demagogue on 2/12/2009 at 05:57
Quote Posted by zombe
Or do you actually understand at all how Science works?
QFT.
Science is a peer discipline. That means every claim gets peer reviewed, challenged, and backed up countless times ... the greater the claim, the greater the peer scrutiny. Climate change is a monumental set of claims, so has to withstand monumental scrutiny. And all the IPCC reports documenting it are fucking scientific CONSENSUS reports!
con·sen·sus \kən-ˈsen(t)-səs\ (noun) Etymology: Latin, from consentire. General agreement; unanimity of opinion.
Forget East Anglia. You have to cook up quite a conspiracy spoof that accounts for 1000s of scientists across 100s of academic departments in dozens of countries publishing consensus reports not just on the reality of climate change, but enumerating the predicted outcome for decades to come with quite a small margin of dispute and uncertainty, and then all of them signing off on it.
Edit: Seriously, why am I even bothering here?? :rolleyes:
Muzman on 2/12/2009 at 06:33
Yeah, I also didn't catch how this invalidates all aspects of the theory and the science of climatology. He wants outrage, the smoking gun has been found! Sadly it's not a smoking gun; there's no gun, there's no bullet hole, there was no bang. It remains to be seen if its even smoke.
Quote Posted by CCCToad
This is one I'm following with some interest. To me, though, the global warming aspects of this are less interesting (this doesn't settle anything either way) as the scientific aspects. Specifically, the hopelessly stupid idea that anything published "by real scientists" is true and should not be questioned has been blown out of the water. Hell, their work was even peer reviewed and a primary source for the UN and it turned out to be largely fabricated or unreliable (for example, a tree ring study with a sample size of three).
Believe it or not, scientists often do have agendas, fudge their work to show what people want to hear, or give the results that the people paying their bills want. Its why you should question studies from a tobacco company that show no statistically significant harm from smoking.
There's a real element of "give me six lines of the most honourable man and I'll find you something to hang him with" about all this. Give a thousand lines of someone maybe less honourable and they pretty much hang themselves. I think you could do this to any organisation and terribly controversial things (to the public eye) would be found.
All the same it's not unreasonable to hold these folks to a higher standard. Scientists spend a lot of time trying to simplify things to explain them to people who have no idea what they're talking about though. In that sense pretty much all science is "fudged" and "manipulated" by the time we all hear about it. Sooner or later you have to trust that someone is trying to give you the correct and, more importantly, relevant impression of their knowledge. Denialists and arch doubters would try and paint that goal as a bias every time it doesn't give the answer they want. Science is mired in politics and PR like everything else; they want to give a take home message that's specific to an audience too. And there's hubris and corner cutting surely in the mix.
I'm going to bet that most of what is supposedly controversial in those emails falls into the above. Heads are probably going to roll for incompetence and laziness that gets found. Reps will be destroyed, papers will be pulled and checked etc, but I suspect not much will change (I'm not to sure why the station data can't just be re gathered. Sure it's annoying but it's not altogether gone, surely. I need to check more). Most sensible people who look at it all see some poor form but nothing amounting to a world wide hoax. The public impression will take the biggest hit though and most people won't even know why. The denialists call for greater transparency, which is fair enough if the thing is a earth shaking as its said to be. But you do have to wince at the thought of every crank with a calculator telling us what the data really says (which they can actually do already with an awful lot of stuff that's public).
Fragony on 2/12/2009 at 07:48
Quote Posted by zombe
uh ... wait ... what !? Tell where or stuff it!
Btw. You do realize the insignificance of what UEA did or did not do? Or do you actually understand at all how Science works?
Oh in capital for extra effect. It's right in your face but your religion won't allow it to enter, do you think the US and UK congress are picking this up for no reason? Now if anyone could actually be so kind to dispute me, all is fine and dandy and we are all going to die.
So, again, 10 years of stable temperatures, increase of CO2, oh and extra taxes. It is normal to be rediculed if you don't pray with the masses, but you can't just decide the earth is warming up it has to happen before it's real.
zombe on 2/12/2009 at 08:28
Quote Posted by Muzman
I'm not to sure why the station data can't just be re gathered. Sure it's annoying but it's not altogether gone, surely. I need to check more.
I belive you will find the following of use:
*CRU data accessibility: (
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack-context/comment-page-14/#comment-144845)
*CRU destroying data: no idea where that did come from. My suspicion is that it was made up by (intentionally or not) not understanding English and misreporting the following
Quote Posted by CRU website
Data storage availability in the 1980s meant that we were not able to keep the multiple sources for some sites, only the station series after adjustment for homogeneity issues. We, therefore, do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (i.e. quality controlled and homogenized) data.
"do not hold" != "destroyed"
... so, yeah, anyone can regather them (which is of course not easy as stated).
Quote Posted by Fragony
Random garbage no one asked for.
???
Fragony on 2/12/2009 at 08:30
Realclimate LOL, why don't you put your google kung-fu to the test
oh ffs, ok, you are going to die, CO2 is going to kill you, live with it.
amen
Namdrol on 2/12/2009 at 09:17
Fragony yes we are going to die, what's that got to do with the price of fish?
We are an organic life form with a limited life span.
The planet on which we live goes through periodic climate shifts, this is undeniable.
What causes these shifts?
Earth is a closed system (well apart from space debris, but that can also be regarded as a variable within this system)
Within any system the principle method of maintaining an equilibrium is a feedback loop. And to deny human influence upon these feedback loops is bad science.
We do not hover above these systems like a computer gamer controlling an avatar, we are down and dirty, fully involved.
Let me quote, from wikipedia, a description of how feed back loops work -
Quote:
In bio systems such as organisms, ecosystems, or the biosphere, most parameters must stay under control within a narrow range around a certain optimal level under certain environmental conditions. The deviation of the optimal value of the controlled parameter can result from the changes in internal and external environments. A change of some of the environmental conditions may also require change of that range to change for the system to function. The value of the parameter to maintain is recorded by a reception system and conveyed to a regulation module via an information channel.
Biological systems contain many types of regulatory circuits, both positive and negative. As in other contexts, positive and negative don't imply consequences of the feedback have good or bad final effect. A negative feedback loop is one that tends to slow down a process, while the positive feedback loop tends to accelerate it. The mirror neurons are part of a social feedback system, when an observed action is ´mirrored´ by the brain - like a self performed action.
Now lets take a very simple example which you probably know, rats.
Rat populations rise and fall.
Lets us assume a food supply slightly greater than what is needed to provide full nutrition for an average rat population.
So the little bastards will be healthy, eat like mad and breed.
Rats breed very fast and with in a short time the population will have exceeded the food supply, so they'll die off and the population will fall leading to an excess of food, and so it goes on.
Do you see what I'm getting at?
Or have I got to explain every stage and link it to equivalent human activity?
What most disturbs me most about climate change deniers is that they seem to be denying the fact that human actions have an influence upon this planet.
(BTW, my background is as an ex-junkie shuttering carpenter but I did a masters in environmental architecture which I didn't finish, as I went on retreat for 4 years and I spent my teens (20 years ago) obsessing about ice ages and climate change after reading Big Bang comics, Russell, The Saga of a Peaceful Man)
Fragony on 2/12/2009 at 09:34
Not saying we can't influence our enviroments, we can pollute our planet, but we can't change it's climate. It's not possible.
Namdrol on 2/12/2009 at 09:37
Wow, just wow.
The holy untouchable climate, immutable, unchanging, all knowing, ever present, in your presence we offer bended knee.
Fragony on 2/12/2009 at 09:41
Quote Posted by Namdrol
Wow, just wow.
The holy untouchable climate, immutable, unchanging, all knowing, ever present, in your presence we offer bended knee.
Well yeah, I live in Amersfoort, we have very big rocks here everywhere, they come from Norway last ice-age brought them here, what are you going to do about that, light a fire?
zombe on 2/12/2009 at 09:59
Quote Posted by Fragony
Realclimate LOL, why don't you put your google kung-fu to the test
If you had a point to make i hereby have to regretfully inform you that you unfortunately forgot to do so.
Quote Posted by Fragony
Not saying we can't influence our enviroments, we can pollute our planet, but we can't change it's climate. It's not possible.
The "smoking gun" - that we can: (
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter9.pdf) figure 9.12.
