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)
@Pete B - with great respect, you're clearly not a scientist or have much of a scientific background given your responses earlier in this thread, specifically not understanding that a hypothesis does not require a replacement hypothesis in order to be overturned. It just needs to be shown wrong - which can be done by a piece of evidence contradicting the original hypothesis. This is the basis of "falsifiability", a key concept in science. If something can't be falsified, it isn't science.
Have you read Lindzen's testimony to (US) House subcomittee last year? Highly recommended.
"Some current problems with science
1. Questionable data. (Climategate and involvement of all three
centers tracking global average temperature anomaly.) This is a
complicated ethical issue for several reasons. Small temperature
changes are not abnormal and even claimed changes are consistent
with low climate sensitivity. However, the public has been mislead
to believe that whether it is warming or cooling – no matter how
little – is of vital importance. Tilting the record slightly is thus of
little consequence to the science but of great importance to the
public perception.
2. More sophisticated data is being analyzed with the aim of
supporting rather than testing models (validation rather than testing).
That certainly has been my experience during service with both the
IPCC and the National Climate Assessment Program. It is also evident
in the recent scandal concerning Himalayan glaciers.
(Note that in both cases, we are not dealing with simple measurements,
but rather with huge collections of sometimes dubious measurements
that are subject to often subjective analysis – sometimes referred to as
‘massaging.’)
In point of fact, we know that some of the recent temperature data must be wrong!"
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/lindzen_testimony_11-17-2010.pdf
I'm well aware that AGW theory can be falsified. What would be required would be a rapid fall in global temperatures (equivalent to the rapid rise during the 1990s) which occurred while CO2 levels were still increasing and which had no clear explanation. If that happened, the AGW theory would clearly be challenged. But we'd still need to find a coherent alternative theory (no doubt including an alternative theory of why the background temperature of the planet is much higher -by about 33 deg C - than it would be solar forcing were acting alone)
@Paul B - did you read the Lindzen piece?
Kim. You just shocked me. You is appealing to consensus authority. Forget the tense, ignore the grammar, side-swipe the alpha-mislocationings, ewe is claiming precedent!
Taut that 'oo was bitter than that.
As an illiterate, I can barely count from one to haiku without suffering another sheepless night.
As an insomniac, it lulls me to dreams of sweet certainty where 0845 numbers of democratic origin
mandate a collective suicidal pact, comeback free.
As an educator, I'll just let the weans follow my NVQ footsteps and become, like me, the child that you prayed I wouldn't ever become...the wet-nurse of the west..
Well its getting late, so I may not be able to cover all the points tonight, but I'll try to make a start. But I'm pretty sure that my supporting literature - which is good enough for me - is unlikely to satisfy your criteria.
(a)First, the idea that orbital forcing alone is not sufficient to explain the Ice Age cycles is described by Spencer Weart here. There are also supporting references on this site, so it isn't just "somebody else's conclusions"
(b)The vertical profile of temperature trends as predicted by AGW theory is described by Science of Doom here. Again he supplies further references.
Also, you can see the trends directly on the RSS satellite site, about one-third of the way down this page
(c)For indications that the height of the tropopause has risen see this paper by Santer et al,
but also see discussions below the line at Science of Doom here
(d)I hope you accept without further support the fact that CO2 concentrations are increasing rapidly, but a paper about the significance of the isotopic composition of the increase is here
(e) The role of GHGs in blocking outgoing longwave radiation is described in great detail at Science of Doom - again with references
That lot should keep you busy!
I saw the 100+ comment count and thought immediately a pair or maybe even three geniuses have descended.
Paul B,
I appreciate you taking the time to put together a list of links and thank you for your effort.
However, I went to the first one concerning Spencer Weart's book and was disappointed (but not surprised) that while I'm asking for scientific evidence you directed me to a book whose author states in his conclusion:
"Global warming is not a technical problem; it's a political problem."
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/SWnote.htm
OK. I guess I don't need to look at the rest of your links, Paul B, Global Warming is all I ever thought it was... politics.
Andrew
worth reading all:
4 Jan: Spiked: Brendan O'Neill: The icy grip of the politics of fear
The snow crisis of December 2010: what a striking snapshot of the chasm that separates the warming-obsessed elite from the rest of us.
Because what we have here is an updated version of the elitist idea that the better classes have access to a profound and complicated truth that the rest of us cannot grasp. Where we have merely sensory reactions (experience), they have reason and analysis (knowledge). Our critical reaction to the snow actually revealed our failure to understand The Truth, as unveiled by The Science, rather than revealing their wrongheadedness in predicting an ‘end to snow’. We are ‘simple’, they are ‘reasoned’. In 2011, we should take everything that is said by this new doom-mongering expert caste with a large pinch of salt – and then spread that salt on the snow which they claimed had disappeared from our lives.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10046/
H'mmm
Seems to me that part of the problem is that nobody has actually ever formulated what they think 'AGW Theory' actually is.
PaulB has presented some evidence that convinces him that whatever he calls 'AGW Theory' is actually true.
But since neither he nor anybody else from whichever side of the discussion has clearly presented what they think 'AGW Theory' stands for, then this is a conversation about apples and oranges and probably the remainder of the exotica at Covent Garden market.
I'd also add that PaulB's evidence doesn't seem to be more than 'consistent with' rather than 'proof of' whatever theory he is working with.
So until you can all define your terms, further progress is impossible.
latimer adler
The traditional term for exotica at Covent Garden is "queer gear". I googled to confirm my recollection and found the following terms, which might well be applied to AGW arguments:
Slack - Box that does not contain the claimed quantity of goods.
Wasty - Box that contains some rotten produce.
Topped - Pack where the produce is better at the top of the box than the bottom.
http://www.foodforlondon.net/markets4business/market_terminology/
No I don't expect to be able to provide the kind of "proof" available in, for example, a controlled small scale experiment, since we don't have a second Earth as the control. But I accept AGW theory (which broadly is the idea that the Earth is heating as a result of emissions of carbon into the atmosphere by human activities) at the moment because it is the only theory with which all those pieces of evidence are consistent.
Perhaps defining terms is part of further progress
And @Shub, although I'm not a genius, I'm pleased to have played a part in getting more than 100 comments onto this thread :-)
Re Cthulhu
That is not science which can eternal lie.
And with strange programming even truth may die
The Harry file may not be evidence of faults in HadCRU's official series, but did provide evidence of poor QA and QC processes within CRU. The same is true for the Chinese UHI paper. Jones doesn't believe UHI is a significant influence, so finds data to support that belief. Turns out the data doesn't exist but the paper hasn't been withdrawn or updated. Jones said he may do this but has now changed his mind. Jones said he wouldn't realise data because people may find errors in it.
Based on past performance, that seems likely. People have found errors in his work, Manns, Steigs etc. HadCRU published their PERL version and John Graham-Cummings quickly found an error in it, which was corrected and the code improved. Statisticians have done the same with other published papers and suggested corrected or improved methodolgy. The IAC review into the IPCC process found that uncertainties had been denied and recommended that AR5 provides clearer emphasis on uncertainties and areas where there may be contrary scientific opinion.
A shift in climate science towards more open and honest debate is surely a good thing. If an extended peer review leads to more people taking an interest and engaging in debate, surely that's a good thing for both science and reducing scepticism. It's easy to suggest there are problems if data or code access is refused or obstructed because 'they must be hiding something'. Publish it, and let the data and code speak for itself. If it's robust, it'll withstand scrutiny. If errors are found, well, that's life. If errors are denied, then it starts looking like climate science is more interested in protecting the egos and reputations of individuals rather than advancing human understanding, which is not good for the reputation of science.
Quite correct. Unfortunately a lot of the political background to both sides of the argument has led to a febrile atmosphere, where some people have become so entrenched and defensive that they'll find it difficult to accept that future improvements in the robustness of climate science have anything to do with the criticisms of it that are going on right now.
Still, its a fascinating debate to be involved in
If errors and exaggerations are systematically denied, it starts looking like climate science is happy pushing forth a certain agenda.
Paul B
By my count EMSmith made nine comments out of the c200 on the thread I referenced. He also linked back to the analyses he has made of the temperature data. This was extremely comprehensive and covered the reported temperatures for every country and area of the world. It is premature of you to dismiss his work unless you take the trouble to read it - and that will take quite a long time.
Check him out here:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/04/11/the-world-in-dtdt-graphs-of-temperature-anomalies/
Among other things he discovered that there was a significant change in the number of stations reported on around 1990, when the count dropped from c6000 to c1200. Only c200 of these stations were common to the pre 1990 and post 1990 periods. The locations of these these stations also changed with migration closer towards sea level and towards the equator. The practice of gridding and homogenisation also influences the quality of the results obtained.
These changes raise a fundamental issue of quality control, or rather an absence of it, when making comparisons of temperature over time. In a business environment they would not stand the test of scrutiny and would be rejected as unfit for purpose.
I'm curious. You alarmists are prepared to take evidence consistent with a hypothesis as "proof" of the hypothesis, without accepting evidence contra the actual hypothesis. i.e. a 6 year cooling trend is inconstant, as is trapped shipping frozen in sea ice, as is 100yr cold records falling all over the N. Hemisphere. As is the freezing level descending over 500M in the tropics, as is cooling SSTs. Temps are not following the models, or the post normal science predictions.
You recognise a quiet sun is likely going to have a cooling effect, yet fail to recognise it could also have a warming effect to explain the trend. You say you hope svensmark could be right, and fail to recognise events are more constant re quiet sun and cooling, than your pet hypothesis.
You fail to see events are more consistent with the null hypothesis. The longer term temp trend is constant with a recovery from the LIA.
The next 20 yrs should prove interesting for the debate
How do you square these inconsistencies in your pet theory?
In my opinion as a scientist of over 40 years experience, the most damning evidence in the ClimateGate e-mails was the Harry Read-me file. As Atomic Hairdryer points out above this demonstrated the appalling lack of QA/QC systems at CRU and shows that it would be exceedinly unwise to take on trust ANY information arising from that organisation.
Peer review is a nonsensical argument to put forward, as is consensus.
Given that we have Steven Schneider saying it may be necessary - but is OK - to lie about AGW, nothing peer reviewed by anyone involved in climate science can be taken as anything other than opinion.
Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus
Do not feed the trolls, please. It makes for tedious reading!
Which is precisely why I rely on peer review. Because otherwise nobody could express an opinion on science without reading and understanding every aspect of it.
However much you may like Smith's analysis, the fact is that it has not been peer reviewed. So if I take a quick look at something he has written and find that he has mistakenly attempted to compare US temperatures with global temperatures (as I did upthread), how can I then rely on the rest of his analysis. As far as I can see, that is a perfectly good reason not to read the rest of his analysis which, as you point out, would take a long time.
I don't think peer review is perfect by any means. And I see no reason why some alternative should not evolve, given that we now have the resource of the internet. However, the present alternative seems to be a number of blogs of very variable quality, and it doesn't do the trick as far as I'm concerned. As a rule of thumb, the more a blogger references the peer review literature, the more credence I'm prepared to give them.
You need to present consistent evidence that these events are part of some trend, which persists over at least 30 years, and whose drivers are not consistent with AGW theory.
It is perfectly possible for different trends in different parts of the world to be consistent with an overall warming trend. For example, its well known that a slowdown of the Gulf Stream/North Atlantic Current system, caused by the melting North American ice sheet after glaciation, has resulted in colder temperatures in northwest Europe which persisted for several centuries.
To the extent to which the cosmic ray theory of cloud formation turns out to be correct, it will add to the AGW theory. It won't overturn it. It may mean that global warming will be slower in the longer term, but it might also mean that it will be faster during periods of increasing solar activity.
You need to convince me that they are inconsistencies
Paul B
Are you talking about the Younger Dryas? Just curious, not having a go.
@BBD
Yes. And also the so-called "8.2 ka event"
Paul, these models do not reflect reality....
http://i55.tinypic.com/14mf04i.jpg
@Frosty
You need to give me a link for that, so I can check the context and see the relevant bit of the chart in more detail.
I should point out straightaway, however, that if Phil Jones and co wrote "WTF" prominently on their graphs, you might see it as evidence of an unscientific approach!
Paul B
Yes, daft of me. My paleoclimate general knowledge needs a dusting down.
Paul B: "Which is precisely why I rely on peer review. Because otherwise nobody could express an opinion on science without reading and understanding every aspect of it."
This is a good point and often misunderstood by critics as blind acceptance. Science is a collective enterprise that builds on the work of others. No one person can expect to become an expert in all aspects of a particular subject, so must rely on the judgements of other scientists.
Peer review is part of this collective process of understanding. That doesn't make it infallible, and if improvements are needed, in climate or other sciences, they should be pursued.
And since science is also a process of judgement, not all scientific claims will make the cut, regardless of the form of peer review.
@BBD
Good for you. Those events probably resulted when melting ice suddenly released a large lake of dammed-up meltwater into the Atlantic.
So if anybody tries to claim it might happen again, they're wrong, since as far as we know, there is no pool of trapped meltwater on Greenland.
Paul B
Thanks. I do know about Lake Ojibway and Agassiz etc. I'm just rusty. Brushing up as we speak. Also just dug out Macdougall's Frozen Earth, which I remember being useful.
BTW I've never heard anyone claim that there will be an event similar to the YD or 8.2ka today.
BBD
You should talk to the people who made The Day After Tomorrow ! Not exactly the same cause of course, but something like the same result, albeit squeezed into Hollywood timescales.
Sorry if I underestimated your paleoclimate knowledge :-) But its always difficult to strike the right level
I should say though that I've enjoyed taking part in this thread. Although obviously I'm a "warmist" myself, I get far more from discussing these issues with intelligent "skeptics" than I do from exchanging mutual insults or backslapping people who agree with me .....
Paul B:
"You need to present consistent evidence that these events are part of some trend, which persists over at least 30 years, and whose drivers are not consistent with AGW theory."
This comes quite a lot as a talking point. More familiar versions of it go by "the last 15 years of slight warming doesn't mean Global Warming has ended" and "you need 30 years of data to be certain."
A skeptic may well agree to wait. A reasonable scientific proposition. Indeed, why waste resources on dubious preventative measures while the the trend is still uncertain? Let's wait.
But the CAGW movement can't wait! We are fast approaching a tipping point! The countdown has begun! (70 months to go) The end of the world is nigh! No, we can't wait! We must act NOW!
They want to have their cake (our cake!) and eat it too.
This is probably the biggest problem with the entire CAGW narrative. Science and politics are so fused together its impossible to separate the two. They are one and the same.
Paul B
Ah, TDAT. Sorry, I wasn't thinking in terms of science fiction ;-)
If I go around forgetting about the 8.2ka event you can be forgiven for drawing your conclusions.
And I welcome this attitude:
This has all been so amusing.
I wonder which blog they will anoy tomorrow.
If they hang around long enought here, they may come to realise
That the globe is no longer warming.
In fact from here on it will get colder.
While they are waiting,
they need to get up to date with the impact of UHI on recorded temperature
or do some research on feedback mechanisms
Or get some solid evidence to support their claim that it has been unusually hot.
When it's not.
Or come to reasise that a warmer climate would, on balance,
be a blessing.
Or even come to understand
that "reasise"
is a new, more modern spelling of that old world favourite:
REALISE or REALIZE if you prefer.
@ Paul B
As a matter of interest, have you read The Hockey Stick Illusion? The most interesting aspect of it to me was the evidence presented therein that "peer review" in climate "science" involves neither peers nor any review.
When Steve McIntyre was asked to peer-review a piece of climate work, he asked for the data and the code used to process it, so he could review the claimed results for accuracy. He was told he couldn't have them. When he queried this with the journal of intended publication, he was told that no reviewers ever ask for this. All that the peer "reviewer" does is look at the outlined method and the claimed results and consider whether they're reasonable.
In the AGW field, this clearly just means considering whether the paper is in agreement with the consensus of 77 out of 79 cherry-picked scientists (that's where the 97% comes from) who believe in CAGW (actually they don't and at least 10,000 other earth scientists were screened out to achieve that figure, but that's another story). No peer reviewer who had done any actual review of the Hockey Stick paper would have passed it, it's that bad.
A process as sketchy as that is clearly going to admit a lot of bad science and block a lot of inconvenient science. The former is obvious from the absence of scrutiny of claimed data. The latter is obvious from Climategate if it wasn't obvious before. There, we saw the Hockey Team taking umbrage at papers that were published without having been "reviewed" by one of their clique. They also discussed whether they could close down a journal that persistently (i.e. twice) published articles they didn't agree with.
I used to imagine that to get published, a scientific paper would undergo some sort of quasi-adversarial process in which the extent and quality of the assumptions and the data, and the way they are then processed into results, would be robustly challenged and defended. As far as I can tell, nothing of the kind happens.
Pro-CAGW "science" that is supposedly peer-reviewed has not necessarily been reviewed at all. It has merely been rubber-stamped by the censor. Not only is this not useful, it is also prima facie dishonest, especially given the fact that a number of activist scientists are on the record as saying it is OK to mislead.
This doesn't require a conspiracy. It just requires groupthink.
Climate is not weather. AGW is not falsifiable in its present form.
The metrics of climate are retrospective averaging of weather records. We then have projections for the climate well into the future and a hypothesis that rising CO2 has so far caused a rise in temperature and will continue to do so. The reason why AGW is not falsifiable is that it has not progressed beyond correlation - who on the AGW side is proposing doing nothing and seeing if the IPCC projections are accurate?
Those IPCC projections are not *evidence* of CO2 induced warming and positive feedbacks but the hypothesis to be tested. You don't then jigger about with the input variables by stabilising and/or reducing CO2 emissions. That is not good science because you will still not be able to discern cause and effect. The projections themselves are quite variable with outputs ranging from not a lot of warming to a large amount of warming, all within natural variability IIRC if compared to a long enough time scale.
So what is the answer? Don't ask me!
The science *is* uncertain. Known physical processes expect additional CO2 in the atmosphere to cause a slight warming but beyond that it is conjecture - including the effect that that slight warming will have on weather let alone what feedbacks may do to the average global temperature. And weather isn't climate. The global average temperature as a metric to concentrate on is a massive distraction - it says nothing in the context of human activity and our daily lives. It is basically a folly. Weather is what we deal with not climate and the average global temperature is such a poor metric as to be useless for policy decisions.
Through hubris and haste politicians and advocate scientists artificially constructed the consensus to help their chosen politics gain traction with the public. If consent and support for arduous measures has been achieved through shoddy work and sharp practices it does not deserve to continue. And there are many angles to be found on the political side that have been largely ignored due to the artificial consensus - does Government interests skew science (I'd say so!). Should Government 'combat' climate change or assist adaptation? Even if CO2 induced climate change is happening does it need 'combating'? Can 'climate change' only be dealt with an authoritarian command economy? That seems to be the prevailing political view.
Who do you mean? Schneider is regularly quoted out of context on this issue. Do you have any other examples?
Paul B
In full, Schneider's meaning is absolutely plain. You might say that it's 'worse' in context. I find the worn old argument that Schneider is being 'misrepresented' tiresome:
Paul I think a lot of the misunderstanding stems from warmists tending to believe this graph represents reality... http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/wahl-ammann-reproduce-the-hockey-stick1.jpg?w=497&h=337
whereas sceptics tend to think this graph is more representative... http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/2000-years-of-global-temperatures1.jpg?w=540&h=309
Our good bishop wrote a pretty good book charting the demolition of the first graph, you should read it to really understand our pov.
@BBD
Sorry I'm at work today so don't have time to go into as much detail as I'd like
My take on the Schneider quote is that he says at the end "Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both." Obviously that statement doesn't preclude honesty - in fact it specifically requires it. And by implication it critiques those who are "effective" in a misleading way.
But there's no doubt that Schneider is convinced of the potential risks of continued unlimited emissions of carbon into the environment. So are other climate scientists. Given the normal reluctance of scientists to get involved in public outreach, this seems to me an indication that there is a real problem - ie, the people who know about these things feel an obligation to encourage action at a global level, following the successful model of the response to the ozone hole.
Incidentally, this discussion arose out of my challenging Justice4Rinka, who said this in an earlier post
I asked J4R to come up with any examples apart from Schneider, and so far that hasn't happened. I'd suggest that the number of climate scientists who actually say its OK to mislead the public is probably nil.
I've always been much more concerned with the idea of having to balance off honesty and effectiveness. Honesty is not something to strike a balance on IMO. Schneider kind of alludes to this when he says he "hopes" that you can be both honest and effective, but he seems to be saying that you can be slightly less than totally honest in order to gain a little bit on the effectiveness front. This is encouraging dishonesty I think.
Paul B.
Thank you for pitching in here. It's not only good to use a name that can be readily spelled, but to have gentle, non-abrasive thoughts that those of us who tend towards sk(c)epticism of almost everything can munch on. I hope you will return often.
I'd like to have more of my own misconceptions cleaned out or amended. It's regrettable how much contention arises from misunderstood statements. misunderstanding seems so often to lead to misrepresentation which then acquires inertia which is hard to dispel.
john
Paul B
What worries people about Schneider's remark is the very sentence you highlight, where he actually weighs 'being honest' against 'being effective'.
He goes beyond what is known (radiative transfer equations; GHG theory) to a hypothetical, catastrophic outcome of AGW and presents it as a given, as a fact
Then he says 'because of my absolute belief in catastrophism it's okay for me to 'balance' honesty and 'effectiveness'. It's okay for me to paint extreme and frightening scenarios to get the herd to do what I believe is correct'.
This is breathtaking intellectual arrogance and a million miles from science, scientific caution and rational restraint. It is in fact an entirely political, value- and belief-driven statement.
What makes Schneider interesting is that he was explicit about the thought processes and the self-justificatory rhetoric of alarmism. This is rare.
You say (with no more evidence than J4R) that there are probably no activist scientists who are prepared to mislead the public. I could not disagree more.
If you research the miserable back history of the Hockey Stick you will find alarmist bias everywhere. If you can bring yourself to read Montford's book you won't find an attempt to 'debunk' AGW because that's not what the book is about.
It's about science and climate politics, alarmism, fear promotion by the IPCC and the poisonous effects quite small numbers of people can have if they are in the right place at the right time.
In short, you will find a detailed example of what happens when Schneider's honest vs effective mindset gets out of control.
BH
Sorry - writing my comment when you posted yours. But yes - exactly. My reading is that Schneider is effectively encouraging dishonesty 'in the name of the cause'.
@Frosty
Somewhere upthread (Jan 9th at 1:50), I put up some links about my own reasons for accepting the AGW theory. They don't include the hockey stick, so my acceptance of AGW does not depend in any way on my thinking that temperatures now are higher than they were during the Medieval Warm Period.
In fact, when the first hockey stick came out, my gut instinct was that it didn't have nearly enough variability, and subsequent versions with more variability look more promising, although I think at the moment the uncertainties in the proxies are too great to convince me one way or the other.
Moving on to the Loehle paper:
You're welcome to be skeptical about hockey stick reconstructions, but remember that the other side of the coin is that you be equally skeptical about alternatives. What struck me immediately about the Loehle paper (you can see it here) is that, although it claims to be a global reconstruction, it in fact only has 2 records out of 18 that are in the non tropical southern hemisphere, and both of those are in southern Africa, so they are unlikely to capture the full variation in southern hemisphere temperatures. Also, 9 out of the 18 are around the North Atlantic Ocean, and it is from records around the North Atlantic that the MWP is pretty much defined (ie all these documentary records about the colonisation of Greenland and so on are basically European records). So if there was an MWP in the North Atlantic circa AD 1000 that was warmer than present day temperatures around the North Atlantic, it seems likely that that signal would be strongly expressed in the Loehle reconstruction.
So, while it wouldn't affect my view of present day warming if the Loehle reconstruction turned out to be closer to the reality than the Wahl/Ammann version, the evidence so far gives me no reason to suppose that that is the case.
@BBD
I don't want to get too pedantic, but that's not quite what I said. Justice4Rinka specifically alluded to
The discussion wasn't about whether people did in fact mislead, but whether anybody explicitly said it was OK to do that. And apart from the Schneider quote, which seems to be susceptible to various interpretations, nothing has been offered.
The issue of bias, and whether people actually do mislead, is something I'm being very careful to avoid, mainly because I very definitely don't have time to get into it!
Paul B
You are (deliberately?) missing the point about the Hockey Stick. Which is that it was created by Mann, Bradley and Hughes using very carefully cherry-picked proxies and a methodology custom-built to provide the 'right' result: a hockey stick.
It is the reasons for which this was done that must be examined. The blatant promotion of an alarmist paper by absolutely everyone up to and including the IPCC in the TAR is unforgivable.
I re-iterate that I agree this doesn't 'falsify' AGW. Obviously. But it reveals the lengths some are prepared to go to to promote 'their' hypothetical take on the consequences of AGW.
This is not correct scientific practice.
@J Ferguson
Thanks for your kind words. I'll try to return from time to time (although I also have intrusive work commitments!). Like you, I expect, I don't think echo chambers are healthy on either side of this debate.
Paul B
You said:
All the semantics could be misinterpreted as evasive wriggling.
The point here is that Schneider (a career alarmist who published with Rasool in 1971 on anthropogenic aerosols and global cooling) endorses a moral calculus which is both scientifically bogus and ethically distasteful.
Others - such as Mann and the Hockey Team - provide us with a sobering example of what can happen when this self-referential mindset becomes influential at the highest levels of climate science and climate policy making.
As a matter of interest, what is your opinion of subsequent versions of the HS, right down to the recent McShane & Wyner paper. Do you think they are all manipulated to produce the same result?