White House repeatedly edited global warming reports

The evidence I've seen does not support your characterization of this as somebody changing the science. Cooley appears to have altered language that he believed wrongly portrayed things that are uncertain as certain. (Does anyone dispute that characterization?) You clearly don't like that, but it seems a perfectly reasonable correction to me.

If you believe he did more than that, please show me the evidence. Or, perhaps you can show me specifically what edit he made "changes the science" and how it does so.

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Scrat wrote:

The reality is that nobody changed the science. You continue to claim this, but there is nothing in the available facts that would lead a reasonable person to make this claim. Cooley altered language that made things that are uncertain sound certain. You clearly don't like that, but it seems a perfectly reasonable correction to me.

If you believe he did more than that, please show me the evidence. Otherwise, given the facts as I know them, I conclude that those who are making a big deal of this are doing so either for political reasons, because they don't really understand the state of the science, or because they don't know how trivial the edits were.

Go back and read my posts earlier here that dealt directly with it. There is no way you can say with any reasonable certainty that he changed certain to uncertain since we don't have the leading statements from before that. He may have changed uncertain to more uncertain. He may have changed postulated outcomes to not being outcomes at all.

As for changing science. This was a document about where the science needed to go. Is it changing science if the hypothesis is changed by someone other than the scientist? I would say it is.

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parados wrote:

This was a document about where the science needed to go. Is it changing science if the hypothesis is changed by someone other than the scientist? I would say it is.

Okay, what hypothesis did Cooley change?

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Scrat wrote:

parados wrote:
This was a document about where the science needed to go. Is it changing science if the hypothesis is changed by someone other than the scientist? I would say it is.

Okay, what hypothesis did Cooley change?

Quote:

wetlands will expand in areas where melt water resulting from deeper and longer thaw periods does not have a natural drainage path to the ocean.

Warming will also cause reductions in mountain glaciers and advance the timing of the melt of mountain snow pack in polar regions. In turn, runoff rates will change and flood potential will be altered in ways that are currently not well understood. There will be significant shifts in the seasonality of runoff that will have serious impacts on native populations that rely on fishing and hunting for their livelihood. These changes will be further complicated by shifts in precipitation regimes and a possible intensification and increased frequency of extreme hydrological events. Reducing the uncertainties in current understanding of the relationship between climate change and Artic hydrology is critical.

The italicized section was written by a scientist and cut by a non-scientist. Care to point out how it has no relationship to science?

Is scientific speculation a hypothesis or not?

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Parodos- You want uncertainty? The statement above is almost meaningless without the CERTAIN statements that global warming is caused ENTIRELY by Co2 emissions--that no other cause, such as sun cycles are warming the earth--that the temperature of the earth is signifcantly higher than the temperature was on the earth during the Medieval Warm Period. The words used in your quote are gibberish, not scientific. What does "significant shifts mean"?

What about "possible intensification"?

I posted a precise and numerical post that should give pause to the purveyors of "global warming" theories. No one has bothered to rebut my post point by point. As far as I am concerned that post still stands and shows the intellectual and scientific bankruptcy of the "global warming" crowd.

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Parados and others have not shown why Crichton's figures are incorrect. They have not shown why anyone writing a report- even a lawyer- could not access this data and come to the conclusion that the "certainty" of some regarding the scope and source of "global warming" is still very very much conjectural.
I am very much afraid that the "global warming" crowd has just skimmed the surface of the global warming conundrum. They dismiss Crichton as a "fiction writer". He is certainly a fiction writer but in his book, which I am certain no one from the "global warming" group has looked at, he includes objective scientific data from many sources including but not restricted to- the United States HIstorical Climatology Network. Now, if anyone can show that Crichton has manipulated the data, I would be most eager to hear.

However, If they cannot show that, he must note the following:

PPP. 369-381- "State of Fear"

New York, NY- 1930-2000

Average Temperatures Fahrenheit

1930--54 degrees

1999- 55 degrees

and

West Point, NY

1930- 51.5 degrees

1999- 51 degrees

and

Albany NY

1930- 48.25 degrees

1999- 47.25 degrees.

The question is then raised if we have GLOBAL WARMING. GLOBAL---How can Albany be actually getting cooler, West Point( quite close to NY) be staying almost even and NY City gaining temperature?

New York and Albany are only a hundred forty miles apart. THEIR CARBON DIOXIDE LEVELS ARE IDENTICAL, YET ONE GOT WARMER AND THE OTHER GOT COLDER. At least one study suggests that the half of the observed temperature change came from land use alone. If that's true then the global warming in the last century is less than three tenths of one degree.

The New York, New York type of heat gain( l Degree) over the last 70 years has been named the "Urban Island Heat Effect"

Here are some additional locations that are 'SUFFERING" under the blasts of Global Warming--

all of them from 1930 to 1999 as per the US HIstorical Climatologal Network.

McGill, Nev--48 to 47 F.

Guthrie, Ok- 60.5 to 60 F

Boulder, CO- 50.1-50 F

Truman. MO- 57 to 55 F.

Greenville SC 61.5 to 60 F

Ann Arbor Mich 49 to 48 F

The latter locations appear to be waiting for the next " Ice Age"

The only conclusion to be reached if we accept the notion that the lawyer who revised the report was malicious and seeking to bury the truth. is that "global warming" lives. The truth very well may be that the lawyer was and is indeed aware that there has been no HARD PROOF concerning the half-baked conclusions given by some of the "global warming" crowd.

Parados and others are quick to respond with vague generalizations. If they can give SOME HARD INCONTROVERIBLE FACTS, THEN AND ONLY THEN CAN THEY INDICT THE LAWYER/WRITER.

Before that, they only can condemn him for tinkering with their unproven and possible economically harmful speculations.

Incontrovertible facts concerning " global warming" anyone?

If there are none forthcoming, My post stands.

And so does the lawyers' revisions.

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chic,
Your post is a lot of garbage that was discarded earlier in this thread.

Hate to tell you this but LOCAL temperatures do NOT a globe make.
Citing NY temperatures in no way affects the average of ALL readings across the globe. Citing select cities in the US for a time frame that had above mean average in the first year and below mean average in the last year ignores the trend of all the other 69 years. It is cherry picking. It would be like claiming the Stock market has gone to almost zero because I used Enron and Tyco as my points to measure it.

Global warming is based on the average of all temperature readings across the globe and seeing if there is a trend.

Your use of NY temperatures is a complete red herring. It ignores the AVERAGE OF ALL TEMPERATURES by cherry picking some that went down and ignoring the fact that MORE of them went up. You cherry pick specific years to amplify a downturn that isn't really there in the overall trend. Chrichton is hardly a source of science. He picks what he wants to tell a fictional story.

Here is a way to check the ENTIRE globe or any part of it.
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/monitoring.html

According to the temp scale for the state of NY, the trend in the mean temp has gone up .1 degree C from 1929 to 2005. That is in spite of the fact that 1931 is the 4th warmest year on record in that time period.

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Quote:

Cooley appears to have altered language that he believed wrongly portrayed things that are uncertain as certain.

Scrat,

There is no part of a scientific report, whether it be hypothesis, data, methodology, results, or conclusions, that a lawyer is entitled to change without approval from the original writers of the piece, i.e., the scientists. None. Zero. I don't give a damn what his beliefs are. They are immaterial as he is not qualified to make the decision. The ones who ARE qualified to make that decision are the ones who wrote the report in the first place.

I think from now on when I quote your posts, I'll change what you say to make it mean what I think you SHOULD have said, and our conversations will go much quicker as I point to you agreeing with me all the time. Think you would say that is perfectly allright, and even more, should be an accepted practice?

Cheers

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:
Cooley appears to have altered language that he believed wrongly portrayed things that are uncertain as certain.

Scrat,

There is no part of a scientific report, whether it be hypothesis, data, methodology, results, or conclusions, that a lawyer is entitled to change without approval from the original writers of the piece, i.e., the scientists. None. Zero. I don't give a damn what his beliefs are. They are immaterial as he is not qualified to make the decision. The ones who ARE qualified to make that decision are the ones who wrote the report in the first place.

I think from now on when I quote your posts, I'll change what you say to make it mean what I think you SHOULD have said, and our conversations will go much quicker as I point to you agreeing with me all the time. Think you would say that is perfectly allright, and even more, should be an accepted practice?

Cheers

Cycloptichorn

You are confusing science with politics. This is, and has been standard operating procedure for many administrations. I remain shocked by the reactions to this.

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Shrug. I'm 25 years old. I wasn't there to be pissed when other admins do it. And frankly, seeing as we can't change the past, I couldn't care less if it has been done before; I only care to catch the lying SOBs doing it now.

Way to try to justify something by saying 'well, others have done it' though, kudos

Cycloptichorn

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It's not a case of "well, others have done it." It's a case of "That's the way it's done."

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I will never accept that lying and deception are the 'way things are done.'

I mean, you might as well throw in the towel on the whole thing once you adopt that attitude, McG; though it does explain much about your attitude towards this war and this president.

Cycloptichorn

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It's not lying and cheating. It's vetting and editing and it happens all the time. You can be outraged all you want, it will change nothing and the process will roll on through this administration and the next one, and the next one ad neauseum...

Why do you suppose every administration has so many advisors? What, exactly, do you suppose their job is?

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'vetting and editing'

Yeah f*ckin right

You can use whatever words you want for it, it is changing someone's words in order to fit a political agenda.

I'm not surprised at all by your opinion on this matter, as you don't seem to give a damn at all how much the gov't has to decieve the people of the US; unless it involves a blowjob, that is....

Cycloptichorn

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All right, parados. What is the average of all readings across the globe?

What do you mean by readings? Please be specific. Do you mean surface readings or satellite readings?

I don't think you know very much about the alleged "global warming" when you complain about the data given by Crichton.

You challenged Crichton's figures. I challenge you to give answers to my questions.

I will give you something to chew on.

How much did you say the earth's temperature has increased over the past two decades?

You didn't> I'll tell you---0.05 C per decade in the lower atmosphere.

Are computer simulations of the earth's climate accurate?

No

Why? Scientists can calculate how much energy is added to the atmosphere by increases in greenhouse gases. Then, using sophisticated computer models, they attempt to simulate how the climate RESPONDS to the added energy. NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO CALCULATE CORRECTLY THE CLIMATE'S RESPONSE TO THE ADDED ENERGY.

Two of the many questions in this regard are the impacts of water vapor and clouds in the climate response. Scientists need to learn more about whether changes in atmospheric water vapor and clouds AMPLIFY OR DIMINISH the effects of human-made greenhouse gases on the earth's climate.

You dismissed Crichton as a "novelist". However, I challenge you to show how he is mistaken when he says-
"Nobody knows how much of the present warming trend migh be a natural phenomenon"

and

"Nobodyy knows how much of the present warming trend might be man made"

Chew on those comments for a while, Parados.

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chiczaira wrote:

All right, parados. What is the average of all readings across the globe?

Are you unable to use links when provided? I pointed you to the NOAA site that has ocean and land temperature readings for the entire globe from 1880 to today.

Quote:

What do you mean by readings? Please be specific. Do you mean surface readings or satellite readings?

Why would I restrict myself to just those readings when there are balloon and ocean readings too.

Quote:

I don't think you know very much about the alleged "global warming" when you complain about the data given by Crichton.

You challenged Crichton's figures. I challenge you to give answers to my questions.

Go take a math class then come back and try to argue. (This was answered earlier in this thread several times.) To find global temperature you have to take all global readings and average them. Simply using a FEW local temperatures does NOT give you global readings. Do you know how the stock market indicees work? They don't use only a couple of stocks from 2 points in time to decide what direction the market is going. It requires multiple stocks and graphs to point to trends. The same thing with global temperatures. You can't find anything based on only 2 readings. It shows no trends and the temperatures can be cherry picked. It's not that your questions weren't answered. You seem to be incapable of understanding the most basic answers and can't understand simple HS math.

Quote:

United States HIstorical Climatology Network
I will give you something to chew on.

How much did you say the earth's temperature has increased over the past two decades?

You didn't> I'll tell you---0.05 C per decade in the lower atmosphere.

Nice misuse of the average again while ignoring trends. The earth has warmed .6 C in the last 120 years. That might AVERAGE out to .05 per decade but it isn't that in reality. The global land and sea surface data shows much of the warming has come more recently. The warming is speeding up. (More math for you to learn.) Over the last 2 decades the ACTUAL increase has been .19 C per decade. (NOAA website using GHCN-ERSST data set.) From 1880 to 1985 the earth warmed .03 C per decade.

Quote:

Are computer simulations of the earth's climate accurate?

No

How many different simulations are there for global warming? Do you know? The last time I really looked into it, some of them modeled higher than observed, some modeled lower. The interesting part was the average of those models tended to show less warming than what was actually observed. Perhaps you need to go do some research before you attack the science.

Quote:

Why? Scientists can calculate how much energy is added to the atmosphere by increases in greenhouse gases. Then, using sophisticated computer models, they attempt to simulate how the climate RESPONDS to the added energy. NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO CALCULATE CORRECTLY THE CLIMATE'S RESPONSE TO THE ADDED ENERGY.

Two of the many questions in this regard are the impacts of water vapor and clouds in the climate response. Scientists need to learn more about whether changes in atmospheric water vapor and clouds AMPLIFY OR DIMINISH the effects of human-made greenhouse gases on the earth's climate.

Yes, scientists do need to learn more. That is part of what science does. Always tries to find out more to verify or dispute what others think it does. The problem with your argument is you ASSUME that all the modeling is wrong on the HIGH end. A FALSE assumption on your part based on reality of the modeling.

Quote:

You dismissed Crichton as a "novelist". However, I challenge you to show how he is mistaken when he says-
"Nobody knows how much of the present warming trend migh be a natural phenomenon"

and

"Nobodyy knows how much of the present warming trend might be man made"

Chew on those comments for a while, Parados.

Interesting.. NO ONE KNOWS yet you are saying what? that NONE of it comes from man made sources? Maybe YOU need to think about Crichton's comments. (Crichton takes a small part of science and uses it to create a fictional story. Should I believe that time travel exists because Crichton used some parts of string theory to claim it was possible in one of his books? Crichton like all fiction writers selects his facts to make his story seem real. He is free to ignore anything that would dispute his fictions. He is not doing science.)

I suggest you go read comments by Lindzen where he states pretty clearly that doubling CO2 will raise the earth's temperature by 1 C. Lindzen opposes Kyoto. Now.. care to find me one credible climatologist that says CO2 has NO effect on temperature? The Bush report on climatology says that CO2 will raise the temperature. I can't find one single report anywhere by a REAL climatologist with REAL credentials that claims otherwise. Perhaps you can find me one. (CO2 levels closely follow temperature based on ice cores.)

I love the part where you quoted someone claiming the sun was cooler 400 years ago. What science told them that? Was it measurements from space at that time? Do you have a reference to a scientific journal so I can check the science? Sorry Chic but when your basis for science is The Heritage foundation and a fiction writer, I don't see much reason to respond. But when you DEMAND I do, fine, I will gladly show you how little you really know. Are you going to tell us next that underwater volcanoes are heating the ocean?

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Parados - The deleted paragraph lays out things that might happen if their hypothesis is correct, it does not describe the hypothesis itself. Further, it is extremely speculative... Take the mention of glacial melting. Ice sheets thinning in Antarctica get mentioned in the media on a regular basis, but there happen to be other ice sheets (glaciers) in Antarctica that have been getting thicker over the same period. Look at the first only, and it suggests global warming; look at only the latter, and it suggests global cooling; look at both, and we see that all we know is that we have some localized warming and localized cooling.

Now, given that we have this variation within Antarctica, how can anyone point to localized glacial melting anywhere and suggest it proves global warming? Conversely, while the notion that global warming will cause further glacial melting seems rational, it falls apart if the original premise that we are experiencing global warming is built in part on citations of localized melting/warming.

Of course, you are welcome to believe that paragraph is critical to the science and that deleting it was a terrible thing. I disagree. I think leaving it in place mistates the certainty of the science in the extreme.

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Unless you are a climate change scientist who was hired by the Pres. to write the report, Scrat, you are not qualified to question what they wrote. They are far more knowlegable about the subject than you and I are.

That is the whole point; NONE of the piece should be allowed to be changed based upon political opinion. It doesn't matter if you disagree with the speculation or not.

Cycloptichorn

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Scrat wrote:

Parados - The deleted paragraph lays out things that might happen if their hypothesis is correct, it does not describe the hypothesis itself. Further, it is extremely speculative... Take the mention of glacial melting. Ice sheets thinning in Antarctica get mentioned in the media on a regular basis, but there happen to be other ice sheets (glaciers) in Antarctica that have been getting thicker over the same period. Look at the first only, and it suggests global warming; look at only the latter, and it suggests global cooling; look at both, and we see that all we know is that we have some localized warming and localized cooling.

Now, given that we have this variation within Antarctica, how can anyone point to localized glacial melting anywhere and suggest it proves global warming? Conversely, while the notion that global warming will cause further glacial melting seems rational, it falls apart if the original premise that we are experiencing global warming is built in part on citations of localized melting/warming.

Of course, you are welcome to believe that paragraph is critical to the science and that deleting it was a terrible thing. I disagree. I think leaving it in place mistates the certainty of the science in the extreme.

Of course it is speculation. What do you think "hypothesis" is? You speculate on what could happen then test it. It might be redundant based on the purpose of the document but to claim it is not valid because it is speculative is complete bunk. The title of the document is "Strategic plan for the US Climate Change Science Program". How do you propose to create a strategic plan if you don't speculate on areas that need to be studied? Go read the document if you haven't already. It is not based on a single hypothesis of "global warming exists" like you suggest. Rather it looks at many different items. The particular paragraph was probably cut from the "water cycle" section.
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/stratplan2003/final/ccspstratplan2003-all.pdf

I am curious as to how something that you claim is extreme speculation can then mistate certainty? Speculation is something that is NOT certain. The logic of your argument escapes me.

Yes, there is some localized warming and some localized cooling. One needs only look at the map of the world showing which areas are cooling and which ones are warming to see the trend is more warming.

Go here
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/monitoring.html
Then Global products - Global climate at a glance then look at the spatial map. Blue dots are cooling areas, red dots are warming areas. Its called the GLOBE, it encompasses ALL of the GLOBE. It isn't just a couple of isolated areas to show warming. It is the ENTIRE GLOBE. When the GLOBAL average is warming what is the GLOBAL trend?

As ocean and atmospheric patterns change it is highly likely that some areas of the globe will cool. One interesting predicition is that if warming causes Gulf current to change Europe could have a mini ice age.

Your argument about Antarctica ice sheets is old and not very scientific. At what temperature is precipitation most likely? Models have shown that Antarctica will probably get more precipitation because of warming. (Warming means more days in a temperature range that makes it likely for precipitation.) This increases land mass glaciers. Some things it also does is increase weight and therefore speed of glacier movement. The prediction is also for more icebergs based on faster moving glaciers and warming oceans to calve the faster moving ice.

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I fear that you beat your head up against the wall, Parados, as the proponents of fixing the facts around the policy will never be swayed by your logical arguments, always insisting that there is uncertainty and that they for some reason believe they know what the hell they are talking about, without any training in climatology or scientific methodology.

Cycloptichorn

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White House repeatedly edited global warming reports

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