Global warming becomes even harder to deny... - Page 6

At least he's actually a scientist. What do you do again? Besides embarrass yourself on pinko-commie-liberal boards........

I thought giving you the opportunity to check out a few links might temper your sweeping statements, but as you insist on backing into a swamp...

First, whatever the supposed ideals and standards of publications and professional societies in climate science, they often do not follow them faithfully - and when they do, such standards do not provide for full disclosure.

Paleo climate reconstructionists, a sibling of the GEW climate forecasters, have recently been under fire for the IPCC mis-marketing of Mann's "the hockey stick" as definative to policy makers. The debate, recently reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences, has raised serious questions of methodology, data, statistical robustness, and most importantly, scientific integrity.

McIntyre, the skeptic who first exposed the flaws of Mann's hockey stick published an article that I linked to previously. A few excerpts of interest are:

" I have spent much of the past 2 years analyzing and re-constructing some of the basic studies used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to support their conclusions about global warming and, in turn, to promote policies on climate change. It started as a hobby and it evolved into a full time avocation, resulting to date in 3 peer-reviewed publications, which Natuurwetenschap & Techniek, the National Post and the Wall Street Journal have recently reported on." Previously, I spent about 35 years in the mining and mineral exploration business, concepts like audit trails, due diligence and full, true and plain disclosure become second nature when you work in such an environment. "

"None of the major multiproxy studies have anything remotely like a complete due diligence packages and most have none at all. The author of one of the most quoted studies [Crowley and Lowery, 2000] told me that he has mis-placed his data."

" Mann was initially unable to remember where the data was l located, then provided inaccurate data, then provided a new version of the data which was inconsistent with previously published material, etc. The National Post has recently reported on my experience as this unfolded.

"...authors typically refuse to make their source code and data available for verification, even with a specific request. Even after inaccuracies in a major study had been proven, when we sought source code, the original journal (Nature) and the original funding agency (the U.S. National Science Foundation) refused to intervene. ...In the opinion of the latter, the code is Manns personal commercial property. Mann recently told the Wall Street Journal that Giving them the algorithm would be giving in to the intimidation tactics that these people employ. My first request for source code was a very simple request and could in now way be construed as intimidation."

"It is unheard of for a peer reviewer to actually check the data and calculations. In 2004, I was asked by a journal (Climatic Change) to peer review an article. I asked to see the source code and supporting calculations. The editor said that no one had ever asked for such things in 28 years of his editing the journal. He refused to ask for source code; the author refused to provide supporting calculations."

This is not just the experience of McIntyre. Hans von Storch, a well-respected climate researcher who resigned as the senior editor of Climate Review over the publication of a global warming skeptics paper that lacked effective peer review (Soon, et. al.) has expressed his own dismay at the politicization of climate science. While a supporter of global warming models, von Storch has carried on a crusade to open up the science to full disclosure standards. One slide of his powerpoint presentation to the NAS summerizes:

Major conclusions (from the Mann controversy) should be:

1. Peer review process: no
publication without
reproducible description of
complex methodology;

2. IPCC and related
processes: Have
independent scientists
doing the review; not the
key authors in the field.

3. Data access: Relevant data
and details of algorithms
need to be made public
even to adversaries.

"We have 25 or so years
invested in the work.
Why should I make the
data available to you,
when your aim is to try
and find something
wrong with it." (Jones'
reply to Warwick
Hughes, 21. Februar
2005; confirmed by P.
Jones)



Roger Pielke (Climatologist), of the University of Colorado at Boulder echos McIntyre's and von Storch's concern at his blog AND quotes another climate researcher, Ron Errico:

"This observation has also been made in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society in a 2000 commentary by Ron Errico, who writes,

'Too frequently, published papers contain fundamental errors How can a piece of work be adequately evaluated or duplicated if what was really done or meant is not adequately stated?... My paramount recommendation is that our community acknowledges that a major problem in fact exists and requires ardent attention. Unless this is acknowledged, the community will likely not even consider significant changes. I suspect that too many scientists, especially those with the authority to demand changes, will prefer the status quo.'

Erricos paper, titled 'On the Lack of Accountability in Meteorological Research,' is well worth reading in full. He makes several recommendations that are completely consistent with McIntyres recommendations. "

How bad is it? McIntyre and McKittrich gave a status report to the NAS panel on their attempts to replicate the other "supporting" studies of Mann here are summaries of some of them:

Jones et al 1998 - Facsimile data obtained from other sources and, in two cases, from Jones. Source code and data used not archived, authors refuse to provide. Cannot resolve reason for lack of exact replication of his results.

Crowley and Lowery 2000 - Original data has been lost by Dr. Crowley. Digital citations do not match paper citations - only a smoothed and transformed version of data has been found by Crowley - not satisfactory for replication.

Briffa -2000 - 4 of 7 measurement data series not archieved for access.

Briffa 2001 - Identity of 387 data sites not provided. Same problem in other papers by Briffa .

Esper 2002 - Site chronologies became available only in Feb. 2006 after Nature intervened. Site chronologies do not match archived measurement data. Some data not archieved. Unintelligable methodology as no definitions of linear/nonlinear types provided.

Moberg et al [2005] - No source code provided and methodology is not standard. Materials complaint to Nature produced two series that had been withheld (Fed 2006). Not exact replication without missing series.

Osborn and Briffa [2006] No original data. Only smoothed versions of sites provided.

Obviously, most of the researchers refuse to provide full disclosure (except von Storch), and most actively obstruct it (or lose their data). The impediments to a simple replication and testing of a historic climate model is substantial, and until that is done these 'supporting' studies mean little to real science. Missing data, incomplete or incomphrensible methodology, refusal to provide source codes, etc. bespeak of a science without the scientific method...

But their are other challenges to their integrity, in Part II.....


Well, you are more than the average Joe (as is M&M). Here's an offer: contact McIntyre and ask him which two studies are the most important to his replication research. If you can obtain full data, definitions, methods, and source code discloure from the authors I will pay you $1000.00. I'll even stick in in a trust account for release upon delivery. It won't happen.


"Not forever" is a long time. One reason being is that paleo climate science is a small, rather incestious, group - most of them come from two schools. Most of them co-author with one-another, and independence is very limited. When reconstruction science is limited to a dozen individuals in a few schools, you are not going to get those standards enforced - not when they all co-author and/or are mentors/students/associates.


That is not how paleoclimate reconstruction science works, HardeeHar. I am sorry that you presume that all science lives up to your standards.

BTW it might help if you would clarify what kind of scienctist you are and what you do...in the interests of Full Disclosure.

Yawn!

Uh, Max?

Give it up! No one is going to buy your silly song and dance no matter how long the post.

What you're trying to get us to buy here is stupid.


Ps. I don't think he needs to disclose until you do.

What you are seeing Max is science working. There are authors who refused to play by the rules, and because of that there has been controversy. Just because it is current, doesn't mean that this isn't exactly a snap shot of what happens.

It is interesting that you mention Von Storch because his own paper that was critical of the mann study was shown to have been based upon faulty application of the modeling method.

Regardless, the issues you bring up are mostly irrelevant

Actually what we are seeing is science not working. When most of the climate reconstructionists do not "play by the rules" there is more than controversy, there is stagnation and false claims of certainty - not to mention opening the door to ourright fraud. Without testing and confirming the claims made by a model builder, it is merely a very elaborate set of numbers by someone who claims to be honest, and who opposes testing for validation ... hopefully not routine in your area of science (whatever that may be).

Until the science plays by the rules, it is by only an article of faith - trust without verification.


I thought, for the purposes of our discussion regarding the lack of tranparency, the interesting part of von Storchs criticism was his bonda fida as a member of the global warming community - one who resigned over the lack of candor in the mistake of Climate Research in publishing a 'skeptics' paper.

But as you brought it up, I share with McIntyre his bemusement that Mann critcized von Storch for a procedural error in replicating his work, one easily prevented if Mann had not fought against full disclosure. And even more amusing when one realizes that Mann used von Storch as an example of someone who did not need the "unreasonable" information requested by M&M. to do a study.

So a) Don't provide the information b) criticize those who fail to replicate your results....nice game he has going.

BTW, as it turned out von Storch's criticisms did not materially change after the error was accounted for, nor Burger and Chumach's critique, nor M&M (they were more experienced detectives in deconstruting Mann).

And as it turned out Von Storch's major criticism that Mann's study reduced amplitude by at least 1/2 (before modern times) has turned out correct - Moberg's study (2005) seems to have taken care of that.


If relavency is of confirming a steep rise in modern tempatures, as high as it has been in at least 400 years as a "one shot" political point then you are correct.

However, if relevancy is to create an accurate 1000 tempature reconstruction, one that shows the very warm Medival period and the little Ice age (about 85% of that 1000 years) then Mann's flawed studies are very germaine to a politicized and unrobust scientific method.

And if relevancy to integrity is a measure, then I think the answer is obvious.

You are using ONE controversy which has left no one on either side of the issue unscathed, and trying to suggest that this is broadly reflective of the entire field (evidently von storch et al aren't right after all).

You haven't shown that, nor anything broadly resembling it and thus your claims of broad systematic problems with the fundamental science in the field of climate research are laughable at best.

What we are seeing is science working in a very public way, which unfortunately means uninformed individuals cry controversy and start collecting talking points just in case they ever need to discuss it on an online forum like this one. Science is never without controversy. All fields of science have disputes, sometimes vicious, sometimes bloody, but almost all are settled in the privacy of the lab with experimentation. Unfortunately, everyone wants to know when human's are going to kill the planet, and that takes the debate into the public and especially Congress where there are a paltry few PhD scientists (two was my last count) who do understand that science moves forward in fits and starts.

If you think that this battle is particularly bad, you are severely unaware of real science.

Quite apart from whether or not trending/detrending makes a material difference the following link ONCE AGAIN demonstrates the state of one controversy at the core of the science.

McIntyre on this and the Real Climate link, a good read:

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=658#more-658

Edit ADD: The following touchs on your link.
Edit ADD:http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=673

I am still not convinced that the failure to provide data and code is particularly egregious in this case.

Is it a bad show on the part of everyone involved, sure, but is it particularly hurtful to the science at large, no -- since there is enough information in the literature to attempt to repeat the experiments...

LOL

It is rare that I appreciate an image post in a serious discussion BUT your timing and image was perfect.

I surrender, I ought to add it to my image collection.

These scientists publishing the reports have nothing to gain, no agenda that would be gained from global waming. It would be great if we could pollute indefinitely, it is convenient and great for business.

Are scientists known for owning large portions of companies for renewable energy, anti-pollution technologies and alternative methods? Not really. Are replublicans known for oil? I need not answer this.

You know, by the time anything ever happens. You know it will be too late. It will always be too little, too late. Look at us humans, we have wars all the time, cant fix problems like hunger and poverty and how can we expect to save an entire planet? People are greedy. This is our downfall.

It will be business we usual. Those in power will keep us hooked on oil as long as possible. Who'd want to give that up? Suffice to say, the wealthy oil companies who push agenda in Washington is more interested in ammasing greenbacks than having a green earth.

So let's just ignore the problem. Those scientists are wacky, they dont know what they're talking about! Sure they brought us things like electricity, microchips and advanced medicine, but this warming stuff is a bunk! We'll call it a natural cycle and continue as usual.

Let's ignore the warming trends, the melting glaciers and other statistics. I mean, look, last winter was really cold, right? Wahoo! A cold winter! I mean, it just takes one cold winter to nulify all their crazy talk, right?

So lets not rock the boat, we're all making money and lets keep it this way. If they start it again, we'll call it liberal. Liberals are bad, mind you. Very bad.

Eh? It's a gamble? It doesnt really matter, I wont be alive in a hundred years.

I disagree with your premise. There has been a great deal of chicanery with data and results that would suggest otherwise. Scientists are human and are just as susceptible to corruption and fraud as anyone else. The whole global warming Kyoto racket is an attempt to fleece the Western industrialized world of a huge amount of money. It\\'s very easy to see how an \\"innocent scientist\\" might be tempted to play for the other team.

Oh occy that's such a tired old argument.

What chicanery? What does this alleged chicanery "suggest"?


"Corruption and fraud"?


How?


What other team?

Doesn\\'t make it any less true. I\\'ll leave it to you to update Midwinter on the mechanics of the scam and who the players might be.

Priceless.

"It's very easy to see how an \\"innocent scientist\\" might be tempted to play for the other team."

You mean Exxon-Mobil?

It's all a conspiracy to make us buy hybrids.

electric cars are fueled more efficiently by coal/gas/nuclear power plants than a standard auto is by petroleum.

And smell our own farts.

This article in the LA Times is worth a read. I copied the entire thing just in case it requires registration to read it: The paragraph in bold is my edit, because it highlights the bad science done by those in vested interests who obviously wish to maintain the status quo.

*********************

By Naomi Oreskes:

AN OP-ED article in the Wall Street Journal a month ago claimed that a published study affirming the existence of a scientific consensus on the reality of global warming had been refuted. This charge was repeated again last week, in a hearing of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

I am the author of that study, which appeared two years ago in the journal Science, and I'm here to tell you that the consensus stands. The argument put forward in the Wall Street Journal was based on an Internet posting; it has not appeared in a peer-reviewed journal the normal way to challenge an academic finding. (The Wall Street Journal didn't even get my name right!)

My study demonstrated that there is no significant disagreement within the scientific community that the Earth is warming and that human activities are the principal cause.

Papers that continue to rehash arguments that have already been addressed and questions that have already been answered will, of course, be rejected by scientific journals, and this explains my findings. Not a single paper in a large sample of peer-reviewed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 refuted the consensus position, summarized by the National Academy of Sciences, that "most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations."

Since the 1950s, scientists have understood that greenhouse gases produced by burning fossil fuels could have serious effects on Earth's climate. When the 1980s proved to be the hottest decade on record, and as predictions of climate models started to come true, scientists increasingly saw global warming as cause for concern.

In 1988, the World Meteorological Assn. and the United Nations Environment Program joined forces to create the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action. The panel has issued three assessments (1990, 1995, 2001), representing the combined expertise of 2,000 scientists from more than 100 countries, and a fourth report is due out shortly. Its conclusions global warming is occurring, humans have a major role in it have been ratified by scientists around the world in published scientific papers, in statements issued by professional scientific societies and in reports of the National Academy of Sciences, the British Royal Society and many other national and royal academies of science worldwide. Even the Bush administration accepts the fundamental findings. As President Bush's science advisor, John Marburger III, said last year in a speech: "The climate is changing; the Earth is warming."

To be sure, there are a handful of scientists, including MIT professor Richard Lindzen, the author of the Wall Street Journal editorial, who disagree with the rest of the scientific community. To a historian of science like me, this is not surprising. In any scientific community, there are always some individuals who simply refuse to accept new ideas and evidence. This is especially true when the new evidence strikes at their core beliefs and values.

Earth scientists long believed that humans were insignificant in comparison with the vastness of geological time and the power of geophysical forces. For this reason, many were reluctant to accept that humans had become a force of nature, and it took decades for the present understanding to be achieved. Those few who refuse to accept it are not ignorant, but they are stubborn. They are not unintelligent, but they are stuck on details that cloud the larger issue. Scientific communities include tortoises and hares, mavericks and mules.

A historical example will help to make the point. In the 1920s, the distinguished Cambridge geophysicist Harold Jeffreys rejected the idea of continental drift on the grounds of physical impossibility. In the 1950s, geologists and geophysicists began to accumulate overwhelming evidence of the reality of continental motion, even though the physics of it was poorly understood. By the late 1960s, the theory of plate tectonics was on the road to near-universal acceptance.

Yet Jeffreys, by then Sir Harold, stubbornly refused to accept the new evidence, repeating his old arguments about the impossibility of the thing. He was a great man, but he had become a scientific mule. For a while, journals continued to publish Jeffreys' arguments, but after a while he had nothing new to say. He died denying plate tectonics. The scientific debate was over.

So it is with climate change today. As American geologist Harry Hess said in the 1960s about plate tectonics, one can quibble about the details, but the overall picture is clear.

Yet some climate-change deniers insist that the observed changes might be natural, perhaps caused by variations in solar irradiance or other forces we don't yet understand. Perhaps there are other explanations for the receding glaciers. But "perhaps" is not evidence.

The greatest scientist of all time, Isaac Newton, warned against this tendency more than three centuries ago. Writing in "Principia Mathematica" in 1687, he noted that once scientists had successfully drawn conclusions by "general induction from phenomena," then those conclusions had to be held as "accurately or very nearly true notwithstanding any contrary hypothesis that may be imagined. "

Climate-change deniers can imagine all the hypotheses they like, but it will not change the facts nor "the general induction from the phenomena."

None of this is to say that there are no uncertainties left there are always uncertainties in any live science. Agreeing about the reality and causes of current global warming is not the same as agreeing about what will happen in the future. There is continuing debate in the scientific community over the likely rate of future change: not "whether" but "how much" and "how soon." And this is precisely why we need to act today: because the longer we wait, the worse the problem will become, and the harder it will be to solve.

Linky

Yeah! Let's continue buying monstrous vehicles. Let's continue burning fossil fuels like mad men. Let's continuing dumping trillions of dollars into the middle east.

Electric hybrids are for PUSSIES!!!!!

Fingers in hears. Nya nya!

And the reverse can't be true of government officials and elected politicians? Jesus Christ!

The War on Theories continues!

Hybrids and other conservation methods do nothing to help global warming - I thought that we worked this out earlier.

Conservation -> causes lower prices -> more people consume oil. Buying a hybrid is a useless waste of money, compared to the non-hybrid version of the car - all it does is make you feel good about yourself.

Global warming is unstopable, conservation does nothing.

WOOOT! I'm glad that argument was settled. Conservation is useless.

I'm on my way to the Hummer dealer as we speak. I'm sure there's some future Al Qaeda whackos who could use some additional funding when I fill my tanks.

I'm so excited.

It is settled, since it is absolutely true - and no counter argument has been able to crack the basic truth of it. People tried for several pages of this thread.

Spending all your energy getting mad at people who use a lot of gas is useless - a much better way to deal with the problem is to work finding a way to deal with the heat. Alternative energy sources are great as a way to deal with national security and peak oil, but they will do nothing for global warming, and hybrid cars are not an "alternative energy source".

And I agree - Hummers are pretty cool, I want one also 8). A H1 Alpha.

Give it up already man. Just because you're unwillling to get off your a** and do something about the problem proves nothing. Your positions have varied in this thread alone. If you wanna stick with the (latest) mantra that we should be doing nothing but trying to deal with the heat, ironically while creating more, then go ahead. I doubt you even have any ideas to "deal with the heat" besides cranking up the ACs.

By the way, if I sound a little cranky it's because I am. It's 5pm here in SoCal and the temp. is 100. So don't come near my house or I'll be throwing ice cubes at you.

Hmm? The majority of our oil consumption comes from vehicles, and average vehicle fuel efficiency has a very significant impact on our oil consumption. We'd use significantly less oil if, say, everyone who has an SUV replaced it with a hybrid.

I think it's more accurate to say that the converse is true - that you'll get more of an interest in fuel efficient cars and other technologies when oil starts increasing dramatically in price. But I don't think it's true that if you increase fuel efficiency, prices will go down and we'll start using more oil. I doubt people will start driving around the block 10 times every day just for kicks because gas prices are lower.

It isn't that I am unwilling to do anything about the problem, it is that there is nothing that you CAN do about the problem. Can you disprove this?

I am willing to give it up, except that the members on this forum continue to ignore the facts. Why do the "evil Hummer drivers" continue to come up? Why do people think that buying a hybrid is worth while? You guys have this religious mantra that you repeat over and over to sooth yourselves, and to convince yourselves that you are the "good guys", damn those "bad guys"! It is all BS.

I think that the best thing to do would be to start harvesting undersea methane and burning it as fuel, so as to prevent a catastropic methane release. CO2 is much less effective as a greenhouse gas than methane is.

The oil gets used somewhere - power plants, industrial uses, larger number of cars (in China, for example). The only thing that affects the amount of oil burned is the amount of oil pumped, conservation just moves it around - and OPEC is pumping at 100% (and will continue to do so forever, as the current price is way above the price where they implement quotas).

OPEC is pumping at 100%, and will continue to do so as long as the price of oil is over $40/barrel. Oil will never go below $40/barrel again, because we have passed peak oil and are on an exponential demand curve due to 3rd world industrialization.

Therefore, no matter what you do every drop of oil that we can burn we will burn.

QED.

There is plenty we can do about the problem. To what extent it will help is unknown(even more so when there are so many unwilling to acknowledge there is a problem to begin with), but as has been my position all along, we have to try to tackle the problem from every angle. Reducing emissions, becoming energy independent, encouraging alternative fuel development and even your position re: methane gas.

By the way, accusing people of demonizing Hummer drivers while doing the same to Prius drivers is very hypocritical of you.

Reducing emissions ALWAYS refers to emissions other than CO2. Reducing emissions actually makes global warming worse, because it reduces global dimming, reducing CO2 emissions via scrubbers is worthwhile, but expensive (and companies with extra expenses tend to die in a competitive market).

Energy independence - great, but does not help global warming.

alternive fuels - great, but no help with global warming either.

categories of Prius drivers:

1. Snooty deluded people thinking that they are saving the world
2. People who can't do math thinking that they are saving money
3. People who think that hybrids are cool technology

I am OK with category 3...

categories of Hummer drivers:

1. Keeping up with the Jonses
2. Think it is cool to have the most capible off road vehicle on the planet.

I am OK with category 2...

Wrong.

Do you have an example of something that is advertised as "reduced emissions" where they are actually talking about CO2 scrubbing? Didn't think so...

The Mercedes NECAR series are specifically tuned to negligible CO2 output.

I'm sure no expert on this, but I am sure I've heard how OPEC has decided to increase or decrease output at various times. The only thing I ever hear about OPEC is how they've decided to increase or decrease their output quotas. And if US oil consumption decreased by, say, 10%, don't you think OPEC would respond by decreasing their output in order to keep prices from going lower?

But I do think you have a good point: I doubt we can reverse the overall trend of growth in the consumption of oil. All we can do is put off peak oil as long as possible while we try to develop new technologies to deal with it. In that sense, investing in that technology now is helpful. The primary motivator for new technologies is going to be oil price, and oil price is clearly going to be on an upward trend. But let's invest in the technology now, while gas prices are still not too bad.