Am I still allowed to question climate change?

[Wildcat]

No-one can see the original data that the CRU used,no-one knows what went into their calcs before they "amended" it..therefore no-one can reproduce the results the CRU got....you don't get it do you?

 

More opinions

 

<snipped Times article>

 

The original data is available at Weather Stations where the data was obtained.

 

I note from Media Matters that, not only can the studies be replicated they have been replicated, and they have substantiated the HadCRU results:

 

I am sure that, over 20 years ago, the CRU could not have foreseen that the raw station data might be the subject of legal proceedings by the CEI and Pat Michaels. Raw data were NOT secretly destroyed to avoid efforts by other scientists to replicate the CRU and Hadley Centre-based estimates of global-scale changes in near-surface temperature. In fact, a key point here is that other groups -- primarily at the NOAA National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) and at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), but also in Russia -- WERE able to replicate the major findings of the CRU and UK Hadley Centre groups. The NCDC and GISS groups performed this replication completely independently. They made different choices in the complex process of choosing input data, adjusting raw station data for known inhomogeneities (such as urbanization effects, changes in instrumentation, site location, and observation time), and gridding procedures. NCDC and GISS-based estimates of global surface temperature changes are in good accord with the HadCRUT data results.

 

http://mediamatters.org/research/200912010030

[Wildcat]

A Phil Jones quote

 

"...Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it...."

 

Surely that's the whole point of peer review?

 

The point of peer review is to check a Scientific paper before it is published not afterwards.

 

In relation to the statement given the context is where the data being requested substantially is available, and a paper who's conclusions had been substantiated by other studies. It is understandable Phil Jones should be frustrated by protracted and political rather than Scientific attempts to discredit him personally. His choice of language on the occassion quoted is regretable, but in its context a trifling matter.

 

Ps you might find the Science Committees report on the subject interesting:

 

In conclusion it says:

 

The focus on Professor Jones and CRU has been largely misplaced. On the accusations relating to Professor Jones’s refusal to share raw data and computer codes, we consider that his actions were in line with common practice in the climate science community.

 

and

 

In addition, insofar as we have been able to consider accusations of dishonesty—for example, Professor Jones’s alleged attempt to “hide the decline”—we consider that there is no case to answer. Within our limited inquiry and the evidence we took, the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact. We have found no reason in this unfortunate episode to challenge the scientific consensus as expressed by Professor Beddington, that “global warming is happening [and] that it is induced by human activity”.

 

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/387/387i.pdf

Edited March 31, 2010 by Wildcat

[Greybeard]

 

The point of peer review is to check a Scientific paper before it is published not afterwards.

 

 

In the case of AGW the point of peer review seems to be to prevent anyone with a different view to the accepted liturgy getting into print.

[Wildcat]

In the case of AGW the point of peer review seems to be to prevent anyone with a different view to the accepted liturgy getting into print.

 

Is there a particular and significant report that you are thinking of that should have been peer reviewed?

 

The two examples given a few pages ago of Anti-Anthropomorphic Global warming reports published as peer reviewed, were both seriously flawed one resulted in half the editorial staff of the journal resigning because of the abuse of process to get it published, the other one had problems not of methodology but simply because its conclusions didn't fit the evidence.

 

1600 posts in to this thread and no one has to my recollection produced a report peer reviewed or not challenging the consensus view that has had any merit, I would certainly be interested to see one, because so far the debate (if it can be called that) has consisted of a series of links to websites misrepresenting evidence and claims about the Science that anyone with google and a little understanding of logic can see are flawed with just a few minutes research.

Edited March 31, 2010 by Wildcat

[truman]

When you've a spare hour have a read

Edited April 1, 2010 by truman

[Wildcat]

When you've a spare hour have a read

 

I had a quick look and I can see a strawman set up in the first (major) paragraph. The consensus opinion says nothing about recent change being unprecedented in any way except the fact that the change now is man made. Skimming through the rest of it I can see a consistent problem with him not understanding what is being talked about. There is too much to go through it in any detail.

 

Instead given limitations of time, I draw your attention to where the information was hosted.

 

http://www.assassinationscience.com/

 

A site with prominent links to conspiracy theories about 9-11, JFK's killing and stuff about the moon landing being a hoax!

 

Hmmm....

 

Do you really think his account of what has happened is credible?

[truman]

I had a quick look and I can see a strawman set up in the first (major) paragraph. The consensus opinion says nothing about recent change being unprecedented in any way except the fact that the change now is man made. Skimming through the rest of it I can see a consistent problem with him not understanding what is being talked about. There is too much to go through it in any detail.

 

Instead given limitations of time, I draw your attention to where the information was hosted.

 

http://www.assassinationscience.com/

 

A site with prominent links to conspiracy theories about 9-11, JFK's killing and stuff about the moon landing being a hoax!

 

Hmmm....

 

Do you really think his account of what has happened is credible?

 

I'm not sure it matters where it's hosted..it's the content that's important...it exists in other places too...

[JIbbo]

Wildcat read this excellent critique by an engineer of AGW.

 

http://rps3.com/Files/AGW/EngrCritique.AGW.Science.pdf

 

A few statements.....

 

"Note that NONE of the dozens of computer models predicted the last decade

of cooling. Excuses and dial-tweaks were made after the fact.

 

"During the last 450,000 years the four previous interglacial warm periods were warmer than the current one.

 

"Looking back millions of years, we are in a comparative cold period and the 20th century warming is insignificant.

 

"The US temperature trend is so slight that, were the global average temperature change which has taken place during the 20th and 21st centuries to occur in an ordinary room, most of the people in the room would be unaware of it.

 

"Calling CO2 a pollutant is an uninformed, cruel joke. CO2, along with oxygen and water, is essential for all life."

 

ooking back 600 million years

(Sample page from report)

 

 

 

Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide was likely 18 times today’s

concentration during the Cambrian period when life’s diversity

was at its greatest expansion.

 

It was four times the current level when the dinosaurs went

extinct. The only extended time that CO2 was similar to today

was an extended period 300 million years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the big picture we are now in a low CO2 period. The 20th

century increase shows as an insignificant dot at this scale.

 

 

Do we risk runaway greenhouse warming if our CO2

concentration gets too high? It has never significantly driven

temperature before.

 

 

Venus may have runaway greenhouse warming, but its CO2, at

96.5% is 2,500 times the level of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere.

 

And Mars is cold, despite having 95% CO2.

[I1L2T3]

because so far the debate (if it can be called that) has consisted of a series of links to websites misrepresenting evidence

 

:hihi:

 

Excellent

[Wildcat]

Wildcat read this excellent critique by an engineer of AGW.

 

http://rps3.com/Files/AGW/EngrCritique.AGW.Science.pdf

 

A few statements.....

 

"Note that NONE of the dozens of computer models predicted the last decade

of cooling. Excuses and dial-tweaks were made after the fact.

 

Untrue on two counts, the last decade has not been cooling and secondly that the models don't correlate with the observed results. Here for example is a comparison of the IPCC model with what happened:

 

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/models-2/

 

"During the last 450,000 years the four previous interglacial warm periods were warmer than the current one.

 

"Looking back millions of years, we are in a comparative cold period and the 20th century warming is insignificant.

 

"The US temperature trend is so slight that, were the global average temperature change which has taken place during the 20th and 21st centuries to occur in an ordinary room, most of the people in the room would be unaware of it.

 

All of which is irrelevant. At no point in the past have the consequences of a predicted 6 foot rise in sea level had the potential to impact so negatively on people's lives.

 

"Calling CO2 a pollutant is an uninformed, cruel joke. CO2, along with oxygen and water, is essential for all life."

 

ooking back 600 million years

(Sample page from report)

 

That is a pretty stupid argument. Would he like to have his atmosphere replaced with water?

 

Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide was likely 18 times today’s

concentration during the Cambrian period when life’s diversity

was at its greatest expansion.

 

It was four times the current level when the dinosaurs went

extinct. The only extended time that CO2 was similar to today

was an extended period 300 million years ago.

 

In the big picture we are now in a low CO2 period. The 20th

century increase shows as an insignificant dot at this scale.

 

Do we risk runaway greenhouse warming if our CO2

concentration gets too high? It has never significantly driven

temperature before.

 

Whatever the conditions were for dinosaurs etc is irrelevant, as I said before today we have billions of people living on the planet many of them housed in areas where the impact of climate change will destroy the means for supporting them.

 

As for CO2 in the past he is quite simply wrong. CO2 may not have been a driver for temperature change but it has always been part of the feedback loop and its part in the greenhouse effect required to explain past temperature changes.

 

You might find this discussion of the subject interesting:

http://droyer.web.wesleyan.edu/KurschnerCommentary%282008%29.pdf

 

Venus may have runaway greenhouse warming, but its CO2, at

96.5% is 2,500 times the level of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere.

 

And Mars is cold, despite having 95% CO2.

 

No one is claiming CO2 is the only driver of temperature.

 

To be honest from the examples quoted it would seem to be an exercise in rhetorhic and a demonstration of the author's lack of understanding of the subject.