I keep meaning to write something substantive about the theft of emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, but my day job does sometime intervene. (Over six hundred postdoc applications in theoretical physics, but not to worry — only about 400 of them are in areas related to my interests.) There are some good discussions at Time and Foreign Policy, and you can’t poke your nose into the science blogosphere without reading someone’s take on the issue.
My own take is: what in the world is the big deal? Indeed, I would go so far as to ask: what could possibly be the big deal? Most of the noise has simply been nonsensical, focusing on misunderstandings of what scientists mean by the word “trick” and similar deep issues. And some people got upset when a dodgy paper was accepted by a journal, and they discussed giving the journal a cold shoulder. Cry me a river.
But I don’t really want to defend the scientists involved, because I’m not informed enough about who they are and what they did. For all I know, they may be very nasty and unethical human beings. (Actually that’s not true; I know Michael Mann, and he’s one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet.) And I see no reason not to do a thorough investigation, and hand out appropriate sanctions if there’s real evidence of wrongdoing.
What baffles me is the idea that this changes the conversation about climate change in any way. This isn’t a case like Jan Hendrik Schon, the rogue physicist who rose to prominence on the basis of falsified data, and was later exposed. The job of monitoring the climate is one that has been taken up by more than just one or two groups of people. There have been thousands of peer-reviewed papers that have provided evidence of global warming. Not to mention common sense; when the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has shot up dramatically over the last century, and the temperature has done the same thing, it takes some willful stubbornness to avoid the obvious conclusion. All of the noise we’re hearing about “Climategate” is based on politics, not on science.
And that’s what really puzzles me. I understand the non-scientific motivations of certain climate denialists; in the abstract, they don’t want to accept that the unfettered actions of capitalism can ever have any deleterious effects, and in the concrete, many of them are paid by oil companies. (See this charming “letter to the American Physical Society,” whose handful of signatories includes “Roger Cohen, former Manager, Strategic Planning, ExxonMobil.”) Those are powerful incentives to ignore the evidence.
But what is the incentive on the other side supposed to be? What exactly is the motivation for the nefarious conspiracy of people who are supposedly plotting to mislead the world about global warming? What do the people counting oysters get out of this?
Are there a lot of people out there who think that scientists as a group (since the vast majority of scientists appreciate the problems of global warming) have knee-jerk reactions against technology and industry? Let me propose another motivation for whatever corners the East Anglia group might have contemplated cutting: they’ve seen the data, they know what’s happening to the planet, and they’re terrified of what the consequences might be. They know that the other side is motivated by non-scientific concerns, and they want to fight back as hard as they can, both for the good of humanity and for the integrity of science. There’s no question that scientists can go overboard, pulling the occasional shenanigans in the pursuit of their less lofty goals. (Like, you know, other human beings.) But nobody wants to believe that we’re facing a looming global ecological catastrophe. They believe it because that’s what the data imply.
Surferosad, Hilarious that you cite the hockey stick and Mann. He is under investigation for fraud. The hockey stick has been completely debunked and is at the heart of AGW misrepresentation. The crock of the week is for true believers that don’t understand the science behind his misrepresentaions. Read some empirical studies pointing out AGW flaws and see if the peer reviews critical of them meet the same scientific standards. Also try reading the peer reviews critical of AGW and see if the response contains real world empirical evidence contradicting the critique. Good luck with that one. I’ve been looking for 6 years without finding a convincing rebuttal. There are errors on both sides but the responses of the scientists are very telling.
@ Davis:
It depends on how crude approximation you are content with. Textbook classical mechanics predictions work pretty well, give or take a few anomalies.
Modelling weather systems (and thus climate) is ofcourse a far more complex problem than the solar system.
“The hockey stick has been completely debunked”
Not so.
“The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence”
– National Academy of Sciences report 2006
BBC – A new study by climate scientists behind the controversial 1998 “hockey stick” graph suggests their earlier analysis was broadly correct.
“I understand the non-scientific motivations of certain climate denialists; in the abstract, they don’t want to accept that the unfettered actions of capitalism can ever have any deleterious effects, and in the concrete, many of them are paid by oil companies. (…) Those are powerful incentives to ignore the evidence.”
This paragraph can be converted to state the exact opposite, such as below:
“I understand the non-scientific motivations of certain climate activists; in the abstract, they want to believe that abolishing capitalism and instituting a totalitarian socialist control over human activities across the globe will save it from doom, and in the concrete, many of them are paid by the big government who want exactly that. (…) Those are powerful incentives to fabricate data.”
It is a big deal: these people want to fundamentally change the course of human history and culture based on data that is based on a theory that they themselves are not 100% sure about. If we are to abandon our way of life, I want to make sure their defense is backed by solid data, not something that is even remotely faked.
As already pointed out by DaveH, Mann’s results have been reproduced by other researchers, using both proxy temperature measurements and models, and all suggest that late 20th century warmth is anomalous in a long-term (multi-century to millennial) context.
The main problem of AGW is that global climate models have never been experimentally verified.
Since many people seem to have blinders on when it comes to climate imagine something else – imagine that someone claimed he has developed a successful computer model of evolution and that he can now predict where evolution will take a particular organism in 100 years.
How should science deal with such a claim?
There is only one way to verify such a claim – it has to pass experimental test. First one should check if the model successfully postdicts past evolution. If it passes this test the next step is to see if it can indeed make successful predictions – use it to predict evolution ten or twenty years into the future and wait to see if those predictions agree with reality.
Only when the model passes both tests, meaning it can successfully postdict and predict evolution, it will deserve some trust but even then it may very well turn out that those results were a fluke and therefore the model will only be trustworthy if it is repeatedly shown to correctly predict evolution on the timescales on which it is to be used.
If the model is unable to even postdict past evolution it is worthless.
Now the same applies to any new models, before they can be trusted and considered part of established science they have to pass experimental verification. Experimental verification is what turns such models into science and it is the *only* thing that separates them from pseudoscience.
A model and especially when it is complex should *never* be trusted if it has never passed experimental verification.
Now consider this, not a single climate model used for predicting future global climate has ever passed rigorous experimental verification – not a single climate model has been shown to correctly postdict past climate, not a single climate model has been shown to successfully predict future climate.
What it means is that climate predictions based on such models are *NOT* scientific and should *NEVER* be trusted, until proper verification takes place.
This also means that we cannot tell what impact manmade emissions have on climate – whether they account for 90% or 0.09% of the change. The only scientifically valid way to prove causation here requires experimentally verified climate models – one has to run such models with and without manmade emissions and then compare the results. Without trustworthy climate models this is of course impossible.
To sum it up from a strictly scientific point of view AGW remains nothing more then a plausible hypothesis and future climate predictions are baseless speculations.
DaveH: “The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years.”
Who cares if it was unprecedented within the past 1000 years, it’s like saying it is unprecedented since the last precedent.
Look at past temperatures recorded in the ice cores and then tell me what is so special about current warming:
http://www.exo.net/~pauld/workshops/globalclimate/IceCores1.gif
AGW scare has an uncanny resemblance to exploits of those who in the past took advantage of solar eclipses to control the masses.
>Please curtail the anti-communist crap: it isn’t relevant to the discussion.
Sean’s question was about possible motivation as of why people can fudge data or algorithms. My answer is that motivation can be a deep political conviction. Along with communism I mentioned several other stripes, including those who want to save the world from humans.
What problem do you have with this general hypothesis? Why so much outrage about red baiting? Perhaps I have violated some Holly Rule of Political Correctness, and here the PC police has arrived to enforce the right thinking: Flush, flush, pull on the site of the road you have been insensitive. Even if the conjecture is logical, we can’t possibly consider it, or at least we can’t go as far as to mention communism as one of the convictions along with others, no way , stop it. It is offensive to people who believe in larger role of government.
(Ref: Political Correctness : http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8630135369495797236#)
>> So, an admission that James Hansen isn’t a marxist is the evidence of the marxist conspiracy?
As I said, I mentioned old Marxism as an example of a political motivation that may produce drastic actions. I did not imply in any way that that AGW movement based on Marxism. I could not say it as Al Gore or Prince Charles, the leaders of the movement are certainly not Marxists. I only mentioned that many members whom I know personally are Cultural Marxists, but that is the fact I can verify. I did not call the movement “ conspiracy” either, it is a political movement with left agenda, somewhat similar to agenda of our Green party. What did I miss?
You’re basically trying to imply that climate scientists fudged the data because of their political convictions, and you assume that those convictions are left wing. Sounds like red-baiting to me.
From that wikipedia entry I linked:
“Red-baiting is a political epithet employed to criticize people who are said to accuse a person or group of being “red” in the sense of communist, socialist or, in a broader sense, significantly more leftist at their core than they may appear at the outset. It is claimed that such unjust accusations of are used mainly with the intention of discrediting the individual’s or organization’s political views as dishonest and/or haphazard.”
You know, when I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.
Anyway, thank you for once again amply demonstrating the uselessness of debating climate change deniers.
Arrow says: “The main problem of AGW is that global climate models have never been experimentally verified.”
First of all, AGW isn’t solely based on models. There is a large array of field observations (like the proxy temperature measurements already mentioned) that corroborate AGW.
Secondly, it isn’t true that AGW models haven’t been experimentally verified. Many researchers have published models that reproduce past climatic events.
See for instance: http://article.pubs.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/ppv/RPViewDoc?issn=1480-3313&volume=37&issue=5&startPage=811
It’s an old paper, but the abstract gives the general idea. The researchers modeled the Younger Dryas event. There are many more recent papers on this, but I can’t be arsed doing your job for you.
You missed my point. How far out does such a prediction work? More importantly, why does it work? And the solar system has N bodies, where N is fairly large (asteroids, comets, etc); why is this obviously less complex?
Side question, how much have you actually studied chaotic systems? It’s not a typical part of the math curriculum, even at the graduate level (you’re more likely to see it in a graduate physics class).
Tim says: “Look at past temperatures recorded in the ice cores and then tell me what is so special about current warming”
What’s so special about the current warming? How about “we’re the ones causing the current warming”?
I mean, duh! That’s what anthropogenic means, isn’t it?
The objectivity of peer review is at stake here. If the science is entirely opaque then we might as well be telling society to have faith… which I am glad to say that most of us don’t work that way. The appearance of impropriety when it does not really exist has a worse effect than actual bias because even though both cause general society to repel from the position proposed once exposed, only one yields the correct impression. I fear that after this news those who do not believe in global warming will never believe in imperial evidence because of this incident.
I also take issue with the origonal data being destroyed… that isn’t a study of data, it is a manufacturing and replacement of data with the intent of deception. If an undergraduate was found to have manufactured data in a study they would be expelled without question. Independent of the individual’s personality some type of explanation (and a damb good one) needs to be addressed or sanctions need to be imposed. When faith and trust in the scientific comunity enters into science it is no longer based on fact and has becomes a religion… which is not science at all.
Even if warming wasn’t occurring explicitly due to CO2 emissions, it seems
incredibly idiotic to argue in favor of NOT LIMITING pollution to our planet.
I want to ask Sarah Palin:
————–
Was it a conspiracy to advocate NO SMOKING?
Haven’t you seen the lungs of a smoker?
How about the lungs of someone who has lived in Shanghai or LA all their life
vs. someone from bumblef**ck Wyoming???
————–
It isn’t a fucking conspiracy.
It is common sense.
How is it NOT a good thing to reduce emissions?
Simply astounding…..
Surferosad: “First of all, AGW isn’t solely based on models. There is a large array of field observations (like the proxy temperature measurements already mentioned) that corroborate AGW.”
No, such observations can only show GW (Global Warming) not AGW (*Anthropogenic* Global Warming) this is a critical difference. You can never prove that humanity is behind the warming that way. The best you can do is find some correlations but without proper control experiments (which are impossible) or complete understanding of climate (which can only be proven by writing a successful model of global climate) nothing can be scientifically proven.
Surferosad: “Secondly, it isn’t true that AGW models haven’t been experimentally verified. Many researchers have published models that reproduce past climatic events.”
No, what you link to is a purposeful built model which is supposedly predicts some particular event which happened 11 000 years ago and for which there are of course no instrumental records, this is not what I am talking about.
What you would have to find is a publication in which a general climate model – one of those on which predictions concerning future global climate are based – is used to repeatedly and successfully predict from first principles the climate of any portion of the last century many decades ahead and without any fudge factors.
For example with such a model one should only input climate data up to say 1940 and data on man-made emissions for the rest of the century and then be able to run the model and correctly (with some acceptable margin of error) predict climate of the rest of the century.
This is the first step to be taken in validation of such models since we have plenty of instrumental data for the past century which can be fed into a model and plenty of data to check the output against. I hope you agree that any climate model which cannot repeatedly pass such a test should never be trusted to predict future climate correctly.
Of course if anyone where to develop a successful global climate model the test I am talking about would be the first thing he would do to prove it to others. And of course if it worked the paper discussing the results would be the first thing mentioned in every climate discussion on the internet and everywhere, but if you think such a successful test did take place and was missed by everyone then go ahead and try to find it.
Arrow says: “What you would have to find is a publication in which a general climate model – one of those on which predictions concerning future global climate are based – is used to repeatedly and successfully predict from first principles the climate of any portion of the last century many decades ahead and without any fudge factors.”
What, like, for instance, Hansen’s 1988 JGR paper, where he showed GISS model projections of continued global warming assuming further increases in human produced greenhouse gases?
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/hansens-1988-projections/
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2005/Crichton_20050927.pdf
Do you really believe that climate scientists haven’t thought of this?
By the way, regarding the Younger Dryas event paper: there are proxy temperature measurements obtained from the geologic record that the model must reproduce with a fair degree of accuracy. That’s the model’s control.
UchicagoMan: “It isn’t a fucking conspiracy. It is common sense. How is it NOT a good thing to reduce emissions? Simply astounding…..”
It costs money. Limited resources have to be allocated where they will provide the most benefit.
What if we spend billions on fighting CO2 emissions only to find out later the results of our actions have negligible effect on climate? That money could have been used to cure, feed, and educate millions of people. This is why we have to be certain manmade emissions contribute significantly to climate change before we commit billions to fighting emissions.
It is common sense.
Surferosad: “What, like, for instance, Hansen’s 1988 JGR paper, where he showed GISS model projections of continued global warming assuming further increases in human produced greenhouse gases?”
Yes, something like this only with multiple correct prediction runs not one (for example for 1900-1950, 1925-1975, 1950-2000, etc), with predictions 40+ years ahead not 15 (date of publication counts) and of course with one(!) prediction for each run not 3 so far apart that almost any situation can be accommodated.
Remember the whole point is to prove – using scientific rigor – that the model can be relied upon to make correct predictions of global climate 50+ years into the future. Also note that even the author of the piece you quoted admitted that “this comparison [is] not sufficient for a ‘precise assessment’ of the model simulations”.
It pisses me off to even come down partially on the side of the religious right, but there is a fundamental thing i dont understand about the evidence for Anthropogenic Global Warming. I see all the models showing that when greenhouse gasses go up in the atmosphere the temperature goes up, but how do we know what the cause is and what the effect is? We know that when global temp. rises this causes may greenhouse gasses to be released into the atmosphere from the melting permafrost, so perhaps that is the cause and the greenhouse gasses the effect. I would love to see some evidence, and am open minded about this, but I cannot find it.
@Arrow
I can understand your argument for places like China, India, 3rd world countries, etc… To an extent.
…where people are actually starving….and don’t have basic resources, like running water…and there really isn’t an alternative.
But, somehow I sincerely doubt the incredible “savings” granted here in the good ole USA, by adding extra SMOG and POLLUTANTS to the environment will be “allocated” to the fight against hunger or empowering the disenfranchised. I think it will be padding the of shore accounts, rather.
Everything has cost, of course. There is no “free lunch”, so to speak.
But that’s life. Tough shit.
It’s called sacrifice and DELAYED GRATIFICATION.
And… I hear it is activity associated with more advanced intelligent species.
Maybe you think it would be most resource efficient and beneficial to have slave labor..if only for a little while, just to get the really hard and necessary work done.
Maybe you think mowing down all of our rain forests is the fastest, most efficient way to build a giant wooden hospital to house every cancer patient to help make more money to help fund approved research for curing cancer.
There are just soo many efficient possibilities to allocate all these extra resources to where they do the best work.
I think you are correct, we should leave it to those that know best, Haliburton, GM, XOM.
Why not have a cigarette and enjoy the smog!
Chemicals in the air!
Come smell the efficiency!
I know I do!
Cheers.
Arrow: Hansen’s predictions are not the only ones around. They’re just the most well publicised and they’re amongst the oldest. Global climate models have been around for a long time: Hansen’s paper is 20 years old!
I suggest you spend some time here. http://www.realclimate.org
Here is their FAQ page on climate models: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/faq-on-climate-models/
Megan McArdle has some ideas about ways, short of conspiracy, in which bias may be at work among scientists championing AGW explanations. In support of her concerns about this kind of bias, she cites Richard Feynman, including his observations about the aftermath of Millikan’s oil drop experiment.
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/climategate_was_data_faked.php
@94. Arrow,
I’m gonna go with UchicagoMan on this one, although for perhaps a different reason.
Much of the lifestyle and economic changes that carbon reduction imply are actually good for you and good for the economy. It only looks daunting and expensive now because much of North America has done so very little.
For instance: You have 2 cars, both comfortable and suitable to task. One gets 25 MPG and the other gets 35 MPG. Is that an unacceptable sacrifice for consumers? Especially since cars get old and must be replaced periodically anyways?
Another example. You add insulation to your home. Your home then becomes both more comfortable and less costly to heat (or cool, in southern locations). It’s resale value might even go up. Is this a giant tax-and-spend conspiracy by the Feds/Media/Socialists?
The reality is that most human built infrastructure must be upgraded or maintained/replaced periodically. Otherwise it falls apart. If you start using mechanisms (which can be negotiated) to get people to make wiser choices in environmental terms, there’s usually a self-interest payoff in there too.
The key is to structure changes over appropriate time frames. If you ask for it all today then certainly you’ll overspend. However the climate change deniers wish to stop all progress from the get-go. That’s what makes them so dangerous. By the time climate change has flooded many of the great cities of the world it will be too late to stop the submergence. Think New Orleans/Katrina but multiplied at least 100-fold. And that does not count inland areas where desertification may make formerly prosperous regions poor and desperate.
Surferosad: “Hansen’s predictions are not the only ones around. They’re just the most well publicised and they’re amongst the oldest. Global climate models have been around for a long time: Hansen’s paper is 20 years old!”
Yes, there are predictions, there are models, there are horoscopes, there’s plenty of stuff out there, but as you should be well aware by know one key piece is missing – experimental verification. Until at least one of those climate models is shown to repeatedly make correct climate predictions 40+ years into the future all those climate predictions will remain nothing but speculations.
There is only one scientific method and unfortunately it is very inflexible – only that which repeatedly passes experimental verification can be considered established science. I would very much prefer climate models met this requirement but unfortunately they don’t and that means for now anthropogenic GW will remain just a plausible hypothesis.
Yes Arrow, keep moving the goal posts.
By the way, I’m a geologist by training. Your narrow (minded) perspective on what is science pretty much puts my particular discipline, and any discipline with a historical perspective (like evolutionary science, for instance) in the rubbish bin.
So yeah, I do think you’re wrong.
Anyway, why do I even bother? Talking to deniers is a waste of time.