By Dr. Duane Thresher.
September 18, 2017
Abstract: The wasted and misspent money at NASA GISS and all climate research institutions is staggering. So, as they said in Watergate, follow the money.
Like all global warming skeptic climate scientists we are accused of taking money from oil companies and conservative organizations. We don’t. None has ever even been offered. (C’mon! Why not? Pay us! Calm down. That’s a joke.) And you’ll note RealClimatologists.org has no place to make donations, although some of you have kindly offered.
In fact, RealClimatologists.org costs significant time, and thus money, from my (Dr. Duane Thresher) IT business providing “secure custom information technology services and consulting for select clients” (if only Hillary had had the brains to hire deplorable me, she would have been elected).
Supposedly taking money from oil companies and conservative organizations should immediately discredit global warming skeptic scientists. But climate change warrior scientists are paid by oil companies too and more importantly, taxpayer-supported governments and other leftist organizations. And what they do with the money is even more suspect.
So, as they said in Watergate, follow the money. I am going to concentrate on NASA GISS, where I was for 7 years, but it applies to all climate research institutions, of which I have been at several and am familiar with several more.
The wasted and misspent money at NASA GISS and all climate research institutions is staggering. But what do you expect when you shovel money at herds of unqualified carpetbaggers?
NASA GISS, in the building over Tom’s Restaurant, used to have its own supercomputer, which are very expensive. Unfortunately, NASA GISS decided to hire unqualified incompetent friends for tech support.
I swear I am not making any of this up. I couldn’t possibly. I just don’t have that much of a comedic imagination.
One of the guys hired/promoted to provide tech support was the NASA GISS mail boy. He was a good kid so why not give him a high-paying tech job?
Similarly, a NASA GISS secretary was hired/promoted to provide tech support. She was very nice but c’mon.
Another of the guys hired was so incompetent a bunch of the climate scientists finally got together and demanded Jim Hansen, head of NASA GISS then, fire him, WITHOUT REPLACEMENT. Tech support got BETTER after that.
While I was nearing completion of my dissertation at NASA GISS, an exposed water pipe to the bathroom overhead broke in the computer room, destroying thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment and data, including mine; the “data recovery” by incompetent NASA GISS tech support destroyed even more. To start, you should be shaking your head and saying, “why are there exposed bathroom water pipes going through a computer room?”
NASA GISS no longer has a supercomputer. It now runs its climate model on supercomputers at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt Maryland, where I spent a summer studying high-performance computing.
I was talking to a guy from GSFC a few months ago and he said the program for NASA GISS’s climate model — named Model E, an intentional play on the word “muddle” — is called the “jungle” because it is so badly coded. I know this to be true from my own extensive experience programming it (I tried to fix as much as I could…).
NASA GISS has Columbia University graduate students. Funding grad students in climate science is not as straightforward — i.e., honest — as it would seem it should be. Most grants don’t last long enough to fund a grad student to graduation and no grad student is going to work where he might lose funding before graduation. Note that grants are from funding proposals for specific projects, which are peer reviewed (for what little that is worth) to make sure exactly what the project is about is worth paying for.
What usually happens is that money for specific projects is pooled to pay the grad students, although usually there is one big money project paying the lion’s share. That means that many grad students are paid off grants for specific projects but are not working on those projects. I remember once at NASA GISS having to write up a progress report for a project I didn’t really work on but was paid off of. That is the definition of “misspent”.
I have no proof, but when I was at NASA GISS there was a rumor that the head of NASA GISS before James Hansen had to leave due to um, mixing up government money and his own. And I’ve wondered — again with no proof — whether Hansen was forced out of NASA GISS due to his violations of the Hatch Act, like using government money to travel to protests. As we have said, we are pressing a case against Gavin Schmidt, current head of NASA GISS, for violations of the Hatch Act.
About travel, one of the largest contributors to carbon emissions. This has been talked about quite a bit, although mostly for failing celebrity climate spokespeople.
Even though nowadays conferences could easily and more efficiently be done as teleconferences, climate scientists love to travel to FUN places for conferences, paid for by the taxpayer. We were no different, as we said in AGU’s “Climate Change: Believe It Or Else” Prize:
“Both Kubatzki and I have presented at AGU Meetings. They are a load of fun and we thank the taxpayers for the vacations in expensive fun-filled distant San Francisco.”
At some climate conferences, climate scientists can even donate some of their conference travel money to offset the carbon emissions from the travel. The tiny number of participants would make Scrooge blush.
Speaking of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), after much careful thought — about how painful it would be to forgo the money — the AGU decided to continue to take money from the oil companies. Those climate scientists are so noble.
Following the money would be a much better use of the Freedom of Information Act than to demand to look at data that most are not qualified to understand anyway, including many climate scientists using it. The data is often fundamentally flawed. How you process it after that is irrelevant. Garbage in, garbage out.
If you must question the data, question its transformation from its rawest form. What (almost always far from the tree) weather station data was used to transform tree ring widths to temperature? (I’ve taken courses and done research on tree rings.) How is the satellite sensor data transformed into surface temperature? (I’ve taken courses in remote sensing. How do you tell the difference between high white clouds and surface white ice?) That is where you should start scoffing, not down the line about how ignorant “climate” scientists are using the garbage data. The whole Hockey Stick controversy completely missed the point.
I wanted to be like FBI agent Mark Felt, who was the Watergate informant Deep Throat, or Edward Snowden, the NSA informant. Secretly supplying inside information to bring down a government agency gone bad. (Due to lawmakers actually hating whistleblowers, Snowden isn’t covered by whistleblower laws, but I might be.) I even tried that at first (did you know that you can’t simply email information to WikiLeaks but have to use Tor, which can be a bit of a hassle?).
Journalists weren’t interested. This shouldn’t have surprised me. Read Glenn Greenwald’s No Place To Hide, which is about Edward Snowden and the NSA. Snowden practically begged Greenwald for months to take his information but Greenwald was too lazy. The Washington Post (which also stalled Snowden), The New York Times (“Pravda On The Hudson”), and the rest are worthless at this point so we became our own newspaper. Recognize our masthead font?
Whatever the original intent of NASA GISS was, it is apparently FUBAR. Put it out of its misery.
I have no association with GISS.
LOL
Good catch! Lol! They are beyond FUBAR!
Their mission; to timidly go where no Fubar before has dared to tread!!! Dah! Dah! Dah!
Really? So Greenwalt says in his book he was too lazy? I presume you can back that up with a citation?
Greenwalt is a very competent lawyer and journalist who was presented with a once in a lifetime opportunity to have a global scoop and you are suggesting that he was “too lazy” to take it up.
He would also have known that having anything to do with Snowden’s release would be putting himself at serious personal risk from MI5 and the CIA, NSA etc. His partner was arrested at Heathrow airport ( where you have NO legal rights protection under UK lay ) under anti-terrorist laws and grilled for a long period of time while they tried to extract the encryption code from him ( which sensibly he had not been given by Greenwald ).
He would have had to think long and hard about getting involved and had a lot of preparation to ensure doing so in a way that minimised risk to him and others and ensured successful publication. He was very courageous and competent, not lazy!
Anyone with anything important to communicate will be very glad not have it go via NSA before it gets to Wikileaks and the “hassle” of using Tor will be well down the list of concerns have about becoming a whistle-blower and the repercussions it will have on their life. Assuming they have something more important to “whistle-blow” about than the state of the plumbing at GISS.
This policy also ensures that they do not waste their time with the sort of tittle-tattle and person gripes of people like you.
@Greg
“Really? So Greenwalt says in his book he was too lazy? I presume you can back that up with a citation?
Relevant extracts from Greenwald’s book:
“On December 1, 2012, I received my first communication from Edward Snowden, although I had no idea at the time that it was from him…. To motivate me to follow his advice [he offered ways for my Twitter followers to help me install encryption]…. Using encryption software was something I had long intended to do…. I had been writing for years about WikiLeaks, whistle-blowers, the hacktivist collective known as Anonymous, and related topics…. But the program is complicated, especially for someone who had very little skill in programming and computers, like me. So it was one of those things I had never gotten around to doing. [Snowdon’s] email did not move me to action…[Snowdon emailed again] later that day with a clear, step-by-step guide to the PGP system: Encryption for Dummies… [Snowdon offered technical assistance again] … Despite my intentions, I never created the time to work on encryption. Seven weeks went by….On January 28, 2013, I emailed [Snowdon] to say that I would get someone to help me with encryption and hopefully would have it done within the next day or so…. But yet again, I did nothing….In the face of my inaction, [Snowdon] stepped up his efforts. He produced a ten-minute video entitled PGP for Journalists… Still I did nothing….That’s how close I came to blowing off one of the largest and most consequential national security leaks in US history … The next I heard of any of this was ten weeks later [Snowdon had contacted Laura Poitras instead]”
Greenwald, Glenn. No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the Surveillance State (Kindle Locations 158-170).
I’m not even a scientist, but Greg Laden (climate blogger and evolutionary gynecologist) once had the conspiracisticness to ask:
“How do we know that Brad does not have involvement in the FF industry? Just asking.”
After regaining my composure, I responded:
***
Greg,
Way to shake off the intelligent-guy image that seems to dog you wherever you turn! I just love your paranoid fatuity:
“How do we know that Brad does not have involvement in the FF industry? Just asking.”
Well, you COULD take a hint from the fact that I’m verifiably NOT one of the “alarmist” scientists who wrote an Email That Shall Not Be Named on the topic of how to get his grubby hands on some petrochemical slush grants.
My name isn’t Jonathan “I’d love to see what Exxon and UArizona could do together on climate change” Overpeck, is it?
My name isn’t Mike “we should have an open mind about this and try to find the slants that would appeal to Esso” Hulme, is it?
My name isn’t Simon “it looks like BP have their cheque books out! How can TC benefit from this largesse?” Shackley, is it?
My name isn’t Mick “Shell’s partnership would involve not only the provision of funding but some role in setting the research agenda etc.” Kelly, is it?
My name is Brad Keyes. I could just tell you Brad Keyes isn’t fossil-fuel funded but where would the fun be in that? Do some d–n research, lazy Transylvanian peasants!
Regarding: “How is the satellite sensor data transformed into surface temperature?” Only some sea surface temperature datasets use satellite data, and none of the major land ones do. Notably, the change from ERSSTv3 to ERSSTv3b was to stop including satellite measurements, and that was complained about in WUWT because that change increased the reported warming in the GISS and NOAA NCDC global temperature datasets. (This was before ERSSTv4 became the SST dataset used in these.)
As much as I am of the opinion that scientists have become grant money whores, it is nevertheless a worthwhile to get together once or twice a year to talk face to face, San Francisco might be overly expensive, Las Vegas on weekdays is both moderately priced and luxurious
What about a more central location….like Omaha. That would definitely keep the meeting short, unless climate scientists tend to have corn field fetish addictions.
What’s wrong with Nome, Alaska? That’s kind of exotic in its own way.
Omaha is the cultural capital of eastern Nebraska. I’ve been there. Very few cornfields in the city limits.
If in Omaha check out La Casa pizza, a unique pizza experience.
Also not to miss in Omaha are the famous runzas.
Get serious, guys! The North is where it’s really happening in climate science! Yellowknife is beautiful in winter! And in Churchill, Manitoba they can interview polar bears about their hardships and declining numbers. Two tips;
1) Don’t wear white during mating season
2) An easy test to check temperature within .00001 degrees is to put your tongue on a flag pole
John. Lol. Climate kooks are already beyond FUBAR.
Las Vegas has been more or less off limits to Gov for years. I used to fly out of there as an alternative to LAX. After some agency had a couple big bashes there the normal Gov “punish everyone” anti Vegas rule came down
As for discerning high clouds from ice: A cloud is not much of a microwave emitter at most microwave wavelengths, bodies of ice and water of size around/over that of microwave wavelengths are. The small ratio of cloud droplet size to wavelength makes cloud droplets and ice crystals essentially not interact with most microwaves. However, I see a difficulty using a satellite to determine surface water or ice temperature when there is rain or snow over it.
Nuestra TEORÍA sobre el Cambio Climático fue la que cambio todo,sino se seguiría diciendo que la actividad humana es la causante en un 95% del Calentamiento,En nuestra TEORÍA nosotros decimos que las “erupciones volcánicas 60%,el sol 30% el hombre 10%. Se termina el Calentamiento Global (se esta terminando) y tenemos SOL 60%,ERUPCIONES VOLCÁNICAS 20% HOMBRE 20%Nosotros tenemos datos “in situ”,los cientificos del clima tienen datos del satelite y datos imaginados por ellos…..esa es la falla.
Don Milton,
Por favor publica un enlace a tu trabajo o indica dónde se ha publicado.
¡Gracias!
Sixto porque lo pides a Milton a publicar sus fuentes. !Tu nunca lo haces!
Ron,
Nunca he hecho tales afirmaciones como Don Milton. Y siempre apoyo todas mis declaraciones. ¿Qué te hace pensar que no?
……but the muslim outreach program was a flaming success
Well, I’m sure it contributed in some small part to the explosive
metastasisprogress of Is-lamic relevance to today’s world.
Perhaps even an explosive success.
The pipes leading OUT of the bathroom provided the data for the models.
+37 °C
charles,
Sorry for multi-posting—my comment doesn’t appear to be, er, appearing.
PS Have you had a chance to cursorily re-scan my email?
Thank you Charles,
as usual you press the button
Massive amounts of our tax dollars were provided to NASA, EPA, the UN and many similar organizations by the previous administration to be purposefully misdirected. There is a book series that tackles this issue, blended with some entertainment value for fun. Check out this link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B071HDKRWXk by author Kenneth R Loomis,
Link didn’t work. Was it “Time Protectors” series:
https://www.amazon.com/Time-Protectors-Book-One-Abducted/dp/1535199016/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1505765284&sr=8-5&keywords=Kenneth+R+Loomis
Yes. Please try Book 4 of the series, CounterStrike by author Kenneth R Loomis. I’ve asked them to fix the link.
Sorry, link seems faulty. Please see Book 4 of the series CounterStrike, by Kenneth R Loomis.
“Follow the money — perhaps a conspiracy is unnecessary where a carrot will suffice.”
—Paul Vaughan (07:53:54)
There is plenty of networking going on in the present situation.
Hi Charles. That link I provided seems to be faulty. Could I trouble you to delete my recently submitted comment and replace it with this, please?
Massive amounts of our tax dollars were provided to NASA, EPA, the UN and many similar organizations by the previous administration to be purposefully misdirected. There is a book series that tackles this issue, blended with some entertainment value for fun. Check out Book 4 of the series by Kenneth R Loomis, It is subtitled CounterStrike.
“So, as they said in Watergate, follow the money. I am going to concentrate on NASA GISS, where I was for 7 years, but it applies to all climate research institutions, of which I have been at several and am familiar with several more.”
WOW… Bombshell!!
Seriously. Is this essay what WUWT has come to?
There used to be a high regard for documentation and verifiable fact here.
Now you accept essays from a guy who is still obviously butt hurt because his last paper was rejected.
“So, as they said in Watergate, follow the money. I am going to concentrate on the california republican party, where I was a member for 7 years, but it applies to all state parties, of which I have been at several and am familiar with several more.”
Imagine if I wrote that? we would all, as good skeptics say
1. you cannot extrapolate from your experience at one organization to all organizations.
2. If you have been at several, prove it.
But since the target is climate science, every read here ( except me) over looks his lapse in logic
your minds glide right over the claim because you cant read criticially. yu read for the things you
agree with.
Reading critically is a skill. Law school might teach it to you. Philosophy does, and Rhetoric/english used to, but not any more.
Wo funds the nest of troughers where you work , Mosh ! 😉
FOLLOW THE MONEY !!
Mega trump donor . did you forget that I gave you the documentation on this before?
Since I volunteer at BE, it doesnt really matter to me.
Steven,
Seriously, I’m genuinely interested. You receive no remuneration or tangible benefit of any kind from participating in BEST?
What is your primary source of income, in that case?
Thanks.
Politically corrupted science and incompetence were widely exposed in the Climategate emails. This is nothing new.
Can you dispute anything Dr. Thresher has claimed?
BTW wasn’t the BEST forced to be published in a pay-play-journal?
“Can you dispute anything Dr. Thresher has claimed?”
have you stopped beating your wife?
most of his claims are not even verifiable. they are rumor or opinion or personal anecdote.
Oh ya, ModelE isnt spagetti code. not even close.
but you never read it did you.
Steven Mosher September 18, 2017 at 5:24 pm
“Can you dispute anything Dr. Thresher has claimed?”
most of his claims are not even verifiable. they are rumor or opinion or personal anecdote.
——
No, he stated them as facts, Feel free to contradict them if you can, which you obviously are in no position to do.
You dismiss all of his claims without any proof? Who is more credible? Someone who was actually there and experienced it first hand, or you, who has no knowledge of what happened at GISS?
You resort to Ad Hominem because you have nothing else.
To paraphrase you “most claims of CAGW are not even verifiable, they are rumor of opinion or personal anecdote.”
Steven Mosher September 18, 2017 at 5:24 pm
Oh ya, ModelE isnt spagetti code. not even close.
but you never read it did you.
————————
I never said i did. Strawman much?
People who live in reading comprehensively challenged glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. LOL!
I am as skeptical as it gets, and generally, disagree with almost everything
Mosher posts… but he’s right on this one.
The article is nothing more than “I know a guy…” gossip. It’s beneath WUWT to allow it to be published here.
If we are to truly be skeptics, then we need to demand proof for such assertions, and not allow articles that are just personal grievance hearsay. You can’t put skepticism aside just because it fits your world-view.
Regards.
Let us all bow before the mighty Mosher, who knows what we all think! Or at least, he kids himself that he does.
Most of the commetnts here could be written by a bot.
however you will note that several readers were able to see this piece for what it is.
Look.
there are some good skeptical arguments about the science.
this site works best when it focuses on those.
but I get the need for fresh red meat.
“Most of the commetnts here could be written by a bot.”
Bots can spell; bots understand the rules of grammar; bots know when to use capital letters.
English majors pretending to be “climate scientists” apparently don’t.
“Bots can spell; bots understand the rules of grammar; bots know when to use capital letters.”
Only as much as the bot writers do. Which isn’t much.
“Dr. Thresher, You have one advantage over me. You are a climate expert and I am not.” — Genius and global warming skeptic Freeman Dyson.
Here is BEST trough of slimate money !!
Anonymous, who is that Mosh?? Soros ???
I think that last entry is hilarious. !
I wonder how it compares to our host’s “on-line” donations. 😉
Yeah, the $417 in non-foundation donations is pretty funny and indicative of how much real people actually care about the climate boondoggle.
Wouldn’t it be even more hilarious to find that Mosher had a crapload of inheritance money and he was granting hisself (what he considered) a prestigious position?
Everyone knows who that is.
MORON
its one of the brightest guys in the world ( computational linguistics)
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-global-warming-hoax-paris-berkeley-621073
computational linguistics.. thats when english studies meets stats.
ever wonder why an english major would end up doing stats?
cause like that is what I worked on back in the 80s
I love that andy didnt know the money was super conservative mega trump donor money.
moron andy.
oh and look, money given AFTER we published the sceptic busting work.
go figure that clown.
Who mosh. ?????
You KNOW that Muller was NEVER a skeptic. just another con-artist like you are.
Even the very rich can be conned.
“Muller and his colleagues have published “a skeptic’s guide to climate change,” ”
ROFLMAO,
…named after Skeptical Seance web site
CON, written all over it.. not a drop of reality or scepticism in it.
Follows the AGW scam meme to the letter.
Isn’t it odd that Berkley Inc funding only goes to 2014.
What are they hiding ? Who is funding them now ?
He is talking about incorrectly spent money. Its not a stretch that its widespread. Plenty of personal experience that it happens widely and in climate science we have the example of Shukla.
I have to agree with Steven here. I’m a bit appalled at the mount of unsupported assertions in this article. “One of the guys hired/promoted to provide tech support… a NASA GISS secretary was hired/promoted to provide tech support… Another of the guys hired was so incompetent… an exposed water pipe to the bathroom overhead broke in the computer room, destroying thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment and data… I was talking to a guy from GSFC…”
I can see why no names were given, because this would be libel. I’m not sure why he would admit to graft of his own, but apparently if he commits fraud, it’s OK: “I remember once at NASA GISS having to write up a progress report for a project I didn’t really work on but was paid off of. That is the definition of ‘misspent’.”
He’s “taken courses on remote sensing,” but asks “How do you tell the difference between high white clouds and surface white ice?” Maybe he should have taken another course.
I fail to see the relevance of the Snowden/Felt reference, except that possibly the author feels some camaraderie with them as “insiders who spilled the beans,” as though his “This guy said that…” say-so is somehow on the same plane of existence.
I’d say the best thing to be done with this article is for Charles to post the Captain Picard face-plant photo with the caption “What was I thinking?”, along with an apology to the readership.
http://columbia-phd.org/RealClimatologists/AboutUs/index.html#Thresher
The answer to “What was I thinking?” might be: I was thinking that an honest revelation by a qualified essayist might give some real perspective to these organizations.
What sort of information would serve as proof? This is not a technical article, where formal citations to journal articles seem possible. So, what proof might we look for? No claim of truth guarantee was made, … merely an implication of truth by the writer’s background with the organizations talked about.
It’s a matter of trusting the source, in this case. Would a guy with his qualifications tell these stories as bold face lies? Why? Did he just wake up one morning and decide to write down a bunch of lies to post on the internet?
Spite? Hurt feelings? … Seriously? … Is that the best objection that a commentator here can come up with, objecting to this essay?
The other one that got me was thinking that Gavin being honest and saying he wouldn’t make it in academic mathematics is somehow a bad thing. Also depends on what level he would not have made it. Maybe he did not want to go teach at a small school where there is not much research but knew that high level mathematics is very difficult and very competitive.
James, you should you be appalled. The Climategate emails demonstrated this type of behavior is endemic in this field of climate (political) science — revealed in their own words.
Were you appalled when climate scientists conspired to dodge FOIA requests, conspired to delete data and emails. cheered the death of a skeptic who threatened their orthodoxy, tried to black-ball scientists who had differing opinions?
“I can see why no names were given, because this would be libel” ~ James Schrumpf.
Dr. Thresher ~ “As we have said, we are pressing a case against Gavin Schmidt, current head of NASA GISS, for violations of the Hatch Act”.
Names were given, James. Maybe do a little research before you make yourself the fool.
Reg: The Climategate letters were the scientists’ own words. This is “this guy said” and “that gal was hired” — hardly compelling testimony. There’s enough well-documented appalling behavior by climate scientists to not require random unsupported accusations.
Reg: “It exposes the incompetence and political bias of one of the top climate research centers in the world. First CRU and now GISS.”
Actually, it does no such thing. Now, if the author had said “Ms. X, a GS-5 Administrative Support Technician, was promoted to a GS-9 Computer Assistant Clerk position, and here is a copy of the DD-1556 showing the transfer,” then he’d have some evidence.
But he didn’t.
James Schrumpf September 18, 2017 at 7:13 pm
Reg: The Climategate letters were the scientists’ own words. This is “this guy said” and “that gal was hired” — hardly compelling testimony. There’s enough well-documented appalling behavior by climate scientists to not require random unsupported accusations.
—-
How was this not supported? He worked there. You didn’t.
What information do you hold that he doesn’t?
Reg: “How was this not supported? He worked there. You didn’t.
“What information do you hold that he doesn’t?”
He didn’t give any information worth repeating.
As long as these are his personal recollections of events he witnessed then this isn’t libel I’m the slightest. It’s actually hilarious that libel would even be suggested.
RW: As long as these are things he can prove happened it isn’t libel. By not naming names, he can’t be so accused, so he didn’t.
You realize that you just made an appeal to authority, right?
There’s lots of reasons people do things: money, fame, revenge, ennui… I don’t claim to be able to peer into the author’s heart to know why he writes what he does. I just found the article lacking in any new information and full of unsupported assertions. Been here a long time, read a lot of articles, and wrote a bunch of comments, and I found this to be a very weak effort. Just my two cents.
Mann is still employed and funded, Steven! Bad enough right there. There’s a very long list of frauds and liars after that and you know it!
I agree. It is a poor article.
I disagree. It’s a great article.
It exposes the incompetence and political bias of one of the top climate research centers in the world. First CRU and now GISS.
Do you not see a pattern? How can an objective person not?
What’s disappointing that this corruption of science for political reasons continues.
Sad days for true science.
pattern..
skeptic says two points and he’s got a line with no error!!!
FG,
It has been my experience that very bright people often talk down to everyone because they so seldom run across anyone demonstrably as bright in the general public. They then assume, falsely, that they are brighter than whomever it is they are talking to. It could be an educational experience for Mosher to attend a Mensa event, where a priori everyone is bright, and there is a good chance that anyone he is talking to is as bright or brighter than he is.
Clyde.
been there done that.
not impressed.
I think you make some good points here, Mr. Mosher. Mr. Threshers article is largely anecdotal, with no real evidence that what he says is true. We tend to go along with it because it fits with our pre-existing assumptions about government. Some of the things he said may be typical, normal, acceptable behaviour, (we really don’t know enough about it to have any certainty), but we look at these things out of context and see them as proof of our pre-existing world view on wasteful government spending. Consequently, most of us have failed to point out the rational weaknesses of Mr. Threshers article, exactly like climate crisis supporters have been doing with AGW for the past 30 years!
I am just not sure why this behavior needs to be seriously addressed when it shows up in one article on a website, but gets a pass when the same behaviour is constantly being used to take control of the global energy supply and forcibly reduce the standard of living of every human on the planet!
“Threshers article, exactly like climate crisis supporters have been doing with AGW for the past 30 years!”
Huh?
Then you missed those of us who criticized mann and Jones.
Then you missed those of us who criticize hansen
But most of all, since we peer review our stuff most of the crap gets rejected. so you never see it.
“But most of all, since we peer review our stuff most of the crap gets rejected.”
Clearly, not enough of it.
Well, I just finished reading most of his blog posts. They are entertaining to say the least. I mean, what he writes is outrageous, and I wonder if the author is who he really claims to be. But I must say, having been through grad school, what he writes about some of his experience there is totally plausible.
Steve. Our host decides the topics. The futility of arguing a belief and consensus with science dawned to me at 15.
Yes Forrest, Top 1000 at a football game? last game I attended was a Rose bowl, about 100000 People.
Help me do the math, pretty please.
I’ve been telling everybody who’s asked, ‘follow the money’ goes a long way towards explaining the ‘why?’ at the highest levels.
Especially WHOSE money it is.
Speaking abt incompetence…try getting a correct customs declaration from amazon.com…
“Another of the guys hired was so incompetent a bunch of the climate scientists finally got together and demanded Jim Hansen, head of NASA GISS then, fire him, WITHOUT REPLACEMENT. Tech support got BETTER after that.”
Yes, that’s about par for the government course. You can actually improve your working conditions by NOT replacing incompetent idiots. My colleagues and I once worked overtime, through lunches and even paid out of pocket for additional resources so we could help our manager look like the genius she wasn’t.
It worked, and like that Seinfield episode, she was promoted upwards out of our hair, where acquired numerous accolades, awards and promotions worthy of her unworthiness.
Peter principle in action eh??
Postgraduate elsewhere
He was making so much money on the side, activities that were illegal as a govt. employee in the absence of written permission, that he could easily have paid his own travel.
If you want to look for something where you may be able find proof , look at his non salaried earnings. That plus his getting arrested very publicly may have been why he was helped out of the door.
Oh you’d be amazed at what very wealthy academics manage to charge their grant for.
I love this from the Real Climatologists Website-
Legal
“We are not afraid of lawsuits. We never say anything we can’t prove or, after doing our due diligence, don’t firmly believe (the lesser known part of libel law). We will represent ourselves and countersue for damages so the usual tactic of trying to make defendants lose by bankrupting them with lawyer fees will be less effective. Be assured that during discovery we will demand anything remotely relevant that you would rather keep private and a subpoena is harder to ignore than a Freedom of Information Act request. Also, you will have to sue in our jurisdiction. Determining that jurisdiction shouldn’t be too hard but we leave that as an exercise for the suer. Finally, we would appreciate the publicity.
In fact, we may sue you first”
I’m pretty sure that the Mark Steyn/Michael Mann lawsuit is proof that one doesn’t have to “sue in our jurisdiction.”
LMAO. Now that is good. “In fact, we may sue you first” Love it.
I love this from the Real Climatologists Website-
Legal
“We are not afraid of lawsuits. We never say anything we can’t prove or, after doing our due diligence, don’t firmly believe (the lesser known part of libel law). We will represent ourselves and countersue for damages so the usual tactic of trying to make defendants lose by bankrupting them with lawyer fees will be less effective. Be assured that during discovery we will demand anything remotely relevant that you would rather keep private and a subpoena is harder to ignore than a Freedom of Information Act request. Also, you will have to sue in our jurisdiction. Determining that jurisdiction shouldn’t be too hard but we leave that as an exercise for the suer. Finally, we would appreciate the publicity.
In fact, we may sue you first”
“To start, you should be shaking your head and saying, “why are there exposed bathroom water pipes going through a computer room?””
That may be obscure but it does bring a new meaning to “Floating Point Processing”
Sorry, I had to say it.
GROAAAAANNNNN. You win the daily groaner prize.
A quick google shows that nothing has happened to Shukla. On the other hand, he doesn’t seem to have been exonerated. Maybe Obama et al found a way to make the problem disappear similar to the whitewash after Climategate. Perhaps the Trump administration might be interested in reopening the case.
Also, in the justice delayed is justice denied department, nothing has happened in the last couple of months in Dr. Mann’s lawsuits of Dr. Tim Ball and Mark Steyn.
Mikey is full of fire and tenacity! “Just you wait”, he says! “Just you wait”! And wait and wait and wait….
I often wonder what the programming quality is of the typical climate model. If it’s like what I’ve experienced in the past I’d bet there’s a pretty good chance that it’s horrific. I call such programming spaghetti code.
Who does not remember the harry read_me.txt, our first insider introduction to coding mayhem.
for a dataset that is not a climate data set.
ModelE is pretty good. I started reading it in 2007. Who ever called it spagetti has no clue what they are talking about.
MITGCM is also open and available to look at. good code good docs.
The community Model is also pretty good.
All the GCM code beats the crap that Spencer and Christy Posted for UAH
Just look on the Internet and read what NASA has to say about climate change. It is full of errors. It is all propaganda It totally ignores the fact that the radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed anywhere in the solar system. The radiant greenhouse effect is science fiction hence the AGW conjecture is science fiction. Their simulation work is nothing short of make believe. They hard code in the more CO2 causes warming so that is what their simulation results show. The whole effort is of no value.
no they dont.
read the code.
ModelE has been open since 2007 when I first read it
Gavin and GISS claim an El Nino year is proof of CAGW.
If doesn’t get any further from the scientific method than that.
Purely pathetic!
Dear willhass. Pray tell me how are you going to devise an experiment to prove or disprove global warming on Mars or on Venus?
Planetary warming has already been observed on other planets during the same interval as the mild late 20th century warming on earth.
Sixto: please provide a link to the evidence that “Planetary warming has already been observed on other planets”
….
Because I believe your claim is bogus.
Why do alarmists want me to do their Web searches for them?
https://www.space.com/3159-global-warming-pluto-puzzles-scientists.html
http://www.dailytech.com/Global+Warming+on+Mars++and+Jupiter+Pluto+Neptune/article6544.htm
Granted Pluto’s status has been demoted to dwarf planet, but that doesn’t matter.
Sixto: “http://www.dailytech.com” is a blog, just like this, and as such, is not considered “evidence.” The data on Pluto is explained by it’s elliptical orbit.
…
Please try again.
PS Sixto, seems you’ve neglected to consider the New Horizon’s flyby of Pluto, which makes your citation of a 2002 study archaic.
You seem to have looked no farther than the headline. The article cites science.
New Horizons found nothing to negate prior observations. If Pluto has ceased warming, then that would be in line with Earth, which hasn’t warmed in this century. ENSO spikes don’t count.
Sixto, your ignorance of science is astounding. Jupiter doesn’t have a “surface”, so how can you even claim it has a “temperature?”
…
You are funny!!!
We don’t have temperature measurements from Mars from 1850, so how do you know it’s “warming?”
Ditto for Neptune.
Mark,
Please read the links I’ve provided, or do your own research.
We have astronomical observations of Mars from well before 1850, so have seen its polar caps wax and wane.
Sixto says: “with Earth, which hasn’t warmed in this century.”
..
Satellite data proves you wrong: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6/plot/uah6/trend
Sixto says: “We have astronomical observations of Mars from well before 1850”
…
Yes we do, but we don’t have temperature measurements.
When Sixto writes “this century”, I assume the reference is the current one as in the 21st century. So the claim would pertain to years 2001 onwards.
Also, isn’t temperature average kinetic energy?What would Jupiter’s lack of a (you presumably meant solid) surface have to do with the validity of Sixto’s argument?
RW, indeed, and furthermore, what exactly is Earth’s “surface temperature” for that matter? And how would you measure it? And what are the error bars?
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/165227772726/when-to-trust-the-experts-climate-and-otherwise
I have pretty limited knowledge of computer programming but I do know a programmer in a fairly large government department. They tend not to use outside services and they are in the habit of customizing their programs to a very considerable extent. For instance, every time the politicians change personal privacy protocols and the cumulative changes done by people who are working without adequate support and over their heads means that the software becomes a tangle of patches and second rate add-ons.
Dear Duane this is a seriously long diatribe of sour grapes. Let’s not go into why but you seem to blame the loss of you data on someone else who was clearly your intellectual inferior.
Just tell me who relies on a single computer site to store vital data? You obviously otherwise the flooding would not have destroyed it. Had you not heard of back ups?
Sorry I cannot take this report too seriously as you appear to have a personal issue here.
It’s a system administrator’s job to back up data on a network, not the end user’s. And those back ups need to be stored offsite — which is typically stored on the cloud these days.
You clearly miss the point, the administrators running the network were incompetent.
Clearly you appear to have a personal issue here.
I’m rapidly becoming a fan of Dr. Thresher.
I have been aware of his site for sometime, and I agree that presently there is a lack of substance. Obviously, he has an insiders view, and we will have to see how things develop, but I am looking for substance not bare innuendo, and I hope that in future some real meat is put on the bone.
I haven’t much doubt that the larger part of government budgets are wasted and that not a small number of friends and occasionally family are enriched. Hillary goaded Trump about not releasing his taxes. But I was gob smacked that she paid taxes on 110million income in 2015!!! Where in heck can a civil servant legitimately have that much income? Together with her husband, they paid 43million in taxes!!! Clearly a lot of influence was peddled to high places, foreign governments, big players… . Are they the only two in this swanky boat? I wouldn’t think so.
Regarding Dr Thresher’s article, I have to agree with Mosher on his central issue with it. He has a chatty, sneery style without giving solid information. He is an insider to be sure and he uses that fact as a substitute for concrete information. Skeptics should properly take him to task for innuendo, and anecdote as a vehicle for serious allegations. I’m sure he knows stuff, how the 1930s-40s got pushed down below the 1998 big El Nino temp only in 2007 by Hansen’s group. Hello , I even know that. And that widely scattered places had the same pattern and were adjusted down by 1.5. Such places as Canada, Capetown, Paraguay, Greenland, Iceland, etc. I’ve given links before many times. Paul Homewood has some. Here’s Capetown raw data as a taste:
And the US:
http://jennifermarohasy.com//wp-content/uploads/2009/06/hammer-graph-5-us-temps.jpg
This stuff that Mosher supports I find disgusting. The algorithm they use changes all the data back to the 1800s a little bit each year! As Mark Steyn quipped at a Senate hearing – how can we confidently know what the temperature will be in 2100, when we have no idea what it will be in 1950!
Gary Pearse September 18, 2017 at 8:25 pm
I haven’t much doubt that the larger part of government budgets are wasted and that not a small number of friends and occasionally family are enriched. Hillary goaded Trump about not releasing his taxes. But I was gob smacked that she paid taxes on 110million income in 2015!!! Where in heck can a civil servant legitimately have that much income? Together with her husband, they paid 43million in taxes!!!
You appear to be out by a factor of 10! The data that I’ve seen indicates that Bill and Hillary Clinton (they file a joint return) earned $10.6 million on which they paid $3.24 million in federal taxes.
By the way she hasn’t been a ‘civil servant’ since 2013.
I love your fake charts.
heres the difference between you and what I support
1. All the code is posted. none of your is
2. All my date is posted. none of yours is
3. I actually studied and tested the adjustment code, you never did.
That is why you are just a blog commenter.
Out of curiosity, I followed the author’s links to the email that he said explains best the nature of the Hatch Act suit against Gavin Schmidt. The link is http://columbia-phd.org/RealClimatologists/Articles/2017/09/15/And_Not_Only_That/NASA-OIG_email.pdf.
The following was paragraph 1:
“1. You will address me as “Dr. Thresher”, not just “Sir”. Your attempt to take
away my authority is noted and not appreciated. Further, I need this to know
that you are not just copying and pasting in your responses from a script.”
Since it’s impossible to do a global search-and-replace of “Sir” for “Dr. Thresher,” it wouldn’t be possible for the agent to copy and paste responses.
The author’s two complaints about Schmidt are, first, a violation of the Federal Records Act, by using a private email account for official business. However, there’s no sign that he did so, but he did have a private email address (at Columbia U.) that he put on his official web site for people who “want to contact me in a non-official capacity.” As a contractor in a federal office myself, I have to take the annual Federal Records training course, and nowhere I remember forbids one from putting a private email address on a federal website. The author would have to have proof of the use of the private account for official business to have a case. He apparently figures his accusation is good enough for the FBI to get right on the hunt, as he states in paragraph 3,
“3. I have already given you more than enough evidence to act on.”
Then the author moves on to the Hatch Act because Schmidt’s RealClimate site said Trump would cut spending, and because Schmidt had his picture taken in front of Tom’s Restaurant for another article, and “it is well-known that NASA GISS is above Tom’s Restaurant”. That may be, but there’s no identifying signage to associate Schmidt with NASA visible in the photo.
I would suppose that Schmidt, as Director of GISS, is in a Senior Executive Service (SES) position, which makes him an employee prohibited from engaging in partisan political activity. However, he can still do the following:
– register and vote as they choose
– assist in voter registration drives
– express opinions about candidates and issues
– participate in campaigns where none of the candidates represent a political party
– contribute money to political organizations or attend political fund raising functions
– attend political rallies and meetings
– join political clubs or parties
– sign nominating petitions
– campaign for or against referendum questions, constitutional amendments, municipal
ordinances
So merely writing in RealClimate.org about Trump’s policies on whatever would not, by themselves, be a violation.
The author then demands of the agent in paragraph 4:
“4. Further evidence for NASA’s Gavin Schmidt’s violation of the Hatch Act:
a. This will require some investigation on your part, which is “your job”.
Which ultimately leads us to “Raising Arizona,” and Nathan Arizona Sr.’s similar frustration with the FBI:
https://youtu.be/4wOsiojzo34?t=134
Haha! ‘no proof’ and a couple of incompetent techies. This must be the worst attempted take-down of climate science in the history of WUWT. I’m going to bookmark it for next time we discuss CC sceptics with the students.
Cheers
Ben
Dr Thresher’s writing is a lot of fun-
“Everyone assumes climate scientists are noble. Fighting to save the planet. What nonsense. Not even close.
Me included. I (Dr. Duane Thresher) am a climate scientist too. As I have said I went into climate science so I could study what I wanted, get paid, and be left alone, and that is one of the better reasons to go into climate science.
Even the ones (see ahead for the others) who, like myself, honestly put in the years of courses and research necessary to be a real climate scientist are often twisted by it, made much less than noble. They put in a lot and give up a lot. And then nobody takes them seriously, not even other scientists.
Men climate scientists for instance. I’m tempted to name names and tell tales out of school here. But for now let’s just say a lot of men climate scientists missed out on dating as graduate students and are determined to make up for it when they become senior scientists. And a lot of young women grad students are recruited by them into climate science these days. And as we learned from Hurricane Harvey, correlation is causation. Nah, I’m sure it’s just because those men climate scientists think women are smarter than men so will be better scientists”
Of course the railway engineer took it a lot further and he wasn’t even a climate scientist.
“Like all global warming skeptic climate scientists we are accused of taking money from oil companies and conservative organizations. We don’t. ”
Well I am pleased to hear it… independence is important.
but there are certainly scientists who are paid by conservative organisations and those conservative organisations are major influencers on the climate science debate and are funded by fossil fuel companies.
And I don’t see how geophysicists could avoid a connection to oil companies.
(I also am frequently accused of being paid… I’m not either, nor a member of any political party, think tank, green group, in related employment, etc, etc)
‘Paid’ isn’t the same as compensation, is it?
And you sure seem to have a lot of time on your hands.
“And I don’t see how geophysicists could avoid a connection to oil companies’
They hire the best geophysicists who have to give accurate, unadjusted data otherwise they will be sacked.
Climate scientists only have to say global warming causes everything, adjust data , and they receive vast amounts of money. Say otherwise and you lose your job.
This piece has the unmistakable whiff of frustration with a workplace that is dysfunctional in a way that’s usually only possible in public service…
Looks like the crew at NASA-GISS put most of their effort into PR rather than science which was simply suborned to fit the goon agenda. I bet they didn’t stint on employing the best PR they could bury in the budget.
Hansen and Schmidt should practice their performance in the jail house
The first words used are “wasted and misspent” money. This is the propaganda language used by government thieves and the media to distract from government theft and corruption. The terms are purposely used to create a narrative that the stolen funds are in a trash dump somewhere instead of in some politicians, bureaucrats or their cronies bank account.
The sceptic community is always moaning and bleating ad infinitum about any money that is misspent other than on the fossil fuel industries, of which of course there is not a mention.
They are even undermining their own US green technology industries, which, despite facing significant pricing challenges from China, is still creating more new jobs than carbon-intensive ones. US climate sceptics should quit their bleating and instead start talking-up renewable energies.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41352259#