Climategate (GW email leak)

[iNow]

Numbers 1 and 2 are anything but irrelevant. There is little point in discussing this if you can't see their relevance. Circling the wagons is what criminals and politicians do.

Okay. You said you had "doubts about the veracity of key scientists in that field" because they are calling the emails stolen. What should these emails be called, and why is what we call them relevant to the research itself?

 

You said you had "doubts about the veracity of key scientists in that field" because one or two of them deleted emails after an FOI request. I agree, that was wrong, and they should not have done that. However, how is this something which speaks against the veracity of others besides just that one or two people?

 

 

 

Number 3 is extremely relevant. One of the arguments used by the AGW crowd is that the skeptical views are not published in the peer reviewed literature. Now what we see in the email messages is that, behind the scenes, the scientific leadership of that movement appear to have worked fervently to keep such views out of the peer reviewed literature.

I never said that number three was irrelevant, only that I needed you to clarify. Now that you have, please cite the email(s) which shows this and which has led you to assert that articles were rejected from peer-reviewed literature due to something other than their lack of accuracy. I'd like to read what they say... in context... and absent the quote mined spin and suggestion I've seen everywhere on the interwebs from self-proclaimed skeptics frothing at the mouth.

 

What I've read thus far inclines me to believe that the content of the messages is being taken out of context, and that what happened is pretty standard fair when it comes to peer-review and article acceptance for publication. I look forward to you being specific and showing me why my inclination is unfounded.

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My point is that you are not "responding to their center and their core." <...> You responded by reinterpreting his response to mean "I doubt climate science because of these three reasons, and only these three reasons."

 

You're certainly welcome to interpret my words however you'd like, however, since I'm the one who actually typed them I'm gong to place a higher priority on my own interpretation of them. Your description above was inaccurate.

Edited December 21, 2009 by iNow
Consecutive posts merged.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

You're certainly welcome to interpret my words however you'd like, however, since I'm the one who actually typed them I'm gong to place a higher priority on my own interpretation of them. Your description above was inaccurate.

 

If you are the only one who can correctly interpret your words, there's something wrong with how you are presenting them. Clarification, not defensiveness, may be of some use.

[swansont]

In fact, that spate of leaked emails gives me doubts about the veracity of the key scientists in that field.

 

The problem I have with this is that I can easily see the same thing happening if we replaced "climate science" with some aspect of physics. There are journals that publish crackpottish material, and I can imagine physicists discussing not publishing there. Or discussing how some journal has gone down in or is of poor quality, and talking about maybe it's one particular editor who is at fault. Oh, wait, this sounds familiar. Because it's happened, with questions about an editor who was self-publishing and possibly bypassing peer-review.

[bascule]

You are being honest here. Climate scientist could afford to be similarly honest.

 

You mean statements like:

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=46807

 

The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't.

 

Seriously D H, what is with this nonstop barrage of ad hominems? Things like: Climate scientists are just politicians. Climate scientists don't know what they're talking about because their science is in its infancy. Climate scientists are dishonest.

 

Meanwhile when I point out your naive and myopic view of climate science you don't even bother to respond, except occasionally with easily refuted or fallacious arguments.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

You mean statements like:

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=46807

 

The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't.

 

This was in a "private" email, not in any document intentionally reviewed to the world. Had the researcher willingly made the same statement in a journal or to the public, it would be a different matter.

[toastywombel]

This was in a "private" email, not in any document intentionally reviewed to the world. Had the researcher willingly made the same statement in a journal or to the public, it would be a different matter.

 

I believe I read something somewhere that the researcher did include this concern in a journal that was released to the public. I will see if I can find a link.

[swansont]

I believe I read something somewhere that the researcher did include this concern in a journal that was released to the public. I will see if I can find a link.

 

I already posted it in the thread to which bascule linked. Second post.

[Mr Skeptic]

Peak Oil Man, for being so concerned about bad logic, what about your own pictures? You very well know that you can't compare a picture with dozens of houses from a distance to closeups of a few, for example.

 

As for the costs of climate change policies, what does it matter if some of the costs are paid by civilians vs the government? Its the same money from the same people.

[iNow]

This was in a "private" email, not in any document intentionally reviewed to the world. Had the researcher willingly made the same statement in a journal or to the public, it would be a different matter.

 

What, you mean like this?

 

http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/EnergyDiagnostics09final2.pdf

 

 

Seems to me that it IS a different matter, eh?

(thanks, swansont)

 

 

 

More here:

 

http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=104

Skeptics use Trenberth's email to characterise climate scientists as secretive and deceptive. However, when one takes the trouble to acquaint oneself with the science, the opposite becomes apparent. Trenberth outlines his views in a clear, open manner, frankly articulating his frustrations at the limitations of observation systems. Trenberth's opinions didn't need to be illegally stolen and leaked onto the internet. They were already publicly available in the peer reviewed literature - and much less open to misinterpretation than a quote-mined email.

 

This skepticalscience link provides a robust and rounded view of the situation, and is worth the read. It shows clearly that we are, in fact, talking about a horse of a different color than the one people are frothing about.

Edited December 22, 2009 by iNow

[D H]

Peak Oil Man, for being so concerned about bad logic, what about your own pictures? You very well know that you can't compare a picture with dozens of houses from a distance to closeups of a few, for example.

Particularly when the suburban subdivision chose has no green space. In fact, that picture has no green whatsoever! There are however bits of white here and there. Comparing a cherry-picked wintertime aerial picture of a Levittown-style tract housing versus a cherry-picked summertime street level view -- nice, very nice.

 

I can find some very pretty pictures of suburbs (easy: Find the promo site for practically any suburban development; even those ticky-tacky Levittown knockoffs have some nice cherry-picked views) and some very depressing pictures of city life (also easy).

[Pangloss]

Yup, that's where I want to live. I can't imagine a better way to help society thrive.

 

 

Hey, if you don't object when POM does it, you can't object when I do the same. Two-way street, folks. Stop ignoring people who use extreme exaggerations but share your general viewpoint.

 

BTW, POM, a couple of pages ago you predicted we'd all be DEAD in a few years. But the last time we talked about this you said you'd moved away from that kind of extreme perspective and into the realm of normalcy. What's up with this sudden shift back to Helter-Skelter land? Are you just angry about this argument?

Edited December 22, 2009 by Pangloss

[Pangloss]

OK, I admit my photo of suburbia was particularly depressing and had no trees. But this was to better illustrate the overall functional blandness and sameness of the suburban city plan. Even taxi drivers call our suburbs the 'dormant suburbs' because there's a transport dead-zone after people have got to work... until we all have to pile into our cars to go and get the kiddies from school. Suburbia becomes a bunch of boxes where people go home to watch a little TV and sleep.

 

Fair enough. And I know that most high-density housing doesn't look like a slum in East Africa.

 

But I think the aesthetic question is markedly different from the ecological and economic questions. IF we could solve our energy dilemmas tomorrow while keeping suburbia intact, you'd take that, wouldn't you? So let's not confuse the issue. If you want to talk about housing as a function of solving the problem, go for it. But leave people's socio-artistic preferences to themselves, eh?

[Pangloss]

No, there is no "except". I'm not questioning your reasoning, I'm questioning the purpose of insulting someone's aesthetic opinion. Keep it on that level (as above) and you have no beef with me.

 

(I happen to think the running-out-of-space argument is a load of manure, as exposed by Penn & Teller's Bullsh*t episode on recycling, but I don't have a problem with you arguing it.)

[Mr Skeptic]

Overarching principles dictated my choice of photos

 

Unacceptable. The principles here are for honest debate. If this were politics, perhaps, but even then it would only work for people who are too dumb to notice.

 

OK, I admit my photo of suburbia was particularly depressing and had no trees. But this was to better illustrate the overall functional blandness and sameness of the suburban city plan. Even taxi drivers call our suburbs the 'dormant suburbs' because there's a transport dead-zone after people have got to work... until we all have to pile into our cars to go and get the kiddies from school. Suburbia becomes a bunch of boxes where people go home to watch a little TV and sleep.

 

...

 

You have to drive to the shops, to work, to schools, to parks, to church, to food. It makes for fairly dull streets that means that a half hour walk through your neighbourhood is 99% walking past other people's homes.

 

In a New Urbanist town you can walk from your home to the centre of 'downtown' and see what is happening in the local town square in about 10 minutes.

 

Every home has access to a park within about 5 minutes walk. That is, there is a conscious effort to design a proper 'neighbourhood' within a 5 minute walk, and a town square within a 10 minute walk.

 

People that live in American or Australian 'deep suburbia' have no idea what this all means.

 

There is a social vibrancy about the place. It is denser, and has more diverse functionality. That is, it is not just zoned for residential as far as the horizon, but commercial, residential, recreational, even some light industry are all mixed in together.

 

And this is much better. For the record, I do agree with you, just not with your other method of argument. I think cities are the way to go due to efficiency, and that in itself is sufficient reason (especially if we are talking about limited energy).

 

A well-designed city can also be healthier, by encouraging exercise for example, and also less wasteful of human time as well as energy, since everything is closer. And I do agree that a city can and should be beautiful.

[iNow]

Okay, so... just to confirm... we're now back to ignoring the core issue of this thread and we've returned our attention to distractions and peripheral arguments, right? Let's talk about pictures and politics instead of why people refuse to accept the conclusions of climate science, or why quote mined emails taken way out of context are more than enough to affirm and reinforce the beliefs of otherwise intelligent people who "feel in their gut" that the primary forcing in the current climate change couldn't possibly be the result of human activity.

 

At least that's par for the course... If that is, indeed, what we've all decided to do here... yet again.

[D H]

Except that:-

 

DH is saying we can't possibly afford to meet global warming targets

In the ten year time span proposed in SciAm? No way. The cost was hidden in a single sentence and was completely unjustified. Nonetheless, taking that number as a given, it is still an unattainable objective. There is no way that banks, even in their most frivolous moments, will lend monies year after year that vastly exceeds gross revenues. Those monies would have to come from the public sector. The ten year picture presented in that article is simply ludicrous. Forty or fifty years, maybe. The monies would still have to come from the public sector. Banks have a problem lending monies that exceed profits.

 

I'm trying to illustrate one major new 'wedge' in our battle against Co2, which is not needing as much energy in the first place

That is a pipe dream. There is a reason people want to move to suburbs, even the incredibly ugly Levittown-style tract housing suburbs. Some new urbanists refuse to acknowledge this attraction. Others do acknowledge this attraction; these people are employed to create master-planned communities. These master-planned communities offer many of the positive features you describe -- and they tend to exacerbate rather than reduce carbon footprints. For one thing, they are far-removed from city centers where the wealthy inhabitants of those communities tend to work.

 

More American's prefer New Urbanism

Only if you count master planned communities as "new urbanism".

 

It is starting to happen anyway, at least with young people. It's happening anyway.

Only if you ignore that when young people marry they still want to move to the suburbs.

[bascule]

In the ten year time span proposed in SciAm? No way. The cost was hidden in a single sentence and was completely unjustified.

 

So your concerns have ceased to be about any real policy efforts like Kyoto, cap and trade, or Copenhagen, and are now about one sentence in a SciAm article... I see.

[JohnB]

or why quote mined emails taken way out of context are more than enough to affirm

 

You might like to read this article at American Thinker. It shows the sequence of emails concerning 2 papers, one from Douglass and Christy and one from Santer et al (the Santer 17).

 

Taken out of context, my arse. The emails clearly state that the intent was to avoid Douglass et al having the "last word", regardless of usual process. The actions of the IJC editor also shown to be far less than ethical. (But since one of "the team" was on the board, possibly understandable.)

 

How many published authors here think they have the ability to "lean on" the Editor of a journal like the IJC?

 

BTW, have you watched the MIT debate? Interesting.

[iNow]

Taken out of context, my arse. The emails clearly state that the intent was to avoid Douglass et al having the "last word", regardless of usual process. The actions of the IJC editor also shown to be far less than ethical. (But since one of "the team" was on the board, possibly understandable.)

 

How many published authors here think they have the ability to "lean on" the Editor of a journal like the IJC?

Also already addressed in post #239.

http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?p=533932#post533932

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BTW, have you watched the MIT debate? Interesting.

 

Lindzen has been repeatedly shown to be mistaken, and yet he persists in making the same claims over and over again. For that reason, I just can't take his contrarian nature seriously in that talk (or really any on this topic).

 

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/02/richard-lindzens-hol-testimony/

 

 

I tend to agree with Emanuel and Layzer.

 

 

“What we have here,” says Kerry Emanuel, are “thousands of emails collectively showing scientists hard at work, trying to figure out the meaning of evidence that confronts them. Among a few messages, there are a few lines showing the human failings of a few scientists…” Emanuel believes that “scientifically, it means nothing,” because the controversy doesn’t challenge the overwhelming evidence supporting anthropogenic warming. He is far more concerned with the well-funded “public relations campaign” to drown out or distort the message of climate science, which he links to “interests where billions, even trillions are at stake...” This “machine … has been highly successful in branding climate scientists as a bunch of sandal-wearing, fruit-juice drinking leftist radicals engaged in a massive conspiracy to return us to agrarian society…”

 

<...>

 

“The imprudent language in the email cache reflects scientists’ enormous frustration with the tactics of their opponents,” says Judith Layzer. Climate change poses a serious new challenge for scientists: “On the one hand, they perceive it as sufficiently urgent that they’re willing to go to great lengths, use language they wouldn’t ordinarily, to try to persuade the public. On the other hand, they face the most sophisticated campaign of skepticism ever assembled, and one that consistently violates protocols they’re accustomed to.” The moderate language of science, with its emphasis on the weight of evidence, can’t compete with attacks that discredit models, “which by their very nature are fishy to nonscientists.” Careless email communications gave the public a harsh reminder that scientists “are human, fallible and not always judicious.”

[JohnB]

@iNow

 

Sorry, I don't see the connection here. Is it okay for Santer etc to do it because someone else has?

 

My point was that the emails were not "taken out of context" at all. They demonstrate a concerted willingness to circumvent the usual peer review process. I find this serious. It's the intent that counts.

 

On tree rings.

 

Could you confirm I've got your thinking right?

 

1. Tree rings match to temps well for more than half of the calibration period.

 

2. Post 1960, an unknown influence caused them to diverge from the temp record.

 

3. These unknown factors might have influenced the earlier record.

 

4. When tree rings reconstructions are compared to other proxy reconstructions they roughly agree.

 

Conclusion: Since the reconstructions roughly agree, it is reasonable to say that the unknown factors (post 1960) are not active in earlier times.

 

Is that roughly it?

 

To add.

and one that consistently violates protocols they’re accustomed to

Actually it's the "team" that are shown to be constantly violating protocols.

[iNow]

I suppose that's close. The link below summarizes well the issue:

 

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Tree-ring-proxies-divergence-problem.htm

• The divergence problem is a physical phenomenon - tree growth has slowed or declined in the last few decades, mostly in high northern latitudes.
  
  
• The divergence problem is unprecedented, unique to the last few decades, indicating it's cause is anthropogenic.
  
  
• The cause is likely to be a combination of local and global factors such as warming-induced drought and global dimming.
  
  
• Tree-ring proxy reconstructions are reliable before 1960, tracking closely with the instrumental record and other independent proxies.
  
  

 

 

However, it's hardly some unknown as you assert, and it ONLY applies to post-1960 data. My contention is reinforced with the below:

 

http://www.wsl.ch/personal_homepages/cherubin/download/D_ArrigoetalGlobPlanCh2008.pdf

http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/fac/trl/downloads/Publications/%20cook2004.pdf

http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/fac/trl/public/ftp/pjk/BBCCArcticClimate/Krusic/jacd%27a95.pdf

http://eas8001.eas.gatech.edu/papers/Briffa_et_al_PTRS_98.pdf

http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/4/741/2008/cpd-4-741-2008.pdf

Edited December 23, 2009 by iNow

[Pangloss]

Wow, only $5 trillion a year? Peanuts! I wonder whose budget that will come out of? Hm, let me think.

 

Does that include buying and tearing down 150 million American homes and replacing them with apartment buildings? Or was that extra? Because if we assume an average price of $150,000 (probably low), that would be $22.5 trillion right there.

 

Of course, if we're all going to be dead in a few years then what's the point? Here's the quote you were asking me for:

 

1 to 2 billion Asians are going to be without summer drinking water sometime this century when the glaciers dry up. What's your 'water-war' plan guys? Oh that's right, we'll all be dead then. How will you prepare your kids? What will you tell them?

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showpost.php?p=533157&postcount=181

[swansont]

You might like to read this article at American Thinker. It shows the sequence of emails concerning 2 papers, one from Douglass and Christy and one from Santer et al (the Santer 17).

 

 

Yeah, an article written by two of the authors of the paper in question, full of innuendo. Hardly an objective retelling.

 

Discussing to which journal you want to submit an article is somehow devious? Discussions about the relative prestige of journals as well? I read those emails, and without the spin it sounds like people genuinely concerned that a crappy article got published, and they want to make sure better science gets presented.

[Pangloss]

2. What percentage of GDP per year?

The world economy is about $70 trillion a year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_economy

 

(shrug) Okay' date=' let's assume that we only have to pay our proportional share. The US economy is generally estimated at around $15 trillion (corrected, thanks iNow), so that's basically 20% of the total. Call it an even (gulp) $1 TRILLION dollars added to our $3 trillion annnual budget. This at a time when we're already spending a couple trillion a year over the budget.

 

And it won't be split up that way. We'd be forced by international consensus to pay a higher percentage than that. After all, somebody's forcing all the glaciers in South America to melt, right? Can't be the Brazilians chopping down the rain forests, it's gotta be the big baddie deep-pockets US.

 

Even if you spread it out over 30 years ("only" $667 billion a year! What a bargain!) we can't afford that plan, or anything even remotely like it.

 

 

 

3. Pangloss you've just done a DH and assumed that the city restructing is an *extra* cost.

 

I didn't assume anything -- I asked you that very question. If you're saying it should be handled over time via gradually-manipulated market forces, I'm glad to hear it.

Edited December 23, 2009 by Pangloss
corrected -- thanks iNow =)

[iNow]

(shrug) Okay, let's assume that we only have to pay our proportional share. The US economy is generally estimated at around $15 billion, so that's basically 20% of the total.

 

That "B" should be a "T."