Guest commentary from Ben Santer
Part 2 of a series discussing the recent Guardian articles
A recent story by Fred Pearce in the February 9th online edition of the Guardian (“Victory for openness as IPCC climate scientist opens up lab doors”) covers some of the more publicized aspects of the last 14 years of my scientific career. I am glad that Mr. Pearce’s account illuminates some of the non-scientific difficulties I have faced. However, his account also repeats unfounded allegations that I engaged in dubious professional conduct. In a number of instances, Mr Pearce provides links to these allegations, but does not provide a balanced account of the rebuttals to them. Nor does he give links to locations where these rebuttals can be found. I am taking this opportunity to correct Mr. Pearce’s omissions, to reply to the key allegations, and to supply links to more detailed responses.
Another concern relates to Mr. Pearce’s discussion of the “openness” issue mentioned in the title and sub-title of his story. A naïve reader of Mr. Pearce’s article might infer from the sub-title (“Ben Santer had a change of heart about data transparency…”) that my scientific research was not conducted in an open and transparent manner until I experienced “a change of heart”.
This inference would be completely incorrect. As I discuss below, my research into the nature and causes of climate change has always been performed in an open, transparent, and collegial manner. Virtually all of the scientific papers I have published over the course of my career involve multi-institutional teams of scientists with expertise in climate modeling, the development of observational datasets, and climate model evaluation. The model and observational data used in my research is not proprietary – it is freely available to researchers anywhere in the world.
The 1995 IPCC Report: The “scientific cleansing” allegation
Mr. Pearce begins by repeating some of the allegations of misconduct that arose after publication (in 1996) of the Second Assessment Report (SAR) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). These allegations targeted Chapter 8 of the SAR, which dealt with the “Detection of Climate Change, and Attribution of Causes”. The IPCC SAR reached the historic finding that “The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate”. Information presented in Chapter 8 provided substantial support for this finding.
I served as the Convening Lead Author (CLA) of Chapter 8. There were three principal criticisms of my conduct as CLA. All three allegations are baseless. They have been refuted on many occasions, and in many different fora. All three allegations make an appearance in Mr. Pearce’s story, but there are no links to the detailed responses to these claims.
The first allegation was that I had engaged in “scientific cleansing”. This allegation originated with the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) – a group of businesses “opposing immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions”.
In May 1996, a document entitled “The IPCC: Institutionalized ‘Scientific Cleansing’?” was widely circulated to the press and politicians. In this document, the Global Climate Coalition claimed that after a key Plenary Meeting of the IPCC in Madrid in November 1995, all scientific uncertainties had been purged from Chapter 8. The GCC’s “scientific cleansing” allegation was soon repeated in an article in Energy Daily (May 22, 1996) and in an editorial in the Washington Times (May 24, 1996). It was also prominently featured in the World Climate Report, a publication edited by Professor Patrick J. Michaels (June 10, 1996).
This “scientific cleansing” claim is categorically untrue. There was no “scientific cleansing”. Roughly 20% of the published version of Chapter 8 specifically addressed uncertainties in scientific studies of the causes of climate change. In discussing the “scientific cleansing” issue, Mr. Pearce claims that many of the caveats in Chapter 8 “did not make it to the summary for policy-makers”. This is incorrect.
The Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the IPCC SAR is four-and-a-half pages long. Roughly one page of the SPM discusses results from Chapter 8. The final paragraph of that page deals specifically with uncertainties, and notes that:
“Our ability to quantify the human influence on global climate is currently limited because the expected signal is still emerging from the noise of natural variability, and because there are uncertainties in key factors. These include the magnitude and patterns of long term natural variability and the time-evolving pattern of forcing by, and response to, changes in concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols, and land surface changes”.
Contrary to Mr. Pearce’s assertion, important caveats did “make it to the summary for policy-makers”. And the “discernible human influence” conclusion of both Chapter 8 and the Summary for Policymakers has been substantiated by many subsequent national and international assessments of climate science.
There were several reasons why Chapter 8 was a target for unfounded “scientific cleansing” allegations. First, the Global Climate Coalitions’s “scientific cleansing” charges were released to the media in May 1996. At that time, Cambridge University Press had not yet published the IPCC Second Assessment Report in the United States. Because of this delay in the Report’s U.S. publication, many U.S. commentators on the “scientific cleansing” claims had not even read Chapter 8 – they only had access to the GCC’s skewed account of the changes made to Chapter 8. Had the Second Assessment Report been readily available in the U.S. in May 1996, it would have been easy for interested parties to verify that Chapter 8 incorporated a fair and balanced discussion of scientific uncertainties.
Second, the “pre-Madrid” version of Chapter 8 was the only chapter in the IPCC Working Group I Second Assessment Report to have both an “Executive Summary” and a “Concluding Summary”. As discussed in the next section, this anomaly was partly due to the fact that the Lead Author team for Chapter 8 was not finalized until April 1994 – months after all other chapters had started work. Because of this delay in getting out of the starting blocks, the Chapter 8 Lead Author team was more concerned with completing the initial drafts of our chapter than with the question of whether all chapters in the Working Group I Report had exactly the same structure.
The reply of the Chapter 8 Lead Authors to the Energy Daily story of May 22, 1996 pointed out this ‘two summary’ redundancy, and noted that:
“After receiving much criticism of this redundancy in October and November 1995, the Convening Lead Author of Chapter 8 decided to remove the concluding summary. About half of the information in the concluding summary was integrated with material in Section 8.6. It did not disappear completely, as the Global Climate Coalition has implied. The lengthy Executive Summary of Chapter 8 addresses the issue of uncertainties in great detail – as does the underlying Chapter itself.”
The removal of the concluding summary made it simple for the Global Climate Coalition to advance their unjustified “scientific cleansing” allegations. They could claim ‘This statement has been deleted’, without mentioning that the scientific issue addressed in the deleted statement was covered elsewhere in the chapter.
This was my first close encounter of the absurd kind.
The 1995 IPCC Report: The “political tampering/corruption of peer-review” allegation
The second allegation is that I was responsible for “political tampering”. I like to call this “the tail wags the dog” allegation. The “tail” here is the summary of the Chapter 8 results in the IPCC Summary for Policymakers, and the “dog” is the detailed underlying text of Chapter 8.
In November 1995, 177 government delegates from 96 countries spent three days in Madrid. Their job was to “approve” each word of the four-and-a-half page Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC’s Working Group I Report. This was the report that dealt with the physical science of climate change. The delegates also had the task of “accepting” the 11 underlying science chapters on which the Summary for Policymakers was based. “Acceptance” of the 11 chapters did not require government approval of each word in each chapter.
This was not a meeting of politicians only. A number of the government delegates were climate scientists. Twenty-eight of the Lead Authors of the IPCC Working Group I Report – myself included – were also prominent participants in Madrid. We were there to ensure that the politics did not get ahead of the science, and that the tail did not wag the dog.
Non-governmental organizations – such as the Global Climate Coalition – were also active participants in the Madrid meeting. NGOs had no say in the formal process of approving the Summary for Policymakers. They were, however, allowed to make comments on the SPM and the underlying 11 science chapters during the first day of the Plenary Meeting (November 27, 1996). The Global Climate Coalition dominated the initial plenary discussions.
Most of the plenary discussions at Madrid focused on the portrayal of Chapter 8’s findings in the Summary for Policymakers. Discussions were often difficult and contentious. We wrestled with the exact wording of the “balance of evidence” statement mentioned above. The delegations from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait argued for a very weak statement, or for no statement at all. Delegates from many other countries countered that there was strong scientific evidence of pronounced a human effect on climate, and that the bottom-line statement from Chapter 8 should reflect this.
Given the intense interest in Chapter 8, Sir John Houghton (one of the two Co-Chairs of IPCC Working Group I) established an ad hoc group on November 27, 1996. I was a member of this group. Our charge was to review those parts of the draft Summary for Policymakers that dealt with climate change detection and attribution issues. The group was placed under the Chairmanship of Dr. Martin Manning of New Zealand, and included delegates from the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Kenya, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. Sir John Houghton also invited delegates from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to participate in this ad hoc group. Unfortunately, they did not accept this invitation.
The ad hoc group considered more than just the portions of the Summary for Policymakers that were relevant to Chapter 8. The Dutch delegation asked for a detailed discussion of Chapter 8 itself, and of the full scientific evidence contained in it. This discussion took place on November 28, 1996.
On November 29, 1996, I reported back to the Plenary on the deliberations of the ad hoc group. The Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti delegations – who had not attended any of the discussions of the ad hoc group, and had no first-hand knowledge of what had been discussed by the group – continued to express serious reservations about the scientific basis for the detection and attribution statements in the Summary for Policymakers.
On the final evening of the Madrid Plenary Meeting, debate focused on finding the right word to describe the human effect on global climate. There was broad agreement among the government delegates that – based on the scientific evidence presented in Chapter 8 – some form of qualifying word was necessary. Was the human influence “measurable”? Could it be best described as “appreciable”, “detectable”, or “substantial”? Each of these suggested words had proponents and opponents. How would each word translate into different languages? Would the meaning be the same as in English?
After hours of often rancorous debate, Bert Bolin (who was then the Chairman of the IPCC) finally found the elusive solution. Professor Bolin suggested that the human effect on climate should be described as “discernible”.
Mr. Pearce – who was not present at the Madrid Plenary Meeting – argues that the discussion of human effects on climate in the IPCC Summary for Policymakers “went beyond what was said in the chapter from which the summary was supposedly drawn”. In other words, he suggests that the tail wagged the dog. This is not true. The “pre-Madrid” bottom-line statement from Chapter 8 was “Taken together, these results point towards a human influence on climate”. As I’ve noted above, the final statement agreed upon in Madrid was “The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate”.
Is “suggests” stronger than “points towards”? I doubt it. Is “The balance of evidence” a more confident phrase than “Taken together”? I don’t think so.
The primary difference between the pre- and post-Madrid statements is that the latter includes the word “discernible”. In my American Heritage College Dictionary, “discernible” is defined as “perceptible, as by vision or the intellect”. In Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, one of the three meanings of the verb “discern” is “to recognize or identify as separate and distinct”. Was the use of “discernible” justified?
The answer is clearly “yes”. Chapter 8 of the IPCC’s Second Assessment Report relied heavily on the evidence from a number of different “fingerprint” studies. This type of research uses rigorous statistical methods to compare observed patterns of climate change with results from climate model simulations. The basic concept of fingerprinting is that each different influence on climate – such as purely natural changes in the Sun’s energy output, or human-caused changes in atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases – has a unique signature in climate records. This uniqueness becomes more apparent if one looks beyond changes averaged over the entire globe, and instead exploits the much greater information content available in complex, time-varying patterns of climate change.
Fingerprinting has proved to be an invaluable tool for untangling the complex cause-and-effect relationships in the climate system. The IPCC’s Second Assessment Report in 1995 was able to draw on fingerprint studies from a half-dozen different research groups. Each of these groups had independently shown that they could indeed perceive a fingerprint of human influence in observed temperature records. The signal was beginning to rise out of the noise, and was (using Merriam-Webster’s definition of “discern”) “separate and distinct” from purely natural variations in climate.
Based on these fingerprint results, and based on the other scientific evidence available to us in November 1995, use of the word “discernible” was entirely justified. Its use is certainly justified based on the scientific information available to us in 2010. The “discernible human influence” phrase was approved by all of the 177 delegates from 96 countries present at the Plenary Meeting – even by the Saudi and Kuwaiti delegations. None of the 28 IPCC Lead Authors in attendance at Madrid balked at this phrase, or questioned our finding that “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate”. The latter statement was cautious and responsible, and entirely consistent with the state of the science. The much more difficult job of trying to quantify the size of human influences on climate would be left to subsequent IPCC assessments.
Mr. Pearce’s remarks suggest that there is some substance to the “political tampering” allegation – that I was somehow coerced to change Chapter 8 in order to “reflect the wording of the political summary”. This is untrue. There was no political distortion of the science. If Mr. Pearce had been present at the Madrid Plenary Meeting, he would have seen how vigorously (and successfully) scientists resisted efforts on the part of a small number of delegates to skew and spin some of the information in the Summary for Policymakers.
The key point here is that the SPM was not a “political summary” – it was an accurate reflection of the science. Had it been otherwise, I would not have agreed to put my name on the Report.
A reader of Mr. Pearce’s article might also gain the mistaken impression that the changes to Chapter 8 were only made in response to comments made by government delegates during the Madrid Plenary Meeting. That is not true. As I’ve mentioned above, changes were also made to address government comments made during the meeting of the ad hoc group formed to discuss Chapter 8.
Furthermore, when I first arrived in Madrid on November 26, 1995, I was handed a stack of government and NGO comments on Chapter 8 that I had not seen previously. I had the responsibility of responding to these comments.
One reason for the delay in receiving comments was that the IPCC had encountered difficulties in finding a Convening Lead Author (CLA) for Chapter 8. To my knowledge, the CLA job had been turned down by at least two other scientists before I received the job offer. The unfortunate consequence of this delay was that, at the time of the Madrid Plenary Meeting, Chapter 8 was less mature and polished than other chapters of the IPCC Working Group I Report. Hence the belated review comments.
The bottom line in this story is that the post-Madrid revisions to Chapter 8 were made for scientific, not political reasons. They were made by me, not by IPCC officials. The changes were in full accord with IPCC rules and procedures (pdf). Mr. Pearce repeats accusations by Fred Seitz that the changes to Chapter 8 were illegal and unauthorized, and that I was guilty of “corruption of the peer-review process”. These allegations are false, as the IPCC has clearly pointed out.
The 1995 IPCC Report: The “research irregularities” allegation
The third major front in the attack on Chapter 8 focused on my personal research. It was a two-pronged attack. First, Professor S. Fred Singer claimed that the IPCC’s “discernible human influence” conclusion was entirely based on two of my own (multi-authored) research papers. Next, Professor Patrick Michaels argued that one of these two papers was seriously flawed, and that irregularities had occurred in the paper’s publication process. Both charges were untrue.
On July 25, 1996, I addressed the first of these allegations in an email to the Lead Authors of the 1995 IPCC Report:
“Chapter 8 references more than 130 scientific papers – not just two. Its bottom-line conclusion that “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate” is not solely based on the two Santer et al. papers that Singer alludes to. This conclusion derives from many other published studies on the comparison of modelled and observed patterns of temperature change – for example, papers by Karoly et al. (1994), Mitchell et al. (1995), Hegerl et al. (1995), Karl et al. (1995), Hasselmann et al. (1995), Hansen et al. (1995) and Ramaswamy et al. (1996). It is supported by many studies of global-mean temperature changes, by our physical understanding of the climate system, by our knowledge of human-induced changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere, by information from paleoclimatic studies, and by a wide range of supporting information (sea-level rise, retreat of glaciers, etc.). To allege, as Singer does, that “Chapter 8 is mainly based on two research papers” is just plain wrong”.
In the second prong of the attack, Professor Michaels claimed that a paper my colleagues and I had published in Nature in 1996 had been selective in its use of observational data, and that our finding of a human fingerprint in atmospheric temperature data was not valid if a longer observational record was used. Further, he argued that Nature had been “toyed with” (presumably by me), and coerced into publishing the 1996 Santer et al. Nature paper one week prior to a key United Nations meeting in Geneva.
My colleagues and I immediately addressed the scientific criticism of our Nature paper by Michaels and his colleague Chip Knappenberger. We demonstrated that this criticism was simply wrong. Use of a longer record of atmospheric temperature change strengthened rather than weakened the evidence for a human fingerprint. We published this work in Nature in December 1996. Unfortunately, Mr. Pearce does not provide a link to this publication.
Since 1996, studies by a number of scientists around the world have substantiated the findings of our 1996 Nature paper. Such work has consistently shown clear evidence of a human fingerprint in atmospheric temperature records.
Disappointingly, Professor Michaels persists in repeating his criticism of our paper, without mentioning our published rebuttal or the large body of subsequently published evidence refuting his claims. Michaels’ charge that Nature had been “toyed with” was complete nonsense. As described below, however, this was not the last time I would be falsely accused of having the extraordinary power to force scientific journals to do my bidding.
A Climatology Conspiracy? More “peer-review abuse” accusations
Mr. Pearce also investigates a more recent issue. He implies that I abused the normal peer-review system, and exerted pressure on the editor of the International Journal of Climatology to delay publication of the print version of a paper by Professor David Douglass and colleagues. This is not true.
The Douglass et al. paper was published in December 2007 in the online edition of the International Journal of Climatology. The “et al.” included the same Professor S. Fred Singer who had previously accused me of “scientific cleansing”. It also included Professor John Christy, the primary developer of a satellite-based temperature record which suggests that there has been minimal warming of Earth’s lower atmosphere since 1979. Three alternate versions of the satellite temperature record, produced by different teams of researchers using the same raw satellite measurements, all indicate substantially more warming of the Earth’s atmosphere.
The focus of the Douglass et al. paper was on post-1979 temperature changes in the tropics. The authors devised what they called a “robust statistical test” to compare computer model results with observations. The test was seriously flawed (see Appendix A in Open Letter to the Climate Science Community: Response to A “Climatology Conspiracy?”). When it was applied to the model and observational temperature datasets, the test showed (quite incorrectly) that the model results were significantly different from observations.
As I have noted elsewhere, the Douglass et al. paper immediately attracted considerable media and political attention. One of the paper’s authors claimed that it represented an “inconvenient truth”, and proved that “Nature, not humans, rules the climate”. These statements were absurd. No single study can overturn the very large body of scientific evidence supporting “discernible human influence” findings. Nor does any individual study provide the sole underpinning for the conclusion that human activities are influencing global climate.
Given the extraordinary claims that were being made on the basis of this incorrect paper, my colleagues and I decided that a response was necessary. Although the errors in Douglass et al. were easy to identify, it required a substantial amount of new and original work to repeat the statistical analysis properly.
Our work went far beyond what Douglass et al. had done. We looked at the sensitivity of model-versus-data comparisons to the choice of statistical test, to the test assumptions, to the number of years of record used in the tests, and to errors in the computer model estimates of year-to-year temperature variability. We also examined how the statistical test devised by Douglass et al. performed under controlled conditions, using random data with known statistical properties. From their paper, there is no evidence that Douglass et al. considered any of these important issues before making their highly-publicized claims.
Our analysis clearly showed that tropical temperature changes in observations and climate model simulations were not fundamentally inconsistent – contrary to the claim of Douglass and colleagues. Our research was published on October 10, 2008, in the online edition of the International Journal of Climatology. On November 15, 2008, the Douglass et al. and Santer et al. papers appeared in the same print version of the International Journal of Climatology.
In December 2009, shortly after the public release of the stolen emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, Professors David Douglass and John Christy accused me of leading a conspiracy to delay publication of the print version of the Douglass et al. paper. This accusation was based on a selective analysis of the stolen emails. It is false.
In Mr. Pearce’s account of this issue, he states that “There is no doubt the (sic) Santer and his colleagues sought to use the power they held to the utmost…” So what are the facts of this matter? What is the “power” Fred Pearce is referring to?
- Fact 1: The only “power” that I had was the power to choose which scientific journal to submit our paper to. I chose the International Journal of Climatology. I did this because the International Journal of Climatology had published (in their online edition) the seriously flawed Douglass et al. paper. I wanted to give the journal the opportunity to set the scientific record straight.
- Fact 2: I had never previously submitted a paper to the International Journal of Climatology. I had never met the editor of the journal (Professor Glenn McGregor). I did not have any correspondence or professional interaction with the editor prior to 2008.
- Fact 3: Prior to submitting our paper, I wrote an email to Dr. Tim Osborn on January 10, 2008. Tim Osborn was on the editorial board of the International Journal of Climatology. I told Dr. Osborn that, before deciding whether we would submit our paper to the International Journal of Climatology, I wanted to have some assurance that our paper would “be regarded as an independent contribution, not as a comment on Douglass et al.” This request was entirely reasonable in view of the substantial amount of new work that we had done. I have described this new work above.
- Fact 4: I did not want to submit our paper to the International Journal of Climatology if there was a possibility that our submission would be regarded as a mere “comment” on Douglass et al. Under this scenario, Douglass et al. would have received the last word. Given the extraordinary claims they had made, I thought it unlikely that their “last word” would have acknowledged the serious statistical error in their original paper. As subsequent events showed, I was right to be concerned – they have not admitted any error in their work.
- Fact 5: As I clearly stated in my email of January 10 to Dr. Tim Osborn, if the International Journal of Climatology agreed to classify our paper as an independent contribution, “Douglass et al. should have the opportunity to respond to our contribution, and we should be given the chance to reply. Any response and reply should be published side-by-side…”
- Fact 6: The decision to hold back the print version of the Douglass et al. paper was not mine. It was the editor’s decision. I had no “power” over the publishing decisions of the International Journal of Climatology.
This whole episode should be filed under the category “No good deed goes unpunished”. My colleagues and I were simply trying to set the scientific record straight. There was no conspiracy to subvert the peer-review process. Unfortunately, conspiracy theories are easy to disseminate. Many are willing to accept these theories at face value. The distribution of facts on complex scientific issues is a slower, more difficult process.
Climate Auditing – Close Encounters with Mr. Steven McIntyre
Ten days after the online publication of our International Journal of Climatology paper, Mr. Steven McIntyre, who runs the “ClimateAudit” blog, requested all of the climate model data we had used in our research. I replied that Mr. McIntyre was welcome to “audit” our calculations, and that all of the primary model data we had employed were archived at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and freely available to any researcher. Over 3,400 scientists around the world currently analyze climate model output from this open database.
My response was insufficient for Mr. McIntyre. He submitted two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for climate model data – not for the freely available raw data, but for the results from intermediate calculations I had performed with the raw data. One FOIA request also asked for two years of my email correspondence related to these climate model data sets.
I had performed these intermediate calculations in order derive weighted-average temperature changes for different layers of the atmosphere. This is standard practice. It is necessary since model temperature data are available at specific heights in the atmosphere, whereas satellite temperature measurements represent an average over a deep layer of the atmosphere. The weighted averages calculated from the climate model data can be directly compared with actual satellite data. The method used for making such intermediate calculations is not a secret. It is published in several different scientific journals.
Unlike Mr. McIntyre, David Douglass and his colleagues (in their International Journal of Climatology paper) had used the freely available raw model data. With these raw datasets, Douglass et al. made intermediate calculations similar to the calculations we had performed. The results of their intermediate calculations were similar to our own intermediate results. The differences between what Douglass and colleagues had done and what my colleagues and I had done was not in the intermediate calculations – it was in the statistical tests each group had used to compare climate models with observations.
The punch-line of this story is that Mr. McIntyre’s Freedom of Information Act requests were completely unnecessary. In my opinion, they were frivolous. Mr. McIntyre already had access to all of the information necessary to check our calculations and our findings.
When I invited Mr. McIntyre to “audit” our entire study, including the intermediate calculations, and told him that all the data necessary to perform such an “audit” were freely available, he expressed moral outrage on his blog. I began to receive threatening emails. Complaints about my “stonewalling” behavior were sent to my superiors at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and at the U.S. Department of Energy.
A little over a month after receiving Mr. McIntyre’s Freedom of Information Act requests, I decided to release all of the intermediate calculations I had performed for our International Journal of Climatology paper. I made these datasets available to the entire scientific community. I did this because I wanted to continue with my scientific research. I did not want to spend all of my available time and energy responding to harassment incited by Mr. McIntyre’s blog.
Mr. Pearce does not mention that Mr. McIntyre had no need to file Freedom of Information Act requests, since Mr. McIntyre already had access to all of the raw climate model data we had used in our study (and to the methods we had used for performing intermediate calculations). Nor does Mr. Pearce mention the curious asymmetry in Mr. McIntyre’s “auditing”. To my knowledge, Mr. McIntyre – who purports to have considerable statistical expertise – has failed to “audit” the Douglass et al. paper, which contained serious statistical errors.
As the “Climategate” emails clearly show, there is a pattern of behavior here. My encounter with Mr. McIntyre’s use of FOIA requests for “audit” purposes is not an isolated event. In my opinion, Mr. McIntyre’s FOIA requests serve the purpose of initiating fishing expeditions, and are not being used for true scientific discovery.
Mr. McIntyre’s own words do not present a picture of a man engaged in purely dispassionate and objective scientific inquiry:
“But if Santer wants to try this kind of stunt, as I’ve said above, I’ve submitted FOI requests and we’ll see what they turn up. We’ll see what the journal policies require. I’ll also see what DOE and PCDMI administrators have to say. We’ll see if any of Santer’s buddies are obligated to produce the data. We’ll see if Santer ever sent any of the data to his buddies”
(Steven McIntyre; posting on his ClimateAudit blog; Nov. 21, 2008).
My research is subject to rigorous scrutiny. Mr. McIntyre’s blogging is not. He can issue FOIA requests at will. He is the master of his domain – the supreme, unchallenged ruler of the “ClimateAudit” universe. He is not a climate scientist, but he has the power to single-handedly destroy the reputations of exceptional men and women who have devoted their entire careers to the pursuit of climate science. Mr. McIntyre’s unchecked, extraordinary power is the real story of “Climategate”. I hope that someone has the courage to tell this story.
Benjamin D. Santer
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow
San Ramon, California
February 22, 2010*
*These remarks reflect the personal opinions of Benjamin D. Santer. They do not reflect the official views of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory or the U.S. Department of Energy. In preparing this document, I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Tom Wigley, Myles Allen, Kristin Aydt, Graham Cogley, Peter Gleckler, Leo Haimberger, Gabi Hegerl, John Lanzante, Mike MacCracken, Gavin Schmidt, Steve Sherwood, Susan Solomon, Karl Taylor, Simon Tett, and Peter Thorne.
Just a note to the posters using the “Joe Six Pack” phrase in reference to persons outside your scientific clique:
This arrogant and demeaning phrase is a real turn off to laypersons reading this blog to educate themselves. I read a number of blogs and this phrase shows up here far more than any other place. This “Joe Six-Pack” has a graduate degree from Berkeley, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and is female. If you want to drive away readers like me, just keep up the Joe Six-Pack routine.
“[Response: You have got to be kidding. You think this piece (followed by this one), reflects better on the reality of how well the IPCC AR4 WG2 represented the susceptibility of Amazonian forests to drought, than the public word of the primary researcher involved himself? Did you even actually read these things? The first piece doesn’t even discuss the merits of the claims! And by the way “this Lewis guy” is Simon Lewis, one of the world’s leading researchers on tropical forest dynamics. But you are right on that last point, so let me rephrase: This issue is utterly and completely without merit, trumped up by those looking to find fault with the IPCC, with the usual help from bloggers and bad journalism.–Jim]”
Jim,
Some final thoughts on your response.
I read the two ER posts you linked. Both are from immediately after their first posts. It looks like they are both from before the Nepstad release. The Nepstad release was Feb with no specific date. The two AR posts are 1/30 and 2/1. Neither of these posts even addresses the later Nepstab statement. Given that it probably hadn’t even been made yet, I am not sure how he could have addressed the issue.
[Response: Well, I’m glad that since you were the one who first referred to one or both of them here, that you did actually read them! The fact that Nepstad had not made a public statement until after North fired his missiles does not excuse North from his responsibility to check things for himself before yelling. Where’s this guy’s investigation? Did he read the IPCC report? The WWF report? Better yet, did he look into the literature to see whether Nepstad, or anyone else for that matter, had produced studies to support the IPCC statement? But you want to just give him a free pass anyway.–Jim]
Read the Nepstab statement and you will notice that while he quotes from the original Nature 99 article, he doesn’t quote from his more recent articles. If the peer reviewed literature supports the IPCC statement, then why can’t he supply a quote or an abstract? While Nepstab may believe the IPCC, that is a far cry from peer reviewed literature.
[Response: How can you in good conscience make such a directly wrong interpretation of his statement? He very clearly discusses that in two separate papers, one in 1994 and another in 2004, his group provided evidence that up to half (not 40%) of Amazonian forests are highly susceptible to drought-induced mortality, but that instead, their 1999 paper got the citation in the WWF report, which was then cited by the IPCC.–Jim]
Next, go back and reread what Lewis said. According to you he is the world authority. He said that: “The IPCC statement is basically correct but poorly written, and bizarrely referenced.” In other words, even he is admitting that the IPCC did a poor job summarizing the science even if it is “basically correct”.
[Response: I do love how you subtly twist meanings and then push them back for further comment. If you had actually been paying attention, you would have noticed that I did not say he was “the world authority” but rather one of them, and anyway his notoriety is not “according to me” but is built on a legacy of research in the tropics. But the main point here is how you take Lewis’ statement, which basically summarizes exactly what happened, and interpret it to support what you want to believe about the situation.–Jim]
Lets review the bidding then. ER finds a clear error in the IPCC. The cits don’t back up the statement and no one disagrees on that point.
Some experts then come out and say that the IPCC statement is at least directionally correct, although there are no peer reviewed papers that directly back up their point.
The leading expert admits that the statement is poorly written.
[Response: Pathetic on so many levels. ER didn’t find anything–he repeated what he read somewhere that supported his conspiracy, anti-IPCC needs.]
Real Climate says: “This issue is utterly and completely without merit, trumped up by those looking to find fault with the IPCC, with the usual help from bloggers and bad journalism.”
I hate to break it to you but your own leading expert finds fault with the IPCC. A fair read of all of this shows at best very shoddy work and a poor summary of the science. Another read is that environmental scientists are doing their best to give credence to an IPCC statement that was clearly poorly done and not supported by peer reviewed literature.
[Response: I hate to break it to you but your twisting of the story to make it fit how you want to perceive it is obvious to everyone but yourself. A “fair reading” is something you are quite apparently not capable of making.–Jim]
I am done arguing.
[Response: Arguing involves having an argument to make. You are simply supporting crap written by a blogger.]
I think many here are so wedded to their group think and worldview that they refuse to admit what is happening. Gavin’s responses to the Institute of Physics would almost be funny if they weren’t so sad. The scientific community is starting to look at this and they are turning on you.
[Response: In your dreams.]
I really do think that the bloggers here have the best of intentions. But sometimes even people with the best of intentions go down the wrong path.
Best of luck and I sincerely mean that. I think you are going to need it.
[Response: Thanks but I’ll take evidence over luck any day, “Reasonable” Observer. But good luck to you.–Jim]
307 Ken W,
Sonja was an pioneer in social science analysis of climate change, now retired. That she was a pioneer explains why she is well-known (it appears she has written less than I thought, but she have a couple of well cited papers and many not so well cited). Her interest was in the interface of science and politics of climate change, also energy and environmental politics. She is basically doing political interest analysis, where interests in part is an theoretical premise. Here is a few relevant papers:
Boehmer-Christiansen, S. (1994): Global climate protection policy: The limits of scientific advice, Part 1 and 2. Global Environmental Change
Boehmer-Christiansen, S. (1997) A winning coalition of advocacy: climate research, bureaucracy and “alternative” fuels: Who is driving climate change policy? Energy policy
She takes an anti-environmentalism and sceptic stance. Her sceptical position follows a dubious contrarian logic: she seems to argue that sceptics are right because many are believers, i.e. the antithesis of concencus science. This becomes problematic since her scepticism also embrace the physical basis. I therefore ignore this part of her personal beliefs and values and concentrate on her more valuable contribution that interests do have a role and that she have some theory and empirical support for that. Her statement (empirically based) that energy politics determines climate politics is reasonable. Her critique that climate science contain many hidden values that should be explicit is also reasonable empirical statement and moral critique.
Regarding the assertion: “Scientists were not asked test this as a scientific hypothesis but were asked to assume it in order to justify a major international policy”.
How do one prove a statement like that? And more important, how should one interpret the statement? I interpret it this way: many politician and also scientists had already made up their mind, they believed in climate change and wanted policy. The IPCC etc was set up to promote policy and many researcher had a climate believer bias. This is fair I think. I do not interpret the statement as assertion of bad science per se or that they do not search for truth and test hypothesis. It is an assertion of bias and momentun in the co-production of policy by science and politics.
Irrespective of this, I do not think you can find the proof you want, or rather don’t want. The assertion is abstract and general and based on interpreting the whole situation and it assumes different kinds of interests among the actors. However, I do think the climate scientists here interpret it too narrow, basically as an accusation of bad science, as you also do. Sonjas interest is in the broader picture and more in the societal function of climate research, how is function to legitimate policy, not in whether climate research per se is of high quality. As always in this discussion, much confusion arise from the different professional interests and ways of thinking between disciplines.
This paper makes a stronger case for the role of financial issues for climate research, and how climate researchers jumped the environmental issue in part to gain money when US military wanted to pay less:
Scientific Elites and the Making of US Policy for Climate Change Research, 1957-74 (Hart and Victor 1993)
ClimateCurious says: 26 February 2010 at 9:05 PM
“I think they’re just not used to someone coming from the outside saying, “You know what? It’s time that normal Joe six-pack American is finally represented in the position of Vice Presidency,” and I think that that’s kind of taken some people off guard, and they’re out of sorts, and they’re ticked off about it.”
–Sarah Palin
Besides, if you’ve got a graduate degree from Berkeley, bad news: you’re part of the “clique.” That’s what Sarah thinks, anyway.
I read a number of blogs and this phrase shows up here far more than any other place.
A quick search of this thread shows that the only reference to “joe six pack” here is yours. A search of the whole web-site returns a dozen or two “joe six pack” hits in the comments (and none in any of the articles). Given that this web site has been on line for 5 and 1/2 years and has had nearly 11 million visitors, you really have to work hard to find “joe sixpack” references here without using the search engine.
And as for the term “joe sixpack”? I’ll wear that label with pride. I am not above wallowing in a six-pack of beer from time to time.
That being said, if you have really come here to learn about climate science, your time would be much better spent reading the articles than the comments.
More to CLimateCurious …..
I always find it interesting when someone admittedly new to a site comes in finger waving ….
It took me a while to find where anyone here used Joe six-pack as it is not the usual languaging found here…..
way up there I found it
“Models are a big part of the problem today. The global models don’t have enough resolution to get down to joe 6-pack’s regional level. Result is that “global temperature”, a statistical concept as the warmers do it, doesn’t swing with him/her.”
This was written by John Peter …. and you’re thinking John Peter’s post is somehow reflective of the general opinions at RealClimate??? Really, that’s what you got out his your reading here so far? Oh dear!
268 CM,
Thanks for explaining the allusion. But I think you and most others are partly mistaken of Sonjas assertion and that this is due to your strong focus on the science. What Sonja basically are saying is that she do not like that scientists legitimate climate policy since she is opposed to climate policy due to her political stance. She is simply opposed to environmental politics. Since she believes that science can not be separated from scientists or from politics, she discuss all this at once. Ad hominem is not fully applicabe given this perspective, since what is of interest to Sonja is the political outcome, not what is true. You have different views on what science is and of what is important.
Good find, Frank (#343). Tajinder Panesor is indeed the author on the pdf file. I would guess the majority of their members would be strongly opposed to the various statements and vague innuendo being put forth in that statement. I would encourage members to push towards making it certain the views expressed are those of the authors only.
Climate Curious, I believe that most of the folks that use “Joe Sixpack” are referring to themselves and people like them.
You say: “This “Joe Six-Pack” has a graduate degree from Berkeley, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and is female. ”
According to The Daily Show, that would make you a “Jane Winebox”.
The IOP “submission” really doesn’t ring true–rather like the APS Physics and Society end around from a couple of years ago. The really odd thing is that there is no reference to physics in it, just denialist talking points. It would be quite surprising if it had the imprimatur if the full IOP.
Andreas et al ….. re Sonja
aiming off for her sceptic pov, I thought her views, in her parliamentary submission especially, worthy of consideration. They have a perspective that is interesting, wherever you stand on the science and likely policy response.
“I would encourage members to push towards making it certain the views expressed are those of the authors only”
Live by consensus…die by consensus.
You can’t have it both ways.
Ray Ladbury says: 26 February 2010 at 10:27 PM
The IOP submission will blow up into a festival of backbiting within a few days, that’s my bet.
Ken@307 & Andreas@352 – You might try getting a fix on Sonja right from the horses mouth, so to speak – doesn’t sound like someone who’s logic is only a little “dubious”, sounds to me like someone with a very clear political agenda who feels she’s the expert on anything to do with climate AND politics.
““Scientists were not asked [to] test this as a scientific hypothesis but were asked to assume it in order to justify a major international policy”.
How do one prove a statement like that? And more important, how should one interpret the statement?”
One should interpret it exactly as stated, with respect to who she’s stating it of, the CRU scientists and the UK govt – should be pretty easy for her to prove [and you to ask rather than “interpret”], all she has to do is lay out the government mandate she claims exists.
Judging by the “official” timeline of CRU history compared to her own, I’d guess she’s confusing the Hadley Centre’s founding mandate? I don’t find any “clearly stated objective that it must support a decarbonisation agenda” [not really an “abstract” statement, Andreas], but then I suppose she’d be able to elaborate on the politics of it all.
Something along these lines should suffice…
“All articles and editorials published in the newsletter solely represent the views of their authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Forum Executive Committee.”
http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/monckton.cfm
[Response: Not in the slightest. The point was that the whole calculation should be ‘audited’ from the raw data that was available to everyone. – gavin]
No. Not necessarily. I work for a fisheries agency and have had my work audited by the government auditor-general’s office after complaints from industry about our modelling results and the management implications for the industry concerned.
What they audited was the procedure and methodology employed to get our results. They only wished to know where the raw data were and how it was incorporated in the modelling. They did not try to replicate our results from first principles and nor should they have to.
In the end they verified our procedure and we passed the audit with flying colours. This is not a dissimilar process to that which McIntyre uses.
[Response: Hardly. – gavin]
Why no libel suit against this character?
I hope it’s not too off-topic (journalists == bloggers these days…), but I think you may be able to apply your pattern-recognition skills to this blog:
http://faultline.org/index.php/site/item/incendiary
Do you this this applies to anything you’ve seen?
[Response: Oh indeed! – gavin]
Emails: Encryption should be standard and universal as it is in the US DOD, and I guess, the whole US government. Is this correct? Before I retired, I noticed that all of the documents in the computer on my desk at work were encrypted without effort on my part.
They hacked UEA because the UEA server was undefended or not well enough defended. I hope UEA and other universities have changed their policy. Everything in your server should be encrypted. Am I correct in thinking that if they had tried to hack/crack any US government computer, they would be in trouble with nothing to show for their effort?
Are the servers at Your university defended against crackers/hackers? Is the RealClimate server defended? It must be, or surely it would have been attacked.
[Response: It has been. – gavin]
Ray Ladbury #360: I would love to see the professor who wrote this IOP hit piece cross-examined to cut him down to size. He obviously didn’t even read the emails — or do any other due diligence, instead relying on second-hand sources before joining the mob. Sigh.
Bob Close: We the public need to see the smoking gun re CO2, and in my opinion you have not done that yet.
BPL: Then you can’t have been following the professional literature.
BC: I believe you have shown human civilization induced GHG’s are a factor as are sulphate aerosols but do they far outweigh natural climate pattern effects such as El Niño, volcanic eruptions and solar changes?- I strongly doubt it.
BPL: Look again:
http://BartonPaulLevenson.com/Sun.html
Pay special attention to the multiple regression at the bottom.
voteno (252): there is plenty of science in WUWT
BPL: Right, but it’s all of the cryptozoology, Face on Mars, aliens-built-the-pyramids variety.
sidd (234)
You are absolutely right, I went through the same pain. I hung in, got my degree and went to work for a large corporation because they paid more than the schools. In school I had a fellowship that barely paid tuition and room – I took a job as a waiter for just meals, NO pay, not even tips. And yes, we worked 70+ hours which made our “hourly rates even lower. Student’s wives, I had none then, worked for exactly minimum wage (kept the school out of trouble with the government.
Government or industry scientists today probably make at least $30/hour. I don’t know what PIs and assistants make, but I would guess more than $50/hour or more for the time they spend on the contracts. That what I meant as a comparison for the $10/hour.
Love independent consulting, good luck.
Allen C (270): So far actual observation isn’t strongly correlated with the forecasts. That isn’t to say that in time this correlation might strengthen.
BPL: Please read:
http://BartonPaulLevenson.com/Correlation.html
CFU 256
Thanks for the compliment, much better than your usual…
Ray Ladbury post 360
The IOP submission was signed off by Professor Peter Main, the Director of Education and Science:
http://www.iop.org/activity/policy/Consultations/Energy_and_Environment/file_39010.pdf
It “was prepared with input from the Institute’s Science Board, and its Energy Sub-group”
The Science committee members are listed at:
http://www.iop.org/aboutus/Governance/Science_Board/page_21340.html
The Vice-president of the Committee is Prof Denis Weaire FRS
Members of the Committee include:
Prof Ian Halliday FRS Edinburgh
Prof Douglas Paul
Prof Chris Sachrajda FRS
Prof Robin Nicholas
Prof William Gelletly
These are no intellectual lightweights.
ClimateCurious (351): The “Joe Six-Pack” meme was brought in here by denier posters. Go back and look. And keep your accusations to yourself until you’ve looked into an issue.
“BPL: Look again:
http://BartonPaulLevenson.com/Sun.html
Pay special attention to the multiple regression at the bottom.”
Citation of BPL : “And if we don’t do something to control our output of that greenhouse gas, we’re going to be in serious trouble.”
Can you equally justify this assertion by a correlation between any global indicator of “trouble” and CO2 concentration (or temperature)?
The IOP
It seems that a slight Anglo-American split is opening up on RC. The IOP is comparable with the American version. The coverage of the UK version is better for some disciplines (see e.g http://www.iop.org/EJ/toc/-ff30=7 to get some free examples), worse for others, such as the history of science; (its a pity that the IOP has not posted Spencer Weart’s History of Global Warming on its web site).
But I had not heard of that letter, or for that matter of the Scottish businss friendly tributary. That probably applies to most other people in the IOP. Letters like that are not peer reviewed. Perhaps the authors have spent too much time reading the UK newspapers and not enough time reading Realclimate and the papers it mentions?
I think that we should be more concerned about the enquiry being organised by the admin. people at the UEA. How well have those concerned been informed? I don’t like the way that the science and maths and statistics are being hived off to be discussed (or not?) as an after thought. Is it not relevant whether a paper which has been rejected contains trivial errors? Will the enquirers have read Ben Santer’s Appendix A mentioned in the lead article?
Andreas (#357),
if someone dislikes scientists legitimating climate policy because one is politically opposed to that policy, that’s fair enough.
She can challenge the scientists if they go beyond what their findings support, or if she suspects an actual bias in the findings, she can try to prove them wrong. (Of course, identifying the ideological views of a researcher is not the same as proving a bias in the results. That takes more work and skills.)
If so (and you know her work better than I), well, that’s where she entirely parts company with scholars and scientists. Wouldn’t you say?
#349, Joel you are hitting on the heart of the matter. There is the issue of:
RELIABILITY — do you get consistent answers using your method (but the method could be wrong, the speed detector out of kilter);
there is the idea of PRECISION (telling one’s exact age, say “39,” rather than age range — but if a woman is lying it doesn’t really help); and
there is the much more important issue of VALIDITY of does the science reveal the reality of what’s happening in the real world — which is why I trust the RealScientists here at RealClimate (who consider current data, laws of physics (and other fields), models, and paleoclimate data and studies) over Rush Limbaugh, weathermen, news journalists, Joe Blow on the streets, and statisticians.
The Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Royal Statistical Society are three of the principal bodies representing scientists in the UK. They have made many common points, and they all seem to be highly critical of those who with-hold data, methods or results. If the professional bodies of physicists, chemists and statisticians are prepared to take a clear view, it will be interesting to see how that compares with an assertion on realclimate that their views should be dismissed. I am sure that the politicians can form their own view.
This is the opening salvo from the IOP
1. The Institute is concerned that, unless the disclosed e-mails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research in this field and for the credibility of the scientific method as practised in this context.
2. The CRU e-mails as published on the internet provide prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law.
[Response: ‘Prima facie’ does not imply guilt, merely that there is a case to be made (and defended). It is the same as saying ‘well if things look as bad as they seem on it face, that would be bad’. But it isn’t a proof that something bad has happened. The wikipedia article is pretty good on this. I find the IOP submission remarkably lacking in specifics. – gavin]
I have been directed to this blog as a place to find the truth as to what we should expect to occur with the climate over both the short, intermediate and long term.
My reasons being that in considering the optimum in sustainable construction, I hold the view that to minimise resource depletion, we should design for the long term.
My question is a simple one, what shift in climate should we expect over the coming year, decade and century?
Thanks
> IOP … principal bodies representing scientists in the UK
_”representing”_ how? It’s a private publishing company program, if its own website is to be believed!
What kind of “representing” do they do, or claim to do, and where and how?
All submissions to the curent CRU investigation into the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee can be found at:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/contents.htm
Oh, good grief. It appears to be mostly a business lobbying organization that gives awards to businesses.
Media Information 2007
*Member of the Institute of Physics’ Business Affiliates Network. If your company is interested in becoming a Business Affiliate, contact …
images.iop.org/dl/physicsweb/PWMP2007.pdf –
#
News & Events – Starpoint Adaptive Optics becomes a Business Affiliate of the Institute of Physics. The IoP’s Business Affiliates Network brings together organisations of all sectors that engage …
#
… Membership of the Institute of Physics is open to all who have an interest in physics …
http://www.plasma.org/Conferences/Conference…/event_10726.html
http://www.starpointao.com/StarpointNews.html
Sounds like the Chamber of Commerce in the US. “Representative” not.
Well, Wikipedia makes them sound far more like a professional organization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Physics
(but who wrote that?)
Their own website makes them sound far more like a business lobbying group, proposing for the 2010 elections http://www.iop.org/aboutus/file_39015.pdf
” an integrated model for funding and managing research in national priorities such as climate change. Consideration should be given to addressing the grand societal challenges through focused programmes, directed by relevant government departments and appropriately resourced to achieve practical solutions on realistic timescales”
and
“… We ask for:
• • •
•
• • •
an expanded R&D tax credit scheme to keep the UK ahead of European competitors;
enhanced support for collaboration and people exchange between universities and industry;
… directing a fixed proportion of public expenditure to foster science-based businesses and support innovative solutions;
… provision of long-term investment in start-ups through a large-scale science-focused venture capital fund…..”
Well, who could argue with any of that, eh?
Andreas,
The fact that Sonja operates E&E as a clearinghouse for substandard papers that support her ideology makes everything she says or has ever said suspect in my eyes. If she told me it was sunny outside, I’d reach for my umbrella. Moreover, her sociological analyses of “science” are utterly unrecognizable to anyone who actually does science. I am very much reminded of the sorts of patronizing studies done on so-called “primitive tribes” by anthropologists and sociologists who didn’t speak the language, and didn’t deign to try and communicate for fear it would spoil their “objectivity”. The net amount that Sonja has added to the sum of human knowledge is negative.
As to the problems of democracy, well we have a problem. Democracy presumes that the “demos” are competent to judge what is in their own best interest. That in turn presumes that they can distinguish a sincere politician from a charlatan who tells them what they want to hear while fleecing them.
The founding fathers of American democracy realized that this was a system of government that made demands of its citizens. Ben Franklin was asked by a woman during the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia what sort of government they had given the people, “A democracy, Madam,” Franklin replied, “if you can keep it.” Franklin had severe doubts whether we could keep it, speculating that the new nation would enjoy democracy for perhaps a decade before the people became to lax in their responsibilities and government became despotic.
If the people have reached a point where they are incapable of telling real science from anti-science on issues of critical societal importance, then we have reached a point where democracy will fail. Indeed we have reached a point where H. L. Mencken’s view of democracy is realized:
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”–H. L. Mencken
It really is not as if it is that hard to tell where the science is–just look at the people who are publishing regularly on the subject and take the consensus of those experts. Alternatively, one can come to educational resources like Realclimate and learn the science. If people are too lazy to do that, it is difficult to see how democracy can succeed or indeed how civilization can endure.
Gilles asks: “Can you equally justify this assertion by a correlation between any global indicator of “trouble” and CO2 concentration (or temperature)?”
Well, there is this well known correlation:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=267352
http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/3689
Temperature correlates negatively with GDP.
Pssst…Ray, Franklin reportedly said, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” There was a mistrust of the “demos” and our founding fathers wanted us to choose the most enlightened among us to make our laws. Then there’s Inhofe…
Ah, Nature’s blog may coincidentally reveal why the IOP is advocating that their government take over climate change research and guide it to “practical solutions on realistic timescales” — that would be just in time to cut the funding for the actual research.
Coincidence?
A pertinent heads-up from Olive Heffernan at ClimateFeedback:
“… Right now, HADGEM2-ES is gearing up for a major challenge. Over the coming months, it will run a series of climate simulations out to the year 2100 for the next report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), on the physical-science basis of climate change, due out in 2013.
The scientists – such as Jones – who have developed HADGEM2-ES hope that by representing the earth system in greater complexity they will be to simulate the present-day climate with greater realism. This should, in theory, lead to more realistic projections for the future, but many of the climate modellers I spoke to were keen to point out that simulating the climate with more complex models may well lead to greater uncertainty about what the future holds. That’s because including sources of large feedbacks – such as forests that can expand or die or tundra that can release vast amounts of methane – adds a whole new suite of factors to which the climate can respond.
So, it’s quite likely that the next IPCC report will have much larger error bars on its estimates of future temperature or precipitation, compared with AR4. Climatologist Jim Hurrell of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, who is heading up development of the NCAR Earth-system model, had this to say:
“It’s very likely that the generation of models that will be assessed for the next IPCC report will have a wider spread of possible climate outcomes as we move into the future”.
So why include more complexity in the model, if it will produce results that are less useful for decision-making? Here, it’s worth remembering that for climatologists, models are not just tools that can give a glimpse of what the future holds; they are also an experimental playground – a replica world on which they can test their knowledge of the climate system. Without the ability to conduct global-scale experiments in the lab or in the field, models are the only tools they have. So while the results from more complex models may, in the short-term, be less informative for policy makers and the public, they will help scientists better understand what drives climate change and lead to better simulations in the long-term.”
http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2010/02/the_climate_machine_1.html#more
—-
Not what the IOP wants, eh?
Richard Thomas CBE, ex-information commissioner (my emph):
Hmmm, that’s interesting. And surprising to me at least. The request by David Holland was for the IPCC correspondence on Chapter 6 IIRC… which later FOI practice found to fall under the confidentiality exemption. So, the deletion order was perhaps ill-considered but not even necessarily illegal. And unnecessary :-(
Comments from British law cognoscenti?
@348, Lynn Vincentnathan, CNN eliminated its entire science team in December 2008. See http://www.sej.org/publications/watchdog-tipsheet/cnn-weather-channel-axe-environmental-units
FYI, a podcast of an excellent interview with Dr. Michael Mann has just been posted at: http://cdn3.libsyn.com/pointofinquiry/POI_2010_02_26_Michael_Mann.mp3
Dr. Mann is definitely not pulling any punches!
Right – if you don’t like what the IOP has to say…..attack the IOP! I suggest a more fruitful response would be for those involved in this (however peripherally) to step outside themselves and see how this looks to uninvolved parties. The answer is that the entire picture looks as if the “mistakes”, or “errors in judgment”, or “unfortunate e-mails”, or “data problems”, or “upside down proxies”, or “statistical tricks: are **all** stacked one way in terms of the impact on the interpretation of the science. This is the “prima facie” case that there is a deeply ingrained bias in the climate science community. It was a probabilistic and circumstantial case before the e-mails were released and the IPCC report errors were found. Now in the opinion of many observers, it no longer is. The laundry now has to be washed, and it looks like it’s well on it’s way to happening. I think that the center will not hold in the climate science community after this process is completed.
David (383):
Actually, your question is quite complicated :)
Try starting with the IPCC summary.
Avatar, #395:
1) “The entire picture looks as if…” The picture you are looking at was painted by one group of people, with an agenda, so you are only seeing one side of the issue (and a grossly distorted and misrepresented side). You aren’t bothering to look anywhere else. The fact that you and others trust this distorted image without question is the real problem.
2) “… the IPCC report errors…” Error, not errors. One error was found in the IPCC report. One.
3) “… the climate science community…” I am not directly involved, so this is purely hypothetical on my part but… What exactly is the climate science community? Are they some cohesive group, with weekly meetings and a secret handshake? There’s an image that is conjured by that phrase, with a lot of connotations and implications, which I suspect are very, very misplaced and ill-founded. It would be like saying “the truck driver’s community” or “the grocer’s community.” I think you are imagining more cohesion and single minded direction than there ever could be in a cross section of scientists of different ages, geographical locations, languages, nationalities, educational and economic backgrounds and fields of expertise. I’m not the right person to say, though. A lot of others here would know better.
From http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/ICOcorrespondence (emphasis added if the html tags work as intended)
Any assertion that the University has been found in breach of any part the Freedom of Information Act is incorrect. The ICO had not communicated with the University before issuing the statement and has still not completed any investigations into this matter. Media reports have been inaccurate.
…..
… that the FOI request at issue did not concern raw data but private email exchanges.
Quoting Ben Santer:
Fact 4: I did not want to submit our paper to the International Journal of Climatology if there was a possibility that our submission would be regarded as a mere “comment” on Douglass et al. Under this scenario, Douglass et al. would have received the last word. Given the extraordinary claims they had made, I thought it unlikely that their “last word” would have acknowledged the serious statistical error in their original paper. As subsequent events showed, I was right to be concerned – they have not admitted any error in their work.
/quote
What was this ‘serious statistical error’?
Avatar says, “The answer is that the entire picture looks as if the “mistakes”, or “errors in judgment”, or “unfortunate e-mails”, or “data problems”, or “upside down proxies”, or “statistical tricks: are **all** stacked one way in terms of the impact on the interpretation of the science. ”
And yet, the denialists cannot point to a single result that was corrupted or is not confirmed by other independent analyses or datasets–including some done by “skeptic” scientists, themselves. I wonder why this is.
We know why you want to focus on personal attacks. It is because you have no evidence of your own. It is much easier to focus on personal foibles and frailties. And yet science has been delivering reliable knowledge of the physical world of 400 years while practiced by just such frail human beings.
Science: It works. Try it sometime.