Temperature Data Wants To Be Free 489
An anonymous reader writes "The UK's Met Office Hadley Centre and University of East Anglia have been refusing access to the data used for their global climate averages and scientific studies. A copy of the data has leaked, and attempts continue to accomplish the release of the data by whoever maintains it. Excuses have included confidentiality agreements which cannot be verified because no records were kept, mention of the source has been removed from the Met Office web site, and IPCC records were destroyed."
100% worthless (Score:3, Insightful)
... refusing access to the data used for their global climate averages and scientific studies.
I realize governments are really in to wasting money and all, but this is ridiculous. The UK government has spent who knows how much money on a completely worthless study. Studies mean nothing without data.
Re:100% worthless (Score:5, Informative)
Data from a particular NERC (UK Research Council) project I'm involved with are allowed to be kept by the researchers for a certain amount of time (18 months, maybe?) but then have to be released to the BADC: http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/home/index.html [nerc.ac.uk] - this gives the researchers time to do some analysis and get some papers out on all the hard work they've done, but obliges them to release the data to the community.
Some of the BADC data sets are restricted to non-commercial use only, so you need to flash your 'Academic Investigator' magic card at them to get it. These guys keep good metadata and license agreements and all that stuff. There's even some datasets from CRU, unrestricted (registration required).
Re:100% worthless (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of the BADC data sets are restricted to non-commercial use only, so you need to flash your 'Academic Investigator' magic card at them to get it. These guys keep good metadata and license agreements and all that stuff. There's even some datasets from CRU, unrestricted (registration required).
Where does that leave the hobbyist researchers then?
Today most household computers are potent enough to be able to sift through amounts of data that we only could dream about a few years ago.
Don't forget that the collection of the raw data has been done through the money of the tax payers. It is of course possible to have a reasonable fee for obtaining a copy in some cases, but it may as well be put on the web these days.
Re:100% worthless (Score:5, Insightful)
"Where does that leave the hobbyist researchers then?"
You have to get out of the basement, go outside and talk to people. Same as all the professional researchers. If you show up at the appropriate guy's office at the nearest university, tell him you want to collaborate and do some research, for free, he'll likely be happy to get you your data in exchange for some input and his name on the paper.
Same with scientific journals. Free access equal to the level of any academic is as far away as the nearest university library. A little slower access is probably closer - the nearest local library.
This sort of thing would make anyone suspicious (Score:4, Interesting)
This is the first time I've seriously begun to question whether or not the global warming studies are in fact legitimate. If they won't allow free access to the data, so others can verify results or run it through alternative (or more refined) climate models, then the very obvious question becomes "why?"
What exactly is it they so keen on hiding that they'll remove all source citations from their publicatons?
NOTE: I am not about to buy into the fossile-fuel-funded arguments that global warming "isn't real"...it's very real, as anyone living in the northern lattitudes can trivially see. Even in London it's obvious that insects and plantlife that never used to thrive this far north now do...but anectdotal evidence, even as widespread and pervasive as this, is no substitute for rigorous scientific study, and I repeat the question: what the hell is it these people are trying to hide? There's no excuse for keeping data that is so fundamental to scientific inquiry, and has such a profound effects on public policy, secret.
Re:This sort of thing would make anyone suspicious (Score:4, Interesting)
(Please let me know where I can get some of that mythical fossil-fuel-funds for all the posts I do on this subject .. )
I live in the northern latitudes (Sweden). There's absolutely nothing unusual about the weather/climate today, if you're prepared to go decades and centuries back in time when comparing. And why shouldn't we? Who on earth came up with the crazy idea of some sort of stable weather-utopia where the climate of 1988 (or whatever) is the "true" climate of the world?
The sun drives the clouds and the winds, and the ocan cycles. Those have wavelengths of 30-60 years, it seems. That coincides really well with the decades of cooling, warming, cooling and warming we've seen the last century.
CO2 (Score:5, Insightful)
The important question which I've never seen the math for is how much CO2 is output by random natural events during a certain time period versus how much we output currently.
We are taking a few hundred million years worth of biomass and burning it up in a about a hundred and fifty. Perhaps this has no effect on the environment, but I think it's prudent to make sure that we don't send the climate into a self-feedback loop that destroys our way of life. It's not as if riding around in traffic or having an iPod is worth giving up food and water.
Re:CO2 (Score:5, Informative)
We're currently in a very CO2-starved climate, if we go through the geological record. Plant life seems optimised (evolution does that) for much higher CO2-levels, and we've had more than a magnitude higher levels without the earth having gone into any self-feedback loops before.
Peer-reviewed source for the above, see fig 8: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Reference_Docs/Geocarb_III-Berner.pdf [geocraft.com]
Re:CO2 (Score:5, Insightful)
Take a look here:
http://scotese.com/climate.htm [scotese.com]
As you can see, our current climate is unusual. Global temperature was similar during the Precambrian (before any animals), at the end Ordovician and the end Carboniferous. As you can see, the global temperature stayed where in these cold zones for a relatively small time.
So yeah, the trees will be fine if we ramped global temperature 15C, but the point is that it wouldn't be great for human civilization.
Re:CO2 (Score:4, Informative)
Climate myths: Human CO2 emissions are too tiny to matter [newscientist.com] should answer your question.
Re:This sort of thing would make anyone suspicious (Score:5, Informative)
You're completely wrong. We have excellent data on global climate back about 850ky, good data back to 60mya, and some data back as far as bya. There is something unusual about the climate today.
The idea that there is a stable weather utopia circa 1988 is CRAZY, and you're the one bringing it up as a straw man. Current models account for solar cycles (Milankovitch and others)--- currently, the sun is currently as a period of low output, actually, based on sunspot activity. These are well understood cycles. In spite of that, we have an overall trend of global warming. When you try to account for that data, the best fit to that data is easily the increased CO2 in the atmosphere.
Re:This sort of thing would make anyone suspicious (Score:4, Insightful)
No, basically nothing in your post is "true" in any scientific version of that word :) We do not have excellent data (gas diffusion in ice cores is a bitch!) and current models lack incredible amounts of algorithmic data which is instead made up as we see politically fit at the moment :) (for example, the influence of clouds)
We do not have an unusual trend of global warming at all. On the contrary, there might not be a trend to speak of when removing measurement uncertainties. (http://surfacestations.org should scare anyone who believes the tempereature data we're soon basing our whole economy on)
The best fit for the temperature changes over the last century is not with CO2 levels but with ocean cycles btw.
On gas diffusion: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/igsoc/jog/2008/00000054/00000187/art00012 [ingentaconnect.com]
On ocean cycles: http://atmoz.org/blog/2008/05/14/timescale-of-the-pdo-nao-and-amo/ [atmoz.org]
Why are you not interested in doing actual science? We simply don't have data to support Hansen's and Gore's wild accusations.
Re:This sort of thing would make anyone suspicious (Score:5, Informative)
What effect does diffusion in ice cores cause? It flattens the data-- it causes it to move to average. This means that the real signal would be stronger then that recorded if this is a problem. Which actually just makes the ice core conclusions stronger. Another check on this is using other methods and seeing if the agree; and these other methods, such as isotope ones, support the ice core evidence.
On ocean cycles: You realize that global temperature controls ocean cycles, right? So you're agreeing with me?
It's clear you don't really understand the science; both of your citations can't even be used as evidence to support your claim that there isn't data. It's also clear that assumptions are being tested and as such the conclusions that can be reached are stronger. Which is exactly what you'd expect if it's a real trend.
Re:This sort of thing would make anyone suspicious (Score:4, Insightful)
No, basically nothing in your post is "true" in any scientific version of that word :) We do not have excellent data (gas diffusion in ice cores is a bitch!) and current models lack incredible amounts of algorithmic data which is instead made up as we see politically fit at the moment :) (for example, the influence of clouds). We do not have an unusual trend of global warming at all. On the contrary, there might not be a trend to speak of when removing measurement uncertainties. (http://surfacestations.org should scare anyone who believes the tempereature data we're soon basing our whole economy on)
And in a nutshell, that uncertainty is the argument for taking drastic action to curb carbon emissions.
Basically, if we could predict with certainty that our emissions would lead to no, or a tolerable increase in temperatures, then I would be on your side in this argument. We could take sensible, economically appropriate action to protect ourselves (relocating populations if necessary, building seawalls). Beyond that it would be business as usual. The problem is that we can't make any such statement. We know that we're increasing our atmospheric CO2 by a pretty significant amount, and we know that there are physical mechanisms that should lead to warming (we've also ruled out most possible compensatory mechanisms, like the ocean being an unlimited CO2 sink). From there we have a series of well-studied models that show a possibility of mild warming, and a non-zero chance of catastrophic warming. Despite your calming assertions, we can't even come close to ruling out the extreme possibilities.
Worse, it's highly unlikely that we'll be able to rule out the catastrophic cases any time soon. They're well supported by our best understanding, and nobody's brought anything forth to make them less likely. In fact, scientists have begun to lean more towards them as modeling has become more sophisticated and accurate.
That's why I laugh whenever someone uses the lack of scientific certainty as an argument against doing something about emissions. It's a great argument --- if you're trying to build a case for an aggressive plan to reduce emissions. The only viable argument against taking action is to show conclusively that we can be certain about the effects of our carbon emissions, and that they're entirely manageable. And to be able to defend that result against all challengers. Not some handwaving about how imperfect our information is.
Re:This sort of thing would make anyone suspicious (Score:4, Interesting)
We have excellent data on global climate back about 850ky, good data back to 60mya, and some data back as far as bya
[citation needed]
I wasn't aware we had time-traveling climate researchers or time-traveling meteorological instrumentation to *accurately* measure all the various datapoints. My impression was that accurate & meaningful meteorological data wasn't recorded farther back than a couple of centuries, if that, and that many very-relevant measurements weren't even recorded for much of even that relatively-short (in terms of geologic time) span of time.
From what I've been able to gather, most of the ice-core and similar geologic records seemed to indicate that CO2 was a lagging factor in warming, not a leading factor. As in; it got warm, then CO2 went up, not the other way around.
The reluctance to release the data and the destruction of data is a red flag that something isn't kosher. They have to have known that doing this would only fuel the anti-climate change factions, so it would seem logical that what is being hidden must be pretty damning evidence that their current theories are bunk.
However, there's a ton of grant money to be had by the climate scientists and much power & control to be gained by government by promoting a climate crisis, so it isn't too surprising.
Strat
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So you're saying the theory is carefully constructed so as
Re:This sort of thing would make anyone suspicious (Score:4, Insightful)
It's interesting that you seem to believe the "science has been settled". It's not true though. We still do not know the influence the sun can have on earth's climate besides TSI - which is what your link refers to. As soon as you mix in the clouds all bets are currently off - we lack both the data and the algorithms at the moment.
There's interesting correlation between the ocean cycles and the climate cycles, on the order of decades, however. Let's see how that plays out.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
WAIT before you leap to conclusion. This article cites only blogs which are known to misrepresent science and actions pertaining to them. The accused - in the blog world, that would be realclimate, which unlike Watt's and climateaudit is run by climate scientists - have not had time to answer yet.
The denialists have played this game many, many times before. Example: recently, the blogs were up in a huff because a denialist polar bear researcher had been denied a seat on some board. The news even reached sla
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Denialists"
What a great word. What a lovely set of implications it has. Are the climate change "denialists" related to Holocaust deniers by any chance?
Seems to me, if climate change science were based on solid and irrefutable scientific evidence, then there would be no need to use verbal trickery to influence opinion. If you're so sure of yourself, then why the propaganda?
Re:This sort of thing would make anyone suspicious (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Seems to me, if climate change science were based on solid and irrefutable scientific evidence, then there would be no need to use verbal trickery to influence opinion. If you're so sure of yourself, then why the propaganda?
Unfortunately, that's very far from truth. Most citizens and politicians are completely unable to do the science themselves, or even understand every significant part of the reasoning. So for the commoner, it boils down to believing or not believing the panel of scientists, and that is unfortunately a game of propaganda.
Do note that even if climate change is based on solid and irrefutable scientific evidence, only scientists can tell if some evidence is solid or irrefutable. Besides, it seems to me only sci
You really don't help your case (Score:4, Insightful)
Denalists? So basically when you don't like someone's opinion, you make up a new, derogatory term to try and marginalize them? That isn't science, that is marketing. In particular, it is the kind of marketing con men do. When people question their products/methods, they shout down the critics, they deride them, they call them names. They basically try to make it look like you must be retarded if you don't agree with them.
You are also pulling another con man trick: The appeal to authority. That a site is run by "climate scientists" or is not, doesn't matter. Science isn't about who has the authority in a certain area, it is a process for finding out about the world. So trying to say "Well this site is run by climate scientists, this one isn't," doesn't strengthen your argument. That is along the same likes of "4 out of 5 dentists agree!" Ok well so what? Maybe 4 out of 5 dentists are mediocre, and the excellent 20% realize that it doesn't matter?
There is also the matter of what is a climate scientist? This isn't a degree listed at most universities, and didn't exist at all until recently. If you look at the people who run realclimate you find their PhDs are Applied Mathematics, Geology, Oceanography, and such. None of them have a degree in "climate science." So what a climate scientist is, is simply someone who studies the climate. Ok, fair enough, however that does mean it isn't an exclusive club that only certain people can be members of. For that matter, Watts is a meteorologist, which is also on the topic of climate studies.
None of that means a given person is right or wrong, but it is incorrect to appeal to authority and try and claim that "Oh realclimate is run by climate scientists so they are the only place you can trust." No, that's not the case. Science doesn't work like that.
When you pull shit like this, it really doesn't help your case. If you disagree with the theory someone is putting forth, or their criticisms of a theory, deal with that. Don't play salesman/con man tricks. To me, it makes it look as though you've something to hide.
Re:You really don't help your case (Score:5, Insightful)
You are also pulling another con man trick: The appeal to authority. That a site is run by "climate scientists" or is not, doesn't matter. Science isn't about who has the authority in a certain area, it is a process for finding out about the world.
Whilst that is technically true, in practice it's bollocks.
Let's say you find a lump in your groin. Your doctor checks it and says that the evidence is that it's a malignant tumour. You ask for a second opinion, and another doctor tells you the same. On the other hand, you find a website that says that oncologists are making up diagnoses of cancer because otherwise they'd be out of a job, and it cites a few fringe researchers to back this up. Who do you believe?
In a specialised scientific field, you have to either defer to the experts or become an expert yourself.
That is along the same likes of "4 out of 5 dentists agree!"
You're seriously comparing a marketing slogan to a huge body of scientific research? I wish the scientific method was taught in schools.
There is also the matter of what is a climate scientist? This isn't a degree listed at most universities, and didn't exist at all until recently. If you look at the people who run realclimate you find their PhDs are Applied Mathematics, Geology, Oceanography, and such. None of them have a degree in "climate science."
Good. I don't believe in over-specialised degrees. Having people from different specialties is extremely helpful for a field. I'm glad that people with a maths background are checking the models and statistics and people who know about oceans are checking the ocean data, and so on.
So what a climate scientist is, is simply someone who studies the climate.
I'd say a climate scientist is a scientist who studies the climate, using the scientific method.
None of that means a given person is right or wrong, but it is incorrect to appeal to authority and try and claim that "Oh realclimate is run by climate scientists so they are the only place you can trust." No, that's not the case. Science doesn't work like that.
It's a bloody good heuristic though. It's theoretically possible that the people promoting coffee enemas are right about maximising your chances of beating cancer, but I'll believe the experts thanks.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're seriously comparing a marketing slogan to a huge body of scientific research? I wish the scientific method was taught in schools.
"Denialist" is the marketing slogan of a huge body of scientific research?
Re:This sort of thing would make anyone suspicious (Score:4, Informative)
WAIT before you leap to conclusion. This article cites only blogs which are known to misrepresent science and actions pertaining to them.
Let me correct you. This article cites a blog run by a member of the IPCC review panel.
Lets make this 100% crystal clear.
ClimateAudit is run by a member of the IPCC review panel and he has also published more than a couple peer reviewed papers on the subject.
Your vitriol combined with a distinct lack of knowledge is quite revealing.
Yes, many climate scientists have a big problem with Steve McIntyre, because the only thing he does in the field is try to find faults with other peoples work. He is the kind of scientist that should only be feared if you are knowingly doing sloppy or fraudulent work.
I have to agree (Score:5, Insightful)
It is always a real red flag when data is withheld. The core of science is that "ideas are tested by experiment." Ok well that means that, for science to work, others have to be able to check your work. You have an idea and say "Here's my idea and here's my support." Ok well your support needs to include ALL your data, your methods and so on. Why? So that others can check your work. Only then, after they've repeated and independently verified your results, can we start to feel confident your idea might be correct. To me, hiding data says one of three things is going on:
1) You are dealing with something commercial, that is being held secret so you can market it. Ok well that shouldn't be the case here.
2) The data in fact does NOT support your conclusion, however you don't want to admit you are wrong and thus are trying to suppress it. Perhaps you are worried you'll lose grants.
3) You suck at the science. You think that science is a process where you, the scientist make a claim and the rest of the world just has to listen to you.
4) You are a charlatan, a con man, and you are trying to convince people of something that isn't real, you are trying to sell them snake oil as it were.
I just can't see any legit reason in a pure scientific study why all the data wouldn't be made available for all to see. That it isn't really sets off warning bells in my head. I've read papers like this in the behavioral sciences and always what I see happening is that their experiment was basically a bust, it falsified their hypothesis, or simply produced inconsistent results. However they don't want to admit it, so they find a way to tweak the numbers and then refuse to release full methodology and results.
So this worries me. If climate change is truly a threat to humans, then it should be in the interests of everyone that all the data is made available, unedited, unhindered, so that the theories can be checked and rechecked. Science should be allowed to proceed with as little barriers as possible so that it can proceed as rapidly as possible because the matter is of such importance.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The interesting thing to me is, that I previously worked at a job where I was doing background research on a technology. I had occasion to contact a few of the primary authors of journal articles to ask follow-up questions that the articles didn't cover. (Why did you use this value here? Can I assume that is a correct value for the application that I am using? Do you have a reference that I can use in my research for this equation? type of questions.). Without exception, the authors were happy to answer
Re:This sort of thing would make anyone suspicious (Score:5, Insightful)
What you describe as real is climate change on a short timescale - such fluctuations aren't extraordinary and the claims of "climate change" are for the most part suggesting a mostly permanent change in climate, brought about by man-made influence.
Even the changes you describe are hard to judge and have varied greatly just year to year - here in Ireland this year everything (plants/animals) was more a stereotypical Spring/Summer - albeit extra plant growth, insects and birds because the sun/rain in Spring were in just the right order for optimal conditions (one particular week of heavy rain, one particular week of strong sunshine, and a lot of other "nice" conditions besides).
I'm a skeptic in the true sense - I'm skeptical about the climate change hysteria, but not convinced either that there is no merit in the "man-made permanent climate change" argument, and certainly I think it's a good idea to cut back on pollution (although the exclusive focus on carbon/CO2 may need more justification). I don't think we have enough to go on either way and some policies seem very knee jerk and may be counter productive. Plus most policies that are happening as opposed to mere proposals are often due to other interests (ways to make money from it, keep certain section of voters happy, skew competition, raise tax, etc.)
Here in Ireland there is as much talk as anywhere else about carbon taxes etc. yet there is still next to no enforcement of building standards for example to ensure new houses are properly insulated, pathetic planning that nevermind about transport emissions - makes equal (or even poor) delivery of services across the country very expensive. Too sparse population in rural areas for all kinds of services never mind private car use problems - too unplanned and fast-increasing population in the capital for services needed for such an amount of people - traffic problems and not enough money for public transport due to cost of supporting rural area. Our poor planning also means developers are allowed to put up crummy buildings that last as little as 10 years before being redeveloped - regardless of climate change or CO2 or anything else it's obvious that such things are grossly wasteful.
All in all, I'd like to see common-sense policies while we continue to research the "big picture" rather than random ideologically-driven hypotheses being put into action where politically convenient.
Re: (Score:2)
This is the first time I've seriously begun to question whether or not the global warming studies are in fact legitimate. If they won't allow free access to the data, so others can verify results or run it through alternative (or more refined) climate models, then the very obvious question becomes "why?"
One thing that comes to mind: McIntyre seems to have been asking for raw data. Now raw measurement data, especially if it's combined from a variety of sources, might be pencilled in notebooks, photographs of meter readings, or automatically saved files in several weird formats. That aside, measurements can also come from different devices that act in different ways, and to allow comparison, several corrections may be done and erroneous data points may be removed. HadSST2 seems to be a result of such work, t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So you don't believe that the HadSST2 data set is reliable? It is, after all, primarily the work of one Dr. Phil Jones. That he could make sense of 150 years worth of very diverse raw measurement data seems to me utterly implausible.
I'm no HadSST2 expert, but googling for it and checking the first result (http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/data/hadsst2/), I find a paper about HadSST2, published in Journal of Climate, and written by 8 different researchers. The paper also lists six pages of references of other peoples' work that they've used in theirs. Phil Jones is not an author of that paper, and I checked Jones's list of publications (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/pubs/byauthor/jones_pd.htm) which doesn't mention HadSST2. I'm left wondering where
Indeed they do! (Score:2, Interesting)
See
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Anthony_Watts [sourcewatch.org]
"Watts was a speaker at the International Conference on Climate Change (2009) organized by the Heartland Institute think tank. Watts is also listed as a speaker for the Heartland Institute's June 2009 Third International Conference on Climate Change."
Nice gigs. Wonder whether he was given a nice hotel for that...
Or Lindzen:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_S._Lindzen [sourcewatch.org]
"He is one of the leading global warming skeptics and is a member o
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Ah! I see Mr. McIntyre has been involved with "several public mineral exploration companies". I wonder if any of those "minerals" happen to be bituminous?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Why does this give this scary conspiracy nut feeling?? :-)
Just the URL-s of the sources (one even broken) screams tin-foil hat and blackened windows
Re:100% worthless (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it's not science if you hide your data and methods and only release them to people you like. This isn't about misrepresentation or whatever dirt you want to throw - this is about access and transparency. Anything less is not science. It's as simple as that.
A key ingredient of the scientific method is exposing your methods to the cold hard light of day and making sure they withstand scrutiny. If you only show it to people you like, that is hardly serious scrutiny. It needs to stand up to scrutiny from people you don't like.
In fact you should scrutinize it yourself (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll quote Feynman, since he put it really well:
-----
It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.
Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.
-----
Remember: In science, we don't prove things true, we show them to be not false. Same thing? Not hardly. For a complete discussion on the topic, read the Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper. However what it comes down to is you do not do a test, and then prove a theory true. That can't be done. What you do is come up with a way to falsify your theory, that is to say you come up with a test that says "If things don't come out this way, we know this theory is wrong." You run the test, things come out that way. You have failed to falsify the theory, and we are now more certain it is true. The more than is done, the more certain we are a theory is correct. Each time we attempt to falsify the theory and fail, we are more sure it must be the truth.
If we do then falsify it, the theory has to be redone. That doesn't mean you toss the whole thing out, it may just mean some refinement is needed. For example you have a theory that predicts when X happens Y will results. In 400 tests, this is the case, however 3 new tests show it isn't. What you discover is that in all those tests, A was also present. You the refine your theory: Y will result from X, except in cases where A is present. Your theory is now a little more narrow in application, and fits with the evidence. Perhaps later you find out what A does, and incorporate that in to a more general theory.
The point of all this is that real science is all about trying to prove your theory wrong. You do everything you can to prove it wrong, then have other people do what they can to prove it wrong. When all of you fail at doing that, when the theory has been refined such that it fits all the evidence and you can't figure out how else to test it, then it is most likely the truth. THAT is what scientific rigor is about. It isn't about coming up with a theory, ignoring data you don't like, showing it to a few people who agree with you, and saying "Ok, we proved this true and nobody else can look at it."
Re:In fact you should scrutinize it yourself (Score:5, Interesting)
This is all true of course.
The problems start because you've got a lot of people in "science" who are not acting in good faith, who for various reasons are heavily invested in seeing theories "proved wrong". We've seen this throughout this history of science, but not since Galileo v The Holy Roman Catholic Church have we seen such heavily funded actors who have so much at stake to see theories not only "proved wrong" but discredited to the point that nobody wants to do that research any more. Then, those same actors blame the original researchers for acting in bad faith.
There's a real poisonous element working at the edges of the scientific community these days.
Re:In fact you should scrutinize it yourself (Score:5, Informative)
There are the type of people you describe on both sides of the climate debate.
Re:In fact you should scrutinize it yourself (Score:4, Insightful)
But one side has a much greater financial incentive.
I know, it must be the guys who already control power production, who are raking in the dough at a pretty nice rate.
No, wait. Perhaps it's the guys researching "green" tech, who stand to multiply their investment by an arbitrarily large number by making green energy the rule.
I'm confused. Are you sure it's just one side?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The amount spent by Environmental groups on this issue dwarfs that spent by fossil fuel lobbyists.
[Citation needed [sourcewatch.org]]
Follow the money; Stop enabling the conspirators. (Score:3, Informative)
If you need a citation, how about looking at: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/ [scienceand...policy.org] [...]
The site and its owners may have it's own axes to grind (don't we all) but let's stop with the "oil-company" conspiracy theory. It's just another distraction tactic by those with something to hide. Publish your data and models please.
The Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) is a global warming skeptics group which appears to primarily be the work of Robert Ferguson, its President.
Prior to founding SPPI in approximately mid-2007, Ferguson was the Executive Director of the Center for Science and Public Policy (CSPP), a project of the corporate-funded group, the Frontiers of Freedom Institute.
Frontiers of Freedom receives money of tobacco and oil companies, including Philip Morris Cos, ExxonMobil and RJ Reynolds Tobacco.
According to
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Personally, I'd love to see ALL corporate lobbying and donations to political figures banned outright, if just for the fact that corporations don't vote. Why should their interests be represented over ours?
{Yes, I KNOW it's not likely, but it's a pleasant thought, no?}
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Bullshit. If you could come up with a proposal for research with a good chance of finding against global warming, then you could write your own check for all your dreams of avarice. There are millions spent on lobbying for big business in Washington. Something that could make the global warming issue go away would be worth a good chunk of those budgets to the fossil fuel and automobile industries amongst others.
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So Gore is putting his money where his mouth is - what's wrong with that? Is T. Boone Pickens a hypocrite because he's promoting natural gas as an alternative to oil, and he's invested billions in natural gas?
Gore believes this is a major issue, and he's not just talking about it, he's investing in ways that match his talk. That's what people /should/ do, and using it as an argument against his beliefs is just plain stupid.
himi
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"Al Gore has interests in carbon trading companies, for example. "
Searching for that, the first two pages of articles were all from extremely right wing sites/bloggers. This seems like it has been spun a certain way by the right.....
"(tag your paper with a Global Warming angle and you're more likely to get it published, or to get funding for your research in the first place)."
You have any data on that? I sure couldn't find any, not even from conservative sites.
"The amount spent by Environmental groups on
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General Electric don't have to be ruined. There is plenty of money to be made out of green energy.
They should take a lesson from what happened to the American automobile industry. They have failed spectacularly because they have ignored the oil crisis and green issues and have kept on designing large gas guzzlers.
Foresight is what is needed. Seeing where the markets of the future are. Not lobbying against science in the hope of carrying on business exactly the same way as for the last century.
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They have failed spectacularly because they have ignored the oil crisis and green issues and have kept on designing large gas guzzlers.
This is definitely NOT true. Gas prices in 2008 and the recent recession only amplified enormous problems that already existed.
Many of the "gas-guzzling" cars are the best-selling American vehicles. Most American auto-maker failures have historically been small cars, which the government forced them to build (CAFE standards).
Moreover, American auto-makers cannot significantly restructure and become more lean and effective, because their rights were taken away with the Wagner act, which prevents firing of
Re:In fact you should scrutinize it yourself (Score:4, Informative)
That only becomes a problem when the science is politicized. The scientific community would probably do well with whatever "input" it got - the cranks would be quickly ignored and, who knows, they might actually accidentally hit on something interesting from time to time.
The problem with global warming is that it's not scientists evaluating the claims, it's politicians and the public and the public's collective critical thinking skills are so finely developed that Jenny McCarthy has more credibility than a Nobel laureate.
Re:In fact you should scrutinize it yourself (Score:4, Funny)
She's got advanced degrees in tits, which goes a long way where I come from.
Re:In fact you should scrutinize it yourself (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a real poisonous element working at the edges of the scientific community these days.
And there always has been. The remarkable thing is that science is robust against this element, over time.
Right back at the very beginning we had people like Newton, who was a shrewd political operator who pilloried his opponents played and fast and loose with their data.
This kind of thing has always gone on. Scientists are no better than businesspeople or politicians when it comes to lying and cheating.
The essence of science is not honesty or the virtue of individual scientists: it is open empiricism. That is, to be a scientist, to be counted as part of the scientific community, you must at the end of the day respect the data, and you must be open about what the data are, where they came from, and what you've done with them.
So people like Steve MacIntyre are not a danger to sciece.
People like you are.
The issue is the license: Copyright and contracts (Score:5, Informative)
The problem appears to be that the data itself was collected and supplied by various combinations of public and private entities throughout the world, and collectively released under a non-free license under which researchers aren't able to publically redistribute the data set. The British government also must respect the contract under which it obtained the data set. Now, you can argue that the data should be free in the first place, or that there should be no copyright law for data, or that there is a public interest in violating copyright law and the contractual obligations if you believe that this is a national security issue, etc.
Unfortunately the conspiracy theorists see this lack of public data as further evidence of the big conspiracy. Yes, it would be better if the complete data set were public domain. No, the data set being distributed under a less permissive license does not mean that global warming is not happening.
It should be noted that this is not a unique case - there are many instances where researchers at universities are given access to commercial or otherwise non-public-domain data sets which they use in their research and are unable to legally reproduce. Does this mean their research isn't following the scientific method? Not really - as long as other researchers are able to access the data set and reproduce the research, then it is science. The scientific method doesn't require that everyone in the world is able to reproduce your experiments, although it certainly does help.
Re:The issue is the license: Copyright and contrac (Score:5, Insightful)
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There's no need to be condescending, Ron.
Do you understand that copyright law covers data sets, and that you can't just issue a Freedom of Information Act requesting that the government violate copyright law?
Here's a common situation: a pharmaceutical corporation sponsors graduate research on some drug, and as part of this they provide data sets from their own experiments and other research that they have sponsored, bought, or licensed. Now I discover that a government researcher has used this data and I di
Re:The issue is the license: Copyright and contrac (Score:4, Insightful)
I discover that a government researcher has used this data and I disagree with their conclusions, so I put in a Freedom of Information Act request for the original data set. Do you really believe that at this point the government should just relicense the data set as public domain and hand it over to me?
Yes.
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I recall looking in depth at the claim of a y2k error at the time it was news. It wasn't true. There was a change over from one dataset to another dataset round about the year 2000, and some dispute of the baseline to use to combine that data. It had nothing to do with y2k, which is
Re:100% worthless (Score:5, Informative)
The troll from ClimateAudit not being able to get free access to the source data isn't the same as there not being data. No one will give him data unless they have to because he dishonestly misrepresents it. And why the hell the UK government should spend ANY UK taxpayers money to even consider his request is beyond me. He's not British.
I would also note that the owner of one of the two sites mentioned in your story (Anthony Watts) has just employed the DMCA to have a video criticizing his Surface Stations project pulled from Youtube.
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Hi and welcome to the scientific process. Without it, there's no science.
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Are you suggesting that where confidential data is involved science should not be done? Well that's going to kill much medical research for a start. If an epidemiologist finds a cause of disease, are you going to discount it as valid science because you aren't allowed access to the patient records the data was collated from?
The scientific method only requires that results be confirmed by other scientists. They could be given access to the data without requiring the data to be released to the public domain
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If an epidemiologist finds a cause of disease, are you going to discount it as valid science because you aren't allowed access to the patient records the data was collated from?
There is a huge and expensive system of data verification that has been developed to deal with this issue with regard to medical records, precisely because if either I or an agent I trust can't independently verify the data it isn't science.
So you're right: science is done with confidential data every day, but it is done in the cont
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the data and it's sources are confidential because the data is flawed, the sources are poorly placed, the organizations behind it have tax money to receive and a vested interest in ensuring the data provides wallet-lining cash. This goes from the researchers in the field placing the sensors to the politicians driving the studies from the back seat.
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Interesting hypothesis. Is it falsifiable?
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You're not supposed to trust science. That's sort of the whole point.
It's called "skepticism" and it's a required trait if you claim to be practicing science at all.
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What in the heck are you talking about?
Your dad sounds like an idiot, not a skeptic. He doesn't have to trust science to know that planes can fly, because you can see the damn things flying. All you have to trust is your own eyes.
Also, science does not require peer-review. That's quite possibly the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Why? Because you don't define "peer".
What science absolutely requires is disclosure. If you say "I have does a study and discovered X", then you damn well have to back it up. Your
Re:100% worthless (Score:4, Informative)
Why did you people moderate this as insightful? Steve McIntyre has shown in the past how various erroneous statistical analysis of climate related data has been dishonestly misrepresented by those in the "warmist" camp themselves. I'm thinking of the infamous Mann hockey stick, as well as various offerings from James Hansen and recently Steig et al. Unlike a lot of Climate Scientists (and the met office itself), McIntyre publishes in full his code, data and methods. I hardly think he can be reasonably described as a troll, unlike the poster above.
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The problems with the principle component analysis in the hockey stick diagram were not a case of academic dishonesty. They were a case of a subtle statistical error being found in the work. This sort of thing happens all the time. In general it is a self-correcting problem.
Re:100% worthless (Score:4, Insightful)
And it would not have been found had the data not been available.
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Because the mods considered it to be so of course. Given your choice of language you are clearly a GW conspiracy theorist yourself which is why you disagree with their reasoning.
Such are the kind of claims Steve McIntyre has made. But he's not a scientist and his errors are in tur
Re:100% worthless (Score:5, Funny)
That's an interesting point. It sounds a lot like something McIntyre would love his adversary to have said, if he could only get him to say it.
I've seen a fair amount of McIntyre's work and I get a hinky feeling from some of it. Personally, I'd like to believe what he says because I enjoy using fossil fuels and would love to think that they are completely harmless and will last forever and always be sixty cents a gallon if we could only get Al Gore to STFU. It seems to be more complicated than that, though.
Science? (Score:2, Funny)
Confidentiality and openness aside, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are lots of data sources which are perfectly reasonable to use. NOAA's data being probably the best and most comprehensive.
Yes, the UK is turning into a strange parody of itself with its attempts to close the government to the public on the one hand and monitor citizens very closely on the other. But it's not the only game in town. Despite my own country's recent 8 year slump towards the same type of fascist state as Britain, the US scientific community is still one of the best and most open in the world.
So come and get your data from us, ya'll.
Re:Confidentiality and openness aside, so what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, the UK is turning into a strange parody of itself with its attempts to close the government to the public on the one hand and monitor citizens very closely on the other. But it's not the only game in town. Despite my own country's recent 8 year slump towards the same type of fascist state as Britain, the US scientific community is still one of the best and most open in the world.
The UK's decline is recent, too. We used to watch the news and laugh at the social conservatism, outrageous media hyperbole and occasional fascist policy of the US. Now we're worse, much worse, and it invades every part of our lives.
Hell, the BBC now cut shows that air, uncut, on HBO. What they did to 'Rome' was a crime. The idea that US tv would one day be more free to explore the dark side of life than the UK never even occurred to me.
Since this attitude of fear so closely follows the desperate, terrified, nannying of the Labour government I am begging and praying that things turn around again when they're out on their ear.
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I'm ashamed at people who pump out kids they don't care for just to get themselves a council house and benefits. There's an entire generation of 'ME ME ME' kids being brought up and I'm going to have to work with them or manage them.
Our DNA database is completely shocking and a disgrace, as are the draconian laws regarding pornography and other restrictions of free speech.
I used to think
Obviously a conspiracy!!! (Score:4, Funny)
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Your reference talks about 400BC but Steve Franklins post talks about 4000BC. Thats a big difference. For what it is worth I think Piri Reis did the surveying job in the 1600s. The story about basing the maps on older data was an attempt to hide their movements in the southern hemisphere.
I just don't believe it could have been done more than
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Are you serious, or is this a parody?
Gore (Score:4, Funny)
See, I tried to warn everyone about Gore's new world order , but no one would listen.
It was all oil , bush , climate change and look how you all ended up.
Tinfoil hat time? (Score:5, Insightful)
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http://slashdot.org/ [slashdot.org]
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It's not broken (Score:5, Interesting)
It is that submitter, or Slashdot itself, linked to it through nyud.net. Apparently the site doesn't allow that. Just take that out of the URL, it works fine. The site in question is run by Steve McIntyre. While certianly not a disinterested party (then again people who are involved in something are rarely disinterested) he does have some credibility. He was one of two people who worked on the whole "hockey stick controversy" in terms of showing that the model used to generate the graph was flawed (the model generated a similar shape graph with random inputs).
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Nice try, but not good enough. CA is not a conspiracy nut website. It is a website run by a mathematician to show the follies of various "climate science" statistical analysis. It turns out, if you pay attention, that much of what passes for "science" in climate circles is nothing more than unmitigated rubbish. The latest, Steig et al, used PCA and deliberately chose the number of componen
Re:Tinfoil hat time? (Score:4, Interesting)
He is a member of the IPCC review panel and has more than a couple peer reviewed papers on the subject.
Open Source Science is the path through the dark (Score:2, Interesting)
Opening Science is the way forward, the path through the darkness, the endarkenment of closed source science.
If's it's paid by the public purse it must be OPEN data that anyone can see and audit.
Science is based upon the notion of being able to validate or invalidate in whole or in part the "claims" made by various "hypotheses" put forward.
When you "BELIEVE" science you're just another religion.
When you can't audit the work of scientists whose work is the basis of public policy then you and the public are b
Re:Open Source Science is the path through the dar (Score:5, Insightful)
When you "BELIEVE" science you're just another religion.
In fact, open source science is the BEST and ONLY WAY to avoid science from becoming the new religion as it has, for example, in the climate debates.
The scientific method is the tool for vetting the works of science and if the work of science is closed and secret and kept close to the scientists chests by refusals to share their data, methods, source codes, procedures, etc... then their work can't be verified and might as well be works of fiction just like those of any religious cleric or priest or nutter.
If you can't take others vetting your scientific work then maybe you don't belong in science?
Open Source Science raises the bar and will in the long run improve the quality of the science that is done. Some progress is being made, much more needs to be done.
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Something similar to the open source movement, but science instead of software.
The two methodologies: Open Science and Peer Reviewed Publishing can coexist. If anything, this sort of thing might actualy make the peer reviewers do something.. like actualy review the work they are signing off on.
You wonder why there's doubt on global warming? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see, we're supposed to spend literally trillions of dollars to fix global warming, yet we can't see the raw data the hysteria is based on?
WTF!?!?!
Along the same lines, when is the source code used for the climate models going to be published and thoroughly reviewed?
If AGW is in fact true, it can withstand the scrutiny.
Some facts are being ignored (Score:5, Informative)
Some nice data for you (Score:2, Interesting)
My conclusion so far: it's very unlikely not to be co2 responsible for most of the warming we've observed since the 70s, it's likely to get much worse, and there don't seem to be any viable alternative explanations.
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Concealment of decisive evidence (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing I cannot understand is this. We have a bunch of scientists, lots of them. Starting with Michael Mann in front of Wegman, but including Jones, Thompson, lots of really well known and respected people. They have all done work which supposedly proves that the human race on Earth is facing catastrophe. They supposedly have decisive evidence for this, in the form of data and code.
We then have a lot of sceptics who allege that the data does not exist, is not as described, and the code used to process it does not do what it is said to do, and that there is no such threat as described, or at leas that there is no evidence for one.
You would expect the scientists to immediately produce their evidence and their code and to silence debate once and for all. It would be so simple, it would just be end of story, and now lets focus on what to do about it all. But they do not. Instead they refuse to reveal anything. Jones, for instance, refused to even reveal the names of the stations in China on which his study was based. Mann would not reveal the algorithm which generated the hockey stick to a Congressional Committee. Thompson is silent. Yet supposedly this secret evidence proves decisively, contrary to the claims of sceptics, that the future of the human race is under severe and imminent threat?
It makes absolutely no sense. They never give any reasons for refusing that make any sense either. Sometimes it is commercial considerations. What commercial considerations can there be that outweigh the possible extinction of humanity? Sometimes it is, as Jones once is reported to have said, that they do not want people trying to poke holes in it. WTF??? Sometimes, as with Thompson's ice core data, there is just silence.
It is very hard to believe that this wonderful evidence really exists, and really is as represented. Or maybe it is, and they really do not want to convince everyone of the threat? I don't know, but the story as told makes absolutely no sense. Something is not right here.
Re:Concealment of decisive evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
The "bunch of scientists" you should be paying attention to aren't the half-dozen public figures engaging the quacks, but the ten thousand quietly publishing the research which led to the concensus in the first place. The handful of public scientists who can't whip out smoking-gun data like characters in a Roland Emmerich movie aren't the people who hold the actual science.
Not so much (Score:3, Insightful)
More than 90% of those "ten thousand" scientists who publicly support global warming did nothing at all to prove or disprove the theory - they're researchers in related (and often unrelated) fields who took government money, wrote a paper, tacked "and was caused by Global Warming" onto whatever they were working on before, and got published. Tens of billions of dollars in government money over the last couple of decades have made sure that many scientists have a distinct financial advantage if they support
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By contrast, the type of data being discussed here is just a minutia of the full body of evidence.
The "minutia" are the foundation on which the broad, general, political conclusions of the IPCC and others are based, and if you know anything about science, you know that the process of synthesis of conclusions from the raw data is highly political and suspect. Therefore, the broad conclusions are to.
The only thing that can't lie is the data. Anyone who thinks that makes the data irrelevant "minutia" doesn't
Anthony Watts' call to action (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What are they trying to hide? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yes, and you know this because you want to. That's real science, not those bullshit studies you don't like.
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