The real hoax in "climategate"

Boy, are you misinformed (0.00 / 0)

Maybe you should take up the task of reading the arguments.  Although it's true that some - although a very vocal few - are saying that the email hack disproves AGW - the largest criticism comes in the form of how the most influential climate scientists have an agenda beyond science and have compromised their work because of it. Several climate scientist that support the thesis of AGW have offered up similar questions as have the skeptics and you're blind - or should I say religious - knee jerk defense of what has been found shows a lack of serious inquiry on your part.  

 

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by: Dave Budge @ Mon Nov 30, 2009 at 20:13:48 PM UTC

d*mn (0.00 / 0)

I must be reading too many right-wing blogs.

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by: Jay Stevens @ Mon Nov 30, 2009 at 22:15:01 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Maybe you should be reading the news instead (0.00 / 0)

Here's two pieces by Clive Cook - one how has repeatedly supported limiting CO2 emissions.

http://blogs.ft.com/crookblog/...

Here's his follow-up in The Atlantic:

http://clivecrook.theatlantic....

And there are many others saying such things of a similar persuasion.  

But being the incurious partisan hack that you are, you should know that critical thinking is beyond most partisans. My guess is that you don't really read a lot of conservative blogs insofar as you so quickly identify climate skeptics as "deniers" - which is one step removed from Godwin's Law.

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by: Dave Budge @ Mon Nov 30, 2009 at 22:27:40 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Oh Jeezuz Keeriste (0.00 / 0)

My guess is that you don't really read a lot of conservative blogs insofar as you so quickly identify climate skeptics as "deniers"

From someone who rather notoriously does read right-wing blogs, I state with no reservation: most climate change "skeptics" are deniers.  They, very much as you point the fingers at others, have an agenda, and it sure as the frack isn't to spend any money doing something about the problem.  You, Dave, have an agenda, else you wouldn't be trying so desperately to dismiss and demean Jay as a 'partisan' and 'defender' when Jay points out in his very post what you complain about him not writing.

Yes, there are still questions. But pointing out 'agendas' while ignoring your own is the very same myopia that Jay posted about.  

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by: Rob Kailey @ Mon Nov 30, 2009 at 22:44:21 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Some? (0.00 / 0)

Some questions exist?  

Yes, I have an agenda.  I want the science to be better before we commit trillion$ to "curing" it.  When the four top scientists in environmental science demonstrate such a lack of regard for science I become more skeptical.  

But obviously you don't read the same "conservative" blogs I do. I guess what you see depends on where you stand.

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by: Dave Budge @ Mon Nov 30, 2009 at 23:04:43 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

to be fair to me... (0.00 / 0)

...I was writing about the righty deniers' take on "climategate," not Clive Crook's. I also find that Crook did the out-of-context reading of the emails that deniers did, as well. I'm sure you read the RealClimate post on the emails, so you already know that.

To wit:

No doubt, instances of cherry-picked and poorly-worded "gotcha" phrases will be pulled out of context. One example is worth mentioning quickly. Phil Jones in discussing the presentation of temperature reconstructions stated that "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline." The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the 'trick' is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term "trick" to refer to a "a good way to deal with a problem", rather than something that is "secret", and so there is nothing problematic in this at all. As for the 'decline', it is well known that Keith Briffa's maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the "divergence problem"-see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while 'hiding' is probably a poor choice of words (since it is 'hidden' in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens.

So, yeah, I think there is a lot of attention and worry paid to the disinformation campaign against climate change, but there's no evidence in these emails that data was suppressed or falsified, so any conclusion about the pressure of "preconceived notions" causing scientists to be bad scientists is the wrong idea to take away from this.

Am I a political partisan hack? In this case, I'd sure like to be, but I don't really see any political party aggressively following the findings that climate science have given them and acting on them. So I'm hacking for a political party that doesn't exist.

That's one alternative. The other is that the overwhelming data points to rising global temperatures as the result of human activity, and I'm concerned about that.

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by: Jay Stevens @ Mon Nov 30, 2009 at 22:55:42 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Partisan (0.00 / 0)

I didn't call you a "political partisan" in this context. Rather, I use the word in its broader meaning. (not that you're not a political partisan hack.)

But if you haven't taken the time to read the programmers code documentation - which is more problematic to me - perhaps you might question the quality of the "science."

What confuses me (as someone who actually practices a great deal of quantitative analysis in my profession) is that the world's top climate scientists had some reason to resist complete transparency. "Trust us" doesn't cut it in science and now that they have destroyed the source data there is now way to even tests the assumptions made in the, as they describe, value-added data.  

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by: Dave Budge @ Mon Nov 30, 2009 at 23:24:52 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I'll certainly agree... (0.00 / 0)

...that making public all the data makes sense. I've read some editorials that, in the light of the emails, advocated just that.

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by: Jay Stevens @ Mon Nov 30, 2009 at 23:46:36 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

as a number-cruncher... (0.00 / 0)

...I'm confused about your skepticism.

I mean, what kind of odds would you have to see before you advocated action on climate change? A 90% chance of the scientific consensus being right? A 10% chance? A 1-in-a-100 chance?

I mean, you have to admit, the consensus being what it is, the number of papers, the mountains of data, etc & co, there's a pretty strong case for climatology.  

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by: Jay Stevens @ Mon Nov 30, 2009 at 23:51:54 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I don't see the consensus as others see it (0.00 / 0)

First, the consensus that has been built, to the extent that it exists, is around two things: A) The IPCC position paper and B) that temperatures have increased over the last 150 years.  

Insofar as Mann, Jones, Hansen et al are the primary gatekeepers of the data that lead us to the IPCC conclusion, I have serious problems that the original data set cannot be back tested.  Should we not at least attempt to reconstruct the base data to see if the statistical assumptions underlying the data smoothing (called "normalization" in QA jargon) are valid?  Furthermore, much of the peer review done was using the assumption that modified data is correct.  I don't buy it knowing that the revised data was not reviewed against the original by top statisticians.  This is the point that McIntyre and McKitridge have been making in their serial attempts to get the raw data.  We only learned last August, I think, that the data was not available.

Secondly, out of the tens of 1,000s of papers that have been produced over time most of them are but tiny slices of the big picture trying to reconstruct history which often have used the modified CRU data as the baseline hypothesis. At the risk of sounding crude - garbage in, garbage out.

Just to clarify, I'm not one to think that the entire AWG scientific community is complicit in a conspiracy to defraud the world.  Most of the science has been done in good faith.  I also know that complexity of statistical modeling.  I wrote about it here. AS in the example in my post one can see how a flawed basic construct can result in an entire body of science heading in the wrong direction.

I say the science is not settled and there are thousands of scientists who agree with that.

Now if, for example, the IPCC/CRU model had an explanation for why the last ten years have not produced results that should be expected under their assumptions, I would be less skeptical. But they haven't and they're scratching their heads over it (I think the word in the email was "travesty" that it had not.)  But it proves that the model is de facto wrong - not that it can be correct - and it needs further review. So before we engage in the single largest attempt at social engineering of which the unintended consequences could easily be worse than the purported problem I'd like the science to be a bit more settled. It's not.  

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by: Dave Budge @ Tue Dec 01, 2009 at 01:18:21 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

One more point, Mark (0.00 / 0)

It's like biologists suddenly having to go out on the stump and debate with creationists. They're not very good at it becuase they are doing something that should not have to be done.

It's nonsense that scientists should not have to continually defend their hypotheses regardless who questions them.  In fact, that is the role of science.  

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by: Dave Budge @ Tue Dec 01, 2009 at 04:21:30 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I have to second Mark T on that one... (0.00 / 0)

Scientists are fully capable and prepared to defend hypotheses from rational inquiry, but that's hardly the case in the evolution/creationism debate. Or in much of the climate change debate, for that matter.

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by: Jay Stevens @ Tue Dec 01, 2009 at 19:02:26 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

"B) that temperatures have increased over the last 150 years." (0.00 / 0)

You think climate change is only about a temperature increase?

Please...

Tell ya what...shit in your toilet for the next year and don't flush...and then come and tell me the problem is the rising water in the bowl...

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by: bigsage @ Tue Dec 01, 2009 at 04:42:02 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

What Jay said (0.00 / 0)

He's not misinformed.  I feel like I've made a pretty serious inquiry into this subject, reading selected hacked emails, the discussions on sites like realclimate.org, the reviews of the data and code (which has all or almost all been publicly available for years, but to which Gavin @ realclimate has been building a more convenient new index here).  As a scientist myself, I haven't yet seen any clear evidence of compromise or abuse of scientific principles or standards in "Climategate".

As I read the literature and the science blogs, and corresponding to my own experience with climate science, experts like Hansen, Mann, Schmidt, Jones, et al. (along with informed laypeople like me) have developed an "agenda" to lobby for constructive engagement against AGW because our understanding of the data indicates the very high costs of our current course.  The agenda's not driving the science.  It's not knee-jerk, and it's not hysterical (although there are no doubt some environmentalists guilty of "Chicken Little" types of behavior).  Robust data and well-supported scientific theories leave no meaningful doubt that human-induced climate change is currently happening faster than climate has changed at almost any time in recent geologic history; CO2 is indisputably already at its highest levels in millions of years.  Reasonable people can disagree on the appropriate responses to this crisis, but when people misrepresent the nature of global climate data that are extensive and verifiable, I no longer count those people as "reasonable".  

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by: Duncan Idaho @ Tue Dec 01, 2009 at 06:43:08 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Except the CRU admitied the raw, hard copy, data had been distroyed in the 1980's (0.00 / 0)

I went over the list at realclimate and found, as you said, a great deal of data. That, however, doesn't answer the question of the base-line assumptions validation.

But I ask you as a scientist what level of certitude can be divined from a very high order multi-regression model chock-a-block full of both positive and negative feedback loops of which many have very high order beta coefficients. In statistical terms the error rate of the predictive capabilities are higher one could assign a meaningful confidence interval.  

Alexander DeVolpi, nuclear physicist at formerly Argonne National Laboratory raises the questions in a concise fashion. He is not climate denier but he raises the issues that have been quite understated by the IPCC and the Jones, Schmidt, Hanson, cabal. Having practiced a great deal of quantitative analysis personally I understand the constraints and respectfully disagree that the body of evidence is, in fact, undeniable.

I have heard this argument elsewhere in the QA community and I'm disturbed about the lack of rigor employed in the interpretation of confidence as it pertains to the conventional wisdom.  But if you can dispel my concerns I'm all ears.

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by: Dave Budge @ Tue Dec 01, 2009 at 08:04:54 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I find it odd that conservatives (0.00 / 0)

would find value in information gained illegally. Why would I even trust a hacker to release correct information? For all we know, all those emails have been tampered with.

Honor among thieves must be du jour in the tea bagger and denier/birther crowds these days.

And Budge, are you a climatologist? Why should I even listen to a word you have to say about science? You're a professional bean counter, not a trained scientist.

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by: JC @ Tue Dec 01, 2009 at 18:57:36 PM UTC

I'm not a bean counter (0.00 / 0)

I have a degree in finance (the bastard child of economics and accounting.)

But I've taken a butt-load of graduate level quantitative analysis and have used it over my career significantly.  Ergo, one doesn't have to be a climatologist to understand the primary discipline associated with climate modeling.  

But I don't care if you listen to a word I have to say or not.  

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by: Dave Budge @ Tue Dec 01, 2009 at 20:00:41 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Ooohhh... (0.00 / 0)

You're starting to sound like Dr. Science: "he knows more than you do, he has a Masters Degree... in science!" Except yours in the arts.

We used to have a few word for you in the social and soft sciences, with your MA's and BA's, over on the other side of campus: You're not real scientists, so quite pretending to be one. Those are the nice words. What we really had to say about those who would try and pass off qualitative analysis (as it pertains to the social sciences) as relevant to scientific method is not something I care to spew on these pages.

You want to pretend to know something about climatology and have something relevant to say about it, then go and get a real degree in science. Otherwise you're just a professional bean counter worried about how cap and trade is going to affect your bottom line, and how to win friends and influence people to those ends.

Oh, and I do have two degrees, IN SCIENCE!

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by: JC @ Tue Dec 01, 2009 at 20:19:53 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

OK, Mr. Scientist (0.00 / 0)

Why don't you employ your smug response to my QA question above.  

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by: Dave Budge @ Tue Dec 01, 2009 at 20:48:09 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

When you say things like: (0.00 / 0)

"the largest criticism comes in the form of how the most influential climate scientists have an agenda beyond science and have compromised their work because of it."

I just laugh. Who are you to say a scientist can't comment on their, or others' work? You, and others like you want scientists to put out raw data, so the non-scientists can re-interpret it and twist it to their own ends.

Science is science--it is replicable. Any opinion I or any other scientist may have about science is irrelevant--it doesn't change the basic science or data.

Your statement is nothing more than an attempt to gag the most knowledgeable people about the topic.

I prefer to defer to people like Dr. Jeff Masters, who I have followed for years, and his take on the whole kerfuffle:

"What I see when I read the various stolen emails and explanations posted at Realclimate.org is scientists acting as scientists--pursuing the truth. I can see no clear evidence that calls into question the scientific validity of the research done by the scientists victimized by the stolen emails. There is no sign of a conspiracy to alter data to fit a pre-conceived ideological view."

That is what I take away from this whole thing. The opinion of a trained scientist whose integrity I have respected for years.

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by: JC @ Tue Dec 01, 2009 at 21:18:29 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Some scientist you are. (0.00 / 0)

What, no real training in statistics?

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by: Dave Budge @ Tue Dec 01, 2009 at 21:34:40 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Actually, I taught statistics (0.00 / 0)

to social "scientists" at a graduate level. Multiple linear regression, factor analysis, determinant functions, calculus, etc.

So, I probably changed your diapers in grad school.

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by: JC @ Wed Dec 02, 2009 at 01:09:59 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

So you understand what I'm saying? (0.00 / 0)

Good to know. So kick it up a notch and address what DeVolpi writes in my post.

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by: Dave Budge @ Wed Dec 02, 2009 at 01:25:20 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

What's that they say about lies, damn lies and ... (0.00 / 0)

Jeez, Ad Hominem much, Dave?

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by: Rob Kailey @ Tue Dec 01, 2009 at 23:58:50 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

This, from a guy who defended ad hominem a few years back? (0.00 / 0)

All I asked him to do was use his high brow scientific education to talk about problems in statistics. And itwould seem to me that it was JC who threw the first ad hominem punch - and produced a logical fallacy to boot.  But you knew that.

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by: Dave Budge @ Wed Dec 02, 2009 at 00:59:40 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Dave, (0.00 / 0)

I have not defended Ad Hominem.  I've defended insult.  ONe is a logical fallacy, the other is opinionated observation.   Those are two entirely different things.

And for the record, JC already clarified that 'statistics' isn't science.  It's probability, an art for looking at the world.

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by: Rob Kailey @ Wed Dec 02, 2009 at 01:10:09 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Consensu (0.00 / 0)

A good analogy might be all the "consensus" that the economy was in great shape a year ago last Sept. Derivatives pose no risk. The world economy is de-linked. All consensus positions by mainstream economists. The day after the crash of course there is much mumbling and head scratching.

While economics is not a science, one principle is sound that should guide climatology and economics and that is the precautionary principle. If you are to error, error on the side of caution.

Also, don't write anything in an email you don't want the world to read.

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by: troutsky @ Wed Dec 02, 2009 at 01:43:54 AM UTC