Posted on 02/10/2017 12:01:00 PM PST by NYer
Congress is ramping up its investigation into a key climate study, now under further scrutiny after a federal whistleblower raised more questions about it this week. The scandal some are referring to as “Climategate Two” (you can learn about the first Climategate here) is quickly escalating after Dr. John Bates, a former top scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), exposed how an ex-colleague mishandled a report on global warming right before a major international climate conference in 2015.
House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith said during a Tuesday hearing that NOAA “has deceived the American people by falsifying data to justify a partisan agenda.” He will now push for all documents related to the climate study, materials he requested via subpoena in 2015 after Obama Administration officials refused to disclose them.
The explosive allegations from Dr. Bates were detailed in the Daily Mail and on the scientific blog, Climate, Etc. on February 5. Bates accuses Tom Karl, former director of the NOAA office responsible for climate data, of manipulating temperature readings, failing to archive data, and ignoring agency protocols to rush publishing his study that debunked the well-known pause in global warming at the beginning of this century.
At the time, climate activists were in a panic because the premier scientific body in charge of climate science—the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—admitted the rise in global temperatures had basically stalled from 1998 to 2012. This bombshell was included in the IPCC’s 2013 report, which would serve as the main primer leading up to the United Nations’ Climate Conference in Paris two years later.
World leaders were poised to obligate their countries (er, taxpayers) into paying hundreds of billions to ease climate change. The inconvenient truth that plenty of evidence showed the planet was not significantly warming would be hard to climatesplain away. To give the climate leaders a big assist, Karl worked with a team of scientists to prove the pause didn’t happen, and claim global temperatures were rising just as fast as they had been at the end of the twentieth century.
Karl specifically cites the IPCC report in the introduction of his paper published in Science in June 2015, a few months before the Paris conference. Under the headline, “Walking back talk of the end of warming,” the authors said, “Here, we present an updated global surface temperature analysis that reveals that global trends are higher than those reported by the IPCC. These results do not support the notion of a slowdown in the increase in global surface temperatures.”
The paper concludes that “the IPCCs statement is no longer valid.” In other words: settled.
But Bates says the researchers “put a thumb on the scale” to reach their conclusions. He reveals other alarming details, like how the computer used to process the data suffered a complete failure. Chairman Smith responded immediately to Bates’s allegations, thanking him for “exposing the previous administration’s efforts to push their costly climate agenda at the expense of scientific integrity.”
Shortly after Bates’ exposé was posted, climate skeptics and conservative outlets began reporting on it—including Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Times (my piece in NRO is here). And of course it wasn’t long before climate activists and their media propagandists seized on Bates, attacking his credibility and motives while insisting Karl’s report was indeed credible and backed up by other scientists.
True to form, the same media that helped promote Karl’s study before the Paris climate conference overlooked key parts of Bates’s account. Neither the Washington Post, New York Times, nor the Associated Press mentioned IPCC as the source for the global warming pause, the main reason for Karl’s rebuke. Nor did they mention Bates’ shocking claim that the computer used to process the data had crashed.
Other lowlights from that group include the following. New York Times headline: “No Data Manipulation in 2015 Climate Study, Researchers Say.” Reporter Henry Fountain starts by smearing the Daily Mail reporter who wrote Bates’ exposé, excusing away the accusations and claiming the global warming pause became a “cause célèbre among climate change denialists.” Fountain then cites a few scientists who support Karl and finishes up insisting the study had no impact on the Paris accord.
Associated Press headline: “Major Global Warming Study Again Questioned, Again Defended.” Reporter Seth Borenstein referred to the scandal as “bickering,” a “kerfuffle,” and a mere “hubbub” about data management and storage.
Washington Post headline: “As the Planet Warms, Doubters Launch a New Attack on a Famous Climate Change Study.” Do you really need anything after that? Reporter Chelsea Harvey refutes every point of Bates’s account and cites “multiple” scientists who support the Karl study. (Bates said in his blogpost he first offered his story to the Washington Post last year and they declined. Shocker.)
The media weren’t the only Karl study apologists. Rush Holt, the head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) which publishes Science, testified at Smith’s hearing on Tuesday. Holt brushed off the allegations—this was about 48 hours after the article posted, basically no time to check the veracity—calling it an “internal dispute” and concluding it’s “not the making of a big scandal.” Another committee member warned Holt to withhold judgement on the matter until the matter was fully investigated.
There’s a little (a lot?) of irony to this whole affair. The very same scientific community and liberal media outlets that have been hysterical since November 8, claiming the Trump Administration will silence scientists and have a chilling effect on science, are the very same people now attacking one of their own for speaking up. Chalk this up as one more example of liberal hypocrisy, exposed thanks to Donald Trump.
Finding fraud in climate studies is like finding ants at a picnic. Throw the food (federal dollars) out there and the ants (”scientists”) come running...
Aren’t there graduate courses in Climate Fraud?
Those of us with a logical brain have always questioned the ‘facts’ of their ‘science’.
I found out one of which was, they decided to throw out seawater buoy temepoeratures and use temperatures read by ship, during the haitus years becaus ships readings were higher readings then buoys. Of course while keep buoy temperature for all the years prior to 1998. this is comparing apples and oranges.
this is Fake science revealed.
Dear Congress. Can you please hold off on investigating things until you get off your asses and get an alternative for Obamacare and tax cuts done?
The D.C. leftists corrupt and their collusive lying media friends again.
How ridiculous is it to complain about the Congress when it has been in session two whole weeks? Answer - completely ridiculous. Pay attention to the real problem, the war the Left is fighting against the nation. Your attempts to undermine the GOP is ignored by those who understand how things work.
Exposing the global warming scam is more important than tax cuts or Obamacare both of which are being addressed with due consideration.
It was genius. Create a planetary global threat which they have to protect us from through total control and more taxes.
Right out of the evil globalist play book.
It’s not settled “science”, it’s settled “fraud”.
Truth is whatever serves the Revolution, comrades.
evil genius... then blame the overpopulation of the earth, gain control of healthcare, and then deny healthcare to those that deny climate change... cull them from the population
The NOAA is only good for 3 days. That’s right, they can only reliably predict weather three days out. All the rest is hookah-smoking.
Scratching my head as to when ANY Congressional investigation has amounted to a hill of beans?
You have been pinged because of your interest in environmentalism, alarmist wackos, mainstream media doomsday hype, and other issues pertaining to global warming.
Freep-mail me to get on or off: Add me / Remove me
Please ping me to all note-worthy threads on global warming.
Global Warming on Free Republic here, here, and here
There are different levels of mistakes you can make, as a scientist.
1) Reading data and misinterpreting it to get incorrect results. THIS IS NORMAL AND EXPECTED and it is why there are peer-reviews. I am grateful if someone ever finds a mistake I made (or would be if I ever made one *wink*)
2) Ignoring data that does not support your preconceived desired outcome.
This is bad, and make you a bad scientist, and you should be fired for it, if you keep doing it. But peer review can expose this. Others can look at the data and find the mistakes and correct the results.
3) Deleting data that does not support your desired outcome.
This is the absolute worst kind of fraud in science. Original data should NEVER be deleted under any circumstances. Once you do, knowledge is lost. Money that paid for it is lost. FUTURE funding is spent based on incorrect results. And, worst of all, there is no way to go back and look at the original data and correct the results- it is gone.
In a criminal enterprise, this is the equivalent of destroying evidence.
The ‘climate change’ scientists who advocated for it have admitted they deleted data that did not fit.
There were also emails exposed where they discussed lying about the results, to find their agenda.
HOW DO ANY OF THESE PEOPLE STILL HAVE JOBS!?
I so strongly believe in this that I think anyone who EVER deletes original data should be charged with a crime.
Yea, yea, we’re investigating. We’ll never actually do anything, but we’re investigating.
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.