Monday, December 7, 2009
ClimateGate: East Anglia University Statement...
Here's the updated statement from East Anglia University (home of the CRU). Most of it is defensive, of course. There are several explicit denials about the significance of anything revealed in the ClimateGate trove.
But most interesting to me are the two graphs at the bottom of the page. The top graph is the famous “hockey stick” graph, showing precipitous rises in measured and modeled temperatures. This is the graph that was published in the IPCC reports, and has been used very widely by AGW promoters. The bottom graph is the same data, but “uncorrected”. In other words, the raw data with no fudge factors and no tricks.
Those two graphs tell one of the essential revelations of ClimateGate, and here, for the very first time, the CRU is 'fessing up.
I suspect we'll be seeing more like this.
But most interesting to me are the two graphs at the bottom of the page. The top graph is the famous “hockey stick” graph, showing precipitous rises in measured and modeled temperatures. This is the graph that was published in the IPCC reports, and has been used very widely by AGW promoters. The bottom graph is the same data, but “uncorrected”. In other words, the raw data with no fudge factors and no tricks.
Those two graphs tell one of the essential revelations of ClimateGate, and here, for the very first time, the CRU is 'fessing up.
I suspect we'll be seeing more like this.
ClimateGate: The Role of Bloggers and the Web...
Interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal today...
A Day That Shall Live in Infamy...
Sixty-eight years ago today, Imperial Japan attacked the U.S. at Pearl Harbor. Until 9/11, this event was unrivaled as the most horrible unprovoked attack the U.S. had ever suffered. A few Pearl Harbor survivors are still alive, and some are planning to visit the site today. Here in California, we have special license plates to honor Pearl Harbor survivors – and I still see them driving around occasionally.
Just once, several years ago, I actually had the chance to meet and talk with one of these Pearl Harbor survivors, as we both climbed out of our cars in a grocery store parking lot. The fellow I met was 17 years old at the time of the attack, and was a “plane wrangler” at one of the air bases. His job was to move the fighter planes from hangers to the flight line and vice versa. He could do little on that day except to hide from the attacking Japanese planes, and to help clean up afterwards.
Today I read that historians believe they have found the missing fifth Japanese mini-sub – and that they have evidence that it actually participated in the attack (unlike the other four). If this is proven, a little re-writing of history will be required...
While 9/11 looms much larger in my mind these days, the Pearl Harbor attack still holds many lessons for us. I've read extensively on World War II in general, and the Pacific theatre in particular, and yet still every time I read a new book I run into new information. The most useful things, I think, are the illustrations about how people actually behave under extreme circumstances. Our society rests in large part on assumptions about good behavior by people all over the world – and Pearl Harbor teaches us that it ain't necessarily so. The whole period has been so thoroughly mined by historians that one can quite easily get an understanding about how and why both sides acted the way they did. This is not yet possible with 9/11.
Anyway, take a few moments today to reflect on the meaning of the Pearl Harbor attack. If you have the opportunity, by all means do your bit to honor those who served there – both those who died, and those who survived...
Just once, several years ago, I actually had the chance to meet and talk with one of these Pearl Harbor survivors, as we both climbed out of our cars in a grocery store parking lot. The fellow I met was 17 years old at the time of the attack, and was a “plane wrangler” at one of the air bases. His job was to move the fighter planes from hangers to the flight line and vice versa. He could do little on that day except to hide from the attacking Japanese planes, and to help clean up afterwards.
Today I read that historians believe they have found the missing fifth Japanese mini-sub – and that they have evidence that it actually participated in the attack (unlike the other four). If this is proven, a little re-writing of history will be required...
While 9/11 looms much larger in my mind these days, the Pearl Harbor attack still holds many lessons for us. I've read extensively on World War II in general, and the Pacific theatre in particular, and yet still every time I read a new book I run into new information. The most useful things, I think, are the illustrations about how people actually behave under extreme circumstances. Our society rests in large part on assumptions about good behavior by people all over the world – and Pearl Harbor teaches us that it ain't necessarily so. The whole period has been so thoroughly mined by historians that one can quite easily get an understanding about how and why both sides acted the way they did. This is not yet possible with 9/11.
Anyway, take a few moments today to reflect on the meaning of the Pearl Harbor attack. If you have the opportunity, by all means do your bit to honor those who served there – both those who died, and those who survived...
ClimateGate: So Much for Ignoring It at Copenhagen...
AGW supporters have been trying very hard to pretend ClimateGate never happened, and that even if it did, it doesn't matter. The science is settled, dammit!
Oops.
Oops.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Australian AGW Supporting Scientist - Turned Skeptic...
Now this sort of thing is hitting the mainstream press. Thank you, ClimateGate!
ClimateGate: Another Scientist Speaks Out...
This time in a letter from Christopher Essex (an applied mathemetician) to Daniel Henniger (a Wall Street Journal columnist). A snippet that resonated with me:
Science is alive and well in the individual scientists who are not caught up in gaming the system for bigger grants. I call it small science. Many of them are doing very unfashionable things, and are happy to get no recognition for it.Go read the whole thing.
That is where you can find the real scientists. That is where the future will be.
Copenhagen is All Hot Air?
So sayeth Jonah Goldberg, writing at Real Clear Politics. I liked this bit:
"Ten countries ruled by nasty people control 80 percent of the planet's oil reserves -- about 1 trillion barrels, currently worth about $40 trillion," writes energy expert Peter Huber in City Journal. "If $40 trillion worth of gold were located where most of the oil is, one could only scoff at any suggestion that we might somehow persuade the nasty people to leave the wealth buried. They can lift most of their oil at a cost well under $10 a barrel. They will drill. They will pump. And they will find buyers. Oil is all they've got."The “Dudley Do-Right” of the international community. Heh!
It's not just the nasty countries. Canada, the Dudley Do-Right of the international community, insists on exploiting its vast and dirty oil reserves in the "tar sands" under Alberta. The intro to an article by British eco-scold George Monbiot declared: "Canada's image lies in tatters. It is now to climate what Japan is to whaling." If Canada, which has long been the UN's Richie Cunningham, won't play ball, does anyone think the Chinese, Indians or Brazilians will?
Telling Gordon Brown How the Cow Ate the Cabbage...
These wounded British soldiers are very unhappy with Gordon Brown's leadership, and they're not afraid to let him know. Well, Gordon, you really wouldn't expect these soldiers to be pushovers, would you?
ClimateGate: More Code Analysis...
Interesting analysis by Robert Greiner, a scientist and programmer, and an AGW agnostic.
Sarah Palin, Comedienne?
You decide. I sure laughed, both at her wisecracks and at the slightly modified version of the 12 days of Christmas song...
Is It Just Me?
Or is the tone of the political cartoons changing? You decide, after you decide whether to laugh or cry. Click any thumbnail to enlarge...
Leading Environmental Indicators...
Steven Hayward at Pacific Research is out with the fourteenth Index of Leading Environmental Indicators. It's a 75 page PDF packed with all sorts of interesting views of our environment, how it's changing, and how it's being reported.The graph at right is just one randomly chosen example. This one shows the variations in sea ice coverage in the Antarctic over the past 30 years. This is the period for which satellite-borne instruments give us reliable coverage data. If you've been listening to a lot of the AGW hype, what you see on that graph may surprise you...
I recommend taking an evening to peruse this document yourself. It reminds me a bit of the Skeptical Environmentalist, in a sort of Reader's Digest form...
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Amazing Commercial...
An interesting and emotionally-charged story packed into short video. Kudos to the creators, for a commercial I actually enjoyed watching...
What Will They Think of Next?
Should the city supply tents for amorous couples who would otherwise have sex in public? This debate could only happen in San Francisco...
ClimateGate: Daily Dump...
Judging from the events, it's looking to me like the ClimateGate scandal has reached and gone over a sort of tipping point: scientists and policy makers now appear to be taking it quite seriously. It hasn't yet dented the true warmenists religious fervor, but...when that happens, I think it's pretty much time to declare victory and go home.
Some interesting bits from my reading today:
Some interesting bits from my reading today:
- The UK Meterology Office (their equivalent of our NOAA) is going to re-examine all 160 years of their temperature data. They are no longer confident of their own data, because of the ClimateGate revelations. This is quite significant, as the UK Met's data is one of the three primary sources of data used in the IPCC report that is in turn driving much of the policy movement toward AGW mitigation. What heartens me about this development is that I'm pretty sure the result will be greatly increased transparency on the data collection and analysis, which means some wonderful sunlight on the foundations of the AGW claims.
- The London Globe and Mail has a nice summary of the current ClimateGate situation, with this bit that I quite liked:
Unusually, even sympathetic scientists and some activists have concluded that the credibility of climate science has been seriously harmed.
The whole piece is nicely even-handed, and not so credulous of the AGW proponents claims as we've seen in the past. It's very refreshing to see this sort of reporting in the mainstream media – even thought it's only in the British media so far, and not in the U.S...
“We should not underestimate the damage caused by what has happened, either for the science or for the politics of climate change, and potentially it could have some very far-reaching consequences,” said Mike Hulme, a climate scientist at East Anglia whose e-mails were among those included in the pirated files and who has been critical of the secrecy and lack of impartiality in his colleagues' work.
- Speaking of sunshine... Here's a great example – a fellow blogging under the pseudonym of AJStrata has done some nice, independent analysis on the raw data revealed in ClimateGate. Unlike the CRU folks, he's placed his methods and results out in public view for the sun to shine on them. He's an amateur, but he's looking far more professional than CRU. I have no idea how correct his analysis is, and that's not the point. The point is that this is how science ought to work.
- Finally, there's this quite well-done summary of ClimateGate by Steven Hayward in the Weekly Standard. The entire piece is balanced and sober; a good example of the kind of journalism I wish we had been seeing for the past few years regarding AGW. And, alas, while the Weekly Standard is an American webzine, by no means can I call it “mainstream” – they're a struggling little site that truthfully isn't far removed from a blog, except that the often well-known writers (presumably) are paid. Read the whole thing...but here's the conclusion:
The distinction between utterly politicized scientists such as Jones, Mann, and NASA's James Hansen, and other more sober scientists has been lost on the media and climate campaigners for a long time now, and as a result, the CRUtape letters will cast a shadow on the entire field. There is no doubt plenty more of this kind of corruption in other hotbeds of climate science, but there are also a lot of unbiased scientists trying to do important and valuable work. Climate alarmists and their media cheerleaders are fond of warning about "tipping points" to disaster, but ironically this episode may represent a tipping point against the alarmists. The biggest hazard to serious climate science all along was not so much contrarian arguments from skeptics, but rather the damage that the hyperbole of the environmental community would inflict on their own cause.
Climate change is a genuine phenomenon, and there is a nontrivial risk of major consequences in the future. Yet the hysteria of the global warming campaigners and their monomaniacal advocacy of absurdly expensive curbs on fossil fuel use have led to a political dead end that will become more apparent with the imminent collapse of the Kyoto-Copenhagen process. I have long expected that 20 or so years from now we will look back on the turn-of-the-millennium climate hysteria in the same way we look back now on the population bomb hysteria of the late 1960s and early 1970s--as a phenomenon whose magnitude and effects were vastly overestimated, and whose proposed solutions were wrongheaded and often genuinely evil (such as the forced sterilizations of thousands of Indian men in the 1970s, much of it funded by the Ford Foundation). Today the climate campaigners want to forcibly sterilize the world's energy supply, and until recently they looked to be within an ace of doing so. But even before Climategate, the campaign was beginning to resemble a Broadway musical that had run too long, with sagging box office and declining enthusiasm from a dwindling audience. Someone needs to break the bad news to the players that it's closing time for the climate horror show.
On Sarah Palin's Birther Remarks...
What Ace said, except that my perspective is not as a Republican, but rather as an observer of how politics actually works....
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