I have my own weather station on my roof and was amazed at how turbulent it was.
NASA held an emergency meeting and decided to do it anyways to please everyone else so it was done. The shuttle was launched.
“the o rings could fail under cold conditions”
Remember Feynman’s ice water trick? Something similar is needed for CAGW.
My relative is a huge fan of Elon musk, but look at how many launch failures SpaceX has had.
The long established space contractors were so heavily enmeshed with the government regulators and inspectors that they became extremely slow and costly. The space contractors felt like they could deliver an identical product with identical specifications by the same deadline for 1/3 the price if they were simply allowed to conduct their own internal review and inspections without the delays and duplicated or triplicated efforts at other levels. After Obamas election, a lot of people felt like the Frankenstein monster of space contractors joined at the hip to government wasn’t working anymore and they needed fresh companies free from those long associations.
Time will tell, but this stuff is not easy, even after decades of experience and so much new technology available.
emsnews February 21, 2017 at 5:37 am
“Note that Reagan wanted to talk to the crew while they flew overhead.”
Why is this important?
The use of the TDRSS satellites allowed voice comms, data and tracking of space shuttles around the entire earth, not just while “overhead”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracking_and_Data_Relay_Satellite_System
I too had a bad feeling that something was wrong at launch time due the cold weather. It was a terrible disaster to watch.
Whistle blowing is great in theory but in practice extremely risky. Not only is there the reaction of co-workers when the organization is investigated, but the repercussions to your career by those touched by the incident. There is also the problem of who reads the report/complaint and their political stance on it. I have seen these repercussions fell a few…
Allan,
Great job on whistleblowing.
There has been a search on for “Climate Science” whistleblowers for nearly 10 years. It’s the ONLY way that we’ll get to the truth about the details of the fraud.
The key is the federal False Claims Act. It provides monetary rewards for those who provide inside information on fraudulent activity regarding federal contracts. Nearly all climate science is carried out by private entities under federal contracts–for example, Michael Mann’s lab has more than $10 million of federal contracts.
All it takes is one individual, with access to, and details about the methods used to defraud the government to blow this whole scam sky-high. Yes, he’ll be evicted from the climate scam family. But the potential for monetary reward is high, and he’ll go down in history as a hero.
Please see details here:
https://realclimatescience.com/2016/09/climate-fraud-whistleblower-rewards-program/
Allan,
Great job on whistleblowing.
There has been a search on for “Climate Science” whistleblowers for nearly 10 years. It’s the ONLY way that we’ll get to the truth about the details of the fraud.
The key is the federal False Claims Act. It provides monetary rewards for those who provide inside information on fraudulent activity regarding federal contracts. Nearly all climate science is carried out by private entities under federal contracts–for example, Michael Mann’s lab has more than $10 million of federal contracts.
All it takes is one individual, with access to, and details about the methods used to defraud the government to blow this whole scam sky-high. Yes, he’ll be evicted from the climate scam family. But the potential for monetary reward is high, and he’ll go down in history as a hero.
Oh Bummer was the civil serpent who released misleading information.
I gotta say, I am totally opposed to Congress getting involved in climate science. Regardless of the various arguments in favor of either side, Congress is not the place to be settling scientific questions.
I mean, what is Congress going to say that Bates and Dr. Judith and Zeke and Mosh and everyone else hasn’t already said?
It sounds like the issue is they’re not responding to FOIA. If it were me and that were the issue, I’d refile the FOIA with copies to the new head(s) of the Agency.
But using a Congressional Investigation to adjudicate a scientific question simply opens a Pandora’s Box of possibilities … and none of them are pretty. We’ve seen the government try to pick winners in the energy field, they ended up wasting billions on Abengoa, Solyndra, and all the rest. Their climate science will be no better.
Bad idea. Government has no business setting itself up to judge science … King Canute comes to mind.
w.
This isn’t an issue of pure science Willis, it is a group of government civil servants providing advice which has profound potential impacts on public expenditure. There has to be some blowback when evidence emerges people paid by the government may have done a bad job.
Evil has been done in the name of Science. Who will punish the evil-doers, if not Congress? Eric is right; this is not now and has never been about Science. It’s political. Bring on the politicians who at least are aware that climate science as practiced by EPA, NOAA, CRU, et al, is fraud.
Yes .. anything NOT stopped in the political realm WILL CONTINUE, if allowed by the ‘opponent’.
.
Surely any official body can check if correct internal procedures were involved?
And if that body is funding the procedures they have a duty to police them.
Won’t affect the truth or otherwise of newsworthy AGW but it will prevent the corruption of scientific institutions by well-meaning zealots.
Or even “well-intended but ill-informed people being led by ill-intended but well-informed activists”.
“But using a Congressional Investigation to adjudicate a scientific question simply opens a Pandora’s Box of possibilities … and none of them are pretty . . . . Bad idea. Government has no business setting itself up to judge science.”
Have to disagree with you on this one. I don’t see this investigation as being one in which the government is adjudicating science, but adjudicating the objectivity of the scientists producing research on the government’s dime. The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, and specifically states that all spending bills originate in the House. If evidence arises that government scientists are cooking their data to beat the drum for never-ending expenditures on further research, I think the House has the obligation to investigate.
Willis,
whilst I agree with you up to a point, however, if NOAA refuses to answer to Congress by providing information the public has paid for, who else would have the clout to demand that information?
Nor am I sure I understand your King Canute analogy. My understanding is that Canute demonstrated to his court the futility of trying to hold back the sea, even by a man as powerful as him.
Piling on to what the others have said, there is an important distinction to grasp here. If you want the kind of ideal science that you are thinking of, get .gov out of the picture altogether. As long as “science” is being done with taxpayer money, taxpayers have every right to dictate how that money is used. If “science” doesn’t like it, science can just go on without taxpayer money.
Basil
Basil, right on.
” As long as “science” is being done with taxpayer money, taxpayers have every right to dictate how that money is used.”
The corollary to that is the administration, which disperses the taxpayer funds can dictate the areas to be researched and the results it prefers. Isn’t that what has gotten us into the current situation with global warming research?
Joe Crawford,
“The corollary to that is the administration, which disperses the taxpayer funds can dictate the areas to be researched and the results it prefers. Isn’t that what has gotten us into the current situation with global warming research?”
Yes, it is. Which is why we have elections. I have no problem with public support of science per se. A lot of good has been done over the years by public support of science. Think of the land grant colleges and public support of agricultural science. Now ask “what went wrong with ‘climate science?'” Science at ag and mining schools was undertaken in support of technology that had visible public benefit. What is the visible public benefit of “climate science?” Wind farms? Climate models? The science — and not just at ag or mining schools — that bore fruit in public benefit was, once the basic science was established, evident in technology that the market adopted without needing subsidies.
So let the administration dictate the areas to be researched and the results it prefers. But we have a government of checks and balances, and if the administration is pushing research that has, so far as the public can see, negligible or even harmful public benefits, the elected servants of the public (Congress) are our watchdogs on how the $$$ are being spent. The current “model” of how science is funded is relatively new. Public support of it generally stems from the 19th century and the public’s interest in technological progress. Basic science did, and can take place under that approach, so long as it is yielding palpable public benefit. Climate science is a scam to suborn the process to the ends of leftist ideologies. Time for that to stop.
Basil
Wrong analogy, Cnut was trying to show his courtiers that kings aren’t omniscient and chose to demonstrate this by holding back the waves. Agree about the governments not getting involved in the science, but they should oversee the process/quality and honesty. The UK Government’s investigation gave the UEA a clean bill of health when it was clear there’d been shenanigans in the process/quality and honesty of the science.
Willis, Lamar Smith’s committee is NOAA’s auditor and like any auditor, they don’t pretend to be able to do the job of the company, but they are entrusted to see that the book (or quality for quality auditors) is up to scratch. In other words, to check the records they keep are accurately to ensure they are following procedures and most importantly that they are not cooking the books.
It is not a scientific question, Willis.
It is an investigation of an antiscientific conduct to make sure there was no fraud.
I doubt the congress will be writing any new science, just making sure no fingers were on the scales.
Surely that is ok and needed?
Willis, I agree with the sentiment but climate science is as much politics as science. This “science” has been so politicized that it’s almost not fair to charge a member of Congress, itself the epitome of politics, with practicing politics by investigating another product of politics.
To expand a little on the obvious, Karl himself was very much practicing politics by thumbing the scales. Obama practiced politics by drinking the Kool-Aid and regurgitating it on the American people, and Trump, if he does what we hope he will do, will practice politics if he “reforms” government practice of climate science.
In a perfect world, climate science would be a pure exercise performed by academia. But you add taxpayer money and voila, one’s virginity is gone forever.
Congress does have a duty to see that its investigative science branches properly archive raw untouched data and the detailed processes used to eventually publish work or send machines into space. I fail to see how telling me to go to this washed and sanitized data set or that data set fulfills the requirement to safely store raw original hand written papers and such. Congress has a lot to do here.
Willis Government has no business setting itself up to judge science
I don’t necessarily disagree, but I don’t know if there is a better option than Congress. If so, then I’m all for it. However, the Executive Branch under Obama was eager to misinterpret science, or use flawed science, to further a biased political agenda. Where are the checks and balances on the agencies of the Executive Branch when they abuse the science? SCOTUS takes the same position that you advocate for Congress. SCOTUS takes the science as given, then rules. If the science is flawed, and/or the Executive Branch eager to abuse the science, then Congress would seem to be the only check on the other two branches of government. Had Hillary been elected, then we would have had 8 more years of Progressive entrenchment in the agencies of the Executive Branch, plus 1 or 2 Progressive SCOTUS appointments. Yikes! Catastrophic climate policy for sure.
Congress is poorly equipped to make decisions about science. Unfortunately Congress will be called to create laws that proponents justify by the science. So Congress at least should make sure that research that is funded is valid.
“Congress is poorly equipped to make decisions about science.”
Its NOT the science, its the PROCESS that needs investigation; reviewing compliance with established PROCESSES and PROCEDURES.
It’s really not much more than that …
Of course Congress has the right and obligation to investigate government “science”, just as it does for activities of any federal agency. CACA is nothing but politics in any case. The courts have ruled EPA’s fake “science” valid, so Congress must expose the malpractice, high crimes and misdemeanors of activists pretending to be scientists.
Willis,
Normally I would agree with you,but there has been lack of accountability for the truckload of federal money they have been receiving. They continually resist congressional oversight,while they support the political aims of the previous Administration.
The FOIA didn’t work as they refused to comply,as well as refuse congressional subpoena’s,which is why they are getting investigated in the first place. Since there are serious indications of misconduct going on,using federal money to pursue a specific agenda,it is not surprising that they are getting increasing attention from congressional leaders who are sensitive to complaints of secrecy and obstruction made by others.
When government funded research becomes politicized,it is time to clean it up by opening up the spotlight on the problem.
Willis, Re: “Bad idea. Government has no business setting itself up to judge science”
Just for the record, NOAA is the government, paid for by tax dollars. And it is congress’s responsibility to oversee that these resources are being used productively and efficiently. Potentially corrupt science has huge implications, considering the entire world uses this data and trillions of dollars could be spent based on this. The only way to get the attention of the world press on this is through a congressional investigation. The Greens think they hold the moral high ground on this issue. An investigation into corruption on data analysis has the potential to completely upend that perception.
Congress investigating scientific misconduct is nothing new:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1310765?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
They aren’t setting themselves up to judge the science. They are setting themselves up to judge the behavior of the scientists.
I agree they should not judge the merits of a study, but they certainly should see to it that standards are maintained—all data and methodology must be documented, archived and available. Review must be open and uninfluenced. As I understand it, Karl et. al. is only fit for the “Journal of Irreproducible Results”. Congressional oversight seems warranted when that sort of crap comes out as authoritative.
Here is the crux of the problem and Congress can solve the problem without judging the science. The current “science” of trying to take inappropriate measurement systems to “calculate” a global temperature is worse than useless. It allows fraudulent adjustments to be made whether intentionally or not.
Congress simply needs to make a finding that the current regime for determining and using a global temperature is totally a farce. From this point forward the U.S. will refuse any further participation in any body that continues to use the current methods. They can then pass a law with adequate funding to develop and deploy a system that is appropriate to this function.
Far too many billions of dollars have been wasted on CGM’s and data manipulation trying to get at a global temperature. Let’s define and create a system that can give us what is needed going forward. I feel like we are trying to tell time down to the one millionth of a second all the while using sun dials of varying quality and size. Any scientist worth their salt should be able to agree with this.
Willis,
“It sounds like the issue is they’re not responding to FOIA. If it were me and that were the issue, I’d refile the FOIA with copies to the new head(s) of the Agency.”
Boy, they’ll show those public employees who’s boss . . unfortunately, not the public.
w.
You have my utmost respect, HOWEVER on this occasion the skulduggery contributed to further billions of dollars being extracted to prop up corrupt regimes in third world countries.
The point is, Congress write the amount on the check, and the POTUS signs the check, if NOAA feels the Congressional oversight is a chilling effect, perhaps they would be happier with a different employer. For most of us, signing a paycheck, implies we agree to do our jobs as well as we can under the current conditions.
I agree,
No need for Lamar Smith to get bogged down in “the pause” quagmire.
Great, let’s set a real clear precedent, that it’s OK for bureaucrats to ignore lawful requests from Congress . . WTF are you dorks trying to do? Destroy what’s left the rule of law??
Hear, hear Willis!
What evidence would that be Eric?
I find myself agreeing with you Willis.
The Holy Office had no business telling Gallieo what he did or didn’t see either.
If politics is a problem at NOAA, science is not going to fix that W
It’s essential that these liars lose. Scientific “fraud” is considered extremely serious in all other fields of science that I know of.
The issue here is whether NOAA refused to comply with the LAW becasue they did not respond to Lamar Smith’s legitimate request. Some one at NOAA decideed to do that. I expect that there is an action there, NOAA is a public body staffed by Public servants. They have to comply with the Law.
They have to comply with lawful requests.
Global climate is reaching a tipping point, in the faux science narrative: At a certain point the received wisdom will flip to ‘well they made it all up anyway, didn’t they?’
There was a similar moment in the UK, when instead of people assuring me that ‘windmills were the coming thing’ someone assured me that ‘well, they dont actually work, do they?’
Maybe I’m overly paranoid, but people ignoring FOIA is worrying, at best. How much of that data has been “lost” in that time?
I’m not for Government becoming involved in Science, but Government agencies, obviously FUNDED by the tax payer, need to he held to account.
I think we should all be careful of our expectations of this particular event.
Whilst there have been a number of prominent, dodgy characters amongst the alarmist community, what we must all bear in mind is that there are an awful lot of hard working people who have done some great science.
Nor should our demands be that all that science be thrown out with the bathwater. It’s a meaningful debate on the subject of climate change we sceptics want, not a slaughter of the ‘enemy’.
Where there are clear cases of fraud or deception etc. then by all means, punish these people (in my opinion they should be struck off and lose their qualifications and privilege to practise science). Sadly, Al Gore isn’t a scientist.
However, that particular sword cuts two ways, so we sceptics need to ensure our house is in order.
Off piste but funny –
Nobel Laureate in Physics; “Global Warming is Pseudoscience”
Its stinkier than a stinky thing that both the authors disappeared and hid in retirement the instant this crock was published. People heading into retirement try to stay non-controversial don’t they? So why this?
I know its BS, they knew it was BS, you know its BS, everyone knows its BS and they are lying when they try to assert otherwise. Rampant political correctness says that no-one can actually say that.
But when one’s cognitive functions are almost permanently disabled though a sh1t diet, lying is easy. Its the norm, everyone does it and plain speaking makes you fall foul of an endless litany of micro aggressions.
Slightly OT, we learn recently from the BBC that authorities in Holland are putting coloured strips of red & green lights in the pavement (sidewalk) to try and stop Zombies (their word) from walking into the traffic.
Their term was actually “mobile phone zombies.” They are looking at their phones and the sidewalk a dozen feet ahead of them, not at the traffic lights.
Sometimes you just have to remove all the safety devices, and let natural selection sort it all out.
Or as I have sometimes remarked “Never reward stupidity, it just encourages more of it.”
I saw a picture of a street in London where all the poles and posts had been padded to protect the people who walked into them.
Surely the issue is not whether scientists made an error – everyone makes mistakes and scientists are just as human as everyone else – but whether the was a calculated, deliberate, decision to mislead or deceive. Given the huge impact of a deliberate conspiracy to misdirect global policy there most certainly needs to a drains up look at what happened and who didn’t d what when there seems to be strong evidence of wrongdoing.
If I recall, Smith’s original request for correspondence, based on whistleblower input, was not aimed at the science, but rather at possible collusion among various government agencies and specially NGO’s about the “need” to erase the “Pause” prior to the Paris meeting. This would be analogous to Mann being prompted by his advisor (Ray Bradley?) that the Medieval warming period was a weak point of their arguments and presto-chango that period was “disappeared”
If he can show political motivation to establish the conclusion before the study was initiated he may have something.
(But then again, no one seems to mind that Doran/Zimmerman advertized the conclusion they wanted as part of their data gathering.)
You recall correctly. Plus Holdren wanting stuff before Paris, for which there are likely emails, or emails about phone calls. The subpoena is looking for politicization of the science. The committee uncovered a similar incident at DoE, where the congressionally mandated low dose radiation study was subverted and the funds used for climate change. When the lead LDR investigation ignored orders to cover this up and testified truthfully to congress, she was fired. The commitee exposed the politicization and got her reinstated. YE 2015, same Holdren and Obama top down meddling.
NASA GISS, along with a good number of executive branch agencies, have been stonewalling Congress for years. Perhaps now they will have to comply
Says it all. PERHAPS
Just like the Romulan cloaking device, the greater the illusion the more energy it requires to maintain it. At some point the divergence between the illusion and reality exhausts the illusionist and the illusion collapses.
This is also a metaphor in that the people who are projecting this illusion are also the same crowd who loves to scold the rest of us on the topic of “sustainability”.
“You can’t prosecute a scientist for making a mistake.”
Tell that to Dr. Willie Soon. But doesn’t it depend on the nature of the mistake and whether it was deliberate? How about the following examples?
“I know it was a mistake to charge my personal vacation to the government credit card, but I’m a scientist, so you can’t prosecute me for making a mistake.”
“I admit that fudging the data on those medical trials was a mistake that led to the deaths of several patients, but I’m a scientist so you can’t prosecute me for it.”
When mistakes are made for profit or to support a pet environmental cause, they should be open to prosecution. Scientists are not Gods who are beyond reproach or above the law.
There are two ways a scientist could be prosecuted. The first is for fraud. Here, it is not so much the mistake, but not admitting to the mistake and making a gain from it (which could be as simple as a grant or a promotion).
The other is when the scientist implied the work they did could be relied on by others. In other words, whether anyone made a financial loss by relying on the data. So, e.g. if you falsely said there was no pause, demanded that politicians rely on that evidence, but it later turned out there was no pause, then people could seek damages.
So, theoretically, if e.g. someone had fabricated a graph, which was later reused by everyone else, you could theoretically have that individual (and their University employer) liable for perhaps $1trillion.
So, if we did see 5-10 years of significant natural cooling, we could see a whole industry of lawyers growing up around suing academics and universities to recover losses to industry. (AND WE ALL KNOW THAT LAWYERS SEEING A 1$TRILLION PAYPACKET WILL DO WHATEVER THEY CAN TO GET PART OF IT)
Louis
Great comment.
Re: ‘Scientists are not Gods who are beyond reproach or above the law.’
It seems that some scientists feel they are above criticism and correction, even threatening people who make the attempt. Throughout the kerfuffle about Karl15 one oddity prevails: the claim is made that the satellite data is the touchstone data set, calibrated and confirmed as it is by balloon-borne instrument readings. So, if the satellite data is what everyone is trying to match, why wasn’t the satellite data dragged to the Paris podium? Why was the lengthy pause, shown by the very satellite data everyone wants to match, replaced with Karlized numbers cooked up like a soufflé?
They want it both ways: alarming rises and satellite-like quality and accuracy. Well, it seems they will have to pick one or the other. In 30 years, if there is anyone still working at NASA, they will be documenting the next Minimum, gnashing their teeth not in fear but for lack of central heating.
Regarding prosecutions for mistakes, out in the private sector, the oil exploration project I was on had several firings one week for costly mistakes made. No one questioned their intentions, the only thing relevant was the results. Apparently competency is not a condition for employment in the public sector leading to the bizarre circumstance where getting rid of people can only be accomplished with Herculean force. It doesn’t really matter what their intentions were, everyone involved with substituting good data for bad needs to be fired from NOAA asap. NOAA needs to held to the same standards of competence the rest of the world operates in.
They are not gods, but they are high-priests surrounded by heavenly bureaucracies. Witness the whitewash of climate gate by British universities, the whitewash of the hockey stick by American universities, and the cover for gubmint scientists by politicians who demand talking points. You might even add the granting agencies with political agendas, and green infiltrated journals. The protection runs very deep in the deep state.
Prosecution? There have been many in the court of public opinion and careers ruined. heck even Judith had had enough.
Willie Soon faced worse than a simple prosecution for defrauding data
A hard drive can very easily be removed from a dead PC and placed into an identical working PC.
A dead hard drive can easily be brought back to life if a fault in the hard drive circuit board is the culprit.
If your hard drive is mechanically screwed and can’t be repaired, it can be sent to a specialist to have the platters removed and installed in a working drive – expensive, but it works. Data recovery is a business.
The story about losing crucial data and software in a “complete failure” of a computer simply doesn’t add up, in contrast to the reported “tongue-in-cheek joke” about it occurring so the results couldn’t be duplicated. That “joke” does add up, because you have to go to a lot of intentional effort to make files on a hard drive unrecoverable, .e.g., overwriting files marked as “deleted” with new data at least once, deforming the drives and internal discs/platters with repeated blows from a sledgehammer, etc.
Data was even recovered from damaged hard dives buried in the rubble at ground zero.
what I don’t understand is.. Why doesn’t Trump just FIRE people like Karl & Gavin Schmidt ? HE IS the president, he knows thi sis all bullshit so why not just clean house and put someone reliable in those positions? The fact that he hasn’t indicates that the Global Warming Scam has become too big to fail. With billions of government $s pouring into this scam Leonardo DeCaprio tells president elect Trump, “Well you know there are alot of jobs in climate change.” I guess that’s the fundamental problem is that too many American’s are reliant on the US Government to give them a job. So Trumps like ‘well i don’t wanna become too disruptive and have to fire 10’s of thousands of fake scientists that work in the field of GWS.
He is very busy already, saying ‘You’re fired’.
In earlier days the President had that Power which did not work so well, as incompetent people were brought in under “to the victor goes the spoils during each change of power.” From Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_civil_service
“In the early 19th century, positions in the federal government were held at the pleasure of the president—a person could be fired at any time. The spoils system meant that jobs were used to support the American political parties, though this was gradually changed by the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 and subsequent laws. By 1909, almost two-thirds of the U.S. federal workforce was appointed based on merit, that is, qualifications measured by tests. Certain senior civil service positions, including some heads of diplomatic missions and executive agencies, are filled by political appointees. Under the Hatch Act of 1939, civil servants are not allowed to engage in political activities while performing their duties.[6]”
Unfortunately the merit system was likely severely abused by the Obama administration and merit was not the criteria but concurrence with political beliefs, obviously in climate science, energy and other.
Bottom line outright firing without cause is not viable and will cause disruption in Trump agenda. George W experienced the same problem in the State Dept during his tenure.
You think the president should have power over individual recruitment at all levels of Government on a whim? I think that is dangerous.
at least you have stopped saying “confirmation bias” over and over and over 😛
If they are part of the GS system, they cannot be fired. If they have an STS or SES title, however, they are (essentially) contractors that can be denied renewal (I believe they serve one year terms).
” Why doesn’t Trump just FIRE people like Karl & Gavin Schmidt ?”
Because then they become martyrs. The louder left will hold them up like Brian’s Gourd and anything we think they may have done wrong will be shouted down due to our apparent planet-hating nature. I doubt if Trump really thinks about the martyr angle, but I think it could happen if he simply fired them.
Most of the communications will be gone. NOAA scientists would be aware of climategate, IRS scandal, Clinton emails; etc. Also the widespread use of private email under a false name. Even President Obama used the latter to communicate with Clinton on official business.
To my knowledge there haven’t been any consequences for using deception to thwart record keeping regulations. Unless you count one lost election.
” Also the widespread use of private email under a false name. ”
NOAA scientists will be asked if they engaged in that practice. If only one admits it, his email record will reveal links to persons who were aware of what he did and whose emails could then be subpoenaed to probably expose them as guilty too. That in turn would lead to the toppling of the next domino, and the next . . ..
They will also be asked if they know of anyone else who was e-mailing under a false name.
Only one such admission is sufficient to start the unraveling.
This is the underlying Comstitutional crisis of the outgoing administration. Professor Turley spoke about the “imperial presidency” to Congress during the Loretta Lynch confirmations. The Obama administration flaunted the role of Congressional oversight time and time again.
IRS deleting records and Lois Lerner taking the 5th
Fast and Furious leading to contempt charges on Eric Holder
NOAA refusing to provide information to Smith’s committee
Then Hillary comes along and completely eschews any government record keeping responsibilities at all. The entire Benghazi issue exposed that State had provided ZERO records to Congress. The FISMA Act (passed unanimously in 2001 including a “yea” vote from Hillary) requires every government agency to not only provide records, but deliver an inventory of every system of record (including contractor managed systems) to Congress annually. The email server should have been included on an inventory list to Congress from State EVERY year. For Congress to only learn about it because of the Blumenthal hack is beyond the pale.
What we witnessed for eight years was a monarchy in the administrative branch supported by a compliant media that held no executive branch officials to task and a toothless Congress that refused to assert its Constitutional mandate.
The great thing about Trump is that the media vitriol will drive government to function as designed, because unlike Obama, the media will expect Trump to adhere to the law.
“The great thing about Trump is that the media vitriol will drive government to function as designed, because unlike Obama, the media will expect Trump to adhere to the law.”
That’s a joke, right?
They will expect Trump to obey the law.
However, they will expect the bureaucracy to do what ever it takes to thwart Trump. Up to and including breaking any laws necessary.
“They will expect Trump to obey the law.”
Who is “they”, the MSM? They’re the enemy of the people, right? Why should anybody listen to them? Trump has his own media, headed up by Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway, and they ain’t fake.
That would be clear criminal contempt of congress. NOAA was served a records retention order at the beginning of the investigation. The subpoena only came after NOAA stonewalled the usual polite requests for information.
Seem much ado about nothing, as now Bates is walking back his story.
The Karl 15 paper was supported by the new Hausfather 17 paper.
Seems we are in Witch Hunt II.
You’re extremely naive. When politicians play with climate scientists, they play by politician’s rules.
WUWT covered that paper here. It has several flaws. The most obvious being the lack of error bars.
However, that is not the point at issue here. Bad science gets published all the time. The key thing is that “replication” is not “reproduction”. Pretending otherwise is an attack on the scientific method.
A test is validated when it is repeatable and reproducible. It’s not just a spurious quirk – doing it again gets the same result. And other people doing that find the same thing. The finding is trustworthy.
Replication does not provide such support. It does not involve doing the same thing and finding the same result. Replication, like we have here, is doing something different and getting the same result. All replication can do is show that the two things may be similar. It does not show that the two findings are trustworthy.
Worse still, in this case Karl et all lost their work. Computer broke down and the dog ate the hard copy. So this replication is only showing similarity in the result. It is not showing any similarity in the understanding of the oceans.
This is just replicating an unknown method, getting the same thing out and thus saying “See. That’s how it worked the first time”. No. It tells us nothing.
You can build a pyramid with modern cranes and bulldozers. The output will be a Great Pyramid. This does not mean the Ancient Egyptians had advanced technology.
Hausfather 17 does not mean that Karl et al had working technology either.
“The most obvious being the lack of error bars.”
Maybe one should read the paper before saying things that are incorrect. No error bars:
Conceded.
It’s irrelevent.
Maybe you should read the comment.
M Courtney. Lets be totally frank, the second study supports the conclusions of Karl15. It does not and was never intended to establish the methods were correct, but was much more interested in the science. You do not appear to believe that obtaining the same result using independent methods is support for the original conclusions. M Courtney you are wrong.
Say we wanted to measure the height of something, and one person does it by triangulation. Another person also does it by triangulation and gets the same answer. That gives us confidence in the original answer, as long as triangulation is working properly. Then another person gets the same answer using another method, say sat.nav. That gives us confidence in the original answer whether or not triangulation is a good method.
Had they used the same methods you would have (rightly) been able to argue that the answers may have been the same because the method was flawed. That argument is not open to you now.
So you invent a spurious objection that using a different method tells us nothing.
seaice1, You are advocating pseudoscience.
If one person works out that cholera comes from a public water tap by using a map and epidemiology he has learnt something.
If someone else gets the same result by using astrology they have not learnt anything. Even if they get lucky. Because they do not know what method they used to get the result.
If they then say they lost their working so can’t even say which star they followed then they aren’t even trying to learn anything.
That’s what the pseudoscientists Karl et al did.
Models can be tuned to get anything you want or left to run and see what happens. We can never know which Karl et al did.
And no, climatology and astrology are not proven to be sound by anyone else finding that a result was lucky.
I will continue to defend the scientific method from those in the climate community who will endorse anything if it backs your belief systems.
You, seaice1, are wrong.
M Courtney, I am not wrong, as should be obvious. You say that using an independent method to reproduce a result tells us nothing. Yet it is obvious that using an independent method tells us more than using the same method.
Seaice1, I see we are talking at cross purposes.
I was replying to the original comment.
Obviously, that’s not true. As you concede the method is completely different. Therefore, whatever the Hausfather 17 paper has to say, it says nothing about Karl et al 15.
You are talking about the conclusion of Karl et al 15. That conclusion may well be supported by other findings. If you are willing to stretch so far as to say that Karl et al 15 had a conclusion when the workings are lost. But that is irrelevant.
If you let conclusions be evidence without methodology (PC bust, buoy data corrupted with ship data, can’t be replicated) then you really are letting any lucky guess in. That would be astrology A-OK.
But you cannot be defending Karl et al 15 with something unrelated to Karl et al 15. You must be trying to defend the conclusions of Karl et al 15.
Fair enough. Though why you would bother instead of relying on Hausfather 17 paper is anyone’s guess. Do you think that’s unjustifiable too?
If you suppose the first Witchhunt was against Communists in the federal government, well, they were actually there. And charlatan witches abound in the climate c0nspiracy as well. Their names are well known to most here.
It’s the innocent caught up in the witch hunts that we should be concerned about.
That’s why we should target malpractice. Otherwise everyone will go down and that’s not fair. That’s not just.
The anti-science army has two divisions.
•Those who want to end the whole enterprise.
•Those who want to protect all involved regardless of the reality.
We should avoid supporting either assault.
We won’t know who is innocent without investigating the c0nspirators and prosecuting the guilty. Those who haven’t committed fr@ud and other crimes need not worry.
The anti-Communist investigations of the ’40s and ’50s didn’t go nearly far enough. Many of the guilty were never prosecuted, let alone convicted. In your country, Soviet spy Blunt was even protected by the Old Boy network in MI5 and the Palace for most of his life, until finally outed by Thatcher in 1979 and stripped of his knighthood, less than four years before his well-deserved and long overdue death.
The treason went straight to the top. Canadian PM Lester Pearson, UK PM Harold Wilson and the personal assistant of German Chancellor Willy Brandt were all Soviet agents. Khrushchev bumped off anti-Communist Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell in order to advance Wilson.
Australian security services and other government organs were also riddled with Commies. From 2014: “The penetration of ASIO by Soviet spies from the late 1970s until the early ’90s is a story considered so embarrassing and so damaging that it has remained hushed up by five successive Australian governments.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/the-kgb-spy-who-came-in-from-the-heat/story-e6frg6z6-1227116368736
M.,
In another issue, Paris bookies now have Le Pen within 3.5 points of Macron in betting odds:
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-02-20/le-pen-advances-in-french-polls-as-security-concerns-sway-voters-izef48iu
Pure cherry picking. The choice of dates more than doubles the trend as I pointed out above. Zeke really should retract that paper if he wants to maintain any kind of scientific integrity.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1997/to/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1997/to:2014.5/trend/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1997/to:2016.0/trend
toddle off back to RC or SKS or wherever you came from
If all the fundamental data sets are flawed then any replication using a different but flawed data set is going to yield broadly similar results.
The issue here is to assess whether the endless adjustments to the instrument record are way off base. The easy way to check this is to identify say perhaps 100 isolated and pristine stations, ie., those that have no issue with siting, urbanisation, land changes, screens, record keeping etc and then retrofit these stations with the same LIG thermometers that were used in the 1930s/1940s and then observe using the same standards, methods and practice as used by the particular station back in the 1930s/1940s.
There would be no attempt to make a NH, or global construct, but just examine each station individually. There would be no need for any adjustments because the same TOB, the same type of instrument (calibrated in Fahrenheit or Centigrade as applicable) would be used in each individual case. One would simply compare raw data obtained in the late 1930s/early 1940s with raw data collected today and over then next few years.
We would quickly know whether there has been about 0.2 or 0.5 or 0.8 or 1 degC of warming since the 1930s/1940s. If today’s measurements are broadly in line with those obtained in the 1930s/1940s, we would know that the adjustment instrument record as compiled By GISS and their like has gone astray, or whether in practice the adjustments that they have made appear reasonable.
There is nothing difficult in such a quality control check, and it beggars belief that it has not already been undertaken. In fact that is what B€ST should have done as part of its quality control.
Richard, you’ll have Mosher here pretty soon to tell us all (again…yawn) that if you ran the models/stats/whatever with the virgin data you’d get even more indications of warming. Thing is, I can’t recall anyone else presenting such a paper or proposition.
Richard,
Check out this little tool showing data from GHCN: https://tools.ceit.uq.edu.au/temperature/index.html#
It only shows data up to 2015, but you can filter for rural stations only, including rural night light, and view both adjusted and unadjusted data from these. That’s pretty close to what you’re suggesting, isn’t it?
Filtering for ‘rural’ and ‘rural night light’ and asking for unadjusted GHCN data only returns a trend of +0.176 C/dec from 1900-2015 (3064 stations). Using the same rural parameters, but asking for adjusted data returns a trend of +0.175 C/dec over the same period (2875 stations).
This suggests that the warming trends in adjusted and unadjusted GHCN data from rural stations since 1900 are virtually identical.