Am I still allowed to question climate change?

[BritPat]

Yes it is possible that all the scientists involved in climate research, every govt and all their contractors are involved in a global conspiracy to screw the fossil fuel industry.

 

It does however seem unlikely. Do you have any evidence to suggest this might be the case.

 

I haven't advanced the thesis that AGW is a proven phenomenon and do not therefore bear the burden of having to prove it.

 

UEA CRU on the other hand set up a proxy to measure historic temp data and when their model fails to show what they and their sponsors wanted they faked data, conspired to frustrate FOIA requests, they conspired against fellow scientists by seeking to deny them access to peer reviewed journals and refuse to release the data that they seek to rely on.

 

They have abandoned science and advanced a religious cult which keeps its bible a closely guarded secret.

 

You claim that independent studies are in agreement with the UEA CRU fakery thereby implying a conspiracy yourself.

[Wildcat]

I haven't advanced the thesis that AGW is a proven phenomenon and do not therefore bear the burden of having to prove it.

 

UEA CRU on the other hand set up a proxy to measure historic temp data and when their model fails to show what they and their sponsors wanted they faked data, conspired to frustrate FOIA requests, they conspired against fellow scientists by seeking to deny them access to peer reviewed journals and refuse to release the data that they seek to rely on.

 

They have abandoned science and advanced a religious cult which keeps its bible a closely guarded secret.

 

You claim that independent studies are in agreement with the UEA CRU fakery thereby implying a conspiracy yourself.

 

The burden of proof is on yourself.

 

The CRU emails show scientists, who are objective and scrupulous with the science, subjected to a vicious political campaign.

 

If you think there is a conspiracy involving not just CRU but every scientific establishment that deals with global warming, the vast majority of scientists and their contractors to pull the wool over the eyes of their funders against the obvious input of money that might drive bias then the burden of proof is on yourself to come up with some evidence for that. The CRU emails are no where near to establishing of even indicating that such a conspiracy exists.

[Wildcat]

Of course the data is adjusted. Not least because temperatures are taken at different times of the day and different times in the season. They need to be comparing like with like and they have forumlas to do that so they can use the maximum data possible.

 

I will look at it in more detail later, but considering the bias in the report Greybeard produced earlier. There is no reason to believe whatsupwiththat is a credible source of information. Or that a construction manager in Fiji without any qualifications on climate change has anything much to add to the debate.

 

There is a response to that here:

 

Surely some comment is needed on the finding that the HADCRUT temperatures have, in at least one case, been manually adjusted to reverse the measured temperature trend? http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/the-smoking-gun-at-darwin-zero/ If that data is suspect, then science is REALLY unsettled

 

[Response: First off, that post is not discussing the HadCRU data at all (GHCN is from NOAA). Second, just because the writer can't work out why something changed, it does not mean it was 'manually adjusted'. Third, homogeneity adjustments are needed to deal with station moves, equipment changes, time of observation shifts etc. and some of these can be difficult to estimate. But the Australian Bureau of Meteorology is the best bet for detailed discussions of what is and is not appropriate at Darwin, and their record looks very much like the HadCRU one. Forgive me if I trust the relevant weather bureau over a guy on a blog. Perhaps reading the literature on the subject might help (e.g. Torok and Nicholls, 1996; Della-Marta et al, 2004). - gavin

 

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/12/unsettled-science/comment-page-8/

[Cyclone]

The data is available apart from that that is resticted because of copyright.

 

Get your teeth into this:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/

 

And apart from what they 'accidentally' lost.

 

Data that won't be released, for whatever reason, is of no use to science. Without the option to recreate the analysis and model there can be no peer review. It's meaningless.

[Wildcat]

And apart from what they 'accidentally' lost.

 

Data that won't be released, for whatever reason, is of no use to science. Without the option to recreate the analysis and model there can be no peer review. It's meaningless.

 

Tell that to the National Meteorological offices that 'copyright' their data.

 

National Meteorological Services (NMSs) have different rules on data exchange. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) organizes the exchange of “basic data”, i.e. data that are needed for weather forecasts. For details on these see WMO resolution number 40 (see http://bit.ly/8jOjX1).

 

This document acknowledges that WMO member states can place restrictions on the dissemination of data to third parties “for reasons such as national laws or costs of production”. These restrictions are only supposed to apply to commercial use, the research and education community is supposed to have free access to all the data.

 

Now, for researchers this sounds open and fine. In practice it hasn’t proved to be so.

 

Most NMSs also can distribute all sorts of data that are classified as “additional data and products”. Restrictions can be placed on these. These special data and products (which can range from regular weather data from a specific station to maps of rain intensity based on satellite and radar data). Many nations do place restrictions on such data (see link for additional data on above WMO-40 webpage for details).

 

The reasons for restricting access is often commercial, NMSs are often required by law to have substantial income from commercial sources, in other cases it can be for national security reasons, but in many cases (in my experience) the reasons simply seem to be “because we can”.

 

What has this got to do with CRU? The data that CRU needs for their data base comes from entities that restrict access to much of their data. And even better, since the UK has submitted an exception for additional data, some nations that otherwise would provide data without question will not provide data to the UK. I know this from experience, since my nation (Iceland) did send in such conditions and for years I had problem getting certain data from the US.

 

The ideal, that all data should be free and open is unfortunately not adhered to by a large portion of the meteorological community. Probably only a small portion of the CRU data is “locked” but the end effect is that all their data becomes closed. It is not their fault, and I am sure that they dislike them as much as any other researcher who has tried to get access to all data from stations in region X in country Y.

 

These restrictions end up by wasting resources and hurting everyone. The research community (CRU included) and the public are the victims. If you don’t like it, write to you NMSs and urge them to open all their data.

 

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack-context/

Edited December 12, 2009 by Wildcat

[Cyclone]

The top and bottom of this is that given the content I've seen that has been released, and the attitude of the scientists involved, I'm going to remain a sceptic. As far as I can see climate change has been around for as long as we had a climate and the evidence to suggest that AGW exists is sketchy and suspect.

I don't know why, but you seem extremely trusting of these specific scientists, defending them even when their wrong doing is plain to see. I have no vested interest either way, you, I'm not so sure about.

[Wildcat]

The top and bottom of this is that given the content I've seen that has been released, and the attitude of the scientists involved, I'm going to remain a sceptic. As far as I can see climate change has been around for as long as we had a climate and the evidence to suggest that AGW exists is sketchy and suspect.

I don't know why, but you seem extremely trusting of these specific scientists, defending them even when their wrong doing is plain to see. I have no vested interest either way, you, I'm not so sure about.

 

The thousands of peer reviewed papers supporting human influenced climate change and the handful (if any) that doubt it are my reasons for believing in Anthropogenic Global Warming.

 

The Appeal to authority argument is therefore compelling.

 

For example, this analysis of IPCC papers comes up with no papers from 1993 to 2003 that conflict with the consensus view:

 

The 928 papers were divided into six categories:

explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position.

Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.

 

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/306/5702/1686.pdf

 

The evidence for AGW is far from sketchy and suspect. It is lengthy, thorough and rigorous.

 

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/

[convert]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/files/2009/12/DARWIN7.png

 

Here's a little graph, of some data from Darwin.

 

The blue line shows a drop in average temperature, representing actual readings. The red line shows an increase in temperature, as adjusted by our friends.

 

Note the step change of adjustment around 1930 and 1940. Would any of the 'alarmists' care to explain why the data was adjusted in such a dramatic way?

[Wildcat]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/files/2009/12/DARWIN7.png

 

Here's a little graph, of some data from Darwin.

 

The blue line shows a drop in average temperature, representing actual readings. The red line shows an increase in temperature, as adjusted by our friends.

 

Note the step change of adjustment around 1930 and 1940. Would any of the 'alarmists' care to explain why the data was adjusted in such a dramatic way?

 

I answered that here:

 

http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showpost.php?p=5726194&postcount=658

 

This from the Australian Meteorological site:

 

A change in the type of thermometer shelter used at many Australian observation sites in the early 20th century resulted in a sudden drop in recorded temperatures which is entirely spurious. It is for this reason that these early data are currently not used for monitoring climate change. Other common changes at Australian sites over time include location moves, construction of buildings or growth of vegetation around the observation site and, more recently, the introduction of Automatic Weather Stations.

 

The impacts of these changes on the data are often comparable in size to real climate variations, so they need to be removed before long-term trends are investigated. Procedures to identify and adjust for non-climatic changes in historical climate data generally involve a combination of:

 

* investigating historical information (metadata) about the observation site,

* using statistical tests to compare records from nearby locations, and

* using comparison data recorded simultaneously at old and new locations, or with old and new instrument types.

 

"High-quality" Australian climate datasets have been developed in which homogeneity problems have been reduced or even eliminated. These datasets represent only a small fraction of the total Australian climate archive. To date, high-quality datasets have been developed for rainfall and temperature and work is underway to produce datasets for other variables including evaporation and humidity.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/datasets/datasets.shtml

 

Also see the papers on the link in my earlier post for further info.

Edited December 12, 2009 by Wildcat

[Wildcat]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/files/2009/12/DARWIN7.png

 

Here's a little graph, of some data from Darwin.

 

The blue line shows a drop in average temperature, representing actual readings. The red line shows an increase in temperature, as adjusted by our friends.

 

Note the step change of adjustment around 1930 and 1940. Would any of the 'alarmists' care to explain why the data was adjusted in such a dramatic way?

 

Considering the answers to the questions are so easily available from the same location as the data to produce the graph, do you not wonder about the integrity of the person that wrote the article from which your questions came?

Edited December 12, 2009 by Wildcat