From the “I’m going to need a barf bag” department. Dr. Michael Mann comes up with his own degree program.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Climate science is a field devoted to the study of Earth’s climate in the past, present and future. Understanding the Earth’s future climate is vital, and in response Penn State has established a new dual-title doctoral program in climate science.
“In the past, climate science was often viewed as this niche field, but it’s starting to become integrated with everything else because climate impacts are pervasive,” said Michael Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science and program coordinator. “Climate change is affecting our food and water supplies, coastal management and national security, and every other facet of our built and natural environment.”
Expertise in climate science is relevant across many disciplines, and Mann said this program was developed to meet the increasing demand for climate information.
“Having a degree in climate science is germane to so many fields now; it’s important in private industry or in fields focused on risk management like insurance and reinsurance,” said Mann. “Having a background in climate science is a real plus, and it will make our graduates more attractive for jobs in industry, as well as positions in academia, government and nongovernmental organizations.”
Administered by the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences’ Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science, a particular focus of the program is on understanding the impact of human activities on climate and understanding and predicting natural climate variation.
The program will provide a rich curriculum in climate dynamics and observations, numerical and statistical methods, the physical climate system, biogeochemistry, and human dimensions of climate change to ensure that all students have a broad and deep understanding of the science and its application to society.
“Not only will graduates have expanded employment opportunities, they will be the new generation of leaders trained to help society prepare for and adapt to the Earth’s changing climate,” said David Stensrud, head and professor of meteorology and atmospheric science.
There are more than 40 faculty from five colleges associated with the climate science program.
“We’ve had an increasingly strong presence in the Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science and elsewhere around Penn State in climate science. We literally have hundreds of researchers across the University working on various aspects of climate science,” said Mann.
Students electing this degree program will earn a doctorate with a dual-title in the participating program and in climate science. The graduate program in meteorology and atmospheric sciences currently offers the program but additional graduate programs are expected to offer the dual-title program in the future.
“This new program addresses what is arguably the greatest challenge we face today — the challenge of mitigating and adapting to climate change,” said Mann.
For more information about the program visit http://www.met.psu.edu/academics/graduate-studies/climate-science-dual-title-phd-program and https://bulletins.psu.edu/graduate/programs/majors/climate-science/.
The educational field is spiraling the drain due to the leftists who dominate it.
Weather impacts many things and always has. Unfortunately, Mann seems to have confused weather and climate.
No he hasn’t confused anything with anything. He knows what he is doing. He is leading climate science in the only direction it could go and survive. Climate science cannot survive without alarmism. If Mann et al were not doing this Climate science would strangle itself with lack of funding because why would anybody fund a study of the future if we knew that we couldnt do anything about the future climate and if we knew that there was nothing to worry about. Climate science would die a slow death. Climate science had 2 choices in the 1980’s . One was to wait for more studies to prove what if any was CO2’s role in climate or the 2nd choice of SPREAD THE ALARM. Hansen chose the 2nd path and 97% of all other climate scientists followed him. The 1st path would have led to climate science dying out. That is why climate science must be destroyed. We have learned enough to know that CAGW is impossible and we will adapt to AGW if it even exists.
The only program that offers this dual-title degree is Meteorology and Atmospheric Science. It looks like you get the dual title by taking courses in addition to completing the requirements of the Meteorology and Atmospheric Science PhD.
This is not a Mickey Mouse degree. It requires an excellent background of skills and knowledge. Anyone who completes it should take pride in a worthy achievement.
On the other hand … it is likely to make its graduates over confident in what they can actually do.
All students should have to take a course that lays out the limitations of what is possible. That is what separates engineers from scientists. Engineers know the scope of their practice and are obligated to stay within it, on penalty of law. Scientists can bloviate ad infinitum with no penalty for being wrong.
Just as an MBA leads students to think they can actually manage, with disastrous results, this PhD will lead students to think they can predict the climate and its ramifications, also with disastrous results. They will also probably imitate Dr. Mann and be really really arrogant in insisting that they can do things that are currently, and for the foreseeable future, impossible.
CommieBob,
I have often used my adage: “A scientist can calculate a number, but it takes an engineer to make you understand how big a shitload that really is.”
My other go to is: “Rocket science is easy, rocket engineering is a bitch!”
Freshmen level mathematics can calculate an orbital trajectory, but its a whole different game to be able to design and build a reliable machine that will actually accomplish that task. I do both.
There is a beast called a traveling wave tube. It’s long, thin, and made of glass. Somehow they used to get those puppies into orbit without breaking. It always amazed me.
Have this one framed on my office wall.
…damn I miss Larson.
Will there be a course on how to properly skew temperature data?
There will be a course on how to screw with temperature data, yes.
Oh, I’m sorry, you said, “skew”.
“Skew” … “screw” — it’s just a couple letters difference, so not a detail we need to worry about, since the outcome is the same.
Fools and their money are soon parted…
Isn’t there a glut of these guys now? Good luck grads paying for this one! Ahhahahahaha…
Oh, and wait till they all find out about that ‘climate couch’ too!
HehehehahahaRiflmao..ha.
They can join the ranks of the liberal arts majors.
I absolutely REFUSE to allow these idiots to be bailed out of their $1,000,000 +- student loans. I WILL NOT PAY FOR IT AND NEITHER SHOULD ANYONE ELSE.
President Ttump needs to sign an executive order prohibiting bailouts or forgiveness of this kind to the student or the financial entity who issues such loans.
But the degree program is supposed to expand the newly-minted dual-PhDs employment opportunities in industry.
Prerequisites for the program include the following
1) 30 hours in anti-FOIA legal tactics
2) 30 hours in statistics to erase undesirable data you don’t like through dark methods in modeling
3) 20 hours in forestry science to pick just the right tree that fits the desired outcome in the “study”
4) a completed JD or MPA to defend your weak science position and attack others
5) a degree in psychology is preferred because that’s what most of this is in place of real science
6) no prior knowledge of science so we can shape you our way
At graduation you will wear blinders instead of cap and gown.
“…graduates…will be the new generation of leaders trained to help society prepare for and adapt to the Earth’s changing climate…”
Well, there it is–a new improved generation of bureaucratic helpers entitled to extra portions of fish-heads and rice.
Will it help me with my lawsuit?
No. You need facts.
What lawsuit do you have left Tim? We cant keep track.
Employment opportunities? Riiiight, that’s all we need, a climate zombie on staff, doing nothing, thinking nothing, and producing nothing.
Steve, you forgot, “signifying nothing”.
Yet they drone on and on about how the world is for sure and really, really this time, going to hell in a AG handbasket. As Tom Lehrer said, “If a man has nothing to say, the least he can do is shut up.”
A fool and his money plus interest are soon parted
So what’s going to happen to the doctoral student who discovers the statistical fudge in Mann’s hockey stick? How will the student conscientiously continue the program knowing the course is a sham run by professors complicit in the knowledge of Mann’s dodgy work? Simply put, the student actually runs the risk of becoming unemployable in the private sector should the potential boss be a climate skeptic.
A dual degree is probably a good idea for anyone even slightly interested in climate. As the field of climate science goes belly up in the next few years at least you would have something to fall back on.
“…at least you would have something to fall back on.”
Or fall forward on, in the Roman sense of the word. A climate science double major is a double-edged sword that can, as the awful truth emerges that there is no emergency, be “fallen on” to restore one’s honour.
“The program will provide a rich curriculum in climate dynamics and observations, numerical and statistical methods”
Mann statistics produce hockey stick with random numbers…
What a joke.
“Mann statistics produce hockey stick with random numbers…”
That’s a gross oversimplification. I believe M&M found that Mann’s stats produce hockey sticks from Red Noise data, not just random numbers.
Yes its a simplification, of course the random numbers should be in the range of the data set, but the point still stand.
And what about mixing data set on the same graph? Should be added to the curriculum too.
I agree, Mann is no angel by any stretch of the imagination. But it’s important to not state what isn’t true.
Faint praise, indeed! He beats his wife but not with a two-by-four.
Great — I’m going to Penn State to get my “PhD in Gender Studies and Climate Science”.
Dang!
A PhD in Gender Studies!
How would you have time for Trea Ring Readings?
Kip
You mean it takes a University degree to tell the difference between a man and a woman?
Gee……
“You mean it takes a University degree to tell the difference between a man and a woman?”
That’s sex, not gender. Gender is behavior, masculine and feminine. Male and female are sexes.
No, actually, sex is a process (the exchange of genetic material), whereas gender is a matter of how many X chromosomes a person has. Ages ago, some idiot made up a form with a question for “sex” rather than “gender”, and it has stuck.
(By the way, the correct answers to the question of sex are Yes, or Yes please.)
Retired_Engineer_Jim
Does “I have a headache” count?
Jeff
It was a joke.
Only a small proportion of the sexes on offer these days.
Kip, gender studies have become a lot more complicated of late.
A degree in data fiddling. Should come in handy for a job in finance.
“Having a degree in climate science is germane to so many fields now; it’s important in private industry or in fields focused on risk management like insurance and reinsurance,” said Mann.
Can you imagine what will happen if they start using “climate science statistical methods” to re-calculate the insurance and reinsurance risks and premiums?
The unusually gifted and dedicated people who run the international reinsurance businesses in London and Milan and are qualified in Actuarial Science. There isn’t a snowflake’s chance in Hell that a “climate scientist” will pass an Actuarial exam. It is actually 29 hrs of exams and requires a Masters and PhD in the mix. Good luck. Call me in ten years.
And good luck with “climate science” assessing “risk” on behalf of the reinsurance industry. Climate scientists, such as guessing and fiddling is a science, can’t even produce a valid temperature series from direct measurements in the 20th Century. “Climate” is the average of “weather”. Insurance is all about weather events, not “the climate”. Failing to even understand the terms does disqualify one from having a shot at entering the Actuarial exams.
And what other fields of endeavour are these characters going to dominate with their multi-disciplinary talents? Let them first fix their models.
For further research:
https://stepupanalytics.com/actuarial-science-exam-structure-ifoa/
And it requires:
•Effective communication
•Problem-solving and decision making
•Professionalism
Ha ha ha! Get this:
“The institute holds the right to cross-verify any record made. So it is highly recommended to keep a valid proof of your work done until you are recorded as a Fellow member.”
The world works because people with actual skills make it work, including keeping the lights on.
They used to say that being an actuary was for those people who found accountancy too exciting.
My grandfather used to laugh that here in the US his title was ‘Certified Accountant’. He had left Scotland as a ‘Chartered Accountant’. To him ‘certified’ had an entirely different meaning.
IMHO Mann, is certifiable alright.
Sounds like a severe case of Brain Washing of the coming generation of grad. students.
Will he also teach students to sue climate critics like Mark Steyn & drag the case out for over five years in a Federal court?
Did Steyn criticize climate?? OMG!
Blasphemy!
IMHO this degree should be in the Theology Department.
On the bright side the students can get their climate change model program software for free online
http://www.old-games.com/download/4408/simearth
Hey it is after all the original -1990. Just in time for the first IPCC report
michael
Snouts in the trough 101
Safe winching from an ice-bound yacht
Defamation laws
The course teaches how to fake data, apply for climate grants, how to photoshop polar bears, etc.
The global alarmists plan on taking over the geology, paleontology, and archaeology faculties of the world universities. Climate science really only got started in the 1970’s. According to their plan now; data before the 1970’s is either to be ignored, homogenized, or wiped out. Don’t forget that they have already taken over the atmospheric science faculties all over the world and of course they invented the climate science faculties. Usually they aren’t called that; so that it is easier to corrupt the related sciences like geo science, earth science, environmental science………………………ad infinitum. We could go on forever with bastardized faculty names around the world. I have noted that it is possible to get both a Master degree in Climate Science and a PhD in Climate Science.
The World Meteorology Organization was the 1st organization to be corrupted by climate science. However the skeptic meteorologists of the world have been fighting hit and run attacks against the establishment to varying poor degrees of success ( Anthony Watts being a notable exception).
Note that Penn State (where Michael Mann reigns supreme) has incorporated meteorology right into the Atmospheric Science faculty and called it the Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science. To give you an idea of the size of Penn State it has an enrollment of ~ 100,000 students. It administers almost $4 Billion in endowment funds and other largesse.
Sure enough you will find Michael Mann’s pic and bio on the list of professors. Even more interesting is that this whole faculty is part of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. Note the 2 prong attack here. Climatology itself is a minor within the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. Mann’s idea is to work his way up the faculty tree and corrupt everything he touches with his CO2 nonsense. Of course Penn State has faculties of Astrobiology, and Biogeochemistry where you can get a PhD in either one, along with the common ones like GeoSciences, Materials Science and Engineering, Meteorology and Geography. All these fall under the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences which is only 1 college of the 18 that Penn State has.
Other interesting ( as far as climate science is concerned) colleges that fall under the Penn State umbrella are College of Agricultural Sciences, College of Engineering, and Eberly College of Science. Of course at the undergraduate level you can get any of the more than 1000 degrees that span the complete range of human knowledge. Things like Environmental Engineering ( a prime target for takeover by the alarmists like Mann) that conveniently don’t fall under one of the 18 colleges of Penn State, is only 1 graduate program out of 100’s. Thus the continual urge to expand and what better way than to create a new discipline?
The universities get away with this because universities fall under state law even though the federal government provides more funding than the states themselves. So when a university wants to start a new discipline, what it typically does is create a graduate program in the discipline. Of course new ones are being created all the time with the subdivision of exponential knowledge. As soon as a program like
Environmental Engineering becomes popular the university will then either create a special college for it or make it a faculty within one of the existing colleges. There seems to be no rules that the individual states have set out for the universities to go by. As long as the university can get endowment funds and or public funding they can get the go ahead. Of course it is easier to get the go ahead for a new program if other universities already have it. We all think of the federal and state and city bureaucracies of just how bloated and fat they are; but they dont hold a candle to the creeping bureaucracy of each university and college. When was the last time that you didn’t see any construction on a college or university campus?
A scientific community that developed computer climate models that pedalled a CAGW meme and that never had any accurate predictions.
A scientific community that took over all the atmospheric science faculties the world over and turned them into faculties of global warming.
A scientific community that predicted we would all be drowned by now or all burned from forest fires started by global warming.
A scientific community that was caught through their own emails of trying to hide the decline in temperatures.
A scientific community that was caught through their own emails of fudging data with tricks.
A scientific community that refused to release their data so that others could try to replicate it.
A scientific community that took over all the major journals in relation to any topic remotely associated with climate change and refused to publish contrary studies to global warming.
A scientific community that kept on spouting a fake 97% consensus.
A scientific community that turned peer review into pal review and thus is corrupting all of science.
A scientific community that refuses to debate the issue because they say the science is settled but on NASA’s own web site it says the IRIS effect has not been proven or disproven. That one effect if true could destroy any capability of CO2 affecting the climate at all.
A scientific community that rallies around any study that purports to debunk any contrarian study on global warming making sure that the skeptic scientists are drowned out.
A scientific community that has as yet to publish any definitive physics on how the greenhouse effect actually happens.
A scientific community that supports a scientist like Michael Mann who has tried to erase history vis a vis the mediaeval warming period and who even Dr Richard Muller of Berkeley a famed alarmist has said he will never read another paper by Michael Mann again nor read the journal that published Mann’s paper ever again.
A scientific community that took over all the government agencies that had anything to do with climate and that have produced fake graphs and altered temperature data.
A scientific community that punishes any scientist by demotion,firing, …etc who dares to object to any aspect of global warming.
A scientific community that frightens little kids around the world with predictions of disaster that are impossible.
A scientific community that sees almost every retired scientist come out agsinst the global warming meme because at last they have nothing to lose.
A scientific community that threatens and hurls insults including words such as harlot at scientists who go over to the skeptic side.
A scientific community that publishes fake debunk studies.
A scientific community that defends the computer models which are actually junk science.
A scientific community that admires its own and despises anybody who disagrees.
THAT IS NOT SCIENCE
“…they say the science is settled …defends the computer models…”
Why do we need new scientists?
Just rely on the settled science and computer modelling –
so simple a caveman could do it.
The coming fight now is Earth System Sensitivity. It has its roots almost as long as AGW. Back in the 80’s was when it really got started. Almost 40 years later Michael Mann and his followers have decided that the IPCC is doomed and that they dont need it anymore anyway. They are losing control over its alarmist message and it is becoming more conservative as we skeptics are forcing it to tone down. Witness the IPCC RCP8.5 which doesnt really look scary as far as temperature is concerned.
The Earth System Science (ESS) Education Alliance was formed in 2000 and has ~50 institutions signed up with over 3000 teachers. Their plan is to take over the geology and paleontology departments of every university in the world just like have they done to the Atmospheric science faculties. In their minds they have to because then they can control the past. Eric Blair aka George Orwell has unwittingly written their manifesto. He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. Orwell should have reversed those 2 sentences. The recipe is simple. The thesis is that long term changes of the earth(which the alarmists will say is ultimately caused by short term changes caused by CO2) will dwarf the measly short term temperature changes of CO2. To do that they need to control the past with different climate models because only with the past can they control ( model) the slow processes needed so that they will project far into the future 500 years if necessary. To do that they have to take over the 2 faculties that are standing in their way.