Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 07/09/2010 2:00:28 PM PDT by neverdem
Review provides plenty of evidence that climate science has been and remains an uncertain shambles
The last of three British investigations into the notorious Climategate emails, the Independent Climate Change Email Review, landed yesterday and left behind enough cherry-pickable material to give all sides an opportunity to claim modest vindication.
Defenders of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, the source of the emails, will be able to spin the 168-page review as proof that the CRU did little wrong. For climate skeptics and others, the review provides plenty of evidence that climate science has been and remains an uncertain shambles.
Before we begin our own cherry-picking, the words of Sir Muir Russell, who headed the review, will undoubtedly carry the day for the global community that is rock-solid behind the climate scientists at CRU and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“The honesty and rigour of CRU as scientists are not in doubt,” he said. “We have not found any evidence of behaviour that might undermine the IPCC processes and hence call into question the conclusions of the IPCC assessments in this area.”
That said, let’s move on to the review itself, which actually does quite a bit to undermine the science of climate change. While protective of CRU, the Russell review is far from a whitewash. It provides enough cover to allow the scientists to hang around and claim that the gods are on their side. But it mostly raises serious questions about the process by which official IPCC science was turned into a “consensus” that climate science is settled.
For all the defence it runs for CRU and the IPCC, the Russell review portrays climate science as a field filled with uncertainty, debate, lack of openness, data hoarding and ill-will. Modern science, especially climate science, it says, deserves better. “There needs to be better communication, as well as greater openness enabling more scientific debate.”
The Climategate emails, made public last November, have already rocked the climate science world, and climate science — even in the wake of this review — will never be the same.
The popular launch pad for the consensus proof that man-made climate science is a crisis was the famed Michael Mann 1999 hockey stick graphic that purported to show that temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere in the last half century were the hottest in 1,000 years. The Russell review, tip-toeing through the landmines in the emails about the “trick” of “hiding the decline,” ends up with the watery conclusion that the hockey stick graph was indeed “misleading.” In magic, being misleading via sleight of hand to hide something is pretty much the heart of a trick, but the Russell review twists itself around to downplay the trick element. “When used by scientists, [trick] can mean for example a mathematical approach brought to bear to solve a problem.”
But in the hockey stick graph, no such math was involved. The creators of the hockey stick took a thousand years worth of tree ring temperature data, eliminated some of the data from 1960 forward that didn’t support the 1,000-year claim, and then spliced on actual temperature data, without telling anybody what they had done. Then they magically announced they had found a smoking climate graphic that became a global icon for the climate crusade.
Since the 1999 hockey stick achieved that “iconic significance” and was used later in IPCC documents, the Russell review says, the presentation of the hockey stick was “misleading.” The misleading element was not the graph itself, but the fact that the trick was not disclosed. The review, therefore, has no problem with the later 2007 IPCC report on climate science that used a similar hockey stick graph but explicitly spelled out the use of a mixture of historical temperature sources.
The 2007 version, blending a slew of temperature data sets, was not technically misleading, says the review. But was it good science? It says “the depiction of uncertainty is quite apparent to any reader.” There are clear temperature trend divergences and discussion of uncertainty is “extensive.” Not extensive enough, however.
Ross McKitrick, the University of Guelph professor who with Steve McIntyre broke the hockey stick story, says the Russell review still misses the point. The 2007 version, for all its disclosure of uncertainty and the blending of unblendable temperature records, did not explain that key contradictory Siberian tree-ring data was deleted for the post-1960 period.
The story behind all this and other issues does not make for comfortable reading for IPCC supporters. On IPCC science, the Russell review takes a side shot at the official risk-rating system. The IPCC typically issues statements such as “the present is likely warmer than in the past.” What does this mean? The review has doubts. To issue such assessments “as objectively as possible would require a complex (and difficult) study to perform hypothesis resting in a mathematically rigorous way … We are not aware that this has been done in the producing of IPCC reports to date.” Is it therefore highly likely that the IPCC risk assessments are not based on good science and math?
There are scores of other highlights in the review that point to a science community in need of openness and reform, and as many that point to areas where the Russell review either evaded certain facts or fell into stiff technical treatment of instances where somebody obviously engaged in thuggish suppression of papers, but the evidence pointed no fingers — despite the emails. “Emails,” said the review, “are rarely definitive evidence of what actually happened.”
True, in one sense, but tell that to Wall Street bankers who have gone to criminal trial on the basis of a few lines of email.
tcorcoran@nationalpost.com
First, the review apparently left out that the tree ring methodology was abandoned for later years, not only because actual data was available, but also BECAUSE THAT SAME METHODOLOGY DID NOT MATCH THE ACTUAL RESULTS FOR THE YEARS WHEN COMPARATIVE DATA WAS AVAILABLE!
Second, the emails provide plenty of data showing vindictive behavior by these CRU scientists towards scientists and publications who dare to bring opposing opinions to the light of day. How does that square with a finding that states they behaved ethically?
By the time the Earth’s temperatures have increased or decreased in any perceptible or influential measure; all these numbchucks will be DEAD!!!!
In the meantime, they will continue to receive wads of wampum for specious scientific inquiry.
I would rather give my tax money to Sophie the Psychic Fortune Teller. Her rates are reasonable and you know she’s making stuff up.
Ever since this incident blew up, I am acutely aware of using that term. My fellow scientists or I use it daily, I think, in this way.
No Smoking Hot Spot (The Australian)
The Hidden Flaw in Greenhouse Theory
Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics
Harvard astrophysicist dismisses AGW theory, challenges peers to 'take back climate science'
It Is Impossible For A 100 ppm Increase In Atmospheric CO2 Concentration To Cause Global Warming
“BECAUSE THAT SAME METHODOLOGY DID NOT MATCH THE ACTUAL RESULTS FOR THE YEARS WHEN COMPARATIVE DATA WAS AVAILABLE!”
And for me, that puts the kibosh on all dendrochronology in general! I find it no longer trustworthy.
Ever since this incident blew up, I am acutely aware of using that term. My fellow scientists or I use it daily, I think, in this way.
As someone else pointed out, "trick" wasn't the real scandal. It was "hide the decline".
This kind of usage of mathematics shouldn’t be called a trick any more than Einstein’s theory of relativity should be called a trick. If the usage is worthy of dignity, then it deserves a dignified term such as “method.”
Exactly.
With one caveat...I haven't taken the time to dig into the specifics of what the reference was on that message, beyond it having to do with the tree-ring data. There are some valid points to consider. Here are a few:
"Technique" would be a better term.
But in many cases, it's still a "Trick" because you're having to trick the software into presenting reality and not an artifact. Try running a algorithm on a scatter of geographically spaced data and see how the contours look. They often won't match reality because of boundaries being undefined, the configuration might be better represented by equal-spacing than kriging, etc. You sometimes have to put in fake information at the edge of your model, to "trick" the software into generating a model that's more representative of reality than how the limited data you have would plot.
Depending on which of Einstein's relativity theories you meant, it would quite clearly be called a "trick" if he used everyday analogies to describe things that are not truly Newtonian...and yet nobody would accuse him of being dishonest.
If you, the human, have a solid basis for whatever you expect the program to show as reality, then that basis deserves to be worked into the software as a “method.” Even if the result has to be qualified as an approximation. If you have no solid basis, then we have not only “tricks” but “circular reasoning.” At any rate, the edge cases that are affected by the choice of method deserve to be flagged as such in output intended for the eyes of those not already thoroughly in the know.
Thanks for the links.
You’re welcome. I hope you find them interesting.
The Aftermath of McDonald v. Chicago - What's next for gun rights?
What America Lost with McChrystal's Resignation
Democrats battle independents' weakening support of Obama and Congress
Some noteworthy articles about politics, foreign or military affairs, IMHO, FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.
Thanks for the ping!
interesting links
gratuitous flattery
bs
ns
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.