Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'?

[Uriel]

Well I have an interest in that, but I'd hardly describe it as a gravy train. It's about finding out the scientific facts and investigating, furthering our understanding so we don't need to speculate any more. If it turns out the assumptions lots of people have made are wrong, so be it, that's what science is about.

I suggest you read up on philosophy of science. Maybe The Philosophy of Science by George Couvalis. It provides a good grounding.

Science is not what you think it is. Philosophy of science was an elective I did in the first year of my Geology degree. I really think it should be a core module for most science degrees.

 

[HEADRAT]

Well I have an interest in that, but I'd hardly describe it as a gravy train.

Really, don't you think the amount of funding currently going into proving "climate change theory" has any influence on those being funded by Governments to prove it's existence!

Global warming is one of the smallest niches when it comes to Environmental Science.

Bet it gets a very large proportion of the funding though!

 

[alex24]

I suggest you read up on philosophy of science. Maybe The Philosophy of Science by George Couvalis. It provides a good grounding.

Science is not what you think it is. Philosophy of science was an elective I did in the first year of my Geology degree. I really think it should be a core module for most science degrees.

Tell me why I'm wrong in 2 sentences then, don't have time to read the book now. I will make a note though, ta.

Headrat - global warming gets lots of funding as it's a hot topic, and as you can see, still an area of heated debate. The more we know the better, as some would say it spells our doom, while others deny it's existence. The truth is probably somewhere in between, but that's a lot to leave to chance isn't it?

 

[Dolph]

Tell me why I'm wrong in 2 sentences then, don't have time to read the book now. I will make a note though, ta.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science

Fundamentally, you're wrong because the idea that theories are universe accurate, as opposed to predictively accurate, cannot be demonstrated and has to be taken on faith. Ergo, no theory can be considered factual, unless you take scientific realism to be a true philosophical position, which is not demonstratable in a method independent, non-recursive manner.

Headrat - global warming gets lots of funding as it's a hot topic, and as you can see, still an area of heated debate. The more we know the better, as some would say it spells our doom, while others deny it's existence. The truth is probably somewhere in between, but that's a lot to leave to chance isn't it?

Careful, that's coming very close to a fallacy known as argumentum ad consequentiam. In other words, where you make an assumption on the validity of the proposition, by looking at the perceived consequences of both stances, rather than the actual evidence. Another example of this would be Pascal's Wager.

 

[LabR@t]

its on mininova hadley cru all there to read


best news of the year i always knew cc was a hoax

 

[alex24]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science

Fundamentally, you're wrong because the idea that theories are universe accurate, as opposed to predictively accurate, cannot be demonstrated and has to be taken on faith. Ergo, no theory can be considered factual, unless you take scientific realism to be a true philosophical position, which is not demonstratable in a method independent, non-recursive manner.

I don't see the relevance, you can argue that about anything, we just need to find the nature of the problem to enough detail for us to make informed decisions on what to do next. Sure, we'll never understand ever intricacy, but finding them might be a waste of time after a certain point.

Careful, that's coming very close to a fallacy known as argumentum ad consequentiam. In other words, where you make an assumption on the validity of the proposition, by looking at the perceived consequences of both stances, rather than the actual evidence. Another example of this would be Pascal's Wager.

Point taken. Back to my original point then, how much do we actually know? I'd say we know enough to justify pursuing the potential problem further.

 

[LabR@t]

From: Phil Jones <p.jones@*******>
To: Gil Compo <compo@*******.edu>
Subject: Re: Twentieth Century Reanalysis preliminary version 2 data - One other thing!
Date: Tue Nov 10 12:40:26 2009

Gil,
One other good plot to do is this. Plot land minus ocean. as a time series.
This should stay relatively close until the 1970s. Then the land should start moving away
from the ocean.
This departure is part of AGW. The rest is in your Co2 increases.
Cheers
Phil
Gil,
These will do for my purpose. I won't pass them on. I am looking forward to the draft
paper. As you're fully aware you're going to have to go some ways to figuring out what's
causing the differences.
You will have to go down the sub-sampling, but I don't think it is going to make much
difference. The agreement between CRU and GISS is amazing good, as already know. You ought
to include the NCDC dataset as well.
[1]http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/anomalies/index.html the ERSST3b dataset.
In the lower two plots there appear to be two types of differences, clearer in the
NH20-70 land domain.
The first is when reanl20v2 differs for a single year (like a year in the last 1960s, 1967
or 1968) and then when it differs for about 10 years or so. It is good that it keeps coming
back. For individual years there are a couple of years in the first decade of the 20th
century (the 1900s).
The longer periods are those you've noticed - the 1920s and the 1890s. There is also
something up with the period 1955-65 and the 1970s. The 1920s seems to get back then go off
again from about 1935 to early 1940s. Best thing to try and isolate some of the reasons
would be maps for decades or individual years. For the 1920s I'd expect the differences to
be coming from Siberia as opposed to Canada. I think the 1890s might be just down to
sparser coverage. The 1890s is the only period where the difference brings your pink line
back towards the long-term zero. All the others have the pink line more extreme than the
HadCRUT3/GISS average.
Rob Allan just called. I briefly mentioned this to him. He suggested maps of data input
during these times. He also suggested looking at the spread of the ensembles. Your grey
spread is sort of this, but this is a different sort of ensemble to what Rob implied you
might have?
One final thing - don't worry too much about the 1940-60 period, as I think we'll be
changing the SSTs there for 1945-60 and with more digitized data for 1940-45. There is also
a tendency for the last 10 years (1996-2005) to drift slightly low - all 3 lines. This may
be down to SST issues.
Once again thanks for these! Hoping you'll send me a Christmas Present of the draft!
Cheers
Phil
At 20:45 09/11/2009, you wrote:



[

 

[Dolph]

I don't see the relevance, you can argue that about anything, we just need to find the nature of the problem to enough detail for us to make informed decisions on what to do next. Sure, we'll never understand ever intricacy, but finding them might be a waste of time after a certain point.

Indeed, and the vast majority of the time (and certainly for practical applications) it doesn't matter whether you have a direct match or a predictive match, the results are the same, but that is not the point really.

Point taken. Back to my original point then, how much do we actually know? I'd say we know enough to justify pursuing the potential problem further.

I agree, the question is how do we pursue the potential problem in a directly meaningful manner, which should be very much a scientific question, but is the one that has become solely political.

 

[LabR@t]

From: Tom Wigley <wigley@*******.edu>
To: Phil Jones <p.jones@***ac.uk>
Subject: LAND vs OCEAN
Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:36:15 -0700

<x-flowed>
We probably need to say more about this. Land warming since
1980 has been twice the ocean warming -- and skeptics might
claim that this proves that urban warming is real and important.

See attached note.

Comments?

Tom

</x-flowed>

Attachment Converted: "c:\eudora\attach\LANDvsOCEAN.doc"

 

[stockhausen]

Some interesting graphs showing average global temperature over the past 160 years.

Some data from NASA.

And some from NASA.

Probably fabricated for some obsure reason by evil scientists but they certainly seem more convincing to me than a blog by some right-wing Tory loony who knew Boris & Dave but still resents his failing to get into the Bullingdon Club and who may just possibly have a degree of some grade in English from Oxford University.

 

[HeadlessChicken]

Some interesting graphs showing average global temperature over the past 160 years.

Some data from NASA.

And some from NASA.

Probably fabricated for some obsure reason by evil scientists but they certainly seem more convincing to me than a blog by some right-wing Tory loony who knew Boris & Dave but still resents his failing to get into the Bullingdon Club and who may just possibly have a degree of some grade in English from Oxford University.

Aye, it shows the Earth is (was, last few years have been cooling) warming. We know that. And it's not unusual or un-expected.

 

[Strife212]

If anything, this proves 100% that climate change deniers are full of crap surely?

Everything from Hadley CRU has been leaked, and the best that has been found is a slight mis-representation of numbers. No sign whatsoever of any grand conspiracy or links to any other agencies.

 

[HEADRAT]

showing average global temperature over the past 160 years.

160 years, that's not even a blink of an eye in planetary terms, if you take such a small data set how can it be representative?

 

[Greggar]

The planet Venus disagrees.

Venus is not only closer to the Sun, but has ~3,000,000 times as much CO2 in the atmosphere as earth.

Venus in no way can be used as an allegory to the Earth when it comes to atmosphere.

 

[HeadlessChicken]

If anything, this proves 100% that climate change deniers are full of crap surely?

Everything from Hadley CRU has been leaked, and the best that has been found is a slight mis-representation of numbers. No sign whatsoever of any grand conspiracy or links to any other agencies.

CRU, whilst at the forefront of CC research, isn't the only input to the CC debate. TBH it proves nothing, either way. CRU's data and work has been scrutinised for ages, as all work in this kind of controversial field always is.

People have a lot to lose either way when CC is concerned. If you look hard enough you can pull 2 reports on the same data showing 2 totally different outcomes.

 

[Tefal]

Some interesting graphs showing average global temperature over the past 160 years.
.

So based on 0.00000352% of the Earth's time you think you can reliably predict it's future?

That;s the same as judging the outcome of a football match based on 0.00019 seconds of game time.

 

[Dolph]

Some interesting graphs showing average global temperature over the past 160 years.

Some data from NASA.

And some from NASA.

Some out of context data shows something useful?

Probably fabricated for some obsure reason by evil scientists but they certainly seem more convincing to me than a blog by some right-wing Tory loony who knew Boris & Dave but still resents his failing to get into the Bullingdon Club and who may just possibly have a degree of some grade in English from Oxford University.

And argumentum ad hominem in lieu of anything useful?

 

[LabR@t]

Subject: RE: Please take note of potetially serious allegations of scientific
'fraud' by CRU and Met Office



Dear Stephanie

I expect that a great deal of UKCIP work is based on the data provided by CRU (as
does the work of the IPCC and of course UK climate policy). Some of this, very
fundamentally, would now seem to be open to scientific challenge, and may even face future
legal enquiries. It may be in the interest of UKCIP to inform itself in good time and
become a little more 'uncertain' about its policy advice.

Perhaps you can comment on the following and pass the allegations made on to the
relevant people.

It is beyond my expertise to assess the claims made, but they would fit into my
perception of the whole 'man-made global warming' cum energy policy debate. I know several
of the people involved personally and have no reason to doubt their sincerity and honour
as scientists, though I am also aware of their highly critical (of IPCC science) policy
positions.

I could also let you have statements by Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick. Ross
McKitrick currently teaches at Westminister Business School and who is fully informed about
the relevant issues. He recently addressed a meeting of about 50 people in London.

Best wishes

Sonja B-C

I have written a couple of blogs on the current report by Steve
McIntyre that the data used by Mann to "prove" the hockey Stick was fabricated. This & the
following day's
[1]http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2009/10/global-warming-proven-deliberate-fraud.html
.

As a result I have received this email from somebody I am not aquainted with throwing
the entire blame on you. This seems improbable to me & possibly an alarmist damage
limitation exercise. If you wish to comment I would be happy for you to do so.

"Please note: Steve McIntyre's post concerns work by climate scientist Keith Briffa and
not Michael Mann. You will probably wish to correct your post.
Cheers
Avisame"

I have posted this as an update with my reply:

"My understanding is that while Briffa did the tree ring measurement, Mann, in his paper,
chose to choose 12 atypical tree rings out of at least 34 to fabricate the global warming
trend. My assumption is that Mann is responsible for fabrications in his own paper & that
this is a damage limitation exercise. I am open to correction on this & indeed have emailed
Mr Briffa to see. "

Neil Craig
You may be interested in my political blog
[2]http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/
We received this through our enquiries desk. I assume that you are aware of this person,
including those copied on the message.
If we are to respond, it would be to indicate that there are multiple sources of supporting
evidence and that we continue to place our confidence in the international scientific
assessment process. This confidence has proven to be well placed.
Roger

 

[kwerk]

What they have done is create a bandwagon, made sure most people are on the bandwagon, and then tell everyone (whether they want to ride the bandwagon or not) that the tickets for this particular ride are going to cost them.

It's actually all rather clever...

It's a bloody scam. "Pay us more taxes or the world will END!!!".

And it's not just the government in on it:

"According to public disclosure information, Gore was worth somewhere between $1
million and $2 million in 2000. Not quite eight years later, Gore is estimated
to be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million. While I ordinarily
would applaud such financial gains from such a short period of time, I can’t
help but to question just how it happened. When you look out at what Al Gore has
done, it’s evident that he figured out on a way to capitalize on the creation of
Big Green while becoming the official doomsday prophet that has helped to build
Big Green into the monetary powerhouse that it has become.

In any other industry this would be considered a severe conflict of interest. In
essence, Al Gore has helped to create a fictitious catastrophe, then told
everybody what the solutions have to be, and then put himself in a position to
capitalize on the hype. It’s not only seriously dishonest, but many people and
industries are going to suffer in the wake of this hype while Gore and Big Green
bring in millions (and in some cases, billions) of dollars in green money."

 

[LabR@t]

Thompson just emailed me this over the weekend and said someone had been busy! They seemed
to have not fully understood what was done.
Have looked at the plots. I'm told that the HadSST3 paper is fairly near to being
submitted, but I've still yet to see a copy. More SST data have been added for the WW2 and
WW1 periods, but according to John Kennedy they have not made much difference to these
periods.
Here's the two ppts I think I showed in Boulder in June. These were from April 09, so
don't know what these would look like now. SH is on the left and adjustment there seems
larger, for some reason - probably just British ships there?
Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, but the adjustments won't reduce the 1940s
blip but enhance it. It won't change the 1940-44 period, just raise the 10 years after Aug
45.
I expect MOHC are looking at the NH minus SH series re the aerosols. My view is that a
cooler temps later in the 1950s and 1960s it is easier to explain.
Land warming in the 1940s and late 1930s is mainly high latitude in NH.
One other thing - MOHC are also revising the 1961-90 normals. This will likely have more
effect in the SH.
With the SH around 1910s there is the issue of exposure problems in Australia - see
Neville's paper.
This shouldn't be an issue in NZ - except maybe before 1880, but could be in southern
South America. New work in Spain suggest screens got renewed about 1900, so maybe this
happened in Chile and Argentina, but Mossmann was head of the Argentine NMS so he may have
got them to use Stevenson screens early.
Neville has never been successful getting any OZ funding to sort out pre-1910 temps
everywhere except Qld.
Here's a paper in CC on European exposure problems. There is also one on Spanish series.
Cheers
Phil
At 06:25 28/09/2009, Tom Wigley wrote:

Phil,
Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly
explain the 1940s warming blip.
If you look at the attached plot you will see that the
land also shows the 1940s blip (as I'm sure you know).
So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC,
then this would be significant for the global mean -- but
we'd still have to explain the land blip.
I've chosen 0.15 here deliberately. This still leaves an
ocean blip, and i think one needs to have some form of
ocean blip to explain the land blip (via either some common
forcing, or ocean forcing land, or vice versa, or all of
these). When you look at other blips, the land blips are
1.5 to 2 times (roughly) the ocean blips -- higher sensitivity
plus thermal inertia effects. My 0.15 adjustment leaves things
consistent with this, so you can see where I am coming from.
Removing ENSO does not affect this.
It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip,
but we are still left with "why the blip".
Let me go further. If you look at NH vs SH and the aerosol
effect (qualitatively or with MAGICC) then with a reduced
ocean blip we get continuous warming in the SH, and a cooling
in the NH -- just as one would expect with mainly NH aerosols.
The other interesting thing is (as Foukal et al. note -- from
MAGICC) that the 1910-40 warming cannot be solar. The Sun can
get at most 10% of this with Wang et al solar, less with Foukal
solar. So this may well be NADW, as Sarah and I noted in 1987
(and also Schlesinger later). A reduced SST blip in the 1940s
makes the 1910-40 warming larger than the SH (which it
currently is not) -- but not really enough.
So ... why was the SH so cold around 1910? Another SST problem?
(SH/NH data also attached.)
This stuff is in a report I am writing for EPRI, so I'd
appreciate any comments you (and Ben) might have.