Saturday
Jan082011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Toronto Sun on Climate Files
Jan 8, 2011 Books Climate: CRU Climate: Jones Climate: Oxburgh Journals Lorrie Goldstein of the Toronto Sun asks if maybe climate science shouldn't be just a bit more open, and citing Fred Pearce's The Climate Files as evidence. The tone of the article is interesting, with Goldstein noting that Pearce is not a "denier", but pointing out his criticisms of the climatology community's failure to check its findings.
As well as taking pot shots at climatology peer review, he also has things to say about the Climategate inquiries:
Simply having panels of sympathetic academics (or politicians) take a cursory look at the work of climate scientists and pronounce it sound — what happened following Climategate — doesn’t cut it.
Reader Comments (160)
Paul B.
"But of course, you need to approach the alternatives with the same skeptical attitude as you approach the AGW theory."
agreed
If you notice a rush of 'warm' air in this blog, you'll be delighted to know that this very blog has been flagged up on the daily 'Campaign against Climate Change blog aggregator' as today's 'warm attack'. It's a system the warmists have for recruiting trolls to sensible debates. I'll wager Cthuhul and Breath of fresh air are subscribers!
Sorry. I get the trolls muddled up sometimes.
Meaningless. The issues with validation of GCMs are not addressed. Please read the links provided above and make a substantive reply.
You really think that governments have long-term aims? As in past the next election? I believe you are entirely back to front on this one. Larger corporations consider the long-term outcome of their own – and everybody else’s strategy very carefully. Governments are an amateur shambles in comparison. You sound like just another pretend anti-capitalist kiddie to me.
You are a pseudo-anti-capitalist (with electric light and a computer etc)! Oil is and will always be vital as a feedstock to multiple manufacturing processes and a base for fertiliser. It will always have a high value. This rubbish about Big Oil trying to kill off alternatives bespeaks a depressingly shallow knowledge of real-world economics and the actualities behind the oil industry. In short, you are parroting the rubbish of others. Cease, do some real reading, and have a re-think. Spare us all.
You are repeating yourself (your paragraph 3, above).
Hi,
You may be getting a lot of comments instigated by a UK journalist by the name of George Monbiot. The Campaign Against Climate Change (of which he is honorary President) sends email alerts to fellow global warming supporters encouraging them to flood the comments sections of any online article that disagrees with the warmist view of AGW.
The website states: "You will receive one e-mail alert per day containing links to various climate change news articles. We need you to politely explain in the comments section why global warming is actually happening and why it's not a big conspiracy. You can contribute to as little or as many articles as you like, just dive in."
His 'anti-sceptic' campaign is here: http://www.campaigncc.org/node/384
Interestingly George Monbiot criticised AGW sceptics for using the same approach here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/jul/08/climate-denial-astroturfers-
pseudonyms?INTCMP=SRCH
His email referencing this article is below:
"Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2011 15:30:27 +0000
Subject: Climate Change sceptic blog alerts
From: info@campaigncc.org
To: XXXXXXXX
Climate Change sceptic blog alerts
Bishop Hill: Toronto Sun on Climate Files
Posted: 07 Jan 2011 11:38 PM PST
Lorrie Goldstein of the Toronto Sun asks if maybe climate science shouldn't be just a bit more open, and citing Fred Pearce's The Climate Files as evidence. The tone of the article is interesting, with Goldstein noting that Pearce is not a "denier", but pointing out his criticisms of the climatology community's failure to check its findings.
As well as taking pot shots at climatology peer review, she also has things to say about the Climategate inquiries:
Simply having panels of sympathetic academics (or politicians) take a cursory look at the work of climate scientists and pronounce it sound — what happened following Climategate — doesn’t cut"
it.
I'm posting this just so that you know what is going on.
I think you mean me, not breath of fresh air!
You'll be pleased to hear that while I'm having great fun here, I don't have nearly enough time to follow up on everything "Campaign against Climate Change" alerts me to. In fact so far it only seems to be mentioning this blog and Delingpole in the Telegraph
I don't think it matters what word you call it. What happened there was independent of any of the data GISTEMP use, therefore nothing was universally "lost" at all. Hence the irrelevance of the matter.
Anyone who has studied the surface temperature records knows that nothing in climategate called them into doubt. "Jones lost the data OMG!" might fool the rubes, but anyone who is familiar with how GHCN and GISTEMP, etc work knows that the matter was irrelevant. The only people who would need an independent investigation into that matter would be the people who didn't understand it.
Well I'm not holding my breath. But they should.
No I'm not anti capitalist. But I think it needs to be regulated.
The point about value of oil? Its the relative cost that is important to society. So what happens when all the easily extractable oil has been extracted and higher prices feed into the costs of manufactured goods and food?
Ken,
I'd wondered why they sometimes show up. Can you remember one of these cameo appearers ever to have his/her homework done or are they always long on opinion and a bit short on understanding of the issues identified via Climategate, or the shortcomings of peer review, the inadequate performances of the various "review" committees, or the shoddiness if not f***d of the Jones effort to show the insignificance of UHI?
There surely must be someone out there who is sceptical of the sceptical view AND has done the homework.
@PaulB
"So for example, we know that oil companies achieved record breaking profits after oil prices spiked a couple of years ago. This indicates that it is in the interests of those companies that oil prices should be high, and therefore it is also in their interests that alternatives to oil should not be developed".
Not necessarily the case at all seeing as how oil is not actually what they sell - they really sell solutions to problems which includes energy, lubrication, feeding plants and animals. If you are having a problem with this concept consider that Black and Decker don't sell drills - they sell the means to make a hole to solve somebodies problem when they need a hole of a particular size.
Organisations that want to be sucessful need to be flexible and any oil compaby worth their salt will be researching alternative means of providing the solutions they sell. In so doing they will be looking for opportunities to take adavantage of in this quest. The theory of man made global warming presents itself as just such an opportunity to a wide range of people, agencies and organisations from governments (tax, political agendas), companies (new contracts, products and profit), scientists (grants, personal recognition) and ecowarriors (controlling the means of production, anti capitalism, environmentalism or whatever it is).
Personally i don't believe in a worldwide conspiracy to push AGW, I believe its more liekly to be a lot of people who have seen the various opportunities it presents to persue their own self interest (whatever that is) but of course, just like the theory of AGW, thats just my belief.
Paul B - I don't personally think that Sceptics need to put forward any alternative theories really.
Warmists, especially CAGW supporters are the ones predicting doom and have a theory to go with it. All mostly based models.
Sceptics just keep asking for
- non bending of data (now fully exposed whatever you like to believe)
- demonstration that Climate Models have skill - if you can't get the first 20 years right..............
- some data to genuinely show the Equatorial Hot Spot. Models predict it - it ain't there.
It simply isn't happening and exaggerating dire predictions, scaring school children and spending £billions we don't have, while all the while attributing anything negative in the whole world to Climate Change (will it be credit card debt next?) is completely irresponsible.
Bring back science.
Cthulhu
Sorry. CRU is where they get the global (such as they are) data for GISTEMP. And FWIW, what appears to be lost is not necessarily all of the raw data, but the records of the QA changes, what was done, and to which records. Google GHCN and see if I'm confused about this.
@PaulB
"The point about value of oil? Its the relative cost that is important to society. So what happens when all the easily extractable oil has been extracted and higher prices feed into the costs of manufactured goods and food?"
Thats an intersting one Paul - do you know how much extra cost your parents are already paying in their energy bills to pay for the various subsidies? Now, take that further, whats the opportunity cost with those self same subsidies? By that, what are they NOT able to spend this money on and how many jobs are already being lost as a result? Just curious understand.
You are incorrect, this has been done. Other people, besides Jones, have taken fresh data and run it through their own analysis and found the same conclusions. This is completely independent of Jones, in fact Jones could have not existed at all and we'd still have the same result.
Nothing hinges on anything Phil Jones has done. Hence why him losing some data was irrelevant to the science itself. Scientifically all we care about is what the station data shows.
It's damning for the skeptic blogosphere that a seasoned skeptic blog reader such as yourself who admits to having technical and scientific capabilities wasn't aware of this. This is part of the problem, skeptic blogs are effectively leaving their readers with a slanted perception of the science. A clear bias into imagining that the science is less certain or more suspicious than it actually is.
The failure of countless skeptic blogs run by people who should know better but have completely failed to set the record straight is a damnation on the whole enterprise. If anything an investigation into skeptic blogs wouldn't go amiss.
But surely if the only coherent theory is one that predicts "doom" under some scenarios, you owe it to all of us to come up with an alternative
You know, I take a great interest in this subject and am continually looking for solid evidence that there isn't a significant risk of severe disruption due to climate change over the next few decades. All I can see is the cosmic ray hypothesis which may, if it is correct, demonstrate that the influence of GHGs on climate is less than previously thought. Even there, though, I notice we're in a period of extremely low solar activity, yet global temperatures are as high is they have ever been in the instrumental record.
How old do you you think I am, Serge? Just curious, you understand ;-)
As long as the results Jones claimed can be verified or contested by data that is out there it's fine. At no point did Jones own anything, so yes it's fine. In a perfect world nothing would be lost and everything would be available at the click of a mouse. But the world aint perfect. Does it need to be? Nope. Is it working anyway? Yep.
Harry wasn't working on the Jones temperature dataset so is completely irrelevant to the validity of them. That's yet another misconception which is prevalent among skeptic blog readers, mainly because of sloppy conveyance of the facts of the matter by the blogs themselves.
Anyone who has studied the surface temperature records knows that nothing in climategate called them into doubt.
HARRY_READ_ME.txt
Cthulhu,
What fresh data? there isn't any. Go over to Lucia's blackboard. Read the reports of the GISTEMP replications. Then look at what data they all used. It's the same GHCN V2 (and they all used it) which does indeed contain datasets massaged my Dr. Jones. You really need to look into this in a bit more depth and it isn't hard to do.
you might also go to Stephen Mosher's excellent moshtemp, He's right now going through the effort to discover the locational and classification errors in the GHCN v3 dataset, and they do abound - and not from malfeasance by the way, more by the complexity of the work and shortage of funds.
In the meantime, you might want to think about the wisdom of carrying on in a place like this where there may be people who actually do know the things you think you know.
Cthulhu says:
Well, there you have it in a nutshell. One 'slanted perception' of the science vs another.
The elephant in the room is your obvious belief in climate catastrophe. Which is not based on the calculation of radiative transfer equations but on a stack of assumptions and prior politics.
Is it really any wonder that plenty of people react badly to climate alarmism? Including non-sceptics such as myself?
From an earlier comment that you ignored:
That's far from the first time I've heard that claim, but it isn't the case. They weren't the same collections accumulated by CRU. In fact CRU didn't even touch them.
Does it not worry you at all that skeptic blogs you read have not conveyed that important fact across?
Harry wasn't working on the Jones temperature dataset so is completely irrelevant to the validity of them.
"READ ME for Harry's work on the CRU TS2.1/3.0 datasets, 2006-2009!"
"Then got a mail from PJ to say we shouldn't be excluding stations inside 8km anyway - yet
that's in IJC - Mitchell & Jones 2005!"
If you claim, that Phil Jones' work was different from the ugly mess, Harry was working on, you need to produce a lot of evidence.
How about I just point out that the CRU TS dataset isn't the CRU HadCRUT global surface temperature dataset?
Cthulhu said: "That's far from the first time I've heard that claim, but it isn't the case. They weren't the same collections accumulated by CRU. In fact CRU didn't even touch them.
Does it not worry you at all that skeptic blogs you read have not conveyed that important fact across?"
You are correct in saying that CRU never touched those data-sets. But since GHCN V2 is the set used by all of the experimenters as well as being input to GISTEMP AND it contains data from CRU including time-series modified by Dr. Jones - there being no other time-series available for many of these stations, how can you even think this is fresh-data. how fresh can data be that are collected at CRU and date back to the 19th century?
Cthulhu. Are you saying that the data Dr. jones has worked on are not included in HadCRUT? Or that GHCN does not include HaCRUT?
vieras says:
And Cthulhu responds:
How about you answer the question?
Paul B said "How old do you you think I am, Serge? Just curious, you understand ;-)"
Old enough to know better than to troll a blog and expect the residents to be incapable of refuting your alarmist rhetoric.
Skeptic blogs have grown in popularity because of the cultural failure of climate scientists to apply the scientific method to their work rigorously . Steve McIntyre has been repeatedly vilified over the years for simply pointing out the statistical and mathematical inconsistencies of the "peer reviewed" science. If the field of climate science had been applying the scientific method correctly they would have incorporated his work in their own, but they didn't. Instead they hid behind claims such as "but it's not peer reviewed", while conspiring to keep it out of the peer reviewed journals, and then tried to pretend that his work could be ignored because it wasn't in those journals. Doesn't that strike you as odd! It's certainly what originally made me suspect that all was not well in climate science.
What datasets does it contain massaged by Jones? I see all the sources of GHCN V2 but something-CRU is not among them.
Sure you are not getting the idea that GISTEMP relies on CRU data from this piece of half baked propaganda. Yes I follow this stuff closely enough to bookmark stuff like that.
Unclear above - Cthulhu:
link to half-baked propaganda missing: http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=5336
Cthulhu
Maybe you got me. let me go back and redo my homework.
I did. My point being that I didn't have to produce a lot of evidence at all. I just had to point out that the dataset harry was working on (CRU TS) wasn't the same as the CRU global temperature dataset (HadCRUT3).
Cthulhu
"Sure you are not getting the idea that GISTEMP relies on CRU data from this piece of half baked propaganda. Yes I follow this stuff closely enough to bookmark stuff like that."
I don't blame it on anyone else, though. i misconstrued it entirely myself. Sorry to waste your (and everyone else's) time.
john
Paul B
"I don't have nearly enough time to follow up on everything "Campaign against Climate Change" alerts me to."
I don't mean to be rude, but have you tried thinking for yourself? If you're only here because CACC (great acronym) told you to, then you may not be treated quite so civilly.
JFerguson made a mistake and admitted it straight away.
Clearly JFerguson is not a Climate Scientist.
Cthulhu
"A clear bias into imagining that the science is less certain or more suspicious than it actually is."
So, you must know how certain it is, then. Do tell.
@Paul B
"How old do you you think I am, Serge? Just curious, you understand ;-)"
Who mentioned age? As far as you are concerned the question assumes:
1) that you have parents
2) that they pay bills associated with energy.
Any reference to age is just in your head. A bit like scientific proof of AGW I guess.
If it helps, when AGW first came into public awareness I was very much on the fence and looked at both sides of the issue with an open mind, but always remaining curious about what was being said or stated rather than just accepting it.
However, over time I’ve found warmists to be more disingenuous than skeptics and they certainly have more to gain from pushing this agenda. So my views have more crystalised on the skeptical side. Not through one single issue such as Climategate but the continual failure to provide unequivocal empirical evidence proving that manmade CO2 is causing AGW despite the vast sums of money being thrown at it. Do you have such proof? If not then you are practicing a belief, no more, just like everybody else.
Another thing I'm curious about Paul B, how much do you actually WANT the theory of AGW to be true?
Cthulhu is a troll who used to go by that name on WUWT. On one thread today Anthony Watts 'outed' the troll now calling itself 'Onion' as being one and the same. Too much troll feeding occurring here.
@Phil Bratby how do you balance publication on a site that denies the moon landings?
Seriously. I am interested.
How do you do it..
Because pious posturing will be OUR currency soon ;)
I subscribe to the climate change blog of Monbiot simply because it gives me access to climate realist stories I would otherwise miss. I expect there are lots of people like me but like one of the commenters I have noticed that Bishop Hill and James Delingpole are the most hyped sites. You must be on the right track if the warmists think they must target you. It means you are speaking the truth and it is embarrassing for the warmists. No other reason for the attention. Secondly, I have noticed that in general the trolls are exceedingly short of evidence to support their assertions, quoting monkey science from climate scientists rather than independent genuinue research. Thirdly, mother nature or whatever you might call it will in the end prevail. Fourthly, it is usually counterproductive to get into an argument with these people as the simply recycle swill. I think it is best if their comments are ignored. Totally. No matter how much you are provoked
Steve2 demonstrates a fine sense of irony:
Well, I suppose what I noticed was that you asked about my parents energy expenditure rather than mine. As if my energy use was paid for by them. But perhaps I just misunderstood.
To summarize, the main strands of evidence that contribute to my acceptance of the mainstream science are (a) that orbital changes alone cannot explain the temperature changes involved in the glacial cycles and that changes in CO2 amplified by water vapour feedback are required; (b) the vertical profile of temperature change (ie rising in the lower troposphere and falling in the stratosphere) is as predicted by the GHG theory (c) the increase in the height of the tropopause is also as predicted by GHG theory (d) the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing rapidly and its isotopic signature shows that the increase is derived from fossil fuels (e) the radiative properties of gases act to block outgoing longwave radiation and the more GHGs there are in the atmosphere, the more outgoing radiation will be blocked
Now that may not be "unequivocal empirical evidence" by your criteria, and if that is the case I can't help you, but all I can say is that it is good enough for the large majority of scientists in a wide variety of disciplines
Interesting question. FWIW I used to think that global warming would be a problem in the very long term - ie hundreds or even thousands of years. Then temperatures rose very rapidly in the 1990s and it seemed likely that it would be problematic on a decadal scale. It seems to have levelled off, but in fact the big rise in the 1990s was due to the combination of the Pinatubo eruption with the anomalous El Nino event in 1998, and the apparent levelling off is likely down to the 1998 El Nino followed by a marked fall in solar activity. Look at the full period of the satellite record and the rise is close to that predicted in the IPCC report (about 0.15 degrees C per decade). Some consequences (eg changes in Arctic sea ice) seem to be occurring faster than predicted.
I don't think anybody denies that the basic theory of AGW is correct, but I'd hope that sensitivity is lower than predicted by IPCC, since it will give us more time to mitigate the effects. So while I hope that (say) Lindzen or Spencer or Svensmark are correct, I have no more reason to suppose they are right than the more catastrophic projections of (for example) Hansen and Rahmstorf.
I hope that is helpful
Oh dear. I was hoping I'd get kudos for admitting it!
Seriously, though, whereever I happen to have linked from today, I'd hope you'd address my arguments rather than what you think I am or what you think my motives are. CACC may have given me the link this time, but I don't get any of my arguments from them. For one thing, I'm sure they'd stress the "alarmist" aspect of the argument far more then I'd be comfortable with
"I don't think anybody denies that the basic theory of AGW is correct"
Paul B,
I do.
What evidence do you have that shows otherwise?
Andrew
Paul B says:
Which is good to hear.
@BadAndrew
Well the evidence that convinces me is in the same post you just quoted. But since you don't apparently accept the warming effect of GHGs at all, it obviously isn't going to convince you.
Paul B,
Point me to the convincing evidence (not just someone else's conclusions) you've collected and I'll take a look.
Andrew
Well, I can settle one thing anyway. It's spelled 'litchurchur'. I've read it at The Source often enough.
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Guardianista Hogwash Generator ???