Not science

That is ridiculous. To claim, as a scientist, that you deleted original data in order to "save space" is ludicrous. I'm not sure how they expect anyone to take them seriously.

They say it because there is a host of people out there either gullible enough to believe it or have to much skin in the game and have to save face.
Never underestimate how easy people can delude themselves in order to save face.

It's not ridiculous if you're not the only one holding that raw data.

My understanding is that these readings are originally from NOAA. There is a difference between deleting the raw data and deleting the only raw data available. Like most other elements of "Climategate", this is much ado about nothing.

If the NOAA has the data, why are people asking the CRU for it? Where did you read that the data is actually from the NOAA?

People are understandably asking CRU because it's CRU's study. CRU's response has always been "we have most of the raw data, but not all of it - NOAA has all of it - that's where we got it from".

News stories that want to prolong "climategate" as long as they can don't mention this CRU response. And CEI data requesters who want to prolong "climategate" don't actually care about the data itself and I'm guessing probably haven't even bothered to ask NOAA for it.

I still see no source for the claim that the CRU obtained their data from the NOAA. There is one story on Greenwire which says: "Santer said CRU's major findings were replicated by other groups, including the NOAA climatic data center, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and also in Russia." That does not indicate that the NOAA is the source of the data, just that the NOAA got similar results based on whatever data it used.

I didn't think you needed me to actually google it for you. Here:

Jones replied to the CEI complaints: "We haven't destroyed anything. The data is still there -- you can still get these stations from the [NOAA] National Climatic Data Center", from:

http://www.eenews.net/public/Greenwire/2009/10/...

My understanding (and of course I have no clue how to decipher what is in these files) is that all the raw data requested by CEI is here:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/ghcn-monthl...
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/gh...
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v2/

Download it, analyze it, do whatever you want with it. Apparently the Met Office in the UK houses some of the data too, but I haven't been able to find the data on their website.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute is an advocacy organization. If they had any interest at all in actually understanding the climate, they would have listened to the CRU response, gotten the raw data, and provided us all with an alternative analysis. They don't care - they just want to muddy the waters.

The data has been there all along for anyone who wants to reconstruct the surface temperature trends. NO ONE has been able to reconstruct them in a way that shows results different from CRU's. In fact they have been reconstructed independently by no less then 3 separate agencies and the results are basically the same.

Here's GISS

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/208422main_g...

NOAA

http://www.climatesci.org/wp-content/uploads/fi...


CRU

http://lastfreevoice.files.wordpress.com/2008/0...

THIS IS A DESPICABLE SMEAR CAMPAIGN foisted by industry money interest and ideologues with a view of the world at stake... nothing more.

Normally I find you over the top - particularly when it comes to doomsday climate change scenarios (or doomsday capitalism scenarios... or doomsday Republican scenarios), but I strongly concur with this - particularly this last sentiment.

What's amazing to me is that you would think the Mecca of Public Choice Theory - George Mason - would be more attuned to what the real private interests influencing the political process are. Do wind power companies want a government hand out? Sure - I wouldn't deny that. Do scientists want more grants? Absolutely. But come on!!!! Where is the REAL rent seeking in the climate change debate???? Is this even a question? How much money do grant-seekers at CRU have on the line compared to the energy industry. And I'm not a primitivist anti-oil kind of guy. But I'm realistic about the incentives. And it's amazing to me how unrealistic George Mason professors have been. I discount the Austrian theory stuff to a large degree - but I've always had a deep respect for the Public Choice work they've done. Now I'm starting to wonder about the robustness of that.

Energy industry includes world's largest hedge fund - GE. You know, with the CEO on the board of "independent" Fed and all. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmwwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh. Silicon valley has hardly any startups in the alternative energy industry. There is very little at stake for the financial industry - i mean the one that just got bail outs worth trillions.


St. Albert Gore is not seeking rent, he is just out there to save the world. I like you danny, you are not against anything and for nothing. You are just wonderful, very pliable and flexible.

Mmmmmmmmmmmwwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh

I'm not sure Gore has been canonized yet - and I'd certainly disagree with your assertion that he's not rent seeking. The whole climate change debate is rife with rent-seeking on both sides. I'm just amazed that the department famous for public choice theory hasn't been very well attuned to the biggest rent seekers, and have made such a huge issue over relatively minor rent seekers - like scientists pursuing grants.

So what's with this "mmmmwwwaahhh" obsession lately? What's the deal with that?

St. Albert Gore was canonized by the church of Stockholm, the same place where peacemaker St. Barack "War Escalator" Obama will be canonized later this year.

He certainly is not rent seeking. He will be the first carbon billionaire. I have got some carbon offsets to sell, first few buyers will get a free turkey.

Following the footsteps of the great saint and other 900 billionaires funding the environmental movement to coveted billionairehood, where people are amazingly selfless.

Love you man,

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh

Yglesias makes the same point:
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009...

Sure you could dream up benefits accruing from twisting the climate change evidence. But the idea that the biggest rent seekers are the ones pushing climate change, and not the skeptics, is patently absurd. I think George Mason really has egg on it's face by not saying this flat-out. It's probably the biggest, most obvious example of rent-seeking in government out there and they seem to be completely missing it. Who is going to take a "public choice" research group seriously that misses that??????

Yglesias is right on! Besides, there are more rent seeking billionaires in Houston, TX than in Silicon Valley or in Connecticut combined.

I know this is hard for you to process, but I never said that the energy industry has the only rent seekers. In fact I said exactly the opposite. Your tenaciousness in raising that strawman is entertaining - just as long as you recognize that no one is arguing with you over it.

You misunderstand me. We are on the same team Danny. We are just enabling humanists like myself, Al Gore, Jeff Immelt to become climate billionaires. We are doing a wonderful service to humanity.

Love you man,
Mmmmwwwwwaaaahhhh

Dk,

Regarding public choice theory I'd recommend watching, The Trap, a BBC documentary series by English filmmaker Adam Curtis.

It's available on line. Just google The Trap and you'll get to it. His "Power of Nightmares" movie is fascinating too.

OK I have to address the over the top thing. Over the top is what Thomas Paine was and that got us this great nation.

When CO2 levels are higher then they have been in millions of years we need to be "over-the-top" in our level of concern for what the implications for our future are especially in light of the good perecuted scientist who are delivering the message. To not be concerned would be the equivalent of Thomas Paine and the revolutionaries throwing up their hands and saying, " awe that's life".

Doomsday capitalism... look at the past history of horrific abuses described by Marx, George, Dickens and many others. Then realize in modern times that the worlds top 1% of people own 40% of its wealth while 1.2 billion people live on a dollar a day or less. The next billion above them are not much better off. Yeah... that requires us to be over the top. And can one NOT be over the top knowing the plight of billions of people when there is much more we could do.

Republican excesses. Simply read The Wrecking Crew or The Predator State. What they as a party have done is criminal. I am over the top but I'd argue not without reason. More people need to be.

The unprecedented run-up in CO2 levels is definitely a concern of mine - but putting parameters on exactly what will result from it is an exercise in futility. We will see warming - I'm not doubting that. The idea that we can take a never before seen spike in carbon and make an empirically sound statement about what we will see in the future as a result is antithetical to any reasonable standard of empiricism. You're right - we HAVEN'T seen this sort of carbon spike before. And it's precisely because we haven't seen it that we need to be measured in what we claim about it.

As for doomsday capitalism... I'm not sure where to go with that. Roughly speaking I'm in the Karl Polanyi school of thought - I do agree that the institution of the modern state co-evolved with the institution of the market economy to address (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) the problems associated with property rights regimes that couldn't internalize social costs and benefits. I'll say that much. But do you expect me to get too heart-broken over the fact that not everyone enjoys prosperity, or that history can be rough? Yes - a lot of people live on less than a dollar a day. It's a crying shame. So? For the most part they're not destitute because of the market economy - they're destitute because the benefits of progress aren't diffused immediately. Look at the most advanced economies. Do you think Dickens or Marx would be singing the same tune if they glimpsed the United States today? I seriously doubt it. You can't blame Dickens and Marx for drawing the conclusions they did at the time - but you also can't continue to seriously entertain those conclusions.

Dan,

Since Dickens times a middle class has arose not because of unfettered markets but because of unions and protest and democracy and policy changes. Your 40 hour work week was not the norm and it didn't come about because of free market capitalism.
I'm confident we can improve the lot of many Americans and those billions around the world living on a dollar a day. But it won't be done by emergent order. It will be done by good people molding society and combining the best of competitive markets with the needs of society.

In my mind society and our world population sits on a knives edge of uncertainty and danger. We are going were no species has gone before things are changing so rapidly and unpredictably and the possibility of an avoidable mass die off catastrophe is no where's near nil. The idea that emergent order will take care of everything is fatalistic and dangerous.

You just can't say "So?" to billions of people when there are solutions better then unfettered markets that those in control want to continue to push soley out of greed and personal gain.

And again on global warming the outcome is indeed uncertain but there is some good chance for serious problems including things like most of Florida going under water. On this issue I trust the scientist far more then I trust free market advocates or politicians. The biggest thing is the solutions are things we as a society will need to pursue anyway. Like renewable, multi-source clean energy. The fact that the direction we may choose cost the fossil fuel industry its stranglehold on us and the trillions of easy dollars they now sit on should not sway are actions.

We are going were no species has gone before things are changing so rapidly and unpredictably and the possibility of an avoidable mass die off catastrophe is no where's near nil. The idea that emergent order will take care of everything is fatalistic and dangerous.

mmmmwwwwwaaaaaahhhhhhh

World or life didn't come about from an emergent order. It was designed by an omniscient and omnipotent God, whose current incarnation is called Albert Gore. He is the savior of the world, from a massive hot hell off of stupid emergent die off.

thank you Albert Gore.
Amen.

"Since Dickens times a middle class has arose not because of unfettered markets but because of unions and protest and democracy and policy changes."

Muirgoo, you're in a fantasy world.

Yeah I'm just making up history as I go along.

Do 5 hail gores before you go to bed. He is the one!

The quote you gave me is in the same article, and I saw it. However, it is from a man (Jones) who wrote emails about deleting CRU data rather than turning it over. The quote I took out is from another scientist (who is on Jones' side as far as the impact of the deletion) and contradicts Jones' statement. I don't think this question is settled as easily as you think, and I would trust a third party much more than someone who has a very personal stake in the matter and who obviously has no problem with distorting the truth.

What contradicts Jones's statement? Jones definitely deleted data. The point is he didn't delete the original raw data because the original raw data is with NOAA and the Met.

Are you talking about the Sanders quote? He said that they weren't secretly destroyed to keep other scientists from trying to replicating the results. That doesn't contradict the fact that they were destroyed because you don't save everything that's available elsewhere. As I've said elsewhere on this thread - I don't preserve all the Current Population Survey data I use because the government houses it. There's nothing secretive or unscientific about that. That's the point of the Sander's quote - not that there was no data destruction, period - but that there was no conspiratorial data destruction.

To me, the word "replicated" in that quote (the Sanders quote) indicates that the data were different. After all, I assume they used similar regressions on similar data. Perhaps the differences come from the massaging process, but that would make the original data here even more essential, I think. You need to be able to reproduce work in science, and knowing what was kept or thrown out when plugged into regressions is part of doing so. As "The Reticulator" said in his reply to your comment below , this is important information as there are likely many sources of data which the NOAA has and we don't know which ones were or weren't used, if the data is indeed simply a copy of some subset of NOAA data.

It sounded to me like the differences were in the "massaging process" - that was CRU's contribution to the literature, after all. But isn't CRU's code for that process available? That's what people were complaining was so buggy in the other thread. The point is, CRU isn't operating thousands of stations - it's not "their" data. They link exactly which series they use - how do you think I provided you with the NOAA links? It's all on their website.

What is really bothering you? That it's not easy to summarize this process in a curt blog post? As far as I can tell it's all available - and yes, it's a lot of work to analyze. If you want to exactly replicate what they did you're going to have to go through lots of code and you're probably going to have to maintain a correspondence with CRU. And yes, if they get a whiff that you're just a DC based policy group they'll probably be irate about it because they're spending their time holding your hand through the process, rather than actually doing the work they get paid to do.

You can't just read an article and be satisfied that you've replicated their work - science is hard. That doesn't mean there are any conspiracies going on. And before anyone accuses them of being unscientific, I would hope they would actually go through the process of downloading the data and working through the CRU code. The Times author and CEI and Cato don't even seem to have put forth that much effort - and yet you're going to just buy into their accusations when all the code and the data seems to be perfectly accessible (if highly technical)?

I'm not talking about conspiracy. I'm talking about unscientific processes. I don't know if the CRU's code is all available for these processes to be reproduced. I believe this was all done back in the 80's, so any computer-based modeling would be fairly easy to reproduce today. If I were Jones, I would simply do it. You have to also put this in context, and the context here is a guy who stated in an email that he would rather destroy than hand over data. That does not make it sound like this data is all easily accessible, as you seem to be arguing. If it was all at the NOAA, why does he talk about destroying his data as if that would matter?

Why? Probably because of the way people like McIntyre and Pat Michaels have been hounding him. I never argued he was capable of keeping his cool, or that he's an admirable person.

Look - I'm not sure what else to tell you, buddy. I give you the location of this raw data that everybody thinks is deleted. Someone asks CRU where it is, CRU says "we don't have it but it's here". How about this - instead of trying to divine CRU's intentions from the emails, just look at the data the CRU directed questioners to. It's there - no need to rely on inference and implication. You look at it and then raise the concern again if you don't find what you need there. CRU is ANSWERING the questions you're posing, and your response - rather than to dig into the data and make an attempt at replicating their process - is just to completely ignore their answer. Everybody that wants to pretend this is all a farce is asking "where is the data", and then plugging their ears when the response is "oh the data is right here".

I personally am not doing anything but watching as this unfolds. It takes time to do all these things, which is why there is more coming out on a daily basis, and I'm sure that there are plenty of people working on it. I just suggest Jones do it since he knows, more than anybody else, what process he used. He could also easily and decisively clear up the issue. If I were him, that's what I would do. That's all I'm saying.

Because that's what they do in smear campaigns. Create confusion and make accusations.

Kaching! And you and me never do that on this blog. I swear.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh

Not acceptable.

It took the CRU workers decades to assemble millions of temperature measurements from around the globe.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomm...

According to ClimateAudit, the issue seems to not be availability of raw data, but a public record of "how the data were treated and manipulated, what assumptions were made in assembling the data sets, and what data was omitted and why."

It's not as clear cut as danielkuehn makes it out to be. This is a pretty good article in the New York Times about the data:

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/mo...

The CRU claims that 95% of the raw data is available. But, as I point out above, and Roger Pielke points out in the article, raw data without knowledge of how to reproduce the processing that was done on the raw data is data loss.

Also, the NOAA data set is described in the article as an independent data set, but danielkuehn is claiming that the CRU data comes from NOAA. How independent are the data sets from CRU, NOAA, NASA, and JMA? This is where politicization of the issue sucks -- I just asked a very straightforward factual question, but I see little talk about "just the facts" buried in all the ceaseless debating and character assassination flying around.

The data you are talking about is from the 80's and is still available in paper form at the actual weather sites. In the 80's, we were still using tapes and floppy disks (the big 6" and 8" in ones). When they converted the raw paper data into computer format they junked their copies of the original paper, which everyone was required to do with the limited memory available at the time.

This was a time when my first 10 mb hard drive for my business (I was ahead of most universities at that time) cost me 5K$ (1982 dollars) and floppy drives were 45Kb. When you are talking about time based data -- continuous recordings-- from thousands of sites, the raw data load is way beyond the systems of the time. Even for simple, but critical, environmental data recording systems in my small business, I was force to dump data and just keep summaries or running average type data.

Get real, this whole flap is a lot like the creationist game of "teach the controversy" about evolution using the smoke that they created out of thin air. The anti-evolution crowd won't just find a fossil out of sequence (a rabbit before dinosaurs) and disprove all of evolutionary theory, they just blow artificial smoke and claim there is a fire.

Those who think the existing data base is wrong can go to each weather sites raw data and redo the data base. But that is real work and may get the same results. It is easier for the global warming critics to create noise and PR rather than conduct real science and create models that fit the data using factors other than human induced global warming.

Russ,

There is plenty of data available pertinant to the issue.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/

Anthropogenic climate change is NOT going to be wished away. It's REAL.

What is interesting is that in the past the climate change deniers had two aces in their pocket to counter the claims of man made warming.

One was the satellite record for the lower troposphere trends that showed no warming. However, it was shown that the data was erroneous and when corrected by indepnedent scientist the warming was indeed there.


Then there was the claim that the sun was causing the warming. That claim is STILL made by deniers today IN SPITE OF THE FACT THAT IT WAS shown that the data was manipulated and flawed.

http://www.realclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/P...

There has been much in the way of dubious results in the field of climate change. MOST such results have come from industry funded climate change deniers, their lords ( CATO and other "think tanks), thier hired guns and their minions.

Kaching!!! Mmmmmmmmmmwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh

Following the footsteps of lionhearted Al Gore, like an incarnation of God - the man is on a crusade to save proles from self-destruction. On our way to 2nd carbon billionaire - not industry funded minion and proud of it, funded by George Soros's think tank that doesn't count as hired guns and their minions, because George Soros has a heart worth billions of dollars.

Mmmmmmmmmmwwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh

Data can be manipulated to say whatever you want it to (Skewed if you will). The ends justifies the means, especially when that government grant is at stake!

HA' HA' Get'em Satan.

muirgeo, I do hope you realize that the web site you cite to support your claims was, in fact, started by the very group of academics that are involved in the current controversy: if they are guilty of losing data, quite possibly deliberately corrupting and biasing their data, base their models on hideously bad code, and have apparently conspired to misuse and corrupt the practice of peer review.... I am not sure that quoting their web site is going to add to your argument much.

Those people are Priests in The Church of AGW and have been ordained by His Holiness: The Divine Prophet Algore I, you heretic!

Anything they have done is for the good of Mother Gaia, and they can't be held to your puny standards! They answer to a higher calling, so just shut up and do not question the One True Church!

I am Cardinal Yasafi Torquemuirduck: Grand Inquisitor of The Church of AGW, and you have been warned...

"Those people are Priests in The Church of AGW..."



Actually they are just good old fashioned scientist some who are just doing their job. Because the message their results show threatens some they as messengers are being attacked for delivering a message by unprincipled and unscrupulous ignorant people like you who are threatened by the facts of their message.

YOU don't want the truth.... you can't handle the truth. But the truth is the truth...so persecute on.

I hope you realize your post makes you look like an ignoramous because the web site links to secondary web sites that contain the supposed missing raw data. These web sites with the data have nothing to do with the primary link/ web site on which they are found.

What is it with you people... rationality matters not. Grow the hell up!

Tell them muir. Just waiting for you to dazzle us with your climate math wizardry. You are part of the hired half of the population. St. Al Gore loves you. mmmmmmmmmmwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh

"What is it with you people... rationality matters not. Grow the hell up!"

You're the baby around here, muirdiaper!

>>Anthropogenic climate change is NOT going to be wished away. It's REAL.<<

And that's been 'peer reviewed', right?

We're not just talking about one article. We are talking about thousands of articles with few opposing articles. Few not because they were banned but because there is little data to support them and they are literally too weak to pass even basic peer review.

If you want to believe there is some mass conspiracy among the worlds scientist and all the scientific journals go right ahead Sherlock.

BTW, we have already seen that AGW agreements have been used as a stalking horse for protectionism and for favoring particular parties. Indeed, Europe's various efforts on this issue are riven with particularism, favoritism and nepotism.

Anthropogenic climate change is NOT going to be wished away. It's REAL.

And of course, we're going to centrally plan our way out of any problems associated with it, right, via our wise masters? ;)

There are two components (at least) to this issue. One is the predictive science (which is problematic) and the other is the "What is to be done?"* question. I find it to be perfectly reasonable to be highly skeptical of the state's ability (or a group of states) to plan its way around such a problem.

*Bonus points for where that line comes from, and it isn't from Lenin.

" I find it to be perfectly reasonable to be highly skeptical of the state's ability (or a group of states) to plan its way around such a problem. "

Why? They did it for the ozone whole. They saved the whales and bald eagles. They cleaned our fouled water and air and saved millions of kids from lead poisoning.

"Ozone whole?" Dude, why is your spelling so consistently atrocious?

They did it for the ozone whole.

Actually, they didn't. And of course, much of what the Montreal Protocol calls for as a replacement of CFCs turn out to be greenhouse enhancing substitutes. This of course gets to one of the main criticisms of centralized planning - the unforseeability issue.

They saved the whales and bald eagles.

Saving two species is quite different from centrally planning the global atmosphere.

They cleaned our fouled water and air and saved millions of kids from lead poisoning.

No, water and air quality were improving long before the CWA or the CAA were enacted; indeed, the bulk of the improvements happened prior to the advent of that legislation. That is fairly typical of regulation.

As for lead, its use was on the decrease before legislation was passed. And of course the reason we had leaded gasoline was due to government a requirement for such, which was the result of lobbying by some very large firms.

Nice refutation of muirgroin.

What is of interest is that you do not mention the state's screw ups - like, I dunno, killing every last wolf in Yellowstone, or building a dam in Yosemite, or over building dams throughout the entire western U.S. (and thus destroying millions of acres of pristine wilderness and killing a large segment's of the West's animal population too boot). One of the primary reasons why I am a libertarian is this: I'm an environmentalist. The state has shown itself to be a poor environmental steward over and over again.

Over the past several decades the term "academic" in business has evolved to mean irrelevant, ethereal, or simply useless. This is a tragedy for America whose academic institutions have enabled us to improve our lot in so many ways. This cheapening of the work of the academic gives us freedom to not ask questions, read or contemplate results beyond what we can anticipate for tomorrow; and now we have this.

This will be interesting for us to see, Will the academic community (if there is one), stand up and protect themselves from this kind of behavior? Will academics from every discipline call their colleagues out and stand up for the integrity of scientific and academic endeavor, or will they allow these scientists to validate an ongoing path of irrelevance.

I will be deeply saddened if academia doesn't stand up and strongly punish those who would compromise the sound and ethical treatment of evidence.

Oh and that letter I cited was written BEFORE the so called Climategate.


One other thing. Until Climategate the big push by the deniers was to claim that we've had no warming since 1998.... THAT claim was NOT SCIENCE.

Kaching! Al Gore knows the science. Muir learned his science by sitting at the feet of Leo DiCaprio and taking voluminous notes. Just wait, he is going to dazzle us all with his understanding of the equations.

I'm gunning for the next Nobel Peace Price, look at the current recipient of that prize - antiwar President Barack "Stay the course" Obama.

First billion, here we come

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmwwwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh

Strawman

No it's NOT a Straw man. Climategate will not change the analysis of the surface data. It's been scrutinized 100 ways over. It shows warming.

The incidents with the satellite data and the solar data published by climate skeptics did change the results they concluded to have found. The satelliite data DID NOT show no warming and the Solar data DID NOT support the sun as a cause of the warming. HUGE INCONVENIENT DIFFERENCE BUDDY!!

"It shows warming."

Your right, just not AGW. Could it be....THE SUN!!! OMG heavens no!!! That would mean we couldn't do anything about that, how could we tax that or make a profit? Oh the horror!!

People who believe it's the sun are people who believe in bad science. There is no evidence to suggest changes in solar output could explain all of the warming.

Forget about the people and what they believe. What did animal and plant life believe caused the climate to change before people ever existed on this planet? Let's look at their data. Do you suppose that they blamed themselves as well?

We are not talking about past climate change. No one denies that or the importance of solar output on climate change. What is denied is that present solar changes can explain current climate trends.... THEY DON'T.

waiting for the data, the equations and explanations. Let's go for the kill, and end this debate right here and right now, in favor of our 900 billionaires.

You are awesome muir. mmmmmmmwwwwwwwwaaaaaaahhhhhh

Pray tell how the Sun is involved exacty? If Global Warming is real and it's being caused by increasing solar output then this sounds worse than CO2. It is known there's a long-term solar output that is gradually getting stronger however it'll be a billion years before it's too hot.

The sun has never caused me personal warming on a mid-summer afternoon in Texas; it is all a conspiracy against AGW, and how dare ANY of you take part...

What the hell are you talking about?

Of course it shows warming.
This has not proved anthropogenic cause.
Thus far, that's a hypothesis and assumption.

"HUGE INCONVENIENT DIFFERENCE BUDDY!!"

Listen to him shout!!

Raw data, not processed data. If you think that they faked the processed data, you'll likely think that they faked the raw data too, so there's no point in keeping the raw data for verification purposes. And while other researchers might appreciate having the data for the purpose of conducting studies on other topics, that good has to be balanced with the difficulty and expense inherent in keeping such a large quantity of raw data. Obviously, keeping data is a good thing. But since the processed data has all the information necessary for the question being studied, dumping the raw data is not as big of an issue as people are making it out to be. (And I think that most people are vastly underestimating how much data we're talking about here.)

Since climate science is beyond the ken of most here, let's take a simpler example. Consider a supercomputer calculation of pi to, say, 5,000,000,000 decimal places. What do you keep? The 5,000,000,000 decimal places of processed data, or the several gigabytes of intermediate calculations stored in RAM during the process of doing the calculation? Obviously only the latter, since in this case the processed data is the important thing. If someone wants to verify its accuracy, they can look at the code of your program to see how it wass computing the digits. Having the actual intermediate calculations saved is worth little or nothing. The climate example is not quite as clear-cut since the data could conceivably be used for other purposes as well, but I'd say the general principle is the same.

I was always annoyed when my teachers asked me to show my work. There is a huge difference between keeping raw observational data and keeping intermediate steps (the calculation of pi example). All you really need to keep around are the essentials for recreating the work that you did. Raw data is essential, as it is the starting point. If you showed me pi calculated to 5 million digits and expected me to believe you did it when you have no way of showing how you got there or what pi was (as a concept), I would laugh at you. You cannot simply throw away your work. In this case, the observational data is every bit as important as the computer program in your pi example because it is necessary for reproducing the work.

Again the raw data was not thrown away. It was taken off their servers but it is available to all right here.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/

This is plainly ridiculous.

Your analogy is seriously flawed. There is no value whatsoever in an intermediate calculation of pi. The fact that someone would throw away something of no value is astonishing to no one.

A much closer analogy in this case would be a photographer throwing away their negatives but keeping the prints, or in the age of digital, tossing away the RAW files and keeping the post-processed JPEGs.

If you're an amateur taking pictures for entertainment, deleting the RAW data may make sense. If you're a professional, you're never going to toss the negatives/RAW of photos you use.

Mind you also, it isn't just the raw data that is gone. They claim not to have records of the algorithms used, or the nature of the calibrations and adjustments performed on that raw data either. Without those and without the original data behind them, the entire provenance is destroyed. The data _may_ be OK, but there is no possible way to know. That doesn't even imply intent, anyone can make a mistake in the application of a complex algorithm. Now there is no way to know what adjustments were done, much less if they were done correctly.

"Since climate science is beyond the ken of most here, let's take a simpler example."

Oh Really? I believe evidence in my life shows exactly the opposite, most of us here comprehend climate change really really well.

I have notice that when it gets colder, people began wearing jackets or coats and dressing in layers if the change is dramatic. If the climate begins to warm, they take those layers off and leave the coats at home.

It really isn't all that hard, Miko.

Oh Really? I believe evidence in my life shows exactly the opposite, most of us here comprehend climate change really really well.

I have notice that when it gets colder, people began wearing jackets or coats and dressing in layers if the change is dramatic. If the climate begins to warm, they take those layers off and leave the coats at home.



vidyohs,

Then why did you just use examples of weather to prove you understand climate?

Another example of the faithful, of the Humanists, of those who really truly believe that if we give the right people enough guns that they can save the world!

Economy, health care, climate change, as long as we give enough power to government (the guys with the monopoly on violence), well, they can solve all the problems!

Force is Grand, is it not Mr Pediatrician? (in what state do you practice? I want to make sure I live in a different one)

Ahhhh my little teacup Chihuahua, such a dipshit you are.

Weather is what happens within climate, and a rainstorm is not likely to push people to dress warmly or lightly, just in something to keep dry. High winds don't necessarily mean one strips clothing off or adding clothing, this kind of weather just means tolerating wind.

Climate changes from cold to hot depending upon "the seasons" called winter and summer. Winters get colder and longer, summers get hotter and longer depending upon factors no one really knows or understands. Oh we have some inkling now due to exhaustive and extensive research but that is still in the infantile stage. No one knows the natural cause of the El Nino, or El Nina, no one knows when or how often volcanic eruptions are going to occur or how devastating they are going to be. Science is still like babies muddling around in possibilities, way to ignorant of facts to speak specifically to any concrete position. Furthermore, what science has said to date appears to be decidedly politically motivated and power driven. Damn those government granted scientist who would sell their soul to any government bureaucrat or ideology. People whose ass you kiss muirduck.

Speaking of infantile.......are you now going to respond to me Jr. Chihuahua?

And in addition my little pet, past history reveals that climate changed dramatically since as far back as science has driven discoveries, and all of those changes came without a single Al Gore or an SUV on this planet. We know that, see it, and believe it; only a dipshit indoctrinated socialist liberal fool can see anything other than the simple truth.

Kind of funny that recently I read an article moaning about the highest lake in the world in Peru drying up, oh the levels are dropping due to loss of glacier melt and runoff.....but wait if glaciers are melting due to global warming, why then isn't the lake full?

But wait there is more.....two ginzu knifes if you just hang around....ha ha.

What is remarkable about the lake, devastated by man made global warming and now shrinking, is it has an Inca temple in it below the current water level.....which means it was lower back when the temple was built.....and was built in a time and place where the lower level was an accepted norm. Now, we are talking about maybe a thousand years or more ago. So the level of the highest lake in the world can not be connected to man's SUVs, steel mills, or Al Gore's personal jet.

Ha Ha, gotta love ya muirpet, such a sweet idiot!

vidyohs

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to embarrass you like that. But I see you wrote down a bunch of words and put them together in kinda like sentences. And a whole lot of them too. Good come back... yeah you showed me. Now I know better then to mess with you anymore.

>>and was built in a time and place where the lower level was an accepted norm. Now, we are talking about maybe a thousand years or more ago.<<

Those Inca's must have been some polluting fools with all of their carbon footprints --- especially ones that they just dumped into the lakes and rivers. And see, mother Earth [Gaia] took care of their asses for the sins they committed; let's not test Her any further in our own lives. Let's establish government mandates and human sacrifice to appease Her!

If a body warm a body, need the world ken?

Or Barbie?

This is random. Are you Ukrainian by heritage?

Oh and if anyone is interested int he real science behind human caused global warming you can find it here;

http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.org/

kaching!

whooohoooo. Al Gore is God himself walking the earth as man. following that giant hearted man's carbon billions.

Sandre, determined to respond to any science whatsover by hitting every straw man in sight.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh

Kaching! Science is on our side, practically all of the 900 billionaires are on our side. They are selflessly funding alternative energy for saving mankind. Climate is changing, and man is causing it. THose are the facts as determined by Prophet Al Gore, anyone who questions those facts are committing blasphemy and deserve to be punished by a Holy Jihad.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh

Hitting Strawman?? That'd be good if he could say he was even doing that... more like he is ranting like a unhinged lunatic.

http://thefastertimes.com/nonsensenews/files/20...

Glenn Beck is unhinged lunatic. He should be targeted by climate Jihadists. On our way to Exit Glacier. Kaching!

>>more like he is ranting like a unhinged lunatic.<<

There's a list of rantings for a person at The Cafe who does this. Ever seen it?

Yes and I will defend every single mupidity. Pick one any one... bring it on.

there you go. Confidence personified -- regardless of the validity of the argument. that is an excellent technique. On our way; always remember - 900 billionaires are on our side. They all thank us for their personal forutunes.

Yes and I will defend every single mupidity.

Bwahahahahahaha!

He can't even spell "muir", and it's in his own handle!

It's Manbearpig, I'm serial!

Delusions are the last beliefs to be discarded.

Their explanation is the equivalent of the dog ate the climate data.

And no, Virginia, they didn't destroy the data.

http://www.eenews.net/public/Greenwire/2009/10/...

Russ,
How do you think the whole process of academic "publish or peril" played into this whole thing?
From an economics perspective, the "publish or peril" mentality, has lead to this herd mentality from Climate Scientists to "tow the party line" (AGW) when it comes to GW.
From the emials we see how a cabal of scientists have used their influence within the community to steer journals into one direction. Once they had control of the journals, the "publish or peril" mentality in Academia just ran it's course. If no contrarian views can get published, then in order to publish, you have to show AGW somehow.

Since the only way to get grants is to publish this creates a serious Moral Hazard problem within the academic community.
As a scientist do you put your reputation on the line for the sake of pure science?
Or do you fudge a little here and delete one or two or a decades worth data points there to make the graph show what you want it to show?

If you chose former, you don't get grants, don't get tenure and don't get any good job prospects.
If you the later, you get published, you go to all the hip seminars where you can hob nob with other "reputable" scientists, that did the same thing you did. Now your being cited by other scientists and are afraid that if anyone looks at your data, you'll be caught so you delete a few files and go into cahoots with others to keep people from finding out what you have done. If the truth of what you had done would to get out, then all those journals all those articles that cited you, are essentially meaningless and you have a cadre of other scientists very angry at you for messing up their tenure and their reputations as well. It's not hard to think of how that can just multiply to what we have seen from ClimateGate.

So what do you think Russ, does that describe it? Doesn't that describe every other Academia Journal?

Would you say that from a Hayekian point of view, this kind of behavior is to be expected when power is concentrated into a small group? The peer review process is supposed to stop that from happening, but as we see it's the breakdown peer review process that lead us to deleted data, fudged data, and biased code.

He pointed to the newspaper he left on her desk. “They haven’t said that Reardon Metal is bad or that it’s unsafe. What they’ve done is…” His hands spread and dropped in a gesture of futility. She saw at a glance what they had done. She saw the sentences:

It may be possible that after a period of heavy usage a sudden fissure may appear, though the length of this period cannot be predicted. The possibility of a molecular reaction, at present unknown, cannot be entirely discounted. Although the tensile strength of the metal is obviously demonstrable, certain questions in regard to its behavior under unusual stress are not to be ruled out. Although there is no evidence to support the contention that the use of the metal should be prohibited, a further study of its properties would be of value.

We can’t fight it. It can’t be answered,” Eddie was saying slowly. “We can’t demand a retraction. We can’t show them our tests or prove anything. They’ve said nothing. They haven’t said a thing that could be refuted and embarrass them professionally. It’s the job of a coward. You’d expect it from some con-man or blackmailer, but Dagny, it’s the State Science Institute!” She nodded silently.

The fact is NO DAT WAS destroyed. It was taken off their web site but the original raw data is available. I have already posted links to it above.

Refuting CEI's claims of data-destruction, Jones said, "We haven't destroyed anything. The data is still there -- you can still get these stations from the [NOAA] National Climatic Data Center."

Tom Karl, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., noted that the conclusions of the IPCC reports are based on several data sets in addition to the CRU, including data from NOAA, NASA and the United Kingdom Met Office. Each of those data sets basically show identical multi-decadal trends, Karl said.


The whole thing really is shamefull. It's all about freemarketeeers and corporations wanting to kill the messanger becaus eof the Inconvenient Truth the message implies.

These good scientist who do their work are victims of corporate and ideological abuse.


Russ THE DATA IS NOT DESTROYED. I really think you should retract the "not scientific" comment in the name of good science and against the lynch mob mentality of the corporate cronies. You are an honest, brilliant and decent person but you are on the wrong side of this issue.

Strange, given that the article in the post says:

"SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based. "

It's denial, then comes acceptance before the alarmist can move on. Think about it, they have so much riding on it, that this is a huge blow to them. Only a few have been able to accept it and see how damaging it is, of all people Manboit does.

You're quoting the article not the scientist.

Here's the scientist quote...Jones said, "We haven't destroyed anything. The data is still there -- you can still get these stations from the [NOAA] National Climatic Data Center."

I'm not sure who to believe. According to the article:

"In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.” "

It seems rather suspicious that these scientists aren't even agreeing with each other on the topic of what data exists and what data does not exist.

This isn't that hard. They destroyed data that they didn't need to keep because NOAA had the originals. All this started because the Competitive Enterprise Institute raised a fuss when CRU didn't have it anymore. But the data is still available. When I delete my Current Population Survey data nobody accuses me of anything because the original data is still available elsewhere.

Once again - much ado about nothing. The Competitive Enterprise Institute is an advocacy organization, plain and simple. It could care less what the actual truth about climate change is. Just because they can't get all the original data from CRU doesn't mean there's been any foul play.

CRU can't afford an IT guy?

Not so simple. How does one know WHICH data to get from NOAA and how to match it up with their massaged data?

As one who once managed some weather stations that probably provided some of the data they've used, and who had to do some massaging to produce a continuous data set for researchers, I think it's mighty cavalier to say the underlying data are still there at NOAA. People need to know WHICH data.

Not all the data even comes from NOAA.

Dan, what color is the sky in your (warming) world?

The IPCC is an advocacy organization as well, and a non-scientific one to boot.

Great post Russ!

Emailgate and now this; "Something is foul in Denmark"!

Allow my humble correction: "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

Thanks for the correction.

It has been painfully obvious that this entire Global Warming Climate Change, or whatever Politically Correct inoffensive term happens to be acceptable at the moment, that the entire science behind it was reverse engineered.

But I guess there are always those who think Jean Claude Van Damme can fight, or people who think Chuck Norris can act... fools abound.

But why do so many of these fools trust the guys with guns? They call businessmen the enemy, when the absolute worst thing a businessman can do is say "no", and they want to give more power to those who have the monopoly on violence.

Maybe they believe the line "We are government", or some other absurdity. I really don't understand.

"They call businessmen the enemy, when the absolute worst thing a businessman can do is say "no", and they want to give more power to those who have the monopoly on violence."

I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.
Jay Gould
US financier & railroad businessman (1836 - 1892)

This is exactly what is going on with climate science.

George Soros, Jeffrey Immelt, Vinod Khosla have hired one half on our behalf. This half is ready to go to battle on our behalf. We have all 900 billionaires on our side, their "contributions" to environmental movement is motivated by altruism - because they said so.

Kaching! Following the foot steps of St. Albert Gore.

BS...

The pain of the pro-AWG group was self inflicted. Why run the risk?

Because they wanted to be part of the Inner Ring: http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2009/11/...

And how does he go about hiring that one half? The government. It's called the tyrannizing majority of democracy.

Climate science is barely worthy to be a 'science' it has little predictive value and ought to put in the corner with economics. :P

Incredible Deal! Kaching! buy carbon offsets from me and you will recieve free left-over turkey from the weekend. mmmmmmwwwwwaaaaahhhhhh!

It's a bit disheartening that non-reproducible papers can be published in the first place. Everything should be open: data, code, etc. I think the best part of the CRU leak is that a bunch of code they were holding on to was released as well.

This is sounding more and more like the second-hand smoke issue every day.

1. Scientific conclusions with no data are invalid and can be dismissed.

2. Who cares if global warming is real? I live in the UK and think my tax dollars could be spent on things more pressing and important than third world flooding and Saharan creep.

keddaw: "my tax dollars could be spent on things more pressing and important than third world flooding"

It's possible that the majority of Britons believe that tax dollars should be spent to "do something" about third world flooding. If so, there are much cheaper and much more effective solutions than attempting to achieve a drastic reduction in CO2 emissions.

Eduardo Zorita on the issue (well worth reading in the whole) : http://coast.gkss.de/staff/zorita/

One quote:

"These words do not mean that I think anthropogenic climate change is a hoax. On the contrary, it is a question which we have to be very well aware of. But I am also aware that in this thick atmosphere -and I am not speaking of greenhouse gases now- editors, reviewers and authors of alternative studies, analysis, interpretations,even based on the same data we have at our disposal, have been bullied and subtly blackmailed. In this atmosphere, Ph D students are often tempted to tweak their data so as to fit the 'politically correct picture'. Some, or many issues, about climate change are still not well known. Policy makers should be aware of the attempts to hide these uncertainties under a unified picture. I had the 'pleasure' to experience all this in my area of research."

Ah...global warming. Always such a hot topic.

So, if I'm reading the thread correctly, it sounds like the raw data is still available. Though exactly which raw data was used and how it was processed cannot be audited or recreated. Is that a fair characterization?

I've been trying to piece the truth together from various news sources, but I think that's about it.

I had a 300 page dissertation that was sure to win me the Nobel Prize in economics.

The dog ate it though.

Possibly the data set used by CRU is a subset of all available data, and Pielke wanted to know which subset CRU used as a base.

OK, which skeptics have been funded by industry?
Citations please.

Doh, just saw Mommsen1625's post. I had posted the same link.

"Mmmmmmmmmmmwwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh"
sandre


OK I must say I do owe the blog an apology. Apparently something I said has caused a fellow blogger to snap and they have subsequently drooled and frothed all over the board.

For this I do apologize as I feel directly responsible for initiating this psychotic break with reality onto the blog.

psssst...dude.... your meds?? did you forget them?

yes, I forgot my Al Gore kool-aid this morning. Thanks for the reminder.

love you muir,
mmmmmmmmwwwwwwwaaaaahhhhh

waiting for you to end the debate for once and for all with your climate math wizardry. Go ahead, dazzle us.

i owe my success to you.

"Apparently something I said has caused a fellow blogger to snap and they have subsequently drooled and frothed all over the board." Do you always refer to yourself in the third person? And I wouldn't say that something you said CAUSED drooling and frothing; I'd say that what you said WAS drooling and frothing.

The AGW kool-aid drinkers say we MUST trust them and their "proven" data to reduce our GDP by trillions of dollars. Or else the world will die.

These directors of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) remind me the kk Argentine government managers: they break the thermometer because they know the patient has an infection that does not know how to cure.