The thing(s) with climate change

[lynnvinc]

…He also was one of the main conspirators in the “Hide the Decline” scandal…

What was scandalous and even very funny was that “decline” referred to the decline in temps based on tree ring data in the recent period, in which the instrumental data (which, let’s face it, is more accurate than proxy data) was showing warming.

I actually contacted Mann about this, bec I have my own idea why tree ring data (which is usually a good proxy for temps) went off course in the recent period, showing supposed cooling when it was actually warming.

And that is plants (and people and animals) are negatively impacted by the particular type of warming associated with the enhanced greenhouse effect, in which temps are rising faster in the night (minimum diurnal temps) than in the day (maximum diurnal temps). What plants, people, and animals need after very hot days are cool nights to recuperate. Because of this lack of cool nights during heat waves, some 60,000 people in Europe died in summer 2003 from heat-related causes; they attribute about 30,000 deaths due to climate change.

I also came across an interesting study when I was writing about how climate change is affecting our food productivity, showing how the increasing minimum diurnal temps were negatively affecting rice paddy in South Asia and Southeast Asia.

See: Welch, J., J. R. Vincent, M. Auffhammer, P. F. Moya, A. Dobermann, and D. Dawe. 2010. “Rice Yields in Tropical/Subtropical Asia Exhibit Large but Opposing Sensitivities to Minimum and Maximum Temperatures.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107(33): 14562-14567.

RE climate change and all the negative impacts, including this one, we’re pretty much in for a very rough ride…mainly for the younger generations and yet-to-be-born folks (whom people seem not to like anyway, as evidenced by the high abortion rates).

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Regarding “outlandish corruption theories,” I think is instructive to listen to how other scientists have judged the integrity of Mann, Jones, et al.

Dr. Eugene I. Gordon, of Bell Labs (in an email to a colleague regarding Mann and the Hockey Stick):

I don’t think they are scientifically inadequate or stupid. I think they are dishonest.

Dr. Lubos Motl, physicist, from an email exchange with william connolley:

I am not forced to assume good faith of criminals and the people who don’t follow the rules of scientific integrity.

Dr. Richard Muller, Berkely physicists, from a youtube lecture (youtube.com/watch?v=8BQpciw8suk):

What they did was, and there’s a quote…“Let’s use Mike’s trick to hide the decline.” Mike, who is Mike Mann, said, “Hey, ‘trick’ just means mathematical trick, that’s all.” My response is: I am not worried about the word ‘trick,’ I am worried about the word ‘decline.’…What they did is the took the data from 1961 onward, from this peak, and erased it…The justification would not have survived peer review in any journal that I’m willing to publish in. But they had it well hidden and they erased that…Frankly, as a scientist I now have a list of people whose papers I won’t read anymore. You’re not allowed to do this in science.

Dr. Peter Chylek, in his “Open Letter to the Climate Community” (see The Blackboard » Petr Chylek Reaction to Climategate emails.):

There was perceived need to ‘prove’ that the current global average temperature is higher that it was at any other time…It became more important than scientific integrity.

Dr. Jerome Ravetz. Ravetz is a man of the left and is actually a proponent of “post-normal” science (more about that later). Anyway, in the aftermath of the climate gate emails he said this:

The final state of corruption–cover-up–had taken hold.

Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski:

These researchers are guilty of brazen fraud.

Richard Lindzen:

There is no point in any scientific group endorsing this. We are not crooks. And yet if we endorse this we are becoming that.

see video.mit.edu/watch/the-great-climategate-debate-9529/

Hans von Storch:

Scientists like Mike Mann, Phil Jones and others should no longer participate in the peer-review process.

Dr. Eduardo Zorita:

Michael Mann, Phil Jones and Stefan Rahnstorf should be barred…because the scientific assessments in which they may take part are not credible anymore.

 

[Ender]

Quote for me just one e-mail that unequivocally demonstrates malfeasance on a rather grand scale.

Scale is demonstrated by extent and duration, something that simply cannot be demonstrated by a singular example. Malfeasance, however, is easier to show.The other paper by McKitrick and Michaels is just garbage—as you knew. De Freitas is the Editor again. Pielke is also losing all credibility as well by replying to the mad Finn as well—frequently, as I see it. I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC Report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow—even if we have to redefine what the “peer-review literature” is! (Phil Jones, July 8, 2004)
The peer-review process really took a hit from these guys. Here they discuss the possibility of removing James Saiers from the editorial board of GRL (Geophysical Research Letters) for publishing one of McKitrick & McIntyre’s papers criticizing Mann’s hokey stick.
Proving bad behavior here is very difficult. If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of* this, we could go through official American Geophysical Union channels** to get him ousted.** Even this would be difficult. (Tom Wigley, Jan 20, 2005)
You can almost smell the panic. They realize their conclusions won’t hold up if anyone is actually able to get hold of the data and programs they used to formulate them.
And don’t leave stuff lying around on[anonymous downloadsites]—you* never know who is trawling them.[McIntyre and McKitrick] have been after the CRU…data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send [it] to anyone. (Phil Jones, Feb 2, 2005)
And then there is this example of how groupthink distorts science. The truth is inadmissible if it contradicts the narrative.
The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. OK,* it has**,** but it is only 7 years of data and it isn**’**t statistically significant. *(Phil Jones, July 5, 2005)
I’m sorry this doesn’t meet your standard of showing showing malfeasance on a grand scale with only one email. Clearly I had to use several to make that point.

Ender

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Admissions

Leading figures in the climate science establishment see themselves not just as scientists but also as activists and policy shapers who are not necessarily bound to the normal rules of scientific integrity. The late Stephen Schneider is a good example. In an interview with Discover mag, he said:

We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have…Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.

See the October 1989 Discover article for the full quote.

Schneider was also not a big fan of scientific transparency. He encouraged Mann to resist his auditors and even played a role, in his capacity as a journal editor, in thwarting McIntyre’s attempt to get at Mann’s data.

Mike Hulme, a prominent UEA professor, articulated in a Guardian article this post-normal vision of climate science:

Philosophers and practitioners of science have identified this particular mode of scientific activity as one that occurs where the stakes are high, uncertainties large and decisions urgent, and where values are embedded in the way science is done and spoken. It has been labeled “post-normal” science…The danger of a “normal” reading of science is that it assumes science can first find truth, then speak truth to power, and that truth-based policy will then follow…Self-evidently dangerous climate change will not emerge from a normal scientific process of truth seeking, although science will gain some insights into the question if it recognizes the socially contingent dimensions of a post-normal science. But to proffer such insights, scientists—and politicians—must trade (normal) truth for influence. If scientists want to remain listened to, to bear influence on policy, they must recognize the social limits of their truth seeking and reveal fully the values and beliefs they bring to their scientific activity…Climate change is too important to be left to scientists—least of all the normal ones…

quote from Melanie Phillips’ book The World Turned Upside Down, p 278.

BTW, Phillips heading of this section of her book is “Postmodernism and a Culture of Mandated Mendacity.” Seems to sum up pretty well what we have going in climate science.

 

[lynnvinc]

The only thing Mann did wrong by “hiding the decline” in tree-ring proxy data (because it wasn’t jiving with the more accurate instrumental data) and using a mathematical “trick” (read “method”) to splice the instrumental data (of the present) and the proxy data (of the past) to create a smooth curve was that he failed to cite that info at the bottom of the main, leading chart, tho he did cite that info later in the article. If people are not too lazy to read the article, they would have known that.

End of stupid story. Please.

Those scientists you cite are perhaps good in their respective non-climate science fields, but are well-known denialists out for blood. I haven’t figured out why people nose into other fields and arrogantly say they know more than the experts in those fields – I think it’s just hubris and jealously that, say, theoretical physics and astrophysics, etc aren’t raking in the fame or funding that climate science is…since climate change is the big problem of our era and perhaps of all human history and rightly deserves greater attention and funding. (Actually if the denialists would just cease and desist from their attacks and diversions, we don’t need much more climate science; what we need now, as Pope Francis says, is to act and address the problem on this scientifically settled enough for the common person issue.)

 

[sps49]

The only thing Mann did wrong by “hiding the decline” in tree-ring proxy data (because it wasn’t jiving with the more accurate instrumental data) and using a mathematical “trick” (read “method”) to splice the instrumental data (of the present) and the proxy data (of the past) to create a smooth curve was that he failed to cite that info at the bottom of the main, leading chart, tho he did cite that info later in the article. If people are not too lazy to read the article, they would have known that.

End of stupid story. Please.

Those scientists you cite are perhaps good in their respective non-climate science fields, but are well-known denialists out for blood. I haven’t figured out why people nose into other fields and arrogantly say they know more than the experts in those fields – I think it’s just hubris and jealously that, say, theoretical physics and astrophysics, etc aren’t raking in the fame or funding that climate science is…since climate change is the big problem of our era and perhaps of all human history and rightly deserves greater attention and funding. (Actually if the denialists would just cease and desist from their attacks and diversions, we don’t need much more climate science; what we need now, as Pope Francis says, is to act and address the problem on this scientifically settled enough for the common person issue.)

Their own arrogance and activism invites the intense light of investigation. The analytical methods, measurement techniques and models are not that dissimilar from other disciplines, so informed criticism is entirely possible.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

…Those scientists you cite are perhaps good in their respective non-climate science fields, but are well-known denialists out for blood. I haven’t figured out why people nose into other fields and arrogantly say they know more than the experts in those fields – I think it’s just hubris and jealously that, say, theoretical physics and astrophysics, etc aren’t raking in the fame or funding that climate science is…since climate change is the big problem of our era and perhaps of all human history and rightly deserves greater attention and funding. (Actually if the denialists would just cease and desist from their attacks and diversions, we don’t need much more climate science; what we need now, as Pope Francis says, is to act and address the problem on this scientifically settled enough for the common person issue.)

Hi Lynn,

In case your are referring to the guys cited in No. 161, I don’t think they are “well-known denialists out for blood.” Motl is maybe “out for blood” in that he can pretty harsh. But I don’t think any of them merit the title “denialists.”

I don’t know much about Gordon. Ravetz is actually a left-wing academic who writes on the philosophy of science. His criticism is ironic because, as one of the leading proponents of post-normal science, he is criticizing Mann, Jones, etal for practicing what he preaches.

Muller is a physicist and believer in global warming. He was one of few establishment critics of Mann and Jones, for which he earned a lot enmity. Lately he tried to develop an alternative surface temperature set not vulnerable the flaws of the leading data sets, and his reputation as establishment scientist is now rehabilitated.

Lindzen is a well-known and well-respected atmospheric physicist, now retired from MIT. He is a skeptic but not a denialist.

Chylek and Jaworowski are both scientists in the field. the latter is an ice-core guy who is critical of a lot of the research in his field.

Von Storch and Zorita are actually paleo guys. Once it became safe to do so, they became Mann critics.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Anyway, what this diverse group has in common is that they think Mann, Jones, et al are corrupt.

 

[Ender]

The only thing Mann did wrong by “hiding the decline” in tree-ring proxy data (because it wasn’t jiving with the more accurate instrumental data) and using a mathematical “trick” (read “method”) to splice the instrumental data (of the present) and the proxy data (of the past) to create a smooth curve was that he failed to cite that info at the bottom of the main, leading chart, tho he did cite that info later in the article. If people are not too lazy to read the article, they would have known that.

End of stupid story. Please.

Regarding the hockey stick graph it would be more accurate to say that there was virtually nothing Mann did right. Given that that was the feature graph in the IPCC Third Assessment Report, and has since disappeared from subsequent IPCC publications, that should indicate even they don’t believe in it. On the other hand, nothing the IPCC does should be taken too seriously either. They were happy to produce a chart in their first report that, unremarkably, showed both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age yet had no problem ditching that one in favor of Mann’s creation which showed neither.

Those scientists you cite are perhaps good in their respective non-climate science fields, but are well-known denialists out for blood. I haven’t figured out why people nose into other fields and arrogantly say they know more than the experts in those fields – I think it’s just hubris and jealously …

Ahh, the bogeyman argument again: “They’re bad people, just ignore them.” It is of course more difficult to ignore them when it turns out some of “them” are both climate scientists and believe in AGW. Still, I’m sure other excuses can be invented to ignore them as well. This seems to be the only defensive tactic left: ignore what cannot be disputed.

Ender

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Other Bad Acts of the Climate Science Establishment

The Lomborg Affair

Bjorn Lomborg is a Danish political scientist and Greenpeace activist. He set out to disprove the views of the late Julian Simon, an economist who debunked the work of Paul Ehrlich and showed that dire environmental fears are wrong and that the world is improving. He found that Simon was mostly right and published his findings in the 2002 book The Skeptical Environmentalist. For this heresy he was subjected to relentless ad hominem attacks and an inquisition before the Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty (I am not making this up). He was eventually vindicated by the Danish Ministry of Science which was critical of how the DCSD handled the matter.

Implicated in this witch hunt: Stephen Schneider, John Holdren (now Obama’s science advisor), John Bongaarts, and Thomas Lovejoy, who did a hit piece for Scientific American; the journal Nature; and numerous green pressure groups (e.g. WWF); and many newspapers.

But get this: Lomborg believes in global warming. He just doesn’t think it is the world’s most pressing problem. No matter. Burn him at the stake.

The late Michael Crichton wrote:

Throughout the long controversy, Lomborg behaved in exemplary fashion. Sadly, his critics have not. Special mention must go to Scientific American, which was particularly reprehensible. All in all, the treatment accorded Lomborg can be viewed as confirmation of the postmodern critique of science as just another power struggle. A sad episode for science.

p 595 State of Fear

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Bias/Other Bad Acts of the Climate Science Establishment

In general, climate skeptics find it more difficult to get published. Witnesses: Pat Michaels, Roy Spencer, William Livingston, Fritz Varenholt,…

This is further evidence that scientific journals have staked out a biased editorial position in favor of the establishment.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Other Bad Acts of the CSE

The Attacks on State Climatologists

Mark Albright–State of washington
Pat Michaels–State of Virginia
George Taylor–Oregon
David Legates–Delaware

see Horner’s Red Hot Lies pp 111-115

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Bias in high positions

John Holdren

Obama’s science advisor. A very close associate of Paul Ehrlich, the most discredited scientist in the history of science. (That is hyperbolic, but is close to the truth.) Holdren is a Malthusian with very anti-human tendencies. Big promoter of the IPCC. Sees global warming as a tool to reduce the world’s population.

Carol Browner

Environmental czarina to Obama. Probably wrote Al Gores’ book Earth in the Balance. International socialist (used to be called commies). Sees global warming as a tool to further international socialism and world governance. Flagrant scofflaw and ignorer of subpoenas and court orders.

 

[lynnvinc]

Anyway, what this diverse group has in common is that they think Mann, Jones, et al are corrupt.

No one in their right mind with in good conscience thinks Mann and Jones are corrupt. Period. This is kicking a dead horse. They have been “exonerated” time and again.

The corrupt people are the ones who hacked into their emails, harassed just to harass them for data some of which they were not at liberty to divulge (just to be mean and/or slow down their work), and sent death threats to their children. Those are the evil and corrupt people, criminals even. The corrupt ones are the ones who keep misinterpreting “hide the decline” and “trick.”

Let’s keep things in perspective.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Suspicions about the trustworthiness of mainstream climate science and the establishment that promotes it are amplified by statements like this from within the climate science establishment:

Horner in Red Hot Lies quotes Mike Hulme (p 215):

“Because the idea of climate change is so plastic, it can be deployed across many of our human projects and can serve many of our psychological, ethical, and spiritual needs.” Also, “We will continue to create and tell new stories about climate change and mobilize them in support of our projects.”

And there are many “projects” supported by climate change: population control, environmentalism, world governance, wealth redistribution…

Tim Wirth, former senator from Colorado and the guy who helped Gore bring the issue to prominence (and also launched the career of James Hansen): said this:

We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing, in terms of economic and environmental policy.

Tony Blair and Christine Stewart, former Canadian environmental minister, have said similar things. ditto for the present head of the IPCC, Figoeres or however you spell it. Jacque Chirac said the IPCC is all about setting us on the path toward world governance.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

No one in their right mind with in good conscience thinks Mann and Jones are corrupt. Period. This is kicking a dead horse. They have been “exonerated” time and again…

Please 'splain how they’ve been exonerated. The critics quoted above don’t think they’ve been exonerated. And there’s many more like them.

With regard to Mann, maybe you think Penn State exonerated him. My earlier post at 130 addressed this:

Penn State participated in the scandal.

In the wake of the release of the Climategate emails Penn State, Mann’s employer, reluctantly commenced an investigation of Mann’s conduct. In the end they “completely exonerated him.” Montford quotes the reaction of Clive Crook of the Financial Times:

The Penn State inquiry exonerating Michale Mann…would be difficult to parody. Three of four allegations are dismissed out of hand at the outset: the inquiry announces that, for “lack of credible evidence’, it will not even investigate them…Moving on, the report then says, in effect, Mann is a distinguished scholar, a successful raiser of research funding, a man admired by his peers—so any allegation of academic impropriety must be false.

I added:
Penn State did not interview MM or any other of Mann’s critics. They ignored strong evidence in the emails that Mann was guilty of cooperating with Jones’s efforts to thwart FOIA requests, violated peer review confidentiality, and other conduct unbecoming a scientist.

I would also add that Richard Lindzen sat on a panel at the end of the process and expressed shock and dismay that smoking gun evidence of misconduct from the emails was completely ignored.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

To fully understand why mainstream climate science is untrustworthy, we also have to look beyond the scientific community and look at the pressures applied to it from without. We already know the politicians find climate change serves their projects (Gore, Wirth et al). Ditto for green pressure groups. We shouldn’t overlook the crony capitalists either. Enron, Excel Energy, GE, Duke Energy, et al figured out how to profit from this. Lomborg wrote a WSJ journal article on the “climate-industrial complex.” Horner’s two books Red Hot Lies and Power Grab document it in depth.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

We also need to look at history. To be sure, in the early going, CO2 was reasonably suspected of causing dangerous global warming. So reasonable concern explains, in part, the formation of the IPCC. However, what also has to be recognized is that individuals who pushed for UN body to oversee the investigation had political and other agendas.

A key figure was Canadian Maurice Strong, who characterized himself as “a socialist in ideology, a capitalist in methodology.” He was also a senior member of the Club of Rome. In 1990 he wrote:

What if a small group of these world leaders were to conclude the principal risk to the earth comes from the actions of the rich countries?..In order to save the planet, the groups decides: Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse. Isn’t it our responsibility to bring this about?

So if you want to attack industrialized civilization, what better way than to suppress fossil fuel production and consumption.

From a Club of Rome report, King and Schneider wrote:

In searching for a common enemy against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like, would fit the bill…

Strong chose the UN as his vehicle. See Tim Ball’s book The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science, wherein he quotes extensively from Elaine Dewar who interviewed Strong and got it straight from the horse’s mouth.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Is there historical precedent for what has happened in climate science? Eugenics and Lysenkoism.

Read this: michaelcrichton.com/why-politicized-science-is-dangerous/

A good quote therefrom:

But as Alston Chase put it, “when the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power.”

That is the danger we now face. And this is why the intermixing of science and politics is a bad combination, with a bad history. We must remember the history, and be certain that what we present to the world as knowledge is disinterested and honest.

The knowledge produced by the climate science establishment led by the IPCC cannot be trusted because the science has become so politicized. It is not disinterested and honest.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Please 'splain how they’ve been exonerated. The critics quoted above don’t think they’ve been exonerated. And there’s many more like them.

With regard to Mann, maybe you think Penn State exonerated him. My earlier post at 130 addressed this:

Penn State participated in the scandal.

In the wake of the release of the Climategate emails Penn State, Mann’s employer, reluctantly commenced an investigation of Mann’s conduct. In the end they “completely exonerated him.” Montford quotes the reaction of Clive Crook of the Financial Times:

Quoting the opinion of a magazine editor does not constitute a refutation of the Penn State exoneration. If you want to support that opinion here in this forum, you will have to do that from scratch, not from an appeal to a questionable authority.

I know that it benefits your job in the debate to reduce the question to the characters of a few people. But your initial claim was that the whole field was corrupt. To support that view you have to either show, one at a time, that the majority of researcher are similarly flawed in character, or else you have to show how these few people you have highlighted are somehow in as position of power to as to control all the other researchers in all the other countries and belonging to all the other independent scientific organizations that I listed earlier as supporting global warming theory. And I am still waiting for your demonstration that even 10% of the Church’s bishops agree with you on that broader claim.