A Note: Global Warming Threads

[Dr Mabuse]

Climate change data dumped
Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor

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 means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.

The admission follows the leaking of a thousand private emails sent and received by Professor Phil Jones, the CRU’s director. In them he discusses thwarting climate sceptics seeking access to such data.

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.”

The CRU is the world’s leading centre for reconstructing past climate and temperatures. Climate change sceptics have long been keen to examine exactly how its data were compiled. That is now impossible.

Roger Pielke, professor of environmental studies at Colorado University, discovered data had been lost when he asked for original records. “The CRU is basically saying, ‘Trust us’. So much for settling questions and resolving debates with science,” he said.

Jones was not in charge of the CRU when the data were thrown away in the 1980s, a time when climate change was seen as a less pressing issue. The lost material was used to build the databases that have been his life’s work, showing how the world has warmed by 0.8C over the past 157 years.

He and his colleagues say this temperature rise is “unequivocally” linked to greenhouse gas emissions generated by humans. Their findings are one of the main pieces of evidence used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which says global warming is a threat to humanity.

Oops! We need to save space! Almost like a 2 year old alone in a room with a broken lamp saying 'I didn't do it, trust me'.

We'll just have to take their word for it... now that's science.

What a joke.

 

[Pasta]

This is unfortunate for science as a whole, never have I seen such a scam in a scientific field. Hopefully the public won't lose faith in other scientific fields as well.

Personally I had some belief in human caused global warming, but was skeptical because the human contribution of CO2 they kept talking about was a fraction of 1% of the entire Earth atmosphere. Additionally, there seemed to be a bias in scientific and news reporting on this topic. Even now many news media outlets that had this bias, are deliberately ignoring this VERY important story.

To think governments around the world were in the process of making trillions of dollars of choices (funded mostly by taxpayer money) based on bogus "science", not to mention limiting personal and financial freedoms to "offset" all the CO2.

Global warming and cooling has been a natural process during Earth's evolution, and will continue in the future, just like most other planets.
Spinning facts and figures and taking advantage of some of the public's ignorance puts a bad picture on science.

 

[Dr Mabuse]

It just keeps getting better. Now NASA refuses to turn over their data.

I wonder why? Why could that be? Won't surprise me if they 'need to conserve space' and dump it too.

The funny thing is... the suckers who fell for this lie and called it "science" will probably keep on believing in spite of the truth coming out, as I said it would a while back with my first post in this thread filled with the 'faithful'.

Researcher: NASA hiding climate data

By Stephen Dinan

The fight over global warming science is about to cross the Atlantic with a U.S. researcher poised to sue NASA, demanding release of the same kind of climate data that has landed a leading British center in hot water over charges it skewed its data.

Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said NASA has refused for two years to provide information under the Freedom of Information Act that would show how the agency has shaped its climate data and would explain why the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data going as far back as the 1930s.

"I assume that what is there is highly damaging," Mr. Horner said. "These guys are quite clearly bound and determined not to reveal their internal discussions about this."

The numbers matter. Under pressure in 2007, NASA recalculated its data and found that 1934, not 1998, was the hottest year in its records for the contiguous 48 states. NASA later changed that data again, and now 1998 and 2006 are tied for first, with 1934 slightly cooler.

Mr. Horner, a noted global warming skeptic and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism, wants a look at the data and the discussions that went into those changes. He said he's given the agency until the end of the year to comply or else he'll sue to compel the information's release.

His fight mirrors one in Europe that has sprung up over the the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit in the UK after thousands of e-mails from the center were obtained and appear to show researchers shaving their data to make it conform to their expectation, and show efforts to try to drive global warming skeptics out of the conversation.

The center's chief has stepped down pending an investigation into the e-mails.

The center has also had to acknowledge in response to a freedom of information request under British law that it tossed out much of the raw data that it used to draw up the temperature models that have underpinned much of the science behind global warming.

Mr. Horner suspects the same sort of data-shaving has happened at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), another leading global warming research center.

Mark Hess, public affairs director for the Goddard Space Flight Center which runs the GISS laboratory, said they are working on Mr. Horner's request, though he couldn't say why they have taken so long.

"We're collecting the information and will respond with all the responsive relevant information to all of his requests," Mr. Hess said. "It's just a process you have to go through where you have to collect data that's responsive."

He said he was unfamiliar with the British controversy and couldn't say whether NASA was susceptible to the same challenges to its data. The White House has dismissed the British e-mails as irrelevant.

"Several thousand scientists have come to the conclusion that climate change is happening. I don't think that's anything that is, quite frankly, among most people, in dispute anymore," press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters this week.

But Republicans on Capitol Hill say the revelations deserve a congressional investigation. Republican leaders also sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson Wednesday telling her she should withdraw a series of EPA rules until the global warming science can be better substantiated. For now, climate scientists are rallying around the British researchers.

Michael Mann, a scientist at Penn State University who is under fire for his involvement in the British e-mail exchanges, said the e-mails' release was timed to skunk up next week's U.N. global warming summit in Copenhagen. Mr. Obama is planning to attend.

"They've taken scientists' words and phrases and quoted them out of context, completely misrepresenting what they were saying," Mr. Mann told AccuWeather.com in an interview, calling it a "manufactured controversy."

NASA's GISS was forced to update its data in 2007 after questions were raised by Steve McIntyre, who runs ClimateAudit.com.

GISS had initially listed the warmest years as 1998, 1934, 2006, 1921 and 1931. After Mr. McIntyre's questions GISS rejiggered the list and 1934 was warmest, followed by 1998, 1921, 2006 and then 1931. But since then, the list has been rewritten again so it now runs 1998, 2006, 1934, 1921, 1999.

The institute blamed a "minor data processing error" for the changes but says it doesn't make much difference since the top three years remain in a "statistical tie" either way.

Mr. Horner said he's seeking the data itself, but he also wants to see the chain of e-mails from scientists discussing the changes.

The Freedom of Information Act requires agencies to respond to requests within 20 days. Mr. Horner says he's never received an official acknowledgement of his three separate FOIA requests, but has received e-mails showing the agency is aware of them.

He said he has provided NASA with a notice of intent to sue under FOIA, but said he also hopes members of Congress get involved and demand the information be released.

NASA and CRU data are considered the backbone of much of the science that suggests the earth is warming due to manmade greenhouse gas emissions. NASA argues its data suggests this decade has been the warmest on record.

On the other hand, data from the University of Alabama-Huntsville suggests temperatures have been relatively flat for most of this decade.

 

[Pasta]

The funny thing is... the suckers who fell for this lie and called it "science" will probably keep on believing in spite of the truth coming out, as I said it would a while back with my first post in this thread filled with the 'faithful'.

I'm not so sure some of those "suckers" actually believed it themselves. It's beginning to appear that this whole "climate change" movement is more of a political movement rather than a genuine scientific concern for saving Earth.
Just look at how the major networks NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN are all deliberately ignoring this huge story; the same networks that were heavily biased in favor of the "human caused" climate change theory to begin with.

I can't wait to see some of the upcoming editions of the journals "Science" and "Nature" handle this. Usually they make front-page stories of science misconduct. Yet they have always been VERY biased like those news organizations (above) in favor of the human cause. Will they finally act like real unbiased scientific journals ? or continue to be politically biased in favor of lies for political bias sake ?

 

[Trippy]

I'm not so sure some of those "suckers" actually believed it themselves. It's beginning to appear that this whole "climate change" movement is more of a political movement rather than a genuine scientific concern for saving Earth.

Oh BS.

The whole Idea of global warming became a political issue in 1969, through Nixon after the current consensus was arrived at in 1960.

That Humans might cause warming through combustion of fossil fuels (and associated CO2 emissions) was first proposed in 1858.

That Humans were causing warming through combustion of fossil fuels was first proposed in 1938.

The reason it took so long to become accepted was because for some time there was some debate over whether or not it was actually an issue. There was one school of thought that argued that the absorption spectra of CO2 and H2O overlapped, and that H2O was already absorbing most of the available radiation, therefore no significant warming could occur. However, as it transpired (courtesy of the Cold War) improving technology resulted in better quality spectra, that revealed the fine structure of the spectra, and it was discovered (as had been proposed by the opposing school of thought) that the fine structure interleaved, rather than overlapped, meaning that the CO2 was still able to absorb IR radiation.

The idea that it might happen is 151 years old.
The idea that it is happening is 71 years old.
The political issue is 30 years old.

 

[Trippy]

http://msn.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10614120&ref=rss

 

[Dr Mabuse]

I'm not so sure some of those "suckers" actually believed it themselves. It's beginning to appear that this whole "climate change" movement is more of a political movement rather than a genuine scientific concern for saving Earth.

Precisely.

But don't expect the 'faithful' to stop believing any time soon.

As evidenced above...

 

[CheskiChips]

Oh BS.

The whole Idea of global warming became a political issue in 1969, through Nixon after the current consensus was arrived at in 1960.

That Humans might cause warming through combustion of fossil fuels (and associated CO2 emissions) was first proposed in 1858.

That Humans were causing warming through combustion of fossil fuels was first proposed in 1938.

The reason it took so long to become accepted was because for some time there was some debate over whether or not it was actually an issue. There was one school of thought that argued that the absorption spectra of CO2 and H2O overlapped, and that H2O was already absorbing most of the available radiation, therefore no significant warming could occur. However, as it transpired (courtesy of the Cold War) improving technology resulted in better quality spectra, that revealed the fine structure of the spectra, and it was discovered (as had been proposed by the opposing school of thought) that the fine structure interleaved, rather than overlapped, meaning that the CO2 was still able to absorb IR radiation.

The idea that it might happen is 151 years old.
The idea that it is happening is 71 years old.
The political issue is 30 years old.

Wait a second, not possibly true - unless they hid it from publishers. There was absolutely no consensus about anything in 1960. Not a single Meteorology or Climatology textbook I have ever read with exception to a single book published in 2008 which was really a geography and society book claims global warming to have consensus. Every single one of them treats the issue as a possibility - or at best, says that specific areas may warm.

 

[Trippy]

Wait a second, not possibly true - unless they hid it from publishers. There was absolutely no consensus about anything in 1960. Not a single Meteorology or Climatology textbook I have ever read with exception to a single book published in 2008 which was really a geography and society book claims global warming to have consensus. Every single one of them treats the issue as a possibility - or at best, says that specific areas may warm.

That's not what the research that I've done - and I was specifically investigating the history of the matter suggests.

However, My point was that it was accepted as a mainstream theory in 1960, up until then it had been, for lack of a better way of putting it a 'curiosity' or fringe science.

 

[Billy T]

Hear (and see) Obama's 6.5 minute final address to the climate summit here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/avp/avp.ht...//media2.bloomberg.com/cache/vxpEqD3EcdAM.asf

He spins the modest advance well. He is good at that, but what was agreed is important and a definite step forward, even if not legally binding.

Each nation will internationally report its CO2 reduction goals and periodically document its progress towards them. - Other actions, even by "green groups" such as boycott of the exports of nations not doing what they promised can be an effective enforcement mechanism.

 

[Baron Max]

Hear (and see) Obama's 6.5 minute final address...

He spins the modest advance well. He is good at that, but what was agreed is important and a definite step forward, even if not legally binding.

Yep, lots of spin ...your's included, Billy!

Important agreement? Tell me, Billy, was it important enough for all the world's leaders, with their enormous staff, to fly to Copenhagen in tons of big, gas-guzzling planes to meet? How many tons of pollutants did those planes belch out to and from that "important" meeting?

Sorry, Billy, but you're only right about the "spin" part.

Baron Max

 

[Billy T]

... Tell me, Billy, was it important enough for all the world's leaders, with their enormous staff, to fly to Copenhagen in tons of big, gas-guzzling planes to meet? How many tons of pollutants did those planes belch out to and from that "important" meeting?... Baron Max

I would be more critical of the larger mass of "green protesters" - As far as I can tell they only caused the Danish police more CO2 producing work in addition to the CO2 they released getting there.

As far as how many tons of GHGs were released (by either group) I am not sure but when fact that CH4 is about 10 times more important GHG than CO2 and fact that Brazil has the world's largest cattle herd, I think it likely that while the COP 15 was in progress our Brazilian cows did more damage to the environment than COP 15 did. If concerned and want to do your part, stop eating beef.

As about 90% of Brazil's electric power is water power and nearly 10% comes from burning the crushed sugar cane and most cars now run on sugar cane alcohol, the cows are main reason why Brazil is in the top 10 (top 5, If tied with Japan, I think) GHG polluters.

 

[Piterson]

That movie was complete bullshit

Hi
This would seem unfair, even if the thread wasn't a moderated one.

Normally if a thread isn't popular it is off the front page before you know it, never to be seen again. I don't see a problem with that.

So, anything that is not "very different" from a general global warming topic cannot be discussed outside of a single thread that is inherently linear. That could get confusing, and possibly overwhelming.

Then again, this sure would have been a good idea with the Ron Paul threads in politics a couple of years ago

 

[nirakar]

Trippy, do you haven any opinion on whether Mark Lynas is credible or overly sensation, particularly his book "Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet"?

Is the current science of climate modeling actually capable of predicting somewhat accurately changes to regional precipitation patterns at various levels of increased global temperatures?

 

[adoucette]

Trippy.

http://www.sciforums.com/album.php?albumid=88&pictureid=493

Really?

Arthur

 

[Trippy]

Trippy.

http://www.sciforums.com/album.php?albumid=88&pictureid=493

Really?

Arthur

Could you clarify what you're asking?

That graph is from Hansen 1986 (IIRC). My point with that graph (at least in the discussion that prompted me to upload it) was that in his original(?) papers he predicted/implied (inspite of any sensationalist claims he might have made) that by 2010, even at the three sigma level, anthropogenic climate change might still be largely indistinguishable from natural variations.

 

[adoucette]

Really?

You can't tell what's WRONG with that graph?

Nothing about the CHERRY PICKED initial period from 1950-1980?

I mean why would a climate scientist do that?

It's not like we don't have climate data that goes back to 1900.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/images/content/208488main_global_temp_change.jpg

This is data than Hansen was in fact responsible for.

Of course if one picked a longer period than the climate would not look nearly as STABLE as it appears in the 50-80 period.

Indeed, the gain in the earlier part of the century is huge, thus the range of possible future climates based on natural variability, is far larger than this graph suggests.

Arthur

 

[Trippy]

Really?

You can't tell what's WRONG with that graph?

Nothing about the CHERRY PICKED initial period from 1950-1980?

I mean why would a climate scientist do that?

It's not like we don't have climate data that goes back to 1900.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/images/content/208488main_global_temp_change.jpg

This is data than Hansen was in fact responsible for.

Of course if one picked a longer period than the climate would not look nearly as STABLE as it appears in the 50-80 period.

Indeed, the gain in the earlier part of the century is huge, thus the range of possible future climates based on natural variability, is far larger than this graph suggests.

Arthur

Accuracy, please.

I did not defend the start point, nor did I comment on it.
I did not state that I couldn't see anything wrong with the graph, I only asked you to present specific criticisms, rather than simply scoffing at the graph.
I'm not responsible for the creation of the graph, I merely reproduced it in the context of a discussion, which I have already outlined to you.
The argument was made that it had been predicted that by the 2000-2010 the clmate would have diverged from historical records, and as this had not happened, climate change was proven to be false.
The graph was presented in the context of clarifying what the original prediction actually was - namely that while some scenarios predicted a climate divergent from historical norms, other scenarios predicted a climate barely distinguishable from those norms at the 3-sigma level.

There is, however, a relatively simple answer to your criticism regarding the time frames chosen in this graph, and the later work that you linked to.

Hansen now has access to information that he did not have access to in 1986.

This would appear to be corroborated by a paper he later co authored (I think it was Hansen et al 1989 or 1991, but I'm uncertain, and lack the time and motivation to look it up for a number of reasons, not the least of hwich is that I already have it, but not on this computer which is a long term loan) in which re-analyzed the predictions he made in his 1986 paper in light of an increased dataset, which had greater coverage in both space and time, to see if the still held up.

 

[adoucette]

Accuracy, please.

I did not defend the start point, nor did I comment on it.
I did not state that I couldn't see anything wrong with the graph, I only asked you to present specific criticisms, rather than simply scoffing at the graph.
I'm not responsible for the creation of the graph, I merely reproduced it in the context of a discussion, which I have already outlined to you.
The argument was made that it had been predicted that by the 2000-2010 the clmate would have diverged from historical records, and as this had not happened, climate change was proven to be false.
The graph was presented in the context of clarifying what the original prediction actually was - namely that while some scenarios predicted a climate divergent from historical norms, other scenarios predicted a climate barely distinguishable from those norms at the 3-sigma level.

There is, however, a relatively simple answer to your criticism regarding the time frames chosen in this graph, and the later work that you linked to.

Hansen now has access to information that he did not have access to in 1986.

This would appear to be corroborated by a paper he later co authored (I think it was Hansen et al 1989 or 1991, but I'm uncertain, and lack the time and motivation to look it up for a number of reasons, not the least of hwich is that I already have it, but not on this computer which is a long term loan) in which re-analyzed the predictions he made in his 1986 paper in light of an increased dataset, which had greater coverage in both space and time, to see if the still held up.

Trippy,
The graph is misleading no matter how you defend it.
And I simply don't believe that we didn't have climatic data prior to 1950, back in 1986. That will require some actual proof.
Arthur

 

[Trippy]

Trippy,
The graph is misleading no matter how you defend it.
And I simply don't believe that we didn't have climatic data prior to 1950, back in 1986. That will require some actual proof.
Arthur

You haven't understood what I was saying.

I was not defending the dam graph.

As for the rest of it, suit yourself - Hansen's papers are available from GISS (IIRC) so if you're genuinely that interested or concerned, you could track them down yourself.