Kellow was more negative and damning than George Monbiot ever would have been. I had the feeling he didn’t have a good grasp of climate science, which didn’t stop him from making some calls only a climate scientist should have made. Kellow, you see, is a social scientist, albeit with a specialty in science policy.

Brendo @ 129, you did well. To be frank, I just saw McIntyre’s ‘correction’ which looked pretty wild compared with all the serious efforts and left it at that.

I followed your links and ended up in Siberia trying to figure out trees rings. Steve Mcintyre claims Briffa created a hockey stick graph (pointing to GW) out of too small a data set tree-ring sample chronology:

http://dotsub.com/view/19f9c335-b023-4a40-9453-a98477314bf2

Then Briffa replies, and it seems Mcintyre got nearly everything the arsed way around.
http://deepclimate.org/2009/10/30/briffa-teaches-but-will-mcintyre-ever-learn/

The funniest bit is, where in order to prove the hockey stick graph wrong, Mcintyre gets his own data and comes up with a graph that has temperatures actually dropping in the 20th century. Instead of saying: “Hang on??!! Oops. I think I stuffed up here!”, he points to this as proof(!) the hockey stick graph is all wrong. Apparently I didn’t I miss anything by not going to uni.

On the other hand the absolute feeding frenzy of the denialosphere is something to behold, and much of it utterly dishonest. An example: one of the stolen files (osborn-tree6/briffa_sep98_d.pro) contains a program for generating a graph with the following juicy lines:

;
; Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!
;
yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,- 0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,$
2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
if n_elements(yrloc) ne n_elements(valadj) then message,?Oooops!?
;
yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,timey)

This is conveniently snipped at this point. The rest of the file shows very clearly that THIS CALCULATION IS NEVER USED. Here is the only place where it could have been used:

;filter_cru,5.,/nan,tsin=yyy+yearlyadj,tslow=tslow

Note the “;” at the start of the line, which turns the rest of the line into a comment, i.e., for those who aren’t programmers, it’s ignored when the program runs.

The fact that I first encountered this very dishonest snippet on the web site of a person very well known in the programming world (http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1447) makes it rather hard to believe that the dishonesty was not deliberate.

On that graph you will also notice red data and black dots. The red dots are from land stations and the black satellite data, another check to show that they are on track.

Much is often made of the problems of heat islands and the changed conditions of many land stations in the US in particular. This is one of the reasons why the data is normalised. I recently read that a plot of the temperatures using the subset of the “good” stations gave a graph which was virtually identical to the graph from the whole set. The “crook” stations are necessary because they show changes at that site and enable scientists to connect all the dots in producing a graph of temperature anomalies.

Taking a broader view of the period of the instrumental record, all four graphs look something like this. This graph is much more important than the old “hockey stick”, which uses proxies and is a northern hemisphere (if that) measure.

Much of the heat, I gather, relates to how Mann and Jones patched the link between the proxy record and the instrumental record to make a graph that visually made sense. I gather the “gotcha” email goes back to the original exercise in 1998.

Mann and co have been criticised for the statistical methods they used way back then, and in my not totally informed view it seems as though some of this criticism was justified. But Mann and co have since had another go, and so have others. And guess what, they’ve come up with results that look remarkably like a hockey stick. Have a look at Skeptical science:

Sceptics say that IPCC AR4 dropped the hockey stick. My memory is that they did, but replaced it with a graph that looked more like an ice pick.

See also the Monash site:

Probably false, but irrelevant anyway.

“False”, please note, refers to the statement “It was warmer during medieval times”.

Which is pretty much what I think about it. And raking over what might have been said back in 1998, however it reflects on the personalities of the actors, doesn’t have much to do with our understanding of the science.

I genuinely believe in rigorous debate to come to improve science as life in general. There is some truth in your statement of “gloating comments”. However, you will find there is also a large percentage of comments in there, which are clearly either trolling or peddling unsubstantiated and uninformed claims cut and pasted from non science websites clouding this debate. What ever the motive or maturity of these posters are aside, but it places ‘skeptics’ such as you into a unenviable position.

While you maybe disappointed in the level of scientific knowledge and understanding on this blog, where do you suggest is there a higher level of integrity in the debate of science on this highly complex and emotive as well as political issue? Further, I may point out that comments, such as yours re hard science are colloquial and do not contribute well to improve science. They remind me of refectory arguments of old times with members of certain faculties, where I had to defend my ‘science’ by pointing out that as a undergrad I do same if not more subjects in stats, research methodology and ethics and my first written assignment was a lab report of an experiment done in lecture. The rigor of approach and method in science is the badge I wear not level or faculty it was attained in.

This is where the argument ought to be. First and foremost, validity and reliability of research, adherence to established research methods and statistical procedures as well as individual and institutional integrity. I would argue that in this debate integrity is the central issue. As it has been pointed out, if we cant trust the old scientific establishments and peer review, what can we trust in? There is always the danger of lets say theoretical as well as commercial bias. If we cant trust climate science how about genetic engineering, materials health and safety, medical science et al. Of course we have to be critical as well as sceptical in assessing any scientific endeavor.

So how do we keep science honest. While FOIs have a place, I would argue that we have not had the debate about the usefulness of such vehicles to improve transparency and integrity of science. (I am more concerned about the security of scientific data and the precedent this ‘breach’ has set.) As for the integrity of ‘ironic and playful’..’climate nerds’ and their antics, well we have to trust the integrity of their supervisors and institute they work for. It certainly does not look good. However, I do remember as a young professional ‘hotshot’ my social skills were not exactly on par with my technical and commercial abilities and skills. Live experience and hindsight are extremely effective in that regard. Integrity is an invaluable bench mark to assess the various characters and scientific information available and I have to say, there is no debate about which camp is more credible.

The same I would argue for this blog site, aside of some personal indulgences and ignorance to which I am the first to confess. I would agree with you on the gloating aspect, which could include the name of the thread. But Brian has so far made a serious attempt to stay above the fray and encourage a broader debate. As this is a non moderated log, literally everyone can stand on her/his soap box here and some times it shows. It is to Brians and contributors credit that debate has not degraded to the level of MSM blogs and talk back shows. If you really want to see no understanding and knowledge in science, perhaps you should sample some of these sites and try to argue your ‘hard science’ point there.

I do respect your input to ‘keep the bastards honest’. You may have to get a thicker skin and perhaps rely less on ‘hard’ science and more on the methods and integrity of science in this debate. Me thinks you’ll find a richer quarry all around.

Cheers Ootz

You’re clutching at straws and misrepresenting the work of the scientists involved while you do it.

Also my examples aren’t silly or patronising – you haven’t answered a single calibration example, and why not? You haven’t given any response to the point about non-climate effects on temperature readings, and you haven’t done so because you know that any attempt to do adjustments of the sort Brian described above will inevitably involve modelling. If you have a problem with modelling you’re just out of step with modern science.

Re the email scandal: Wouldn’t a control group to see if there was anything to the East Anglia email saga be other scientific bodies?

If the people at East Anglia were fudging the figures then it would show up with publications coming out of places like NASA. But it doesn’t. If NASA is right, then East Anglia can’t be making it up too. Not in any meanigful way.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?id=38818

If I was sharpish, I’m sorry, but it does try the patience when old chestnuts are repeatedly served up when the relevant information is readily available.

For most people round here, climate is mostly a battleground in tribal politics, and hardly at all an issue about science.

That’s because the basic science is settled. What is most germane is how we respond (the quality, ubiquity and quantity) and how soon. The apparent decomposition of the coalition over this issue threatens to clear the way not only for an effective mitigation scheme (if not to take to Copenhagen then certainly to the next election possibly in March 2010), but for new policies in other areas as well.