The entire world has been assured that the “science was settled” that the last decade had been the hottest in recorded times, and that it was unprecedented, and it was surely caused by our breathing and SUV driving, and that we had to dramatically increase the cost of energy, reduce our own income, and keep the Third World in poverty (or transfer vast amounts of our own wealth to them), because the head of the Climate Research Unit kept a messy office?
You know, I keep a messy office, too, but then, I’ve never tried to remake the entire world on the basis of my analyses. (Off planet is a different story…)
This really is an amazing story. As I’ve been saying, the people who have been skeptical have been the true scientists, and the warm mongers betrayers of science, for power and politics.
And where is Al Gore? In fact, where is the American press?
[Wee-hour update]
More from The Times:
“The temperature records cannot be relied on as indicators of global change,” said John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, a former lead author on the IPCC.
The doubts of Christy and a number of other researchers focus on the thousands of weather stations around the world, which have been used to collect temperature data over the past 150 years.
These stations, they believe, have been seriously compromised by factors such as urbanisation, changes in land use and, in many cases, being moved from site to site.
Christy has published research papers looking at these effects in three different regions: east Africa, and the American states of California and Alabama.
“The story is the same for each one,” he said. “The popular data sets show a lot of warming but the apparent temperature rise was actually caused by local factors affecting the weather stations, such as land development.”
You don’t say.
And why isn’t anyone reporting on this on this side of the Pond?
[Monday morning update]
The WaPo is finally showing up to the party. Still no sign of the Paper Formerly Known As The Paper Of Record, though.
[Monday evening update — I’m home from Colorado…]
Climaquiddick (I wish that people would quit calling it Climategate…) reminds Instapundit of the Michael Bellesiles scandal. Me too.
Bellesiles, for those who don’t remember, was a historian at Emory who wrote a book making some, er, counterintuitive claims about guns in early America — in short, that they were much rarer than generally thought, and frequently owned and controlled by the government. Constitutional law scholars who expressed doubts about this were told to shut up by historians, who cited the importance of “peer review” as a guarantor of accuracy, and who wrapped themselves in claims of professional expertise.
Unfortunately, it turned out that Bellesiles had made it up. His work was based on probate records, and when people tried to find them, it turned out that many didn’t exist (one data set he claimed to have used turned out, on review, to have been destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake). It also turned out that Bellesiles hadn’t even visited some of the archives he claimed to have researched. When challenged to produce his data, he was unable to do so, and offered unpersuasive stories regarding why.
Well, on second thought, there are no parallels at all…
Hey, I thought you were on a Valentine’s weekend break?
Anyway, I started getting skeptical at about the time Hansen was found to be playing fast a loose with the temperature data about 3-4 years ago. And it has been growing every since due to a bunch of happenings like:
– Hansen refused to share his code;
– Hansen got arrested for protesting at a strip mining operation (so much for the dispassionate scientist);
– Hansen got caught with with more inaccurate temperature readings;
– The hockey stick;
– The lack of warming;
– Climategate at East Anglia CRU;
– Himalayagate;
– Amazonean Rainforestgate;
– Phil Jones revelations;
And the hits just keep coming. I think we really need to start from scratch, and have all records keeping, and modelling 100% transparent. That’s the only way we can figure out what the heck is going on.
“And where is Al Gore? In fact, where is the American press?”
Unless they’re all in Hawaii, hiding in an igloo?
You’re all just a bunch of cynical rightwingnuts! All will be fine once we’ve turned the economy over to the wise leftists!
I took AP American History in high school, where the teacher shared with the class a laugh about a student essay commenting on bad housekeeping being a crime in 1890’s Chicago, where a “Mrs So-and-so and her daugher were arrested for keeping a disorderly house.”
OK, at the time I got the joke that a “disorderly house” must have been an archaic term for “cat house.” As I have gotten older and more well-read, it occured to me that “disorderly house” is not an archaic Victorianism, it must be more in the lines of “police speak.”
Disorderly in legalize means not comforming to the law as in “Law and Order: there are two separate yet equal branches of the criminal justice system. The police and the district attorneys who prosecute crimes. These are their stories. Dum-dah.” Do a “disorderly house” is a house where the law is being broken — e.g. a cat house.
Paul,
that term was still being used long after that period 1890’s period though. In NC when I was a teen, the early 70’s, that referred to both a cat house or shot house, the latter being a bar, it also applied to both being done in a single dwelling. We still don’t have bars here, we have taverns or clubs, but I haven’t seen the term in a while for illegal houses of either business. You don’t see people being arrested for ‘disorderly conduct’ anymore either. It’s usually public intoxication or some such term now.
I guess the person who wrote that paper would have thought ‘disorderly conduct’ meant a boy having his fly down or someone’s shoes were untied.
I doubt global warming crying and whining all came simply from a messy office, that seems like a dodge. But honestly, I’ve been worried about spontaneous combustion in my wife’s cubicle at work for years. I love her, but OH WOW, does she make a mess.
Paperwork and computers and parts of computers are everywhere. Dell calls HER when they need obsolete stuff.
… because the head of the Climate Research Unit kept a messy office?
We should only be so lucky, but the science of climate change does not hinge on a single office or research unit.
the science of climate change does not hinge on a single office or research unit.
This is the sort of statement True Believers make. How’s about pointing us to a “single office or research” that hasn’t been shown in the last few months to be tainted?
And Socialism has never failed because it’s never really been tried…
And the hits just keep coming.
You left out the interesting fact that a former Vice President, in less than a decade out of office, went from being worth a few million to a billionaire, while never having done any visible “work” besides “lectures”. Used to be you had to be a televangelist running your own church to milk the suckers for that amount of money in so short a time. Oh, right…
You’re the only one typing those words with a straight face nowadays.
… because the head of the Climate Research Unit kept a messy office?
AGW impacts human tidiness!
And your point?
Are you still insisting AGW is science?
<snork>
… the science of climate change does not hinge on a single office or research unit.
Neither does the science of UFO Contactee Studies hinge on any single alien abduction.
Neither does the science of parapsychology hinge on any single ghost sighting or spoon bending.
Neither did the prosecution of the McMartin Preschool case hinge on the testimony of any single child who “suffered satanic ritual abuse.”
Neither does the science of phrenology hinge on any single lumpy head.
Neither did the science of Lysenko genetics hinge on any single midwife toad.
… But man, put ’em all together, there’s gotta be something there!
If it gets hotter we hear that it is because of climate change, if it gets colder it is because of the funny way climate change occurs in an area, if it rains too much it is because of climate change, if it does not rain enough it is because of climate change etc.
“And the hits just keep coming. I think we really need to start from scratch, and have all records keeping, and modelling 100% transparent. That’s the only way we can figure out what the heck is going on.”
Sure. Let’s throw out all the historical information and start again. That way Americans can carry on using twice as much energy per capita as any other nation for at least another twenty years before there’s enough data to draw any conclusions.
Of course, by then the world might be on an irreversible slide into Carboniferous Era conditions, except for NW Europe which might well look more like Labrador than like it does now, after the Gulf Stream has switched off; but never mind, Americans will still be having fun driving two-ton cars and small trucks instead of sensible vehicles, and running AC at arctic levels in subtropical outside conditions.
Of course, there is also the small matter of a possible nuclear war, with the weapons on one side paid for with oil money… Maybe the nuclear winter will offset AGW.
Fletcher Christian Says:
“the end is near repent oh climate skeptics”
With Kayawanee, my skepticism began with Hansen. A review of his work has shown a consistency with trying to affect public policy. At the same time, his job title is not responsible for public policy. Most honest people would seek a job that allows them to do things they want to do. Hansen should have never been using his position at NASA to promote, politically, laws affecting climate change. It started to become obvious that he did so, from his position, so he could control the data. If the data is solid, you don’t need to control it.
Fletcher Christian Says:
Sure. Let’s throw out all the historical information and start again. That way Americans can carry on using twice as much energy per capita as any other nation for at least another twenty years before there’s enough data to draw any conclusions.
By throwing out all the historical information, do you include the data from the entire medieval warm period, as certain climatologists are wont to do?
I’m not suggesting that we throw out all historical data. On the contrary, I believe we should include much of what has been thrown out. The historical temperature data, the code used to “massage” that data, and the code used to develop those doomsday models need to be transparent and available to all who wish to see it. Demanding honesty and transparency is NOT an unreasonable request. Here are a few more simple suggestions:
1) Temperature data provided by leading climatologists needs to be accurate. If amateur bloggers are discovering that your data are inaccurate, that’s a problem.
2) Temperature data from localized hotspots should be treated as suspect. Hanging a thermometer next to the hot exaust of an air conditioning unit does NOT count.
3) Massaging data up or down to support your hypothoses will NOT cement support for your position.
4) Attempting to thrwart “Freedom of Information” requests is NOT a sign of openness, transparency, or honesty.
5) Reports provided by environmental advocacy groups should be treated as suspect until the information in them can be scientifically verified, NOT treated as scientific consensus and given the spotlight at climate change summit conventions.
6) Conspiring to remove editors of professional journals, who are willing to print climate studies for peer review that you consider to be “contrarian” or “skeptical”, is a BAD thing. Then dismissing those same climate studies because “they haven’t been peer reviewed” is rather disturbing.
7) Don’t pretend that hundreds of years of historical temperature data don’t exist simply because they conflict with your hypotheses.
So, take those “greedy, energy hogging Americans” to task if you wish. Demand that they give up their cars, boats, houses, lifestyles, etc. Endorse and support tax policies and other schemes that reign in free markets, weaken U.S. power, and may very well result in an impoverished world. But if you expect free thinking people to support you in this, then there needs to be some openness and honesty.
Unlike many on the green left, I look forward to a day when the rest of the world shares the high standard of living we have in the U.S. Attacking Americans or Europeans for our profligate lifestyles is just another way of saying that we’re too free, too affluent, too bourgeois.
Whatever challenges we face with the environment, we’ll be better served trying to overcome them with science and technology, not by running to the caves for cover.
Thanks for a good Monday morning guffaw. Add a bit more CO2 to the atmo and the gulf stream will switch off. And you’ll be living with dogs. Or something. You need to include the part about the planet having a feevah, and throwing the baby out with the bath water.
“That way Americans can carry on using twice as much energy per capita as any other nation for at least another twenty years before there’s enough data to draw any conclusions.”
This seems to be the part that irritates Fletcher Christian the most.
Darn those Americans! What part of “to each according to his needs” don’t they understand?
Actually, somebody did a study on ground station accuracy. The result? Poorly sited stations skew COLDER than well-sited stations.
Believer in Unfalsifiable AGW: “If it weren’t for global warming it wouldn’t be this cold!”
“Americans will still be having fun driving two-ton cars and small trucks instead of sensible vehicles, and running AC at arctic levels in subtropical outside conditions.”
I would not call my 3/4t 4 wheel drive 300 hp 10,000lb pick up small. If you saw the lease roads I drive on, you would understand why.
When it’s 95 in Houston, 75 just feels like arctic levels.
That whole “Day After Tomorrow” thing is so passé.
This really is an amazing story. As I’ve been saying, the people who have been skeptical have been the true scientists, and the warm mongers betrayers of science, for power and politics.
Phil Jones’s response of February 21, 2005 to Warwick Hughes’s request for Jones’s raw climate data:
Ah yes … The true scientific method …
The inquisitor looks at Phil JOnes and Paul Mann who are screaming about Glboal Warming.
“It turned us both into newts!” they scream. THe Inquisitor eyes them skeptically.
“Well, we got better,” they say.
AMerican Mainstream Media reports: “Noted Scientists say Global Warming is causing changes.”
That was a pretty crappy study. Much like most climate “science”.
The missing piece is performing calibrations between individual ground stations and the available satellite records.
.
If you’re going to extrapolate outside the period in which you have good data, you need to know how well your instrument actually works at the job you’re giving it. And – contrary to claims – the proper margin of error is not the “0.1C” accuracy marked on the box. “Average gridcell temperature” isn’t necessarily well monitored by a single thermometer, and the average error is certainly not the same as the instrumental error on a local measurement.
I’ve had the concern that you run into problems with climate studies because while, over the centuries, you can get data points, that data is only about certain things. Tree rings mainly tell you whether there were good growing conditions, which are affected not only by temperature, but by precipitation, nutrients in the soil, etc., etc. There are a lot of factors in there.
So many of the AGW crowd were so invested in proving their hypothesis right, they made data say things that it could not say, and in some cases did not say. TO me, some of the AGW proponents seem to have a religious rather than scientific approach to this, like those Creationists that I am sure they look down upon.
At least Chris Gerrib’s most recent comment is on the right track:
Where is the last piece of bad evidence that skewed towards global cooling?
When every bit of bias and mistakenness trends in one direction, it suggests systematic bias, not simply single incidents. Worse, when you then refuse to release your codes and algorithms so that others can try and replicate your results, it’s just plain bad science.
Yet, all this is blithely dismissed by the Fletcher Christians and Chris Gerrib’s, as though bad science and systematic bias are somehow either inconsequential or irrelevant.
One wonders what their respect for hard science is in other areas?
When every bit of bias and mistakenness trends in one direction, it suggests systematic bias,
Since climate change has become scientific conventional wisdom, finding errors in research that supports it is more newsworthy than finding errors or under-estimates of warming. “Climate change even worse than suspected” is a dog-bites-man story, and unlikely to get much play.
And where is Al Gore?
I believe he was at TED last week, along with Bill Gates, who was pushing TerraPower nuclear reactors as a way to deliver zero-carbon energy.
Sure, Jim. So, why don’t YOU provide us w/ a couple of examples of where the IPCC misunderestimated and wound up low-balling?
‘Course, when the authors themselves are admitting they “sexed up” the report by including things that would garner more attention, perhaps the problem isn’t that the low-balling isn’t getting attention, but that the report itself is problematic?
And what does that say about something that’s become “conventional wisdom”? (To the point that it’s even alright to deny skeptics the data. Is that conventional wisdom or bad science?)
As said in numerous places and by numerous people before; at least some of the behaviour that might lead to AGW also definitely leads to more resources available to people who want to make you – yes, you, anyone who is reading this thread or writing comments on it – into either a slave or a corpse, and they are not particular which.
Not wasting energy (especially when it’s irreplaceable) is just common sense. What exactly is wrong with making and buying more efficient energy-using machinery – and doing some real work on alternative energy sources that might actually work? Which do NOT include wind and ground-based solar, neither do they include tokamak fusion.
Yes, Fletcher, what IS wrong w/ buying more efficient machinery?
Why, one might almost suspect that a profit-making entity like a corporation might do that, rather than chortle w/ glee while sticking w/ the most wasteful, inefficient equipment out there, all the while dancing about in their spats and top hats.
Oh, wait, maybe that isn’t what they’re doing?
This is where claims like “twice as much energy per capita as other nations” start showing the holes like a pair of old pantyhose.
The issue isn’t energy-per-capita, it’s energy-per-dollar GDP, or “energy intensity,” that matters. When you look at it in THOSE terms, though, all of a sudden the whipping boy of the US becomes the straw-man that it is.
http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/handbook/pdf/f7_4.pdf
Instead, what we find is that the US is about the middle of the pack in energy intensity, in a very narrow pack. The chart shows Japan as “1,” the US as “2.5,” France and Germany about “2.”
And who is at the bottom? Why, Russia, China, and India. (This also explains why the Chinese agreed to reduce “energy intensity” in the Hu-Obama summit—and why it STILL won’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions much—they’re just that inefficient.)
But that doesn’t allow you to try and score rhetorical points about going back to the Carboniferous period, or blame Amerikkka first, so just carry on, Fletch.
BTW, it should be noted that China and Russia aren’t last as in “5” compared w/ “2.5” for the US. Rather, they’re more like “17” and “20,” in terms of units of energy per unit GDP.
Thus, they’re an order of magnitude worse.
Fletcher Christian Says:
February 15th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
As said in numerous places and by numerous people before; at least some of the behaviour that might lead to AGW also definitely leads to more resources available to people who want to make you – yes, you, anyone who is reading this thread or writing comments on it – into either a slave or a corpse, and they are not particular which.
Fletcher, I understand where you’re coming from. However, debasing and discrediting our scientific credibility has ramifications much further than just energy the climate studies.
For the ordinary person, when they start to doubt the honesty of one scientist it translates into distrust not just for climatologists, but for scientists in other areas and with science itself. I try to consider this each time I lament the introduction of “Intelligent Design” into some arbitrary classroom.
To restore/ensure credibility in climate science, it needs to become more transparent. That simply can’t happen with the current mindset inside that discipline. When you’ve got “right wingers” like George Monbiot echoing that sentiment, it may be time for some change.
Oops!
energy the climate studies = energy consumption and climate studies
“Since climate change has become scientific conventional wisdom, finding errors in research that supports it is more newsworthy than finding errors or under-estimates of warming.”
You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Why, then, is it not making the news in the mainstream media? The left is delighted with the fact that the majority of global warming skeptic stories are confined to Fox and the right-wing blogosphere.
On the other hand, I’ve seen plenty of stories about global warming being worse than expected (especially recently). If it’s such a dog-bites-man story, why would that be? Especially when it isn’t true…
Lake Erie is frozen over for the first time in 14 years. While the warmongers may be able to argue that more snowfall is attributable to global warming, there is no way — and I mean absolutely no way — to argue that freezing of a body of water the size of Erie is consistent with a warming globe.
“Maybe the nuclear winter will offset AGW.”
Fletcher, didn’t you know that Carl Sagan’s nuclear winter scenario was discredited long ago?
Yep, it turned into something more like Nuclear Autum.
there is no way — and I mean absolutely no way — to argue that freezing of a body of water the size of Erie is consistent with a warming globe.
Comments like that invite skepticism. Suppose Lake Erie was in Europe. Would it have frozen during the Younger Dryas stadial? If so, you’ve got an example of a freezing taking place in response to warming period.
In general, the existence of complex mechanisms like whatever caused the Younger Dryas (whether it was a decline in thermohaline circulation due to an influx of fresh water from a warming period, or something else) make me think you shouldn’t make blanket claims like “absolutely no way…”
“Energy per capita” as a measure of energy efficiency is worse than useless.
It is very clear that once COmmunism went toes up (and even before it had) environmentalism was used as the sharp tip of the spear to go after the free market. I remember watching, appallled, the indiotic Captain Planet cartoon show put out by Ted TUrner, in which Captain Planet, aided by Gaia the Earth Mother, and his Planeteers fought all sorts of evil bad guys. It was so laughable. THe bad guys weren’t accidentally polluting the Earth, while trying to get rich, they were doing it on PURPOSE! Since nobody really wants to destory the Earth, it’s easy to get affluent societies to guilt trip over the environment. I got screamed at when I ponted out that far from being wonderful enviornmentalists, the American Indians exterminated almost all of North and SOuth America’s most interesting megafauna. I was told it was environmental change, even though those animals had survived a couple ice ages and warming periods before the humans showed up.
So the whole global warming thing is just another way for us to flagellate ourselves.
Naughty naughty naughty. We should never have developed technology. I guess Zeus was an environmentalist. That’s why he punished Prometheus for giving mankind fire.
Doug, the issue is not people who actually want to destroy the Earth. It’s people who don’t give a sh!t about destroying it, or large portions of it, as long as they make money doing it – in such ways as pouring acid sludge loaded with heavy metals, sewage sludge, water loaded with wood fibres, chlorinated solvents… into rivers. Pouring toxic smoke into the air. Chucking carcinogenic asbestos residues onto uncontrolled landfill. Making baby’s bottles out of plastic containing oestrogenic chemicals. The list goes on and on and on and on. And preventing this sort of behaviour is what regulation is all about.
Regulation doesn’t have to be intrusive or oppressive, either. I remember a story from Czechoslovakia (I think) during the Communist days. They had a serious problem with factories chucking all sorts of rubbish into the Danube, and no amount of inspection and so on was making much difference; the river was still a sewer. The problem was stopped in a very simple manner. The government simply made it compulsory to put the intake pipe downstream of the outlet.
Factories that abstract water from rivers usually need it to be reasonably clean; if it isn’t, they have to spend money cleaning it up. So this is an application of market forces to an end – the end in this case being a clean river.
Yes, Fletch.
Places that don’t emphasize making money do such a better job of protecting the environment.
I mean, look at the USSR. Pristine forests, unpolluted rivers. Compare and contrast with the United States.
Or, better yet, East versus West Germany. I think we all know who did a far worse job polluting the ground, air, and water. What a horrible bunch, those capitalists were!
But, hey, when you have anecdata about some Communist country, maybe Czechoslovakia, maybe Rumania, what else do you need, right?
Silly peons, accept the word of Fletch!
Lurking Observer – Yes, it’s all about capital cost vs. running cost, isn’t it? Keep the old, inefficient machines going or buy new ones that use less energy. But actually, space heating is a major energy sink – and the size of that sink can be reduced by such fairly cheap methods as draft-proofing and better insulation – or even plastic curtains on loading bays. Or by setting the thermostat lower in your office. Is it really that much of a hardship to need to keep your jacket on in the office?
Also, automotive transport is a major energy user – and many cars or types of cars popular in America are anything but efficient. How many SUVs ever see the conditions and/or terrain they are designed for? Cost reduction doesn’t seem to be much of an issue here.
Fletcher has been reduced to, “kill your SUV.”
Actually, most SUVS routinely do see the conditions/terrain they are designed for. It’s a dirty little secret, but most SUV’s perform very poorly in off-road condtions, since most people wouldn’t put up with the poor on-road performance that good off-road performance would require. As I understand it, the only vehicles that truly perform well in off-road conditions are the Land Rover Range Rover, and the Toyota Land Cruiser. That’s why you never see any American vehicles in the third world bush.
Hal’s correct — people who drive vehicles designed for actual off-road performance refer to most SUVs as “mall-terrain vehicles.”
And don’t even ask them about “crossovers.”
Perhaps Fletcher doesn’t understand that the proliferation of SUVs here is a result of idiotic federal regulations that exempt trucks (lorries to him) from many regs that apply to non-trucks. The market will always find a way. And by idiotic, I’m referring to CAFE, among other things. CAFE is also the reason that GM and others don’t bring in their excellent small cars from off shore.