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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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I'm aware of that, Larry, but I still think it's a mistake to withhold information. Doing so always gives your opponents a chance to cast you as a liar with something to hide. Better to "go the extra mile" and get it all out the first time, particularly if the informatino requested supports your side.
I base this in part on thirty years experience dealing with legal discovery requests designed to be burdensome and oppressive. Had the initial responses been more forthcoming, the general feeling in the scientific community -- namely that the CRU people had good reason for their hostility -- would be a much easier to explain to the general public.
John
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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My point is, they didn't withhold information. They did fall into the trap set for them of appearing to withhold information, because they're just scientists who had no experience in dealing with this kind of attack. I wouldn't have either, so I can't fault them for that, and I haven't heard from many other scientists who do.
Someone with a more litiginous background might have warned them what was coming, of course. So now we're all on guard, but returning to your original point I think that makes the world a worse place, not a better one.
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213
climber
Where the Froude number often >> 1
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based on a linear trend model
Hehehehehehehe...if only coupled Earth system behaviors could be predicted in a linear manner!
This chart is further complicated by the fact that it only presents 30 years of data (let's leave the central limit theorem out of this for now). As a result, this data is biased/complicated by dominating inter and multidecadal (low frequency) oscillations during this relatively short period. In short, it really tells us nothing about the longer scale temporal picture of Earth system dynamics.
For those who want to learn about climate as a science as opposed to a belief, start by learning about physics. Two excellent concepts to start with would be advection and radiation. Then focus on coupled ocean-air interactions at low frequencies and the concept of nonstationarity. A nice starter text is by Peixoto and Oort 1992. It might also be wise to read into the works of Lorenz, Ramage, Pielke, and Ramanathan, to start.
The key topics that are often missed by the zealots (on BOTH sides) are simple and revolve around the main idea that our knowledge of key climate forcing mechanisms is very weak.
Fact: CO2 levels are at an unprecedented level in modern history (see chief's graph on page ~1670 post): Radiative forcings aside, we have little to zero understanding of how this will affect carbon biogeochemical cycling and ecosystem (land and ocean) behavior.
Fact: Aerosol emissions due to anthropogenic activities are tremendous: Scientific understanding of aerosol's effect on radiation is very poor. Granted, one big Earth fart and everything goes out the window! ;)
Fact: Low frequency air-sea interactions are poorly understood and act as MAJOR drivers of climate variability: Yet we spend way too many dollars building models to predict future climate which do not capture correct spatial or temporal phasing with reality, SSTs for example.
Quiz time!!!!!!
From these simple facts, what can we conclude?
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 8, 2010 - 06:08pm PT
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there are many different views on "data" ...
Thanks for another great post Ed.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Thanks, Ed and Chiloe, for your insights. They were, as always, helpful and enlightening to me.
I'm still a bit confused about the data disclsoure issue with CRU, though. If I understand your post, Ed, you're saying that anyone had a right to receive the CRU data. Put in economic terms, the data were "public goods" in that no one had a right to exclude anyone else from obtaining or using them.
If that was the case, why not publish them along with the research to which those data relate? If the CRU was disclosing data as required, then I don't understand why the otherwise favorable report criticized their data dissemination.
Thanks in advance.
John
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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They were, as always, helpful and enlightening to me.
Now I feel bad for sounding cranky again. I get that way because some of those under attack (not at CRU, but mainly in Arctic science) are my friends, and the intensity of hate they now face just blows me away. So many people with absolutely no clue about the science are absolutely certain that scientists deserve prison or worse, for research findings they think contradict their politics. Sooner or later, some will act out this hate that their leadership has been consciously exploiting, and the media have been too pliable to call. "Climategate" has been Exhibit A in this manufactured outrage.
But I've been meaning to say that of all the "skeptics" on the taco, JE comes closest in my mind to meeting science fiction author David Brin's nice distinction between deniers and skeptics. Brin sets out to answer a rhetorical question:
What factors would distinguish a rational, pro-science "skeptic" -- who has honest questions about the HGCC consensus -- from members of a Denier Movement who think a winter snowstorm means there’s no net-warming of the planet?
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/brin20100213
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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We are all DOOMED!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-ridley/down-with-doom-how-the-wo_b_630792.html
When I was a student, in the 1970s, the world was coming to an end. The adults told me so. They said the population explosion was unstoppable, mass famine was imminent, a cancer epidemic caused by chemicals in the environment was beginning, the Sahara desert was advancing by a mile a year, the ice age was retuning, oil was running out, air pollution was choking us and nuclear winter would finish us off. There did not seem to be much point in planning for the future. I remember a fantasy I had - that I would make my way to the Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland, and live off the land so I could survive these holocausts at least till the cancer got me.
I am not making this up. By the time I was 21 years old I realized that nobody had ever said anything optimistic to me - in a lecture, a television program or even a conversation in a bar - about the future of the planet and its people, at least not that I could recall. Doom was certain.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Thanks, Chiloe.
On another thread, I'd cited your posts as some that actually changed my mind on issues, because you cite facts. Ed is also in that same group, although I'm not sure he had as much mind-changing to do.
I'm still confused, though, about why the latest report criticized the CRU for not disclosing its data so readily if the CRU's responses to the FOIA were proper. It just seemed to me that by not being generously forthcoming with data, they were playing into the hands of the deniers.
John
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Mimi
climber
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Coming from a guy who duct tapes hooks. Just saying.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Thanks, Ed. The idea of being able to publish research findings based on proprietary data troubles me, although I have to admit that I use quite a bit of proprietary data myself in arriving at forecasts for clients. I would never consider relying on proprietary data as a way to convince others, though. That's a little like trying a case and telling the jury "trust me, I have the evidence. I just can't share it with you."
John
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Mimi
climber
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Yes, but isn't that exactly the way the information is being presented now? A minor portion of the population understands climate change. The populace is counting on those who 'know' what's going on regardless of where the data comes from, secret or knott.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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I'm still confused, though, about why the latest report criticized the CRU for not disclosing its data so readily if the CRU's responses to the FOIA were proper. It just seemed to me that by not being generously forthcoming with data, they were playing into the hands of the deniers.
Guardian reporter George Monbiot, who earlier like so many others had swallowed the propaganda hook line & sinker, and called for Phil Jones to be fired -- yesterday wrote a grudging apology. Though he finds reason to excuse his own gullibility, Monbiot is worth quoting:
Instead of relying on other people's testimony, the review team carried out its own test: did publicly available data exist that would allow people to replicate CRU's temperature results? It found that the raw data were freely available on three US academic sites, and that competent researchers could write the computer code required to analyse them in less than two days, without asking CRU. It carried out its own analysis and produced a graph (Figure 6.1) almost identical to CRU's.
Four obvious conclusions follow. First, that all the information required to test CRU's results was already freely available. Second, that the stonking fuss its critics made about alleged manipulation of its data was groundless. Third, that there was nothing special about the unit's computer codes: the corresponding fuss that climate scientists made about CRU's intellectual property was also bogus. And fourth that, by reacting so defensively, the scientists at the unit kept this fake scandal alive.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/jul/07/russell-inquiry-i-was-wrong
But to you, Monbiot and others it's worth re-mentioning that the CRU people knew and said that their data were already public. What they were "reacting so defensively" about was the attack by FOIA requests deliberately divided into many small parcels, designed to bring their work to a standstill just as harassment.
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Mimi
climber
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My point exactly.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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They are far too busy trying to stay alive, put food on the table, water in their glasses and keeping the roof over their heads.
And you imagine that food, water and roofs are unrelated to climate?
Chief, you've got quite a chip on your shoulder about scientists. Have you actually known some who fit your stereotypes? The ones I know sure don't.
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Mimi
climber
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Well, not exactly. Overpopulation and resource destruction are a real problem. CC/GW are also problems, but are more easily politicized. No one wants to discuss population and exceeding resources.
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WandaFuca
Social climber
From the gettin place
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This entire CC/AGW deal is a collection of intellect elitist that do nothing but find ways to prove and the prod the populace to their agenda ways of "saving the planet". Saving the planet from what? Us??? In doing so, they attempt to convince in order to control the populace to do as they preach or they, we, them are all doomed to extinction as well as the end of this planet as a whole.
What egos.....
Chief, you are so miserably f*#ked in the head that I just don't know where to start.
Grammar is the least of your problems, but it's atrocious.
You constantly throw out straw man arguments, but in your case it is not the diversionary tactic of a skilled debater; you are clueless. You don't really listen to what anyone says, you just pound out your ignorant arguments against things that no one is arguing for.
In no way do I see Ed or Chiloe, the scientists on this thread, as egotistical intellectual elitists, but you do strike me as a proud man--proud of your ignorance, proud of your selfishness, and prouder still if you can shout others down with angry non sequiturs.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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I still don't understand the basis of the statement in the latest report that, according to CNN:
"The 160-page report did however find that the CRU scientists had failed to display "the proper degree of openness" when it came to dealing with public requests for information.
"They had not shown sufficient openness in the way in which they responded to requests for information about what they were doing, about the data that they were processing, about the stations that they were analyzing, so on," he said."
Is this legitimate criticism, or is it simply a sop to the dissenters/deniers?
John
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Jul 12, 2010 - 02:47pm PT
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Saving the planet from what? Us??? In doing so, they attempt to convince in order to control the populace to do as they preach or they, we, them are all doomed to extinction as well as the end of this planet as a whole.
LOL. WRONG!! You are buying into all the right wing spin, you are the sheep. What most of us are saying is it will be much cheaper to reduce emissions/pollution now than to wait a few decades and deal with the aftermath. It's mostly a question of economics. Sure lots of countries and the environment will probably also suffer if we do nothing different, but it's mostly about dealing with a problem now or later when it will cost a lot more. Humans will be here for a long time, the question how much of a mess are we going to leave for future generations. How can someone who wants to preserve the rock for future climbers not get this???
Chief you are the one jumping on the bandwagon of big oil, and selfish conservatives looking for any excuse not to reduce your pollution. Weak.
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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Jul 12, 2010 - 03:11pm PT
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John E--
Good luck getting a straight answer to your questions from any of the so-called "scientists" who post on this thread. They have already admitted that they are biased in an effort to help their friends escape justice.
This week's Economist has a pretty good article that sheds some light on the "scientists'" evasiveness, scare-mongering, and other misdeeds. It doesn't accuse them of across-the-board fraud, but it presents a substantially less rosy picture of the "scientists" than the posters on this thread would have you believe.
http://www.economist.com/node/16537628
Edit: I just read the editorial linked to above by Dropline. It was written by a scientist and exposes the whitewash nature of the various reports that more-or-less vindicate the CRU.
Most of the sheeple who post on this thread are lackeys of the "scientists". To anyone who is trying to form an independent view of what happened, I urge you to read the editorial.
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