@MontereyJack,
Monterey Jack wrote:farmer, I followed the "Climategate" investigations fairly closely, and I don't remember any of them ever saying there was any fraud, though the denialists charged fraud loudly and wildly. Having some knowledge of what the emails were actually talking about from knowing something about their original contexts, I know they were also wildly misconstrued. If you know of some fraud found, not just alleged, please mention it. As far as I can tell, a small fraction of the work could have been tighter, and some of the scientists' reactions got a little angrier than they possibly should have (though in my opinion that anger was well deserved, because the denialists trashed them and misrepresented what they found without good cause), but that's about it.
I don't recall any specific allegations of fraud in the legal sense either. Instead of legal liability, most of the allegations involved rather clear violations of the basic principles of science - i.e. the misrepresentation, distortion, and/or deceptive suppression of data that either contradicted of clearly failed to support their allegations; the suppression of the voices (and in some cases, careers) of other serious scientists who did not share their views; and as well, some evidence of loose or organized conspiracies to do the same.
In terms of actionable legal liability for fraud these actions don't count for much, and in those terms, I agree with your characterization. However, in terms of scientific ethics and of the economic consequences of the actions they are urging usall to take (or be made mandatory), these are very serious charges indeed.
And on the topic of sea level rise, if one looks at the graphs of rise versus time, since the depth of the last ice age, it's clearly non linear. Also the rate of sea level rise you talk about at the start of the melt off, 3 to 5 feet per year, clearly couldn't have happened for very long, considering the total rise since the end of the ice age seems to usually be considered to be around 120 meters. Call 3 to 5 feet roughly a meter. At that rate the entire rise would have happened in about 40 years, not 12,000. So I kind of take that figure with a rather large grain of salt. It's also apparent that most of the rise seems to have happened with a very steep curve between about 18K and 6K years ago, with a considerably shallower rise, much closer to horizontal after that. Summarizing some of the research on it, looking at the last 6K years, the average annual rate of rise was about 0.5 mm /year and over the last 3K years that tapered off to 0.1 to 0.2 mm/year. But for the last century or so, when industry and mechanization and land use changes and population boom (which spurred immense building efforts largely involving concrete, another prominent source of CO2 which I just had to bring in somewhere), the sea level rise has been around 3 mm per year, which is quite a significant change from the 3K years before that. And in fact, as many researchers have found recently, that rate is increasing.
george, I repeat, those allegations were investigated by I think, 7 different groups and legislative bodiesincluding some of the most prestigious scientific organizations, acting independently of each other, and were found to be baseless. The charge of "suppression"revolved around an egregious article published without peer review, or with serious inadequate review, by an editor who intentionally accepted it to "stir up debate", as I remember. It was a summary article making its conclusions based on a whole lot of proxy data. Somewhere over 40 of the scientists whose data was used, had flames coming out of their ears at this, because they said their research had been mischaracterized or had been misused to claim something that the proxies were not even looking at or measuring, and for the authors of the paper to make the claims they did had absolutely no justification from the research they cited. They made a huge stink about it, and I think the editor resigned and the standards for accepting and vetting papers were considerably strengthened. The issue was not suppression of science, but rather misuse of science. The email authors were part of the large number of researchers who felt their work had been misused by people who were out to "prove" a point, whether there was scientific justification for it or not. The email authors were vindicated in the investigations.
I said:
Quote: At that rate the entire rise would have happened in about 40 years, not 12,000
. Did the conversions wrong, would have been somewhat more than a century, not 40 years, but still a whole lot less than 12K years.
@georgeob1,
Quote: the misrepresentation, distortion, and/or deceptive suppression of data that either contradicted of clearly failed to support their allegations; the suppression of the voices (and in some cases, careers) of other serious scientists who did not share their views; and as well, some evidence of loose or organized conspiracies to do the same.
When its done to advance a position or present something for gain, I call that fraud
Farmer, George's suggestion that that was what happened is not in fact what happened. Data was not suppressed or altered. Careers were not threatened. Look at the many different investigations. The allegations were unfounded. On the other hand, look at Sen. James Inhofe's and Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli's attempts to criminalize legitimate scientists for asserting that warming is real.
@MontereyJack,
imho warming is not the issue, thats a well recognized cyclic phenom. Anthropogenic effects on is the issue I disagree with
Exactly. Cyclic effects are recognized. But that doesn't mean non-cyclic effects can be ignored. Absolutely unique events have occurred repeatedly, and totally altered what came after them from what went before. Meteor strikes, total atmosphere alteration from biological activity. One-offs that nevertheless have been extremely important. That's not to say anthropogenic-induced change is nowon that same level of magnitude, but it looks to be big enough to be of deep importance to our future. The question is what we add to natural phenomena, and it looks like we're altering the balance of greenhouse gases and that will swamp any natural change, as it looks now like we're swamping any change in temps caused by solar variability.
@MontereyJack,
I am convinced that a whole big batch of the anthro-climate change is what we call autocorrelation. We are ascribing things to climate change because we CAN measure them, not because we have reliablly proven that are the principle affective agent.
@Ionus,
Quote:Make a linear scale of green house influence . Put water vapour at the very end of maximum influence . Now put CO2 at the minimum end . Put every other gas like methane in between . Now why do they leave out water vapour and the other gases ? An inconvenient truth, perhaps .
The Gaea-worshipers would try to outlaw water if they thought they could succeed at it. Their ultimate goal is to reduce the planet's human population to medieval levels for the glory of Gaea. Again it's similar to the **** you read about in the Bible about people sacrificing children to stone idols.
Yeah, right, gunga, you're just about as much in touch with reality there as you've been when you maintained Peruvians were riding dinosaurs a thousand years ago, or that there are gigantic sculptures of human heads on Mars.. Three strikes, you're out. Actually closer to three thousand, you've lost not only the inning, but the ball game too, and in fact the whole season.
@MontereyJack,
MontereyJack wrote:
Exactly. Cyclic effects are recognized. But that doesn't mean non-cyclic effects can be ignored. Absolutely unique events have occurred repeatedly, and totally altered what came after them from what went before. Meteor strikes, total atmosphere alteration from biological activity. One-offs that nevertheless have been extremely important. That's not to say anthropogenic-induced change is nowon that same level of magnitude, but it looks to be big enough to be of deep importance to our future. The question is what we add to natural phenomena, and it looks like we're altering the balance of greenhouse gases and that will swamp any natural change, as it looks now like we're swamping any change in temps caused by solar variability.
Considering the enormous changes that can bee seen in the geological record in the forming and reforming of continents; in the composition of the earth's atmosphere, and in the climactic contitions that have resulted, it is not at all clear that manmade "altering the balance of greenhouse gasses .. will swamp any natural change". On the contrary even the changes forecasted by the singleminded AGW zealots are relatively very minor compared to what has occurred up until now. Moreover the long range numerical forecasts they rely on for their predictions of the ocean current and heat transport effects they assert will surely result are known to be subject to chaos and, as a result, quite unreliable except over a very short interval of time - just like cuntemporary weather forecasts.
@MontereyJack,
Quote:What makes you think they do leave them out?
Because they actually did leave out water vapour . But you knew that didn't you . The first computer modelling (sounds important doesn't it ?) left out water vapour .
Quote:the multiple independent investigations into climate science research
You mean where people get paid and the promise of more payment if they find Global Warming ? Where if they find it doesn't exist they get no further funding as they have closed that door ? How much money is out there chasing a proof positive anyway ?
Quote:so-called "Climategate" charges
The data that was shredded rather than hand it out to other scientists has tainted forever the so called scientist who worship Global Warming . If you bother to read about it, you will find that the padding of the data is readily accepted by both sides but the Global Warming Thuggees say it wouldnt have made any difference . Which part of the scientific methodology allows for padding data so long as it makes no difference ?
@MontereyJack,
Quote:it looks like we're altering the balance of greenhouse gases and that will swamp any natural change, as it looks now like we're swamping any change in temps caused by solar variability.
I dont know how you can say that and not put a smiley on the end . Just how much do you think the Earth's average temp has varied by in the past ? I'll get you started...it currently varies from +50C to -60C because of different climates . Thats right..CLIMATES...plural . The concept of an average climate was meaningless until the Global Warming Thuggees needed it . Then it was invented by a man at the UN who went on to make polluting cars in China . He did it for money and it has been perpetuated for money making ever since .
I see the concept of average has totally escaped you, Ionus. The statistic predated global warming by decades, and was used decades before, TO TALK ABOUT NATURAL CHANGE IN THE CLIMATE. Idiot. For eample to talk about the change between glacials and interglacials. Do you happen to be unfamiliar with the commonly accepted figure of 5-6 degrees C lower average global temperature at the coldest points of our current cycle of ice ages, versus the high point of interglacials? And I'm sure you're familiar with the projections of a 3-4 degree C rise this century if we keep blowing out all the CO2 we are. And it'll just keep rising after that point, because all that CO2 stays there for a century or so. So we're talking about a change comparable to that between an ice age and the 20th century, but going the other direction.
I see the concept of average has totally escaped you, Ionus. The statistic predated global warming by decades, and was used decades before, TO TALK ABOUT NATURAL CHANGE IN THE CLIMATE. Idiot. For eample to talk about the change between glacials and interglacials. Do you happen to be unfamiliar with the commonly accepted figure of 5-6 degrees C lower average global temperature at the coldest points of our current cycle of ice ages, versus the high point of interglacials? And I'm sure you're familiar with the projections of a 3-4 degree C rise this century if we keep blowing out all the CO2 we are. And it'll just keep rising after that point, because all that CO2 stays there for a century or so. So we're talking about a change comparable to that between an ice age and the 20th century, but going the other direction. That's what has people worried.
Ionus, document the omission of water vapor. Hardly likely, considering it's been known as in total the most important greenhouse gas for a century or so. But no one has shown significant variation in water vapor except as a dependent variable when temperature changes. Climate modelers are not paid when they show global warming. They are paid when their models run forward from points in the past reproduce today's weather. And when run backward produce the climate in the past. (Running forward and running backward are not symmetric) . The early climate modelers with models crude by today's standards (because computers were so much less powerful--had they done even then the computations for the models they had by hand, they'd still be trying to compute 1980) were surprised as hell when the global warming signal showed up. They hadn't been expecting it. Then, and ever since, they've tried skewing the programs, which are made up of processes we KNOW are going on, changing parameters to make the signal disappear, and they have to jigger the figures so much to make the signal disappear that the final result which comes up with no global warming also bears no relation to the world that is KNOWN to exist. You have no knowledge of how climate modeling is don.
And the corrobaratory evidence comes from other fields that have no connection with climate modeling at all. So unless you seriously postulate a vast conspiracy of dozens of different disciplines, measuring different things with different technologies, and totally independent scientific bodies,tapping different financial resources are all indpendently cooking the books and somehow coordinating results amongst all the different fields of study so that the results all agree with each other, in the total absence that any such conspiracy exists, with no evidence that this is going one, for the last thirty years, then you're an idiot. If you do in fact postulate such a conspiracy, in spite of the lack of evidence, then you should seriously think about getting yourself a tinfoil hat, so we can recognize you as the loony you are.
@Ionus,
Ionus wrote:Just how much do you think the Earth's average temp has varied by in the past ? I'll get you started...it currently varies from +50C to -60C because of different climates . Thats right..CLIMATES...plural .
Well, that's not entirely correct since a climate (singular) is the statistical summary of its weather conditions. And temperature is one of these conditions.
When I'd studied meteorology at the naval college, we used there the very same meaning of "average" as I was taught at grammar school.
That seems to differ from your opinion about it.
