…from the global warm-mongers.
I have nothing to say, other than that James Hansen gets entirely too much respect. And by “too much,” I mean more than none.
36 thoughts on “The Latest Scientific Fraud”
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…from the global warm-mongers.
I have nothing to say, other than that James Hansen gets entirely too much respect. And by “too much,” I mean more than none.
Comments are closed.
They made an error and corrected it, in short order. I don’t know if they made any “announcements” since the new bad data had been up for such a short time anyway.
So what is your beef?
wattsupwiththat.com
has an excellent GIF display of the before and after results of the temperature ‘errors’
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/11/14/the-evolution-of-the-giss-temperature-product/
It’s just coincidence that all theses ‘mistakes’ tend to favor extreme warming. Just coincidence. And I might add the errors were NOT discovered by NASA, nor by well salaried investigative science journalists in the MSM, but were spotted thanks to observers the Internet.
My beef is that these “errors” always seem to occur in one direction (just as the “errors” in political reporting in general in the mainstream press do). I simply do not believe that Hansen (and many others) are doing objective science. They have an agenda, and warp the science as need be to serve it.
One thing that bothers me about the Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) approach is the opacity of their global mean temperature calculations. At least, this is what I’m hearing. It should be possible for a third party to take the publically available raw data and the GISS’s methodology (which apparently is not publically available), and reconstruct GISS estimates from that data. I recognize that this is a complex subject and that such information will be abused by the more biased opponents, but it disturbs me that nobody outside of GISS apparently has access to these calculations.
Probably an acceptable solution would be for the GISS to release the code they use to make the calculations on some sort of version control system (so one could match the right version of the code to the right data set).
Umm, if you use old data in the fall, the error is in the positive direction. In the spring it would be the opposite.
Karl, the GISS temperature calculation code IS released. It’s horrible spaghetti though. There have been efforts to have open independent temperature record codes (as well as station networks) but since they seemed to have the same results as GISS, climateaudit etc people quickly lost interest.
They made an error and corrected it, in short order…So what is your beef?
If you read the linked article, the question pretty much answers itself.
It’s good that people watch GISS for errors and get codes openly released etc..
It’s bad that such mountains are made of molehills and then it’s pretended that global warming is a fraud and it’s not worth doing anything about.
It also doesn’t really work well with the scientists who are people also, if you first claim their hard work of thousands of man years, independent teams and multiple lines of evidence is just a fraud and they are part of a leftist conspiracy etc.
That kinda tends to get your further arguments for data openness etc dismissed as just faux dressing, even if they had a point.
Well, I learned last night while watching the Cowboys game on NBC that according to Tiki Barber, one way to avert global warming is to ride the bus — golly jee. After all, somebody who is adept at picking up the blitz and adjusting his “hot” routes certainly understands the best way to adjust one’s life whenever things are “warming” up.
I also learned that the The Today Show headed down to Australia to raise awareness about water shortages in the face of global climate change. Never mind all the energy exerted to get an entire cast and crew to 4 remote locations around the world. And I’m certain the Australia cast brought enough water for everyone to drink for the entire week they are there. Because you know, Australians are so parched that they have been reduced to lapping dew off the ground every morning. The Today Show certainly wouldn’t just arrive Down Under and expect to drink the precious local water. I’m certain The Today Show is going to inform us this week about how the majority of the Australian continent naturally tends to be arid and in fact is mostly desert. I’m also positive they will go in-depth through the history of Australia and explain that the British sent prisoners there after it was first discovered and determined to be relatively harsh and inhospitable.
I would have thought The Today Show would have learned its lesson after the the candle lit live feed from the Artic last year. They got a lot of criticism for that stunt and ended up looking like idiots. I will say that the football commentators were going along with the stupid “Green” segment at first, but towards the end started to crack jokes about how silly it all was.
But Hansen means well . ..
To echo the comments of some here, what makes all of this so ‘fishy’ is that the errors are ALWAYS ones that support the position of the warming hysterics, and the corrections never receive the sort of press that the original errors do. Even debunked, Hansen’s comments will be used to support the position that ‘warming is real’ over and over again, just as was the case with the the famed ‘hockey stick’ model.
Much more to the point, Mz, this wasn’t an error identified internally and then corrected happily by those that made it, it was spotted by outside observers (the same sort of ‘deniers’ that those in the warming industry deride constantly) with little if any fanfare. Had the data stood up, the MSM would trumpet it as further proof of AGW ™, but when the opposite occurs, the silence by the usual suspects is deafening.
Whether AGW is real or not (and I suspect not, certainly not manmade, which is after all the ‘A’ in AGW), the case has been seriously oversold by many (NOT all) in the scientific and media communities with a distinct axe to grind. There are lots of good reasons to use energy more effectively, or pay more attention to the environment, etc., by AGW and the hysteria surrounding it are all too often being used as an excuse to push forward state-centric control of the entire economy. Qui bono?
PS, Spot on Josh, I found the NBC ‘Green’ coverage as nauseating as you did. Makes me want to go outside and burn some coal…
These “findings” are released, the press “reports” the latest “climate change” crisis and THEN the corrections are made and very few are made aware of the errors in the original report. All the hype and headlines went into the incorrect story. Agenda driven journalism and agenda driven science are a bad combination. To not see this you are either a zealot or living with your head in the sand.
I don’t think any press reports were made (I might be wrong). The data had been there for just a while.
There are many other temperature records as well.
The error is kinda obvious, it’s hard to maintain a position that it would be a knowing fraud when you have such an easily spotted error, a huge area with flat temperature trends.
There have been errors in the other direction too, for example with the satellite data, where some malfunctioning satellite was included by accident and a good satellite’s data was excluded.
When it was corrected, I certainly didn’t see this blog claiming fraud, that global warming has been knowingly underplayed. Actually most people didn’t even notice, just those working with the data.
Rand, practically every time you write something about global warming, it’s frankly very stupid. It’s a disservice to everyone.
It is also hard to comprehend why you keep doing this. It can’t be that you’re unable to grasp the concepts (like longer term ice age vs shorter term global warming), since your demonstrated space issues thinking is very rational, clear and independent. Yet the stream of nonsense about climate has kept flowing for years.
Rand, practically every time you write something about global warming, it’s frankly very stupid.
You can be sure that I will give that evaluation all of the consideration that it’s due.
I hope you do. Accusing Hansen of fraud on this is incredibly stupid.
I hope you do.
I already did.
Accusing Hansen of fraud on this is incredibly stupid.
I obviously disagree. As I said, I consider him a charlatan.
Hmmmm.
1. “I hope you do. Accusing Hansen of fraud on this is incredibly stupid.”
Accusing Rand of being “stupid” on this subject is frankly symptomatic of an idiot.
2. “I don’t think any press reports were made (I might be wrong).”
Surprise! You’re wrong.
3. “There are many other temperature records as well.”
Yes there are. What’s really curious is that GISS has been altering -historical- temperature data along with current temperature data. Why they feel the need to modify, upwards of course, data point from over 10 years ago I of course don’t know.
But it’s easy to guess.
mz wrote:
“every time you write something about global warming, it’s frankly very stupid. It’s a disservice to everyone.
No, what is a disservice to everyone is when you come on here and in an arrogant tone basically accuse us of being to stupid to understand these oh so complicated sets of data that prove subtle and long term variations in the global mean temperature do in fact exist. Then, present a solution that in effect amounts to running around in a circles whilst waving your hands over your head and screaming at the top of your lungs.
The onus is on you to explain to us why subtle and long term variations in global temperature amount to drastic and immediate action to the detriment of the world’s economy and human prosperity.
The problem is that climatology is no longer science. For the last several years it has instead been an exercise in confirmation bias, politicization of science, and scientific mccarthyism.
“New Ice Age Predicted — But Averted by Global Warming?”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081112-ice-age-global-warming.html
I predict vicious, nasty ad hominem attacks on National Geographic, Nature, Dr. Crowley, Dr. Hyde, and the Universities of Toronto and Edinburgh.
Ed, that was already posted by Rand some time ago. Talking about an ice age in a few (ten) thousand years can be done intelligently, if you just remember the problems of global warming relate to the few hundred years scale.
Josh, it’s Rand Simberg who is accusing James Hansen of fraud, he’s the one who should do backing. The records with errors were corrected in the weeks (or so) after having been made available after someone pointed out the obvious flaw of having Russian temperatures from the wrong month.
There are probably thousands of little errors here and there, everywhere, yet they don’t change the big picture significantly, because they are so small.
This is just another political mountain made out of a scientific molehill. It’s the deniers who are shrieking and running in circles at every such instance, and it’s almost always baseless.
This week the idiotisms have been “Hansen’s Fraud” and “Scientists can’t make their mind up between an ice age and global warming”.
Rand’s arguments against doing anything economically would be a lot more credible if he accepted the science of anything happening in the first place.
Adaptation etc is something where I do understand discussion better. It’s closer like discussing how to travel around the globe, not disputing the sphericality of earth. But if you stay and stomp your feet in denial of the basics (which are not certain, only very likely, like most stuff in the real world), then you will have even less to say on the route taken.
Anyone can start reading from here for a very brief overall view:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf
Or the history of the developing of the whole scientific ideas and evidence about the subject:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
memomachine, you wrote:
Yes there are. What’s really curious is that GISS has been altering -historical- temperature data along with current temperature data. Why they feel the need to modify, upwards of course, data point from over 10 years ago I of course don’t know.
I guess it’s some sort of weighted data fit. Though it is odd that August temperature supposedly increased as a result.
Rand’s arguments against doing anything economically would be a lot more credible if he accepted the science of anything happening in the first place.
I neither accept, nor reject “the science.” And it doesn’t matter, because even if I do, the proposed solutions by the “scientists” (few if any of whom are economists) are worse than the disease.
Sadly, your “I neither accept nor reject the science” really is rejecting it. It’s the fake “in the middle” position.
For example I could claim Rand Simberg’s house belongs to me. He claims it belongs to himself. Hence a fair and balanced, sensible in the middle position would be to split it between both of us? Of course not, since my claim would be a lie. I would not deserve one itty bit of his house no matter how many claims I did.
Relativism does not work here. The point to just shrug and say “we don’t know” or that “all claims are equal” in regards to the climate science has long since been passed, with the huge amount of evidence and well explaining theories that have accumulated.
Do you even know what Hansen is proposing? He is looking at all options in mitigating global warming.
Nuclear is the most likely big helper. Expect to hear about it more later.
Of the “thousands of scientists” claiming there will be “global warming” or “climate change” or whatever you want to call it, there is a tight knit circle of fewer than 50 who directly work on the subject(see Wegman report). The rest of the scientists are mostly in fields far removed who have managed to tie their grant applications to “climate change” however implausibly. It is a well known technique in academia in Australia for sure.
The of course there are the carpetbaggers, liars, thieves etc who work for the UN and other government and non government bodies at all levels.
It is really amusing that for all the data torturing that goes on we are talking a few tenths of a degree C warming or not depending on just how you want to look at it.
The again take a look at Anthony Watts’s website and see where much of the arctic temperature rises that GISS relies on may be coming from. It’s always a good idea to get some ground truths folks but that does mean getting out of the office.
Oh and BTW mz, Hansen is a loon.
There are probably thousands of little errors here and there, everywhere, yet they don’t change the big picture significantly,
That’s the problem, MZ — the belief that no data point can “change the big picture.”
That’s like saying the geocentric universe may continue thousands of little errors but no data point can change the big picture.
In science, a theory can be overturned by a single data point. Scientists do not dismiss every piece of evidence as “thousands of little errors” that cannot change “the big picture” of the geocentric universe, Newtonian physics, or phlogiston theory.
Sometimes a new theory is right, sometimes it is wrong, but either way, scientists must consider *every* piece of evidence. They can’t respond with prewritten press statements that no error changes the absolute truth of their theory. Only political scientists do that.
In fact, as counterintuitive as it seems, scientists prove a new theory by looking for evidence to refute it.
Do you even know what Hansen is proposing? He is looking at all options in mitigating global warming.
Nuclear is the most likely big helper. Expect to hear about it more later.
I’ve ALREADY heard about the environmental benefits of nuclear power, MZ. I heard about them decades ago — not from Dr. Hansen but from real nuclear engineers.
Why should I care that a climate scientist is “looking into” nuclear power? That’s like saying an icthyologist is looking into gas turbines.
If you ignore what experts have been saying about nuclear power for decades, why would you pay any attention to what an amateur like Dr. Hansen is “looking” to start saying about it? Do his political beliefs make him the ultimate authority in every field of human endeavour?
Heh, 50 guys. 🙂
That doesn’t prove anything, but you can just check one chapter of the IPCC WG1 report (physical basis).
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg1.htm
I downloaded a random chapter (6), just that has about 50 authors and coauthors in just the report and has 14 *pages* of references to the real published articles, on which the report is based on.
Many of the papers are by the same lead authors by a quick glance, but then on the other hand each article has many contributors.
The secret cabal of 50 authors! No-one else publishes about climate science. You could just as well name them then. Let’s see if some of the guys I know are on the list. Is Svante Arrhenius the first name?
“Many of the papers are by the same lead authors by a quick glance, but then on the other hand each article has many contributors.”
By the above I mean that the report quotes at times many papers from the same author.
Converts make the worst zealots.
To defer to Hansen as an expert for climate change is worse than deferring to The Fonz as an expert in electronics.
Just read the Wegman report, mz. He went into the relationships between the fewer than 50 climatologists who reference and peer review each others’ work. Not much independent review there.
The rest just accept this nonsense and then draw all sorts of conclusions about consequences IF what this group say is true. John Brignell(number watch) has compiled an extensive list of all the things caused by global warming. Look it up.
It looks to me like GISS published some data that was not just wrong but ludicrously wrong. It was showing a 10 degree anomaly in Siberia.
What this tells me and many others who are paying attention is that they are not doing even really basic checks on the data before publishing it. The people who found it are not GISS people. They are people who are paying attention to GISS precisely because they have doubts about how they are doing their work.
This data is the basis for models that are being used to try and convince us that we need to spend billions if not trillions on policies that may or may not affect the climate in what could be, maybe, a positive way.
Maybe, just maybe they should be checking the data a little harder rather than letting that little task be handled by the blogosphere.
Hell, maybe even divert some funds from the model building. Fooling around on a computer can be fun but it’s not science if it’s not validated against valid data.
Hmmmm.
@ mz
“For example I could claim Rand Simberg’s house belongs to me. He claims it belongs to himself. Hence a fair and balanced, sensible in the middle position would be to split it between both of us? Of course not, since my claim would be a lie. I would not deserve one itty bit of his house no matter how many claims I did.”
Uhhh. No. Because he has proof of ownership in the form of a title so there is no “middle position” at all.
Frankly this is like arguing that the sun rises in the west against someone who can -prove- that the sun rises in the east, and then allowing for a “middle position” that the sun is overhead 24x7x365.
Patently ridiculous.
Exactly memomachine, the claim that Rand’s house is mine is patently ridiculous in light of the evidence.
It is slightly more ridiculous than saying that the evidence about global warming is somehow in the balance and justify with that how not to make up anyone’s mind or actually do anything, when some people on the “other side” just make unsupported claims. Slightly.
Triscari, since the data was so patently false, do you really think Hansen put it there on purpose and thought he would get away with it? This is a point *for* it being a simple mistake by accident.
There are mistakes in both directions, yet such huge noise isn’t raised except in cases like this. (Or okay, when the correction to mistakes causing too cool temperatures is seen by a conspiracy to get everything in line with the “warmmonger” consensus. You never can win can you.)
“Or okay, when the correction to mistakes causing too cool temperatures is seen by a conspiracy to get everything in line with the “warmmonger” consensus. You never can win can you.”
The issue is that the data showed something sensational enough to spur Hansen to make an announcement, but he couldn’t be bothered to verify the data before publishing. It was reckless, and spurred on by an irrational adherence to a ‘consensus’ that is becoming empirically false to more and more researchers.
Hansen apparently had no intention of correcting the record publically, if at all. Certainly, any retraction has been with much less fanfare than the original breathless announcement. The data published served a political purpose, not a scientific one.
Realpolitik – look it up.
OK, I’m not joking. I submitted my apology ONCE, but got a double. WTH?
mz: I missed where I accused Hansen of a conspiracy. You didn’t really address the incompetence with your response.
I agree substantially with Rand’s original post. It’s a short sentence.
Read it.