University of East Anglia Climate Change Group Cleared of data manipulation

[jake-the-peg]

So the inquiry has said that Research group hanot manipulated data and that it's reputation is intact.

They've criticized it for not responding enough to freedom of information requests (although the newspapers seem to have missed the fact that the 3 man team were getting at one point more than one a week and couldn't cope with them) but none of this in any way undermines the basic work that they've done.

http://news.bbc.co.uk.../sci/tech/8595483.stm

Will all the skeptics accept this investigation or will they act as normal conspiracy theorists and call anything which challenges their prejudices a cover up.

Perhaps now there can be an investigation into this

http://www.telegraph....e-change-deniers.html

Maybe then we can catch the criminals responsible for the hacking

[jno]

Koch clearly funds several ABers.

Jake, the thing that perturbed me about UEA was the suggestion that scientists were promoting each other's work while suppressing the work of people who disagreed with them, twisting the peer review process by not keeping it anonymous, and so forth. This may or may not have been a problem in this particular case (the MPs say not), but it seems to undermine trust in 'science' as a whole.

[jake-the-peg]

To be honest people have a misunderstanding of how science works in practice.

They have this view of scientists dispassionately analysing data and working colaboratively towards a goal.

In reality it is a lot more Darwinian than that.

People come up with various theories and will defend them to the death even in some cases despite overwhelming evidence.

Take Fred Hoyle. He refused to accept the Big Bang Model even after the microwave background (the echos) were discoverred. In the end he was pretty much the only one.

We're in the same situation with climate change now - the scientific argument on the basic principles is pretty much over - every major scientific organisation backs it and you have a few individuals resolutly refusing to accept a growing consensus.

Richard Lindzen at MIT is probably the most serious of them but even he has given up his water vapour argument now and when he said he'd take bets that the average temperature would be lower in 20 years time James Annan rushed to take him up on the bet

All of a sudden Lindzen wanted 50:1 odds in his favour

The thing is that popular imagination is way behind the true position and newspapers are deliberately encouraging this.

"Climate gate" was front page news - Todays mail has the story of their vindication hidden behind the criticisms and below a story about Tesco refusing to deliver groceries in certain areas!

[jno]

thanks, jake. But I wonder if they didn't misunderstand it, would they trust it so much?

[R1Geezer]

I don't think there are any climate change skeptics jake. There may be some skepticism about the cause though.

[jake-the-peg]

Well jno - having seen it from the inside I trust it - mostly because of the Darwinian nature of it.

You get temporary anomalies - but people who mess with the data get found out - like the Korean medical fraud. Even mistakes are found out - like the Himalayan glaciers error.



No Geezer?

Lindzen was suggesting that the average temperature would be down in 20 years time - until he was called to put his money where his mouth is.

The most disturbing is what is starting to look like a concerted attempt to undermine the science in the public mind.

We have the Greenpeace accusation in that link that Koch Industries were funding skeptic campaigns to the tune of $25 million

We have the swamping of the East Anglia team with FOI requests from Skeptics

We also have a sophisticated (Read expensive) hacking of their computers and press briefings just before Copenhagen.

There is a conspiracy going on here for sure with people who have vested interests in not tackling the problem and they are trying to paint it as a left wing religion and that (coupled with self interest) has a strong appeal to a certain type of person, who is kinda conservative and doesn't like to be told what's good for them and the world.

Do you know any people like that?

[ludwig]

//They have this view of scientists dispassionately analysing data and working colaboratively towards a goal. //

I don't think they necessarily do have that view, which is why there's so much scepticism.

We all know that EVERYTHING in life works like this.......

//People come up with various theories and will defend them to the death even in some cases despite overwhelming evidence. //

......and science is no different, because it's run by people, not robots.

The sensible path is to trust the consensus, but always keep an open mind.

[jake-the-peg]

I'd be pleased to think you were right luwig

But I think many still people have a rather stereotypical view of scientists as Magnus Pyke/Steven Hawkin/Patrick Moore types who are somehow so clever they cannot see common sense.

I think it may be partly due to the unfortunate British disease of not liking people to be "too clever"

[rov1200]

Wasn't it James Lovelock, CH, CBE, and a Fellow of the Royal Society who not so long ago said there will be Global cooling. How soon after that did he change his mind to Global warming?

That's the problem. If you get an eminent scientist should you believe everything they say? Isn't healthy scepticism more preferable. By publishing false data the lemmings who follow an accepted view do no service to mankind.

[jake-the-peg]

I don't recall him being part of that brief episode.

I do know he was one of the first to bring attention to the damage that CFCs were doing to the ozone layer which resulted in the restriction of their use and the begining of the closing up of the hole in recent years.

A prime example where human activity has had a major effect on the atmosphere.

Do you have a link to his association with the global cooling theory or is this just something you've heard?

In any event the opinion of any one individual (however respected) shouldn't outweigh a large consensus - that's kind the whole point

[rov1200]

Here is a reference to James Lovelock and Global cooling
As this was an episode in the 70's I don't know how much has been stored in factual records

///As the atmospheric carbon dioxide level continues to increase and the average global temperature doesn’t, it's becoming apparent that certain climate scientists have made a serious mistake and a lot of people have been misled. No one can predict the future. It's well known that in the 1970's James Lovelock - an excellent scientist - warned of catastrophic global cooling and the approach of a new ice age. The Greenhouse effect is still an unproven hypothesis and there is a great deal of evidence to refute it. Indeed there is evidence that Co2 is part of a complex process that helps cool the planet. Historical records show that global warm periods precede increases in atmospheric carbon - not the other way round///

[jake-the-peg]

Where's that quoted from?.

I'm a tad suspicious when I don't see sources.

I know that at one point he thought that solar output might counteract the effects of warming and that the ozone hole was a bigger threat. But since that time the suns' output has remained pretty stable.

In any case there is a world of difference to the global cooling theories of the 80s which were very much speculative at the time (Unless you got your infornation from the tabloids in which case we were all about to enter a new ice age).

I don't think you'll find a single scientific institute on the planet now that contests man made global warming

But as Lovelock himself says - "Do you really think you can put a trillion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere and nothing will happen?"

I'm not a fan of "common sense logic" but it is a good point

[R1Geezer]

jake surely all the volcanoes errupting in some cases continually are adding huge amunts of Carbon, forest fires and what about the Oceans by far the lagest group, are they having no effect?

[Zeuhl]

This all distracts from the real tragedy.

We are still destroying the Rain Forests just to get a relatively small amount of premium timber and to produce cheap palm oil or cheap meat.

Arguably, we could worry a lot less about the C O2 if we left the forests that help deal with it, not to mention the criminal destruction of other species.

It seems to me that less hardwood and palm oil will disrupt our lives a lot less than radical cuts to emissions.

[birdie1971]

Jake - “Will all the sceptics accept this investigation or will they act as normal conspiracy theorists and call anything which challenges their prejudices a cover up.”

Sorry everyone – LPW - Long Post Warning.


I think you'd describe me as a sceptic (amongst other things). And no, I don't agree with their finding and yes I think it's a whitewash. Seriously, what else were they going to say? Even if it were shown tomorrow that GW/CC is not happening, too many people's jobs, industries and large sectors of the global economy, rely on the lie being repeated.

Oh, and by the way – just because someone is sceptical about GW/CC does not make them a 'conspiracy theorists' in the way that you mean. People such as yourself love to use the phrase 'conspiracy theorist' as it's a term that suggests irrationality and/or delusion. I am neither irrational nor delusional simply because I disagree with GW/CC theory. A conspiracy theory, as I'm sure you know, describes any theory that involves the collaboration of two or more people. Assuming that you believe that the 7/7 bombings were carried out by four Asian males, then you too are a conspiracy theorist if we're using the correct definition of the phrase.

[birdie1971]

Continued...

However, I digress.

This whole GW/CC (call it what you will) is a fascinating example of the Emperor's New Clothes. There is simply no truth in the assertion that global temperatures are rising in any significant way. I had to laugh when the Met Office agreed to re-examine their data to see if there really was a warming trend (as the validity of their data had been called into question). What date did they pick as the baseline? 1849. Was 1849 a 'typical' year in terms of temperature? No – 1849 was the peak (or should be trough?) of the 'Little Ice Age'! In short they chose an exceptionally cold year to start their graph and lo and behold 'proved' that the temperature is indeed increasing! Amazing.

Most of the weather stations around the globe have been hopelessly compromised by urbanisation. The data sets on which the computer models are based are flawed to such an extent as to be useless. But the modellers use them none the less as there is no other real-world data to go on. All other data is proxy data which by it's very nature is a 'best guess'.

[birdie1971]

Continued...

In short, we're using compromised real-world data and best-guess proxy data in very complex computer models, which every time they're run, produce a different result.

And it is on the predictions (sorry, they don't use the word 'predictions' as it seen as too definite – they use the word 'projections' as it's more loose) of the computer models that Governments the world over are formulating plans for taxation, energy production, waste management, etc.

You name it, GW/CC is involved in it somehow. It's a massive world-wide industry employing hundreds of thousands of people and taxing millions more.

And it's all based on inaccurate and questionable data processed by computer models that are never independently checked to see if the results they are producing bear any resemblance to reality and in all probability are wildly inaccurate.

[birdie1971]

Continued....

And if you're wondering if and why our Politicians buy into this nonsense and then try and sell it back to us, then the answer is simple -

Politicians (generally speaking) have no background in science and are therefore very, very easily mislead by dramatic looking graphs presented to them by pressure groups such as Greenpeace ("It doesn't matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true" - Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace) and organisations such as the IPCC ("Unless we announce disasters no one will listen"- Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC)

There's big money in GW/CC. Big money. For example, the ex-steel manufacturer Corus, owned by Tata, has recently been closed. Despite that fact that demand for steel is still enormous due to the Indian and Chinese economies.

Why would anyone close a profitable steel plant when there's money to be made?

Because in these uncertain economic times, the steel plant is worth a guaranteed £1.6 billion over the next three years due to monies paid by the EU for reductions in CO2 emissions.

I'm sure the 1600 workers recently laid off are cheered by the knowledge that the Chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri, is also the head of the Tata Energy Research Institute.

Thank heavens that there has been no conflict of interest!

[jno]

1849 doesn't seem to have been a peak year for cold but rather somewhere near the start of a steady upswing (though there had been a spell of warmer weather round 1800) - if you believe this graph

http://en.wikipedia.o...rature_Comparison.png

[birdie1971]

Nice graph.

Amongst other things, it shows a very cold (relatively speaking) trough in the latter section of the 1500s and another very cold period in the mid 1800s. Which backs up precisely what I said earlier – if you take the mid 1800s as your baseline, then temperatures are shown to increase.

This does not prove that GW/CC is happening and/or is a problem nor that mankind is responsible for the increase. What it shows is that it's a bit warmer now (less than 1 degree) than it was during the years when the River Thames regularly froze and 'frost fairs' were held upon it.

This graph beautifully demonstrates is that the Medieval Warm Period was caused by entirely natural causes – there being no heavy industry pumping evil CO2 into the air. The global temperature increased all on it's own without our help.

But what's with the massive increase in temperature at the very end of the graph? And what's the asterisk for? Could that last 'asterisked' point be a 'prediction' perchance? Nothing in the article seems to elaborate. This look suspiciously like Michael Mann's 'hockey stick' – the most egregious piece of statistical skulduggery ever perpetrated.

However, looking at the last 2000 years and concluding that the climate is warming or cooling is simply not good enough. The climate operates on geological time-scales and the last 2000 years is the blink of an eye.

If we're truly trying to find out what the climate is doing, we should be looking at proxy data for the last few hundred thousand years. Only then can we reach a realistic conclusion.

[birdie1971]

I'm sorry, the article does quantify the asterisk. What it says is... “... The single, unsmoothed [asterisked] annual value for 2004 is also shown for comparison”

Hmm... What does “unsmoothed” that mean?

What it means is that this particular piece of data hasn't been corrected to take account of the urban heat island effect or the effects of urbanisation or locational changes to weather stations.

In English, the last data point is unreliable and could be (and most likely is) completely inaccurate.

But, hey! Let's stick it the graph anyway - no one will notice!