In the End

[snoopy]

Here's the point that I glean from all of this:

The environmental models and predictions that we're using to encourage large economic and social change are further cast in doubt.

We already know that the models are really complex and subject to at least some level of error.

Now we know that at least some of the information was purposefully hidden/misused to accomplish personal agendas.

So, if the science that we have on the subject is rough, at best; fabricated, at worst- why are we arguing so strongly about it? Why aren't we able to let it go, find some objective scientists to figure out a good answer on the matter, and go from there? (For the same reason that we're stuck in the heated abortion argument: we're all personally philosophically vested.)

What I get out of it: We all need to let go of our ideas about the environment by a lot, because we're ruining the science in it by hanging our philosophies on it.

[Floyd]

please watch the 5 videos from the playlist i posted above. this saves a lot of pop science references and amateur speculation.

[Duper]

CONCLUSIONS

Global warming (i.e, the warming since 1977) is over. The minute increase of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere (0.008%) was not the cause of the warming—it was a continuation of natural cycles that occurred over the past 500 years.

Now THAT is interesting.

[Pandora]

he environmental models and predictions that we're using to encourage large economic and social change are further cast in doubt.

We already know that the models are really complex and subject to at least some level of error.

Now we know that at least some of the information was purposefully hidden/misused to accomplish personal agendas.

Not true. The emails have nothing to do with climate models. They affect - if anything - one of the four temperature records (Hadcrut). There is no evidence at all in the emails at all that this temperature record has been tampered with. In addition, all the other three temperature record show exactly the same pattern, and at least one of them is completely in the public domain and has extensively been double checked.

So, if the science that we have on the subject is rough, at best; fabricated, at worst- why are we arguing so strongly about it? Why aren't we able to let it go, find some objective scientists to figure out a good answer on the matter, and go from there? (For the same reason that we're stuck in the heated abortion argument: we're all personally philosophically vested.)

Because the climate models are only rough with regard to short time frames (around 10 years), where there is lots of natural variability. This variability stablizises, however, at longer time frames (over 20 years) and the models perform exceptionally well in this timeframe. So it is the long-term predictions that are of relevance here; attacking short-term predictions of climate models is a strawman.

[Floyd]

ugh woodchip, your graph shows the temperature of mid greenland. global warming concerns the average global temperature. i thought that was solved a couple of times now.

also, watch the videos. here's the link again: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p ... 4AFB057BB8

[Insurrectionist]

looks like climate change and America are both circling the drain.

[VonVulcan]

Stupid is as stupid does.

[Pandora]

Stupid is as stupid does.

[Pandora]

CONCLUSIONS

Global warming (i.e, the warming since 1977) is over. The minute increase of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere (0.008%) was not the cause of the warming—it was a continuation of natural cycles that occurred over the past 500 years.

Now THAT is interesting.

You can't be serious. You trust a guy on a think-tank website, presenting his ideas without any calculations, without any references, and without any indications were his data come from? He even needs to bend his lines in figure 4 to show the alleged relationships!

So lets doublecheck this 0.008% percent number. Here are the measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere.



An increase from 310 to 380 ppm in 30 years doesn't add up to 0.008 percent, does it?

[Insurrectionist]

[woodchip]

ugh woodchip, your graph shows the temperature of mid greenland. global warming concerns the average global temperature. i thought that was solved a couple of times now.

also, watch the videos. here's the link again: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p ... 4AFB057BB8

Umm...at what latitude is Greenland located and would you expect the the more southern latitudes to be warmer or colder?

[woodchip]

There is no evidence at all in the emails at all that this temperature record has been tampered with.

Really? Second graph is result of "massaged" data because the first graph didn't quite conform to their model. Can't have real data getting in the way all those global warming megabuck grants eh?



Edit to add:

"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) amd from
1961 for Keith's to hide the decline"

Sounds like good science when you have to use "tricks" to hide a temp. decline. Like I said, the model is junk science.

[Pandora]

LOL, Woody. Reading comprehension again?

I spoke of the Hadcrut temperature record, not Mann's climate reconstruction. There is a difference between them, you know: one is based on actual temperature measurements with thermometers, the other uses proxies to reconstruct temperature for the times in which we didn't have thermometers yet.

[woodchip]

Yet the peeps model in the emails are the ones driving the IPCC agenda. You know, the agenda that will cost all of us more money

[Pandora]

Sounds like good science when you have to use "tricks" to hide a temp. decline. Like I said, the model is junk science.

Again, you misunderstand things. There is a decline in the some of the PROXY data, NOT in the temperature measurements with actual thermometers. This is why Osborn calls it "a non climate signal". That the proxies are corrupted in this time interval is very well known (AFAIK the authors noted this in their Nature paper), and this is why it is standard practice not to use these proxies for the late 20th century, when actual measurements from thermometers are directly available.

edit: just to be really clear:
There is no decline in temperature to hide, because we have very good temperature measurements (at least better than the proxies) from thermometers in this timeframe. What they are "hiding" is that some of the proxies are crap after 1960 or 1980. But again, this problem is *very* well known and described in all scientific publications using these proxies.

[woodchip]

Spin it however you want Pandora, but painting a turd pink and writing \"Cadlac\" on it doesn't mean you can drive it or that it will smell better. Has there been some warming...probably. When you look at the Greenland chart though, you can hardly say it is man that is causing global warming and we should all do a chicken little.

[Pandora]

No, Woody, the problem is that you draw conclusions from these emails without having the most basic knowledge about what the people are actually talking about. How, then, can you come to any conclusion about the meaning of these emails or climate science in general, and trust yourself that it is the right one? In most cases that you have described here you are just simply horribly wrong --- and demonstrably so.

[Spidey]

DING DING…Round two…Chicken Little vs. The Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse. (denial)

[Pandora]

don't underestimate chicken little!

[woodchip]

How, then, can you come to any conclusion about the meaning of these emails or climate science in general, and trust yourself that it is the right one? In most cases that you have described here you are just simply horribly wrong --- and demonstrably so.

So you are saying global warming and/or cooling is mans fault? And that we must take steps to prevent it when warming/cooling has been occurring for the last 4 billion years? How horribly egotistical can you be?
By your logic we should reintroduce ozone killing fluorocarbons as:

"Indeed, the continent's largest portion, East Antarctica, appears to have cooled, bringing a 10% increase in the sea ice extent since 1980.

This report backs the theory that it has bucked the global trend largely because of ozone depletion - the chemical havoc wrought over 30 years by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other agents in the stratosphere above the polar region.

"We used to have a big blanket of ozone, and when we took it away we saw a cooling," said Professor Turner. "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8387137.stm

[Pandora]

You do really love your straw men, don't you, Woody?

[woodchip]

And you your little red hens

[Pandora]

oooooh! I forgot: its straw men AND ad hominems (and quote mining of course --- read your last link in full)

[Will Robinson]

Pandora, here's a few questions I wish you and all the other scientists and politicians would ask themselves honestly:

How many times have those who believe catastrophic climate conditions caused by man are happening now or in the near future depended on the data that these agenda driven fundamentalist scientists created?
Isn't the United Nations one of those who depended on their data? I believe this group was the gate keeper of the U.N.'s pool of research on climate issues.

Isn't the climate related policy decision making of most countries based off of this same data that the U.N. committee holds up as the definitive research on the subject? I know our President and his minions in Congress are trying to use this data as reason to drastically affect our economic and social policy.

Isn't the Kyoto treaty based off of the U.N.'s data which this group produced?

So just because you can site numerous scientific sources that shouldn't be automatically be dismissed as questionable you haven't really addressed the integrity of the data that has created the momentum of the anthropogenic warming theory in politics today.

Before the revelation of these emails have you ever depended on the data this group produced...ever quoted the papers or data they produced...ever counted them among the trusted branch of scientists who rejected the doubters? I'll bet you have.

Of all the other scientists, those not implicated by the email release, who you would now point to, siting their work and ask us to ignore the elephant in the room, how many of them will soon be discovered as also having taken part in the politicization of the science? Aren't they in the same group of the \"trusted consensus\" that the now exposed fundamentalist 'scientists' were members of only a few days ago?!? Wasn't the lauded 'consensus group' the authoritative body you all put on a pedestal and used to ridicule other scientists as deniers that were politically or monetarily driven? Pot meet Kettle....

What was the U.N.'s response to this exposure? It was a quick denial coupled with the demand for billions of dollars to be given immediately to their list of favorite countries who will need the cash payment to stay on board the U.N.'s bandwagon.
Follow the money people!

[Floyd]

has any of you besides Pandora watched the videos? this seems more and more like creationists vs. science. pointless (10 seconds from 0:35 on).

[Pandora]

agenda driven fundamentalist scientists

care to back this up, Will? There is nothing about an agenda in the emails.

[Will Robinson]

agenda driven fundamentalist scientists

care to back this up, Will? There is nothing about an agenda in the emails.

I don't site the emails as the evidence of the enviro-fundamentalist's agenda (although they certainly support my assertions) but the fact that these fundamentalists are the supposed authority on the subject used by the U.N. to shape world opinion and they have altered the data to serve the U.N.'s agenda of exploiting billions of dollars from the wealthier nations and the U.N. set themselves up as the custodian of those billions it isn't too hard to see the connection. The emails aren't the first time evidence surfaced that the U.N. team has altered data to help them sell the plan either, I've pointed this out to you before the emails were released.

How about the answers to the questions I raised?

[woodchip]

agenda driven fundamentalist scientists

care to back this up, Will? There is nothing about an agenda in the emails.

So trying to prevent skeptics from being published does not indicate a agenda? Or is this the new scientific method?

[AlphaDoG]

agenda driven fundamentalist scientists

care to back this up, Will? There is nothing about an agenda in the emails.

So trying to prevent skeptics from being published does not indicate a agenda? Or is this the new scientific method?

They did NOT try to prevent other studies from being published, they indeed PREVENTED, via threats and innuendo, those opposing studies from being published.

[Pandora]

How about the answers to the questions I raised?

to be honest, i find it very hard to answer your questions because you are very unspecific, and you do not provide *any* evidence for your assertions.

How many times have those who believe catastrophic climate conditions caused by man are happening now or in the near future depended on the data that these agenda driven fundamentalist scientists created?

Which agenda driven fundamentalist scientists? Where is the evidence that any one of them is agenda driven?

Isn't the United Nations one of those who depended on their data? I believe this group was the gate keeper of the U.N.'s pool of research on climate issues.

If you mean the people in the emails, then this is at best misleading. They were involved in one chapter of I don't know how many, amongst many other scientists --- if it is the IPCC report 2007 you are talking about.

Isn't the climate related policy decision making of most countries based off of this same data that the U.N. committee holds up as the definitive research on the subject? I know our President and his minions in Congress are trying to use this data as reason to drastically affect our economic and social policy.

Which data? These authors are miniscule part of the science that goes into the IPCC. The IPCC is a review of *all* the relevant data that has come out of labs all over the world. And scientists from all over the world contribute.

Isn't the Kyoto treaty based off of the U.N.'s data which this group produced?

I don't think so.

So just because you can site numerous scientific sources that shouldn't be automatically be dismissed as questionable you haven't really addressed the integrity of the data that has created the momentum of the anthropogenic warming theory in politics today.

The integrity of the data has been addressed numerous times and is addressed still. The main points have held up incredibly well.

Before the revelation of these emails have you ever depended on the data this group produced...ever quoted the papers or data they produced...ever counted them among the trusted branch of scientists who rejected the doubters? I'll bet you have.

I still trust them. As I said, there is nothing in the emails that casts any doubt on the underlying data.

As a starting point, can you give me *one* example that you find particularly damning and then we can go from there.

[Pandora]

So trying to prevent skeptics from being published does not indicate a agenda? Or is this the new scientific method?

If you read the emails IN FULL you will find that they did not take offense with a paper being skeptic, but with the crappiness of the paper in question (and of the editorial process of journal). And if you read up on the history of this paper, I hope you will be able to understand their reasoning.

[Will Robinson]

Do you remember trying to convince me that data that proved the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was properly altered and removed from the U.N.'s chart because 'trusted scientists' had proved in independent studies that Mann was justified in changing the data to remove the MWP, a period of warming that if it existed blows holes in the anthropogenic theory?

I remember and it made me doubt my position too...until I found out that scientist who's data you relied on is from the CRU...the same place that sent some of the emails.

Now did they try to silence dissenting opinions or just challenge the opinions based on details? From one of the emails:

Phil Jones, the director of the East Anglia climate center, suggested to climate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State University that skeptics' research was unwelcome: We \"will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!\"

from here


Then there is this:

In 1989, climate scientist Stephen Schneider told Discover magazine:

“To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and being honest.”

And this:

Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, and distinguished guests, thank you for inviting me to testify today. I am a geologist and geophysicist. I have a bachelor's degree in geology from Indiana University, and a Ph.D in geophysics from the University of Utah. My field of specialization in geophysics is temperature and heat flow. In recent years, I have turned my studies to the history and philosophy of science. In 1995, I published a short paper in the academic journal Science. In that study, I reviewed how borehole temperature data recorded a warming of about one degree Celsius in North America over the last 100 to 150 years. The week the article appeared, I was contacted by a reporter for National Public Radio. He offered to interview me, but only if I would state that the warming was due to human activity. When I refused to do so, he hung up on me.
I had another interesting experience around the time my paper in Science was published. I received an astonishing email from a major researcher in the area of climate change. He said, \"We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.\"

from here

I don't feel like I need to prove anything at this point. I'm just going to wait and see what turns up when the next shoe drops....

[Pandora]

just quickly, Will. Stephen Schneider is quoted out of context; Here's the full quote:

"On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but - which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some roadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that
means being both."

[Pandora]

Phil Jones, the director of the East Anglia climate center, suggested to climate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State University that skeptics' research was unwelcome: We \"will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!\"

Two responses to this:

1.
Read the emails in full, Will. They are not this fiercely opposed to these studies because they are sceptic, but because they believe them to be utter crap and fraudulent. It is well documented in the emails, where they try to replicate the findings in these papers and can't.

2.
As far as I know, this was an initial pissed-off response to these papers. they did discuss them in the in the IPCC report. Have a look.

[Pandora]

Do you remember trying to convince me that data that proved the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was properly altered and removed from the U.N.'s chart because 'trusted scientists' had proved in independent studies that Mann was justified in changing the data to remove the MWP, a period of warming that if it existed blows holes in the anthropogenic theory?

I remember and it made me doubt my position too...until I found out that scientist who's data you relied on is from the CRU...the same place that sent some of the emails.

Yes, I remember that. Its good to hear that this dicussion had at least made you reaximine your position --- I didn't get the impression at that time. Quite frankly, I have the impression that arguing my position here is really pointless , because I don't seen that any points have any impact at all, even the most central ones (e.g., global warming means global not local patterns, that it is defined in terms of long-term not short-term variability, etc). I find myself addressing the same strawmen over and over again.

For instance, where do you get the idea from that the MWP is central to the theory of AGW. It is clearly not. The AGW theory existed decades before the first hockey-stick paper was published.

[woodchip]

To expand our understanding of CO2, I found this while reading about the sun and it's affects on earth:

\"Earth maintains its surface temperatures through the greenhouse effect. Although the planet's greenhouse gases—chiefly water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane—have become the villain in global warming scenarios, they're crucial for a habitable world, because they act as an insulating blanket in the atmosphere that absorbs and radiates thermal radiation, keeping the surface comfortably warm.\"

\"(Despite current concerns about rising carbon dioxide levels triggering detrimental climate change, the pressure of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has dropped some 2,000-fold over the past 3.5 billion years; modern, man-made increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide offset a fraction of this overall decrease.)\"
http://www.physorg.com/news164077824.html

So here's the conundrum. How do you go about regulating CO2 so that you do not reduce it too much? It appear you can cause as much harm by having too little as by having too much. And just how much CO2 is too much?

If you go here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/sci ... 386319.stm

You see a graph showing CO2 levels for the last 800k years. Deceptively tho, the temperatures are not integrated with the chart. Yet if you look at the Greenland graph I posted you see that temperatures were much higher even during the last 10k years. So what drove the temperature increases then? This is why the whole \"climate is heating because man is producing too much CO2\" appears to be agenda driven.

Now Pandora, while you posted your Mauna Loa CO2 graph as your proof, please explain the temperature rises during the last 10k year when man had no influence and why those same temperature driving forces may not be occurring now.

[Will Robinson]

Do you remember trying to convince me that data that proved the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was properly altered and removed from the U.N.'s chart because 'trusted scientists' had proved in independent studies that Mann was justified in changing the data to remove the MWP, a period of warming that if it existed blows holes in the anthropogenic theory?

I remember and it made me doubt my position too...until I found out that scientist who's data you relied on is from the CRU...the same place that sent some of the emails.

Yes, I remember that. Its good to hear that this dicussion had at least made you reaximine your position --- I didn't get the impression at that time. Quite frankly, I have the impression that arguing my position here is really pointless , because I don't seen that any points have any impact at all, even the most central ones (e.g., global warming means global not local patterns, that it is defined in terms of long-term not short-term variability, etc). I find myself addressing the same strawmen over and over again.

For instance, where do you get the idea from that the MWP is central to the theory of AGW. It is clearly not. The AGW theory existed decades before the first hockey-stick paper was published.

I get the impression that the MWP is central enough to cause the alarmists on the other side to go way out of their way to make it go away.
When those attempts to make it disappear leave the realm of ethical academic behavior and come straight out of the dirty politics handbook I start to doubt the players. Then I see the millions of dollars Al Gore sets himself up to earn with his eco-ponzi game and the billions of dollars the U.N. sets them selves up to extort from us I smell a rat.

As to the positive impact of the debate, it certainly happens, I've had to re-think a number of 'beliefs'. I don't doubt an over all warming trend and think I understand how we can have cooler weather in the midst of overall warming. I believe anthropogenic warming may well be a factor albeit slight and perhaps so slight and so new that it isn't really measurable using the same tools used to chart out the long term warming trend yet the alarmists will selectively grab one tree ring and refuse any other data to prop up their scary scenarios to push nations into action....
Even without any scientific proof I would just assume we humans with our industry have a degree of negative impact on the earth so it just makes sense to me.
However, it is the "impending doom" that the politically motivated alarmists are trying to attach to the science that I feel I have good reason to doubt. I feel like Chicken Little is telling me to pay him to develop a sky-is-falling umbrella!
According to my junior high school science teacher we're already dead and underwater because we didn't follow the alarmists demands back in the '70's.....

[Floyd]

[Will Robinson]

That video proves what most people already know which is there are political hacks on the right too.
However he didn't even come close to proving there is nothing to be concerned about coming from the "consensus-of-respected-scientists" team and he merely blew smoke over a few examples.

His rebuttal was just as calculatingly narrow in scope as the Rush quote selections are!
And lets not forget Rush doesn't provide data for the U.N. like Team Chicken Little' does...

[Floyd]

However he didn't even come close to proving there is nothing to be concerned about coming from the "consensus-of-respected-scientists" team and he merely blew smoke over a few examples.

how about watching the other five videos worth of 50 minutes as i asked y'all thrice before ...