Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 03/03/2010 7:57:21 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Scientists Taking Steps to Defend Work on Climate By JOHN M. BRODER
WASHINGTON — For months, climate scientists have taken a vicious beating in the media and on the Internet, accused of hiding data, covering up errors and suppressing alternate views. Their response until now has been largely to assert the legitimacy of the vast body of climate science and to mock their critics as cranks and know-nothings.
But the volume of criticism and the depth of doubt have only grown, and many scientists now realize they are facing a crisis of public confidence and have to fight back. Tentatively and grudgingly, they are beginning to engage their critics, admit mistakes, open up their data and reshape the way they conduct their work.
The unauthorized release last fall of hundreds of e-mail messages from a major climate research center in England, and more recent revelations of a handful of errors in a supposedly authoritative United Nations report on climate change, have created what a number of top scientists say is a major breach of faith in their research. They say the uproar threatens to undermine decades of work and has badly damaged public trust in the scientific enterprise.
The e-mail episode, dubbed “climategate” by critics, revealed arrogance and what one top climate researcher called “tribalism” among some scientists. The correspondence appears to show efforts to limit publication of contrary opinion and to evade Freedom of Information Act requests. The content of the messages opened some well-known scientists to charges of concealing temperature data from rival researchers and manipulating results to conform to precooked conclusions.
“I have obviously written some very awful e-mails,” Phil Jones, the British climate scientist.....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The NY Times enabled Mike Nifong in the Duke lacrosse case well after the dam broke in that one. They will do all they can to spin for the cheaters in this one too.
Correction - PSEUDO-scientists taking steps....
I feel so sorry for the poor victims...that have been working so hard on their research...to save us all...!
What’s the big deal? Why is everyone picking on them. They’re scientists. They’re doing SCIENCE!!! The scientific method finds the truth. There’s no chance for corruption in the peer-review process!
Only a bible-thumping, gun-loving, mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging breeder could have a problem with the pure, unadulterated sacred climate REASEARCH!
They only wanted to save us from ourselves by lowering the standard of living for billions of people indefinitely, while being lauded as the gods they think they are and earning the wealth they think they deserve.
Is that too much to ask?
Guess we should include a link :
Video: Dr. Phil Jones Climategate testimony at the British House of Commons
“revelations of a handful of errors”
But,,, that “handful” included all their “big ticket” items. The ones they used to scare the hoi polloi.
Polar Bears
Glaciers melting
Ice caps disappearing
Sea levels rising
Rainforests disappearing
African food production going down 50%
Etc..
That’s some “handful!”
You know the NYT is probably the best bullsh!t compass known to man. If the NYT says something is good, we know it to be bad, and the reverse, if something is bad, we know it to be good. I guess its like George Castanzas “reverse universe”, do and think the exact opposite of what the NYT recommends.
Former CRU chief: Hiding data is a critical part of science!
******************************EXCERPT**************************
So much for transparency in science! Dr. Phil Jones, the former chief of the East Anglia CRU, testified yesterday before the British Parliament’s committee on Science and Technology to defend himself after the exposure of e-mails from the climate-research team reaching back a decade. Jones admitted sending the “pretty awful e-mails,” but insisted that the MPs didn’t realize that secrecy is a critical part of the scientific method:
But yesterday Professor Jones – in his first public appearance since the scandal broke – denied manipulating the figures.
Looking pale and clasping his shaking hands in front of him, he told MPs: ‘I have obviously written some pretty awful emails.’
He admitted withholding data about global temperatures but said the information was publicly available from American websites.
And he claimed it was not ’standard practice’ to release data and computer models so other scientists could check and challenge research.
‘I don’t think there is anything in those emails that really supports any view that I, or the CRU, have been trying to pervert the peer review process in any way,’ he said.
And down the rabbit hole we go. The peer-review process refers to the very mechanism where scientists release data and computer models so other scientists can check and challenge research. If that isn’t what happens in peer review, then what are scientific peers reviewing? Page numbers? Grammar? If Jones blocked other scientists from seeing his data and his methodology, then he’s not just perverting the peer-review process, he’s killing it entirely.
And that's just what they admit to doing in their own emails!
Well, there's a telling quote!
Science doesn't need faith. Science needs proof.
Alchemists.
Shock: Phil Jones says the obvious. BBC asks real questions.
*******************************EXCERPT***********************************
Cutting to the chase: paraphrasing Phil Jones
Stripped of the extras, Jones’ answers boil down to the following (I’ve added a few things he didn’t say [in square brackets], and skipped some questions ):
A) This recent warming trend was no different from others we have measured. The world warmed at the same rate in 1860-1880, 1919-1940, and 1975-1998. [Kinda cyclical really, every 55-60 years or so, we start another round.]
B and C) There has been no statistically significant warming since 1995. But, there has not been a statistically significant cooling since 2001 either. [Ladies and Gentlemen, given the natural volatility of temperatures, we can't be sure that there's been any real warming for 15 years.]
D and E) Natural forces could have caused some of the recent warming, but I’m 100% confident that the warming was due to carbon dioxide, even though I’ll admit that the natural forces thing is a bit outside my area of expertise. See Chapter Nine of AR4 for evidence.
F).Should we be more transparent with data? Well…yes.
G).If it was warmer in the Medieval Warm Period, does that bust the idea that carbon causes the warming now? Ah… It could have been warmer, we’re not sure, there’s not much evidence, and I won’t answer that part about “busting anything” directly. [Craig Idso has collected enough evidence to cover a world map showing places on nearly every continent that were warmer a thousand years ago, but the warming still could have been regional....]
H) If this warming is not usual (as I pretty much said in A, B and G), why do I think carbon “did it”? See D (again). [That's Assessment Report 4 -- the IPCC document that's being mocked around the world.]
I).Is it reasonable to say that carbon dioxide might not have “done it”? Nope. See D. [That's AR4 again, and try not to notice the extent of the circular reasoning. Thus:
1. The latest warming is not unusual, and it might have been warmer a thousand years ago.
2. Other things might have caused the warming...
3. We assumed carbon dioxide caused the recent warming, then used models to show that... carbon dioxide accounted for the recent warming (you'd never guess).
4. So we've "ruled out all the other causes", even though the models can't explain what happened back in medieval times, or in modern times either (post 1995). All hail Argument from ignorance!]
K).Should we trust that one tree in Yamal? I’m not going to answer that directly either. Ask Keith.
L).I Phil Jones, rely totally on the IPCC (see all the answers that referenced “D”), but don’t ask me about their practises, and whether they bent the rules and acted unscientifically. Ask them. (Why would I check those kinds of things?)
N) The debate is over? Well, some scientists just said that, I’m not sure why, and it’s not really over. Yes the sceptics could be right.
P) My life since ClimateGate? Not much fun.
Q).Why did I hide the decline? Well, the top researchers all knew that tree rings didn’t show rising temperatures after 1960, but I had to draw these graphs for the WMO. The tree rings all measured temperature pretty well before 1960, but after that, the record fell to pieces, so there was no point putting it on the graph. It’s not like I was hiding something. Look, anyone in the public could have asked any dendroclimatologist, or read papers from Nature on tea-breaks, and known straight away that nobody could really explain why tree rings hadn’t grown faster since 1960. [Sure. And it goes without saying that the public would have no problem with the idea that tree rings were good for nearly a thousand years, then failed as thermometers after 1961. It's not like the public would ask, "Why are we trusting tree rings from 1380 or 1780, but not 1980?"]
This is really rich. This quote is from the guy who spent his paid days at NASA running the realclimate web site that does nothing but try to convince the public that anthropogenic global warming is real. They are worse than DU at removing posts they disagree with and banning the heretics who dare to question their viewpoint. But his job is not related to "persuading the public." Yeah, right.
It's interesting to note that after climate gate hit, when it came out that he was running it during his NASA climate science day job, the site pretty much shut down for a long while. Now he has some moderators running it, but he's been very quiet of late. But all of a sudden he says it's not his job to do what he's been doing full time for the last several years. Pardon me for being skeptical of this claim of his that its not his job to try to persuade people of the truth of AGW.
Some Victim...
Yeah, who's even heard of such obscure scientists as Galileo, Copernicus, the Wright Brothers, etc?
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