Steve Had a Little List
A list of the FOI requests received by the University of East Anglia about the CRU has been posted. Most of the Climate Audit fishing expedition were turned down, but there is one priceless one FOI 09-97 for which additional information was sought
I hereby make a EIR/FOI request in respect to any confidentiality agreements)restricting transmission of CRUTEM data to non-academics involing the following countries: [insert 5 or so countries that are different from ones already requested 1]It was clear that the requests were vexatious and they were turned down.
1. the date of any applicable confidentiality agreements;
2. the parties to such confidentiality agreement, including the full name of any organization;
3. a copy of the section of the confidentiality agreement that "prevents further transmission to non-academics".
4. a copy of the entire confidentiality agreement,
Eli also points to a comment from MinnieMouseJon
This is simply evident for any climatologist working, for instance, in Spain. I pay for the data (even for research) and every time I buy data I have to sign a contract stating that I can't disclose data to ANY third party. Neither for research nor for any other users of the third party. Well ... why doesn't McIntyre simply buy the data to the original owner instead of requesting it from CRU? (The national weather services are the owners...)Update: Bart Verheggen chimes in
I can't understand why this is so hard to understand.
Update: Amoeba has a request
Update: John Quiggen has a comment
Comments?
Posts
145 comments:
Haha! Talk about giving the game away. I guess this is what happens when you outsource jobs to Peanut Gallery Inc.
Pinkymouse
Hilarious.
You've become quite the prolific little bunny today, Eli.
It was that or shovel the snow off the roof.
What a fun little game. Are you allowed to FOI his philosophies on pride and honesty?
Marembo
Steve's obsession with FOIs should be the least of his worries right now:
http://www.desmogblog.com/plagiarism-conspiracies-felonies-breaking-out-wegman-file
MapleLeaf
The thread where all the eager self-styled auditors picked out which five countries to submit with their peppering of FOI requests is still, for now, visible on CA:
http://climateaudit.org/2009/07/24/cru-refuses-data-once-again/
They start these in reaction to the initial rejection of Steve's request for "all the data" based on some of it being covered by confidentiality agreements. Steve directs that they all work together to send in separate FOI requests for those confidentiality agreements themselves, five countries at a time. This starts on July 24, 2009, and they cover all 246 countries listed in ISO3166 two-letter country codes by July 27th.
There are 246 entries in ISO3166 as I find it on the web. That should have yielded around 50 requests. A few weeks later people posted saying they'd gotten replies, with case numbers like 09_94 and 09_103.
It was clear that the requests were vexatious and they were turned down.
What is harassing about asking to see a confidentiality agreement what East Anglia was hiding behind to avoid releasing data?
Maybe I'm not up on the timeline but this might have come after the "we lost the agreement in a move" excuse.
Many institutions limit access to their online information. Making this information available will be an asset to all.
Portraying legal and justified requests for information as vexatious just doesn't stack up.
The way they were dealt with at the time, and Jones' comments too, quite clearly show his mindset at that time.
Sadly, it's a scenario seen again and again in this field.
The 'elite' scientists cannot lower themselves to deal with the rabble.
Perhaps it's enjoyment of the conflict that motivates. Quite why a more harmonic relationship, such as in astronomy for example, where professionals and amateurs work happily together I find difficult to understand. The naked hostility found in climate science is very counter productive.
As stated ad nauseam, the scientific method demands that data and methods are available to others. That should be sacrosanct.
Hey Rabett, then why did Phil of CRU pass on this information to fellow mate Webster,information he was supposedly not to pass onto any third party.
As has been shown by SMc the confidentiality agreements Phil of CRU hid behind were bogus.
To slightly change Rabett's little minimouse friend- why has it been so hard for Phil of CRU to understand.
JohnS
ibjc: How many amateur astronomers are trying to convince people that professional astronomers are engaged in a conspiracy?
This fellow seems to have been a bright bunny about IPCC doc's... lots of carrots? Ya think?
http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/7798293?n=17
Gotta fly, Starling-bye-bye
Eli,
Not a good defense. Dr. Jones spent more time planning, writing and defending his FOI rejections than he would have if he just shared the data.
He did not have to write 50 emails, or consult with the FOIA officer, or tell people not to leave data sitting around on an ftp server to send the data out to a fellow climatologist.
That vexatious effort was only required to keep it away from a statistician.
-D. Robinson, EE, PE
"He did not have to write 50 emails, or consult with the FOIA officer, or tell people not to leave data sitting around on an ftp server to send the data out to a fellow climatologist. "
Fellow climatologist? You just lost all credibility with that statement.
dhogaza: He's referring to whoever it was at Georgia Tech they sent some data to at some point.
To the various and sundry: In no way is sending dozens of FOIs in that way reasonable behavior. It's a childish game. Also, a lot of you seem to be ignorant of the fact that a lot of data are indeed commercial. Go the webpages of different nations' met bureaus, and you'll often find a paywall for certain data.
That said, I do think HadCRU could have done this better. For starters, it's unclear to me what they're even gaining by using commercial data. Is that what's letting them go further back in time than GISS? When you compare the regions where GISS and HadCRU overlap (meaning, excluding the Arctic), you get a good match between the two sets. So what's the point of using data that aren't universally accessible? You can leave that out, and still get the same results.
"dhogaza: He's referring to whoever it was at Georgia Tech they sent some data to at some point."
Ah, OK...
"That said, I do think HadCRU could have done this better. For starters, it's unclear to me what they're even gaining by using commercial data."
Who knows? Maybe 25 years ago they had the budget to obtain it, and decided the more data, the better, without of course having any inkling at all that two decades later the ankle-biters would use its commerciality as a tool to try to destroy their credibility and the Jones' career ...
Even if they stopped using it now, the ankle-biters would continue to plague them for access to the past data without regard to any non-distribution agreements. That's part of the "destroyed the data" claim now, after all - CRU stopped storing data for stations they decided weren't reliable and wailing and screaming is the result.
Eli, I just have to understand this... perhaps I am missing something here? As it has been reported elsewhere, CRU had to keep the data etc... private. "Because of its economic value..." This is yesterdays weather, last century weather. The only economic value I can see is if; with the use of historical data you are able to predict future weather(et al:) with accuracy. Allowing me to use less fertilizer because I Know, the amount of rain to expect that season. That is very simple real economic value. Someone has to take this data; mine & model to extract anything of value from 150 years of records. That would be overhead... A cost. Then you still need to have accuracy. I can't trust local weather more than 72 hours out... How would you justify the cost, for the current output? I don't see it.
dhogaza:
"Maybe 25 years ago they had the budget to obtain it"
I highly, highly doubt they ever paid for it. Things like this are sometimes given for free to academics.
"and decided the more data, the better,"
Usually, but if it's at the cost of openness, I don't know. Clearly, the GHCN gets by without these sources.
They should have maybe maintained two data sets - an open source one, and the more inclusive closed source one. If anybody didn't like the closed source one, they could then ignore it.
I've said it before, but it wouldn't surprise me if upon review, it turns out the FOIs could have been dealt with a bit better. That's why I think it's important to have more of a leading role by the uni's legal officers. They won't have the personal annoyance against Steve McI (or at least, less so), so they'll be better able to deal appropriately.
D. Robinson: Conspiracy to vex, and Stevereno started, instigated and ran the conspiracy. One thing about RR, we don't go much for nonsense arguments. In the real world, he is responsible for each and every one.
Besides which, we don't know how many of the other FOI requests he was responsible for.
Yes, the data has value and the various national met services DO sell it. In addition whatever its real economic value is (and there is some, because they DO sell it, they also want to maintain control, which means when they provide it to you, you have to agree not to give it to third parties. See one of the previous posts and this comment
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MinnieMouseJon says
This is simply evident for any climatologist working, for instance, in spain. I pay for the data (even for research) and every time I buy data I have to sign a contract stating that I can't disclose data to ANY third party. Neither for research nor for any other users of the third party. Well ... why doesn't McIntyre simply buy the data to the original owner instead of requesting it from CRU? (The national weather services are the owners...)
I can't understand why this is so hard to understand.
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Steve and his pack appear to believe that when you buy Windows from Microsoft you get the right to distribute it to all and sundry.
Yes, I understand they sell it to you folks. They get money for their achives, you have a good paying job... Swell. What is the real World economic value? How are the people who are being taxed to modify & hope-fully store these records, getting a return currently for the costs extracted from them? Having seen some of the grant numbers it looks to be quite a bit... How are you generating value/money from your data base at this time? Thank you.
Eli, I read again: "they DO sell it, they also want to maintain control, which means when they provide it to you, you have to agree not to give it to third parties." it pissed me off... We the people, from around the world went out at 0600H rain or shine to collect this data for over 150 years. It was not a MET official. We paid for it. If it has a value it should be shared with the world and the data collectors noted for their efforts. Once the state gets their hands on the peoples work; they sell it back to the public and tax us for it. Can't you scientists share the work of the people out in the open? That's the way we work... For everyone to see.
Your complaint is not aimed at the climate researchers, Anonymous.
It is aimed at the various national governments, and their met bureaus/weather services. You should be directing your complaint at the national governments, not Jones or anybody who is posting on this website.
I'm not sure how the point about volunteers is relevant. It's a question of whether it's right for a nation's government to try to make some money here. On one hand, it helps them recover the costs of collecting and storing the data. On the other hand, it slows down research, and leads to arguments like this.
"Once the state gets their hands on the peoples work; they sell it back to the public and tax us for it. Can't you scientists share the work of the people out in the open? That's the way we work... For everyone to see."
You have it backwards. The data gathering, organizing, and archiving is paid for by tax dollars, and in some countries the agencies are charged with trying to get money for that data, in order to *reduce* the amount of tax money needed to keep them running.
Eli,
As one of the people who made a request I can say that your account is false.
1. The requests were not turned down for being vexacious. I know, I wrote one and got my response. Further, at the time, the CRU team was well aware of their option of treating the coordinated effort as a vexacious request. Osborn researched this. If you read the mails you'd know that.
2. When multiple related requests are received CRU had an option of considering them as one request.
3. #2 is exactly what CRU did and Jones wrote a 1000 word response and it was posted on the web.
Carrot Eater, Eli would be a lot more impressed if these weren't the same clowns who were complaining about how their taxes are so high and how if everything were privatized it would be more efficient and how the Met Offices should be supported by fees.
OK clowns, pay the fucking fees. You asked for it, you got it.
Eli: Same thought in my mind. It's either tax money, or user fees. Data collection and storage has to be paid for somehow. Even if the guy going outside to get the readings and writing them down is a volunteer.
Eli, You are the scientists, you can't get this across to your employers in the pubic sector...? As for the cost of accumulation; it was covered in real time. Other then what you folks have value(?),added?...+ storage. If the public buys bonds to build a dam and pays the interest for twenty years beyond. When the people risk their lives and give the physical effort to build the structure. What entitles the BPA to sell the publics asset for a price to a private concern? It's the peoples dam. Not the governments. They are entrusted to maintain it.
Ah ELi
I see you have worked with Spain and their agreement, if I recall, does preclude release to any third party.
Agreed!
Problem: Jones violated this agreement.
Bigger problem. When CRU argued against releasing this confidential data, they argued as follows: " if we release this data, then third parties will stop sending us data" Now, that is a prediction.
Lets see. Jones violated the agreement by sending the data from Spain to Webster and to Rutherford.
He also violated the agreement by leaving the data on an Open FTP site. Did Spain stop sending him data? Nope. Hypothesis: if we release the confidential data, countries will stop sending us data. Test: release the data, see what happens.
Result: we released the data to Webster and to Rutherford and we posted it on the web and people kept sending us data. mythbusted.
A few questions Eli. You know what it costs for this stuff so... How much money, for how much data? Where may we find the cost structure online? Is there a world-wide exchange somewhere for weather data? Would I be able to buy a few gig's for a test drive? We are all learning here. Thank you for your time.
steven, what were you going to do with the data you requested?
Steven,
Honest question: How do you know that Jones didn't get permission to redistribute the data to Webster and other academics?
Pinkymouse
Little mouse had no idea how very nasty this is all getting. Mouse is begining to suspect all the FOI requests had nothing to with the data and was about harrassing scientists who had come up with an answer that people didn't like.
Little Mouse also sees that scientists do not like confidentialty agreements either.
Steve,
That's weird logic. They violated (presumably unwittingly) the terms of the agreement once, and the country in question didn't stop working with you. That shouldn't be seen as an invitation to violate the terms willy-nilly. It's better to do it above the table, and reach an understanding with the country in question about whether you can share the data.
___
Anonymous:
Unless I'm mistaken (and I could be), all the USHCN data is available free-of-charge.
So that's the United States.
I don't think Eli has any more lobbying power over other country's governments than you do.
Anonymous:
Here's a price list I came across while fiddling around with Australian data.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/how/climate_charges.shtml
Though it sounds like they're moving towards putting more and more online for free. Good for them. If you dig around enough on their webpage, you can find a lot for free already.
Mark.
Your question: What was I going to do with the data?
bad question. please read more closely.
1. McIntyre has already requested the data.
2. Ross McKittrick, Hu Mcullogh, Roger Pielke had already requested the data.
I did not request the data. I didn't need to. First it would have probably been construed as a vexacious request. Second, the published reason for CRU's denial was the existence of confidentiality agreements. SO, we decided to collectively request the AGREEMENTS!!!! agreements not data. doh!
We decided that rather than having a bunch of people all request the same agreements that we would make it easier on CRU by each person requesting 5 agreements. I created a list of countries. People selected 5 countries and wrote the request. That way you dont have duplicate requests. When CRU got these requests they combined them, as is their right, into one request.
They answered that request by posting the 4 or 5 agreements they held. they claimed the others were lost. That is WHY they are now going out to all the countries to get an up to date set of agreements.
Phil Jones sent the letter out on Nov 13th. If you like you can see that Jones was working on this letter Nov 12th. Its the last mail in the climategate files. Dont you guys read for yourselves?
Now, if SteveMc had got the data, I probably would have put my stats hat back on, I used to work as a statistician in past, and had a look see at the data.
More interesting to me however is the code. I'll be pressing for that, but not with CRU, with Parliament.
So Steve is using a sample size of ONE to test a hypothesis. Umm, where do I start with the problems with that. Also, you are expecting us to take your word that is what in fact transpired. Sorry but you have been caught lying before.
How about answering some questions about you harassing scientists when you claimed on your web site recently that you do not. You claim to work in good faith Steve, your actions show otherwise, over and over again. You playing the "holier than thou card" became tiresome years ago. You seem to be deluding yourself that you have no idea why no scientist worth their salt wants anything to do with you? And just what did you plan to do with the data after you got it. Would you have respected the data sharing agreements? Would you have used those data for fraudulent pseudo-science/stats to TRY and call into question the work of scientists as you have made a business of doing the last 6 years or so?
A hint, get CEI or Heartland or Fraser to cough up some more money for you so that you can purchase the data. Yes, of course that would mean an end to the theatrics over at ClimateFraudit. You have not been doing much, if any, auditing of late have you? Since last fall in fact.....keep up the good work.
Carrot eater. It's not weird logic. Its just an observation. My contention is this. Jones released the data to Webster and Rutherford without international incident. Funny at one point MET argued that a release of the information would harm international relations.
So Mcintyre was refused data.
1. It was falsely claimed that the agreements prohibited release to non academics.
2. It was then claimed that the agreements prohibited any release. Only one ( I think Spain) agreement showed evidence of such a clause.
3. It was claimed that the release would harm international relations.
My observation is this. 3 is clearly false. Jones released it to Webster and Rutherford without incident. Jones posted a 2003 version on the web without incident. If there is ANY evidence that a release would cause harm, I'd like to see it. the record shows the opposite. the factual record shows releases without incident.
"Jones released it to Webster and Rutherford without incident."
Steven,
How do you know that Jones didn't get permission to redistribute the data to Webster and Rutherford from the data providers in the national weather organisations?
Pinkymouse
Anonymous.
How do I know that Jones did not get permission to send the data to others.
A good and fair question.
1. The agreement with Spain precludes such a release.
2. The FOIA appeal officer admits that the release to Webster was a mistake.
You can see actually from the fact pattern that Jones could not have gotten permission. Had he sought permission, he would have had to know WHO to seek permission from. In their responses CRU claim to have lost all but 4 of the agreements.
Jones first "remembered" that the agreements precluded the release to "non academics" When that bluff was called by McKittrick and Peilke, CRU then "remembered" that they had lost all but 4 of the agreements, and they remembered that all the agreements precluded any release. except, the ones they posted ( except spain I believe) had no such restriction.
But good question.
PS. I'm pretty sure posting it on the web was not a good idea. But hey, nothing bad happened.
Eli asks:
"Well ... why doesn't McIntyre simply buy the data to the original owner instead of requesting it from CRU? (The national weather services are the owners...)"
Eli, dont you read. In fact that option was discussed.
one of the reasons for requesting the confidentiality agreements was to get a list of people to contact.
There were roughly 200 countries or NWS listed as potential sources of confidential data. CRU claimed that maybe 2% of the data was confidential. SO, we asked for the list of stations that were confidential.
Hell, Mcintyre even asked for the Non confidential data.
Look, if you want to claim that you have data from 200 countires and that some small percentage is confidential, you had better be ready to state which data is confidential and what data is not. Record keeping. But CRU couldnt. They denied the request for the non confidential data as well. Why? they did know what was what. record keeping. If you want the job of keeping records, do the job.
steve:
No, it's weird logic. You've only repeated yourself, not made the logic any better.
Making a mistake once, and not suffering any consequences, shouldn't be seen a reason to intentionally make the same mistake, over and over.
Steve:
This is where I do come to agree with you, if you read my comments above.
One, if only 2% of the data are confidential, then why bother using any confidential data? What gaping hole would result, if you didn't use it? Given the close agreement with GISS, it probably makes little difference (except for maybe the 19th century).
Two, once this became an issue, they could have made a version that didn't use any confidential data.
It does seem to me that they weren't even sure which data were confidential, and which weren't. That's definitely something to correct.
But sending out a whole fleet of FOI requests like that is childish, either which way.
Eli Writes:
"Besides which, we don't know how many of the other FOI requests he was responsible for."
There actually is a database so you dont need to speculate. Prior to 2009, prior to CRU claiming that there were confidentiality agreements covering the release of the data, there were a handful a very small number of FOIA given to CRU.
1. Willis eschenbach. Requesting a LIST OF STATIONS. they denied the data request, so he just asked for the names of the stations. they were
finally posted
2. McIntyre requesting stations and data for Jones 1990. data was turned over.
3. Holland FOIA for the IPCC correspondence.
Result: ICO found that CRU violated his rights.
That's about it. But you can go check the records for your self. they are public.
Now 2009, is a whole different story.
1. Mcintyre request for data. denied
on the grounds he was not an academic.
2. Three requests from academics. denied
on the grounds that the data was confidential.
3. A campaign to request those agreements.
Success. Jones posted a handful of them.
he finished it in no time flat.
The flood of requests comes after CRU played fast and loose with the facts.
"We decided that rather than having a bunch of people all request the same agreements that we would make it easier on CRU by each person requesting 5 agreements. "
How exactly is that easier, for anybody? Why would "a bunch of people" -have- to make requests, when -one- person could have made a -single- request and then published the results?
That explanation is a more than a bit fishy, contorted.
Steve,
What, if anything, have you done with all the data that are currently freely available to you?
For example, have you compared temperature trends from well-sited vs. poorly-sited stations? Have you uncovered data problems **that you can quantify** that are responsible for the observed warming trend over the past few decades?
You've spent a great deal of time and effort attempting to acquire the 2 percent or so of temperature data not freely available to you. So what have you done with the other 98 percent?
Please, no hand-waving, no "this is what we want to do" claims. Tell us **what you have done**. And please provide links to reports, analysis results, etc. Be **specific**.
Likewise, telling us forthrightly that you haven't done squat would be an honest and acceptable answer...
carrot eater.
I am glad that we can come to some agreement on the 2% solution. In my correspondence with CRU since this has occurred I made the following argument.
1. The 2% data is not necessary. there is already good agreement between hadcrut and GISS. Its not worth the trouble.
2. There own papers demonstrate that the 2% is not necessary.
3. If they believe they must have that 2%, please please please have a proper document control policy so that people requesting the non confidential data can get it. DONT COMINGLE.
That's what my experience of dealing with classified data ( ya TS/SAR) has shown me.
This issue is put to bed rather easily.
Now, with regard to the 40 people each requesting 5 countries. Its not as childish as you think.
there actually was a rationale of sorts. What we didnt want CRU to get 40 requests for the same agreements. THAT would be vexacious. So, we made a list, everybody picked 5 countries.
It was probably a pain in the ass for Palmer since he has to send out the same form letter to all 40 of us, bt the actual WORK that jones had to perform was the same. Look for the agreements.
In the end, I hope that CRU will release their data and their code. People will find minor errors. the quality of the code will improve, the temperature series will not change substantially, and doubts that arise from the "hiding" behavior will vanish.
Nutjobs will still complain. But reasonable people will start to regain trust. I know I did when GISS released their code.
If "one of the reasons for requesting the confidentiality agreements" was to get a list of people to contact, what were the other ones?
Bad record keeping would be "one of the reasons" to dismiss everything and wait for the case being settled in a law-like manner.
In both cases, we could surmise that we only are talking about reasons. That is plausible, realistic, concrete ones. But certainly not good ones.
steve: Except for the question of whether a flood of FOIs is reasonable or not, I more or less agree with all that.
If the data release agreements are mainly just floating around in Jones's memory, it'd be good for the CRU to get all those clarified. And then move on, as you've outlined.
As for GISS's code: It's available, but I'd maintain quite strongly that you don't need it to reproduce GISStemp. All you need is the data feed from GHCN, and the published papers. The papers are more than detailed enough. You should be able to start from scratch, follow the papers, and get results that agree pretty well.
In fact, given the state of the code, it's probably easier to start from scratch.
I do think a lot of what happened here was the people at CRU not wanting to go out of their way to do Steve McI any favors. And as justified they might have been in having a less than favorable impression of him, that shouldn't be part of the decision-making in this respect.
"Now, with regard to the 40 people each requesting 5 countries. Its not as childish as you think."
Yes, any child can see that forty requests are easier to deal with than one.
Wow. I have been gone just a little while... It seems that the progressive, pure, thoughtful, kind and carein' folk are not as open to seeing the beautiful world around us all; as we had been led to believe. People wanting to have freedom of speech; communicating, sharing openly our veiws and ideas about nature. You need to stop worrying about data bombs and dig the earth dude. Stop supporting the man. Power to the People, Eli... Right on! Free data, for a Free World!!!
"Its not as childish as you think."
Ah, but it was childish. Just how childish, Mosher?
"In the end, I hope that CRU will release their data and their code. People will find minor errors. the quality of the code will improve, the temperature series will not change substantially, and doubts that arise from the "hiding" behavior will vanish.
Nutjobs will still complain. But reasonable people will start to regain trust."
I think we have Mosher admitting that McI and Watts qualify as "nutjobs", here.
"I know I did when GISS released their code."
Because we know that nutjobs like McI and Watts didn't ...
So far as I can tell, Watts still doesn't know what an anomaly is, so leave him aside as a hopeless case.
carrot eater:
"All you need is the data feed from GHCN, and the published papers. The papers are more than detailed enough. You should be able to start from scratch, follow the papers, and get results that agree pretty well."
It's not as easy as that. First off the papers don't explain everything in the code. The idea of starting from the papers and writing your own code is an exercise in futility, unless you have the code. That's probably an argument for another day. Now that the GISSTEMP code is available and running there are some forks:
1. sensitivity tests on certain arbitary paramters
( 20 years of overlap for stations, various station radius paramters, stuff like that)
2. Different selection criteria for Urban/rural.
( old population data was used, nighlights has some errors )
There are some issues with doing some of these tests because the code is very fragile. On of the first tests that one guy tried to do just broke the code. basically if you tru to remove some stations the junk just crashes. That makes for a tough investigation because you have to change the code.
Beyond the testing of GISSTEMP code, then the goal would be to push back to the raw data and look at the adjustments that GHCN apply to data.
One of the things in such discussions is not to let people insert their fantasy into the argument.
The data was not the CRU's data. It belonged to the National Weather Services, some of which required that it not be passed on by the CRU.
Something that gets lost here is that when the CRU started to gather the data, folk like Steve McIntyre and Steve Mosher did not exist with their childish demands.
The nonsense about the "deleted data" is part of this. Since the original data still existed at the National Weather Services, the CRU thought nothing of deleting its COPIES because of space constraints.
So Steven Mosher (?) continues to ignore questions about what he and his pals planned to do with the data.
Re GISS Mosher, CCC are way ahead of you, been there done that. Why b/c they weren't bust effing around with FOIs and were actually doing something rather than playing power games.
Time to take your meds Mosher....
Oh and Mosher, since when did you become McI's sock puppet?
Anonymous.
"Yes, any child can see that forty requests are easier to deal with than one."
It depends on who you are. As most of us who have worked in a office that deals with confidential data we know the drill. I have a drawer with a copy of every agreement I have signed. I am required to keep this agreement. It tells me what I can and cannot do with the data I negotiated for. The file is organized.
My admin also has a filing system. She keeps copies of all my documents. If I am out of the office and somebody needs to see if they can send some piece of data or some piece of code, they can go get the document from her. She is a document custodian. In some enviroments she would have a list of all the documents under her control and people would sign them out, like from a library.
My legal department also has a copy. They have to review these agreements to make sure I did not exceed my authority in signing it.
So, If I am the person ( jones) who is in charge. There is no difference between 40 and 1. Either way I open the drawer and pull out those agreements I have. My job is made easier by the fact that the FOIA officer will consolidate the requests. The requests go to him. he will see requests for the agreements. He can consolidate them into 1 request.
The person who gets nicked, is the non scientist, david palmer. His job upon receiving a request is to send a form letter of acknowledgement.
All in all the work Jones had to do amounted to less than 18 hours. How do I know? because if the request would take MORE than 18 hours, then CRU could deny it in that grounds. How do I know that?
I have such a rejection letter. I requested their policies and procedures. palmer anticiplated that the request would take more than 18 hours, so I had a choice: Modify my request or live with the denial. Since I found the policy on the web ( took a few hours) I had no need to modify my request.
My MP3 collection contains some copyrighted music I have purchased and some non-copyrighted music. Over the years I have forgotten which MP3s have copyright and which have not and it would now be time consuming for me to separate the two.
Out of the blue an acquaintance sends me an email asking for me to send him my MP3 collection.
I know this acquaintance runs a website where he is apt to publish the MP3s I send him. If I supply him I could get into trouble. I am not a lawyer, I just don't want this hassle.
So I send a reply back to him saying legal agreements prevent me from sending him the MP3s.
After a while he sends me another message, informing me that he talked to my Sister who admits to have been given MP3s by me in the past. Therefore how can I claim legal agreements prevent such a release? He repeats his request I send him my MP3s.
I reply that the legal agreements only allow me to send MP3s to my family. This isn't technically true I think, but giving it to someone I trust to not publish the music publically on a website is a far cry from handing them over to someone I suspect will do so.
Hearing that I only send MP3s to family members, he comically contacts my second cousin once removed and gets him to contact me and ask for the MP3s.
Knowing that this cousin is just going to forward the MP3s to my acquaintance, I refuse and go back to my original stance that legal agreements preclude the release.
He now demands I send him the legal smallprint encoded in the metadata of each MP3 to prove such legal agreements exist.
I just cannot be bothered with this. It's pathetic. If he really wanted the MP3s so much why doesn't he go and buy them himself?
I send him some smallprint anyway. He replies that some of the smallprint doesn't even say it's copyrighted. I am not entirely surprised, I didn't waste time checking all of it for the sake of someone who is simply wasting my time.
He demands I at least send him the non-copyrighted MP3s.
Do I want to sift through my collection reading small print to decide which is copyrighted and which is not? Not for this asshole.
I shoot him an email simply stating the release would harm my relations with the law.
He gets uptight at this and bad-mouths me on his website, telling his regulars how my "story has changed". Sure it has, but understandably. Nevertheless he riles up enough of his website regulars and gets dozens of them to spam my inbox with requests for MP3s.
What a bastard.
Re GISS Mosher, CCC are way ahead of you, been there done that.
Yes indeedy: http://clearclimatecode.org/
Compare the accomplishments of the CCC folks with those of the useless and immature wankers who would rather pester and hound busy scientists than do any real work of their own.
How long has surfacestations.org been in business? How long has climateaudit been in business? How long has clearclimatecode been in business?
Let's see what "whois" tells us.
Domain Name:CLIMATEAUDIT.ORG
Created On:31-Jan-2005 13:07:55 UTC
Domain Name:SURFACESTATIONS.ORG
Created On:11-May-2007 19:19:26 UTC
Domain Name:CLEARCLIMATECODE.ORG
Created On:01-Sep-2008 10:14:04 UTC
Now, which one of these organizations has actually done some serious work since its inception? (Hint: Which two organizations consist of nothing but useless wankers?)
Steven, "The idea of starting from the papers and writing your own code is an exercise in futility, unless you have the code."
I'm sorry, but this is bullshit. There are always some details that aren't spelled out in gory detail in the papers (sometimes there's more in a thesis), but those are the sorts of things that you should be able to work through for yourself.
At least up to the UHI correction step, a competent person should be able to start from scratch and the GHCN dataset, follow the papers, and get a good agreement. Instead of whining, why don't you try? Heck, maybe I'll do it sometime. I haven't read through the GISS code in any detail, so my mind is unpolluted by whatever details are there.
The point of reproducing work isn't to get every single number 100% the same, down to every last decimal point. The point is to get good agreement, consistent results.
More details from clearclimatecode.org (emphasis added):
The Clear Climate Code project is carried out by various contributors. It was started by Ravenbrook Limited and its staff, after its co-founder Nick Barnes had the original project idea in 2007. Nobody has commissioned this work from us, or paid us for it. All the code and documentation written as part of the project is available at no charge under an open source license.
Climateaudit.org has been around *much* longer than ClearClimateCode.org has. Surfacestations.org has been around *at least as long* (and most likely longer than) clearclimatecode.org has.
The clearclimatecode folks are every bit the unpaid volunteers that the surfacestations and climateaudit participants are. But unlike surfacestations and climateaudit, clearclimatcode has actually produced something useful. Now, did they do that by hounding climate scientists for ever more data? No. They rolled their sleeves up and go to work, instead of acting like immature little wankers.
Hi Dhog,
Good to see you again. I hope your 2010 brings you peace and joy. Lets see what you wrote:
"dhogaza said...
"Its not as childish as you think."
Ah, but it was childish. Just how childish, Mosher? "
Well, if I had to put it on a childish scale, I would first identify the childish characteristic I think it typifies: That would be curiosity. I'll have to admit that when I want to see for myself how things work. When I want to do it for myself, especially when I'm told its to hard for my little brain, that the curious child comes out. So, ya, childlike curiosity. there are worse things. Like a kid who makes up stories about lost agreements. or a kid who tries to cover up his bad deeds.
CONTINUING:
"I think we have Mosher admitting that McI and Watts qualify as "nutjobs", here."
Actually not. Stevemc and I have exactly the same view of CRU code. We expect to see the same thing.
WRT Anthony, he's all about the data. His interest in code is more low level that CRU code, primarily the adjustments that happen at the lowest level.
look dhog, nobody with any credibility expects to find some huge smoking gun in the code. No error that accounts for the warming. you guys are missing the point.
"Because we know that nutjobs like McI and Watts didn't ..."
Huh? Did you read mcintyre's piece on hansens reference method? It was a balanced assesment of the statistcial properties of hansens method. Access to the code gave people the information they needed to do just these kind of assessments. WRT Anthony, as I stated above his personal focus really shifted to lower level problems.
the nutjobs who will complain are people who dont read about the releases and still complain about it. I find them now and again and I try to correct them whereever I find them.
An exercise in futility?
Well lookie here (from clearclimatecode.org)
NASA GISS wants to use our code
Posted by Nick.Barnes | Filed under Uncategorized
After the release of ccc-gistemp 0.3.0, I contacted Dr Reto Ruedy of NASA GISS to ask him to try out the release and have a look through it.
Dr Ruedy responded, thanking us for our effort, and saying “I hope to switch to your version of that program”. After some further discussion, he clarified this:
When GISS has the resources:
Ideally, we would like to replace our whole code
.
They are busy with other things, and won’t have the resources for quite some time. Also, we will need to do some more work, to interface our code with various GISS tools (such as the station data web page). Nonetheless this is very much to the credit of the whole ccc-gistemp team. Well done, everybody.
Congrats to the clearclimatecode team!
cthulhu, I see what you are saying however; I am a recording executive in Burbank CA. Everything that has ever been recorded is my personal intellectual property. Just because you paid for it does not mean you have any rights to it. DO NOT SHARE!!! I pay my attorneys BIG Bucks(more than you have, HAHA)... to track all you low lifes down. We own this World! Now pay up you bastard... Harvey W.
Have A Nice Day:)
Anonymous:
"Re GISS Mosher, CCC are way ahead of you, been there done that. Why b/c they weren't bust effing around with FOIs and were actually doing something rather than playing power games."
Actually I've been following Nick Barnes and his project from the beginning and have praised their effort from the moment Nick told me. I especially like the rewrite in Python. One of the biggest issues I had with GISSTEMP was the compiler dependencies. GISSTEMP was originall hosted on AIX. Anyways, EM smith went down the route of getting GISSTEMP working by fiddling with compilers and Nick and his team got the code working and then went down the path of a rewrite in Python. I downloaded the latest release a while back ( as did some other guys) and we had some crash problems. basically some Python dependencies. Nick wrote me a bit ago and suggested I take the latest snapshot. I'll do that, but I really wanted to get a new system to host it on. Either that or EM Smith and I have this dream of getting an old Sparc station at 'weird stuff' ( a great hacker hang out ) and hosting the original code in its original environment. Anyways, there is a bunch of fun work to do. ha, when gavin asked me back in 2007 why I was doing this I told him. "its fun"
here is a funny thought.
When warwick hughes asked Jones for his 1990 data ( this is the source of all the problems)
Jones responded "why should I give you the data when your only aim is to find something wrong with it"
For me this turn was significant. It was significant because Jones turned to motives. Why should Hughes get the data? what is he going to do? Well, does it really matter? What if my motive is to find something wrong? That's actually a good motive.
How about this. Motives dont matter. releasing data is good because then I cant question your motives for keeping it secret.
Oh, great. The EM Smith who, just like Watts, doesn't know what an anomaly is?
There'd be a better signal/noise ratio out of that camp if there was a bit more competence.
Actually, going back to whether you can start from scratch with the papers: I saw EM Smith complaining somewhere that the GISS code didn't do what the papers said. When in fact, from his garbled description, it sounded like it did exactly what Hansen (1987) describes.
It helps if you actually read the f'ing papers.
steve: And that's where I'd agree with you again. The people to whom you're giving the data could be no-talent ass clowns, but that's not a reason to deny them access.
If in five years, HadCru is as open as GISS, to anybody and everybody, that'll be a useful result.
"But unlike surfacestations and climateaudit, clearclimatcode has actually produced something useful. Now, did they do that by hounding climate scientists for ever more data? No. They rolled their sleeves up and go to work, instead of acting like immature little wankers."
Well, ask Nick Barnes who exactly pushed gavin to "free the code" Hmm I wonder where I heard that phrase before? If you could please do a search back in 2007. The story went down like this. McIntyre found a problem in GISS processing. This was called the Y2K problem. So we started to hound gavin and hansen to release the code.
If you search back on RC threads at the time you can see all the arguments against releasing the code. You can see me ending every post with a "free the code" signature. Anyways, in late 2007 hansen decided to relent and release the code.
From that a few projects happened.
1. JohnV did opentemp. he look at the fortran
and decided to do his own in C++. i worked with him. not coding but using his code.
2. Some guy at columbia rehosted on a MAC. he sent me some mails, but at that Time I didnt have a MAC
3. One team tried a rehost on Linux. I helped them with some of the early problems but debugging by just looking at code and offering suggesttions wasnt great.
4. EM smith started his project of getting the code going. I talked to him and he lives nearby. he's worked in relative obscurity until recently.
5. Clearclimatecode. Took the freed code and went down the path that I preferred. A side by side rewrite.
I think its best when you talk about these things that you actually have a little history. So, I've got Opentemp if I wanna use that. A MAC version if I wann use that, EMs version, and CCCs.
With all these people working on the code why in blue blazes would I fire my compiler up. I moved on to the next target: CRU CODE.
then NOAA CODE. ( although I have requests into them too, us law. should be fun)
Mosher "I moved on to the next target: CRU"
Umm, you actually already had a go a that target. Mission accomplished...well maybe not, Jones will live to fight another day.
You and your gang have attacked Mann, Briffa, Hansen, and now Jones. Gonna share with us who is your next target? You mentioned NOAA, pray tell who do you have it in for there?
The point Steve, is that, unlike you and M&M, CCC actually accomplished something worthwhile and did not need your help to do so, nor did they need to harass scientists and fire off bogus FOI claims. Don't try and ride on CCCs coat tails or suggest for a second that their success is because of what you have done.
The result of CCC's work is that the science has advanced, leaving you in the dust, AND because CCC were civil and professional, real scientists are willing to work/collaborate with CCC rather than you and your ilk.
You guys are painting yourselves into a corner, and though your own actions and inaction deserve, at the very least, to be maligned.
Mosher "What if my motive is to find something wrong? That's actually a good motive."
Yes, if you actually did some real SCIENCE and found a significant error, other than eff around with it. And experience has shown that McI and his acolytes have used data given to them to go on witch hunts and make character assassinations on scientists (e.g., Steig, Briffa and others) and to try and undermine their credibility rather than advance the science.
Mosher, don't take us for fools. Your track record shows what your true motives and intentions and agenda are. Read John Mashey's file, for example. Your intentions are not remotely honorable.
If you want to make amends, start by telling us who stole the emails.
From Climate Progress:
"Incidentally one of our local politicians, who is a fan of McIntyre, WUWT etc., was one of those who deluged CRU with FOI requests in July/August – step forward Senator Sarah Ferguson…
From her email/comment on Climateaudit’s post “CRU refuses data once again”, dated 1 August 2009
“I assume that the reference number means that this is the 100th email Palmer has received! This will presumably totally foul up his plans for a vacation”"
Yes, Mosher and his gang only had the most honest and honorable intentions...sounds like harassment to me. Exactly how many Republican Senators do M&M have working for them.
Eli, AGW folks... Will Rodgers I think said once "If you want to make a whole lot of money, figure out where the people are going and get there first." Why don't all the scientists get off the publics back, fund your own research using the data sets that remain useable... Form a pool of like minded friends and use your own results to buy the land that will have improved and changed in value because of Man-Made-Global-Warming somewhere on this planet. You all would know the real economic value of your choises as a group... I will have made my choises personaly, risking my wealth as I see fit. In seventy-five years we can see who made the better choice. Freedom. It's a beautiful thing.
Eli & AGW folks, You can still Homestead in Alaska. Dress warm...or not.
5. Clearclimatecode. Took the freed code and went down the path that I preferred. A side by side rewrite.
And that "side by side rewrite" has reproduced NASA's results almost exactly.
Will you acknowledge that NASA's results are robust and trustworthy?
"Congrats to the clearclimatecode team!"
Yes. They understand that the value of citizen science lies in helping those who do science, and thereby improving the science (or, in this case, a tool used by scientists).
Not to get scientists fired.
"Mosher, don't take us for fools. Your track record shows what your true motives and intentions and agenda are. Read John Mashey's file, for example. Your intentions are not remotely honorable."
Well said.
Anonymous @ 3pm: "I will have made my choises personaly, risking my wealth as I see fit."
And how old are you? Last time I checked, we all share this planet. You want to smoke a pack a day fine, go and do it in your own home. That does not affect me or my children directly, it does place a burden on society, but I digress. Unlike your tobacco smoke CO2 and CH4 and N2O do not know any bounds. So no, you do not have the freedom to knowingly mess with our climate system just b/c is suites your myopia and frivolous lifestyle.
And those government scientists have for decades been looking after your resources, your natural environment, your health, and provided you with all nice kinds of technology, looked after your dams, bridges, issued warnings for hurricanes and tornadoes et cetera.
Please go and buy some land in Florida to retire, ideally something located less than 1 foot above sea level, and we'll talk 50 years from now. But you'll probably be long dead by then. Oh well, sucks to be your grand kids.
As for NOAA: it looks like they're in the process of extending the new pairwise homogenisation from USHCN to the entire GHCN.
If I understand it correctly, this new method is entirely objective and does not explicitly use historical metadata, nor any human intervention.
It's therefore an easier matter to say 'here is the code that does this', and it sounds like that code will be forthcoming when they're done working on it.
But again - I would say that a competent and motivated person should be able to read Menne (2009) and implement the method for himself.
You shouldn't have to be spoon-fed code in order to reproduce somebody's results.
But it requires some basic competence, and I'm afraid that isn't forthcoming from people who run around thinking that removing a few high latitude stations will introduce a warming bias in the global mean because it's cold at high latitudes.
Steve, you can see from the responses here that it matters how you comport yourself. Running around making silly and baseless claims will not endear you to anybody serious. Running around making obviously wrong statements (like the high latitude business) will not endear you to anybody serious.
anon, You and I are both gas bags. My old bag is 60+. I am debt free. I rent, God owns. Burn wood, compost etc. you know the drill. About two steps from being a ridge-runner... if you know what I mean. Combat vet. Thanks for watchin out for me though, a nice thought. I have seen the effects of science on the human form. Very efficient work if you can survive it. I am just sick of "Whiz-Kids", saving mankind from himself. E=MC^2?, just got us all a big ass bomb and radiation. Great. Wood heat is much nicer and it sounds great. Why mess with a good thing at a great price. You think you know more than me? Not from where I sit.
"And that "side by side rewrite" has reproduced NASA's results almost exactly.
Will you acknowledge that NASA's results are robust and trustworthy?"
Huh, how does that logically follow? If I write a piece of code that calculates and average thusly ( a+b+c+d)/3 = Average and YOU duplicate that result in another language, all you have shown is that you duplicated my result.
In general I think that GISSTEMP get the answer largely right. That is they inport GHCN data and do a spatial/temporal average. They get it largely right.
We know this in a couple ways: we know this because their results correlate fairly well with other indices. We know this because a simple average of GHCN yeild a similar result. But folks like me dont care too much for largely similar. I believe in AGW. I expect the answer to be largely right. I do care about the details, that last .1C
The real issue is what lies below GISS. They import GHCN. adjusted data. That's where it gets interesting. So basically GISSTEMP is an temperal/spatial averager. hard to get it too much wrong. JohnV showed this just by whipping together a simple program for the US. So, thre are some minor interesting quirky things in GISSTEMP. fun. neat to look at. Thre are also some things below that line. Also fun to look at. Will it change the science? Nope. said so back in 2007. GHGs will warm the planet. Does it still interest me? yup. can you do anything to change that? nope.
The BS from Mosher just keeps coming:
"GHGs will warm the planet. Does it still interest me? yup. can you do anything to change that? nope."
What a load of utter BS Steven Mosher. So you care about temp to 0.1 C, but are not worried about the warming of 2-6 C? A factor of 20-60 higher. Uh huh. Have trouble seeing the big picture eh?
As for the CCC, it is my understanding that they did more than you suggest...dhogaza probably knows?
When CCC was first brought up Mosher tries to take credit for them having access to the code. Then that lame claim is refuted and he moves the goal posts to suggest the CCC is not important and simply replicating the mistakes in GISSTemp.
"As for the CCC, it is my understanding that they did more than you suggest...dhogaza probably knows?"
They began with a side-by-side rewrite, but have begun refactoring and cleaning up the code. Quite a bit of this has to do with the fact that the FORTRAN version broke the processing up into separate steps with intermediate datafiles being generated and then read in for each step. This was done because back when GISTEMP was written, computers had (by modern standards) very limited RAM. With modern computers, this isn't necessary.
You can read about the latest release here.
Steve,
A simple computational error would be found by the CCC team.
What the CCC team is less able to judge is the scientific basis for some of the steps, like interpolating out to 1200 km or the UHI adjustment. They can make sure that the code does what it's supposed to do, but they aren't necessarily judging if that's the best way to do it. Though their finished code would be useful (but again, not necessary) to those who are interested in studying those aspects.
Yes, a spatial average is in the end pretty simple. If you don't know how to do it (and there are multiple ways of going about it), you'll see detailed descriptions in the literature. You don't need to borrow somebody else's code. So why have we never seen Watts or EM Smith compute a spatial average, in order to test their hypotheses? Wouldn't testing the hypothesis normally come before the step of publishing conclusions?
The real issue is what lies below GISS. They import GHCN. adjusted data.
Had Steven been keeping up with the science, he would have been aware that the GHCN adjustment effects were fully examined in Menne et al. and found to be minimal.
correction: USHCN adjustments.
But there's no evidence that GHCN adjustments would be any more problematic.
So why have we never seen Watts or EM Smith compute a spatial average...
Why weren't Watts and Co computing spatial averages all along? It would have been trivial to compute spatial average updates as additional stations were surveyed. All the data (raw and homogenized) are freely available; all the software tools needed to perform that work are free for that taking off the internet.
Spatial average updates as new stations were surveyed would have also answered the "undersampling" issue that Watts is supposedly concerned about. When the spatial average results stop changing significantly as you add new stations, then that's a good indication of sufficient sampling.
This is all pretty basic stuff -- why can't any of the deniers figure any of this out for themselves?
"he real issue is what lies below GISS. They import GHCN. adjusted data. "
Ahem. Are you sure about that? I was under the impression they use the unadjusted, v2.mean. Not v2.adj.
Except for the US, where they do take in adjusted data.
"This is all pretty basic stuff -- why can't any of the deniers figure any of this out for themselves?"
Based on past performance, I doubt Watts has the ability. The real question is, why doesn't Pielke do it.
Pielke's been playing this game for longer than Watts. His thesis has been that microsite effects are really really important, darn it, and your homogenisation methods couldn't possibly deal with them well enough.
Let's see what Pielke comes up with. He'll try to weasel out of doing the spatial averages somehow. The tea leaves read that they'll find some qualitative reason or other to rule out all the 'good' stations, leaving nothing to quantify. Too bad the CRN is still there.
"Steve, you can see from the responses here that it matters how you comport yourself. Running around making silly and baseless claims will not endear you to anybody serious. Running around making obviously wrong statements (like the high latitude business) will not endear you to anybody serious."
Well,if you care to read my comments on the high latitude business you would see this. Nick stokes argued that the anomaly method should take care of the problem. I agreed. EM Smith then refered me back to the code. After looking at the code I agreed that there might be an issue and the best was to test it was to make a certain sensitivity run in GISSTEMP. A simple run that should put the issue to rest. EM concurred that such a test would put the issue to rest. It was the first test he tried an the code crashed. Fragile to station removal. So it stands there. I'm not convinced its a problem, neither Am I convinced that its not a problem. If if is a problem I dont suspect that it is a huge problem. I also suggested some tests to other folks, offline. They may look at it.
It would help if you stayed current with my positionss on these things. WRT other questions you can just read my comments over at the site. You'll see good guys on your side ( Boris) acknowleding my criticisms of certain points that people make.
Carot eater:
"Ahem. Are you sure about that? I was under the impression they use the unadjusted, v2.mean. Not v2.adj.
Except for the US, where they do take in adjusted data."
good catch. The only real accountablity we can see is in USHCN. It will eventually come down to doing the same with other data from ROW. In some cases ( ireland pops to mind) the TOBS adjustment is not done using the Karl method. So I would say the first set of data to look at is USHCN. Then ROW. Its a long long job. Questioning this could go on for years and years. Thanks for reminding me about all the work that has to be done in other places.
"Had Steven been keeping up with the science, he would have been aware that the GHCN adjustment effects were fully examined in Menne et al. and found to be minimal."
Actually I think I was one of the first people on CA to suggest change point analysis and one of the first to alert people to the fact that Menne was coming out with a new paper. We all discussed change point analysis ( I think it was Kenneth Fritsch and one of the Professional statistcians ) anyways, when Anthony visited menne at NCDC I passed along a request for Menne's code.
nope.
carrot eater
"Yes, a spatial average is in the end pretty simple. If you don't know how to do it (and there are multiple ways of going about it), you'll see detailed descriptions in the literature. You don't need to borrow somebody else's code. So why have we never seen Watts or EM Smith compute a spatial average, in order to test their hypotheses? Wouldn't testing the hypothesis normally come before the step of publishing conclusions?"
The point isn't whether or not you need to borrow someones code. For me it has to do with reproducible results. you can google that and see the work that has been done at Stanford. Basically those of us who believe in this argue that for a publication to count as science the DATA as USED and the CODE as RUN, has to be supplied with the paper. To be sure someone who reads the paper could in some cases do it themselves. Actually empirical tests of this show that many times researchers cannot reproduce the very results that they published ( some funny stuff on this WRT Mann and osborn in the mails ) so, the supposition that one could in fact do this, doesnt change my position. You want me to BUY your results? supply the code and data. If you don't I'm under no rational obligation to prove you wrong or to do my own work. I'm just not. I'll just suspend judgment about your claims. My failure to do my own work or to prove you wrong is not a compelling reason for me to grant my acceptance of your claims. you want to prove that you are right? Its easy. give me the data and give me the code. Otherwise, have a nice day I dont have to buy your science.
"What a load of utter BS Steven Mosher. So you care about temp to 0.1 C, but are not worried about the warming of 2-6 C? A factor of 20-60 higher. Uh huh. Have trouble seeing the big picture eh?"
sure I am worried about warming of 2C-6C
I'm on record in print saying so. personally, if you ask me to bet I put my money in the 1.5C to 2C range. On the record with that. What to do about it? On record with that too. But I do like those .1C problems. Can you convince me not to be interested in that? nope.
Ah sorry.
Indefinte pronoun reference.
"GHGs will warm the planet. Does it still interest me? yup. can you do anything to change that? nope."
it = the .1C type problems
But WRT changing our warming trajectory, sure there are things we should do. Said so many times. For example, I fear global warming more than I fear nuclear. For example, I fear global warming more than I cherish the view from ted kennedy's mansion. For example, I fear global warming more than I fear Al gore losing his rights to fly in a private jet. Lots of things to change. Don't need to wait for global treaties, that's the biggest thing I fear. People who demand global treaties slowing things down..
Try again, you really do need to learn to write more clearly. If "it" means the ".1 C problem, then why do you say "change that" in the next sentence? Are you referring to the .1C problem or the GHG problem? Your wording suggests the latter. That kind of contrived writing is usually done when someone is weaseling or lying.
Mosher "People who demand global treaties slowing things down.."
Now you are just speaking out both sides of your, ahem, mouth. We could have had a treaty in December 2009. Yes, it is those darn scientists and policy makers who are slowing things down (sark). Well, actually it is you and your ilk slowing things down. You could not be more disingenuous if you tried.
Interesting that you in typical contrarian fashion had to invoke Gore, and with dripping sarcasm too. How very amateurish and immature of you.
Mosher, regarding your "official" stance on AGW, I do not believe you for a second, that is IMO just window dressing to try and add some semblance of credibility to your real agenda. I'm sure a perusal of your private emails and correspondence would no doubt paint a very different picture. In fact, your musings here have been quite insightful, but the really good dirt will be in your private correspondence with your "team".
Intriguing how you chose the very bottom of the likely range, and much below the expected warming of +3C for doubling of CO2 to try and convince us of your "concern". But I suppose that you know better than the experts. I'm detecting some Dunning-Kruger on your part Mosher.
Your posts here have demonstrated for everyone that your intentions are not honest and that you do have a faltering understanding of how the data or code work, yet you demand to have it for "research", sorry tinkering, for honest purposes, really....
McIntyre will be non too pleased with your performance here, it has been most disappointing.
As for your absurd claim that "for a publication to count as science the DATA as USED and the CODE as RUN, has to be supplied with the paper."
Hmm, well I guess that Arrhenius et al's science is bunk, and for that matter every paper published in any journal which does not supply the code, and not just climate science. That amounts to centuries of "bunk" science across a multitude of disciplines. That is a lame cop out on your part. I have, to date, yet to ask a fellow researcher for their code. Suck it up buttercup, and stop moving the goal posts.
"I'm detecting some Dunning-Kruger on your part Mosher."
I don't think so. I believe Mosher to be totally dishonest, just as I believe that McI and McK are totally dishonest. They're all smart enough to understand the truth (in fact, Mosher's saying so, here, in some bizarre attempt to salvage his reputation so as to ... drain off the heat? really, I don't know). Remember that Mosher is the guy, who in all seriousness, introduced the term "Piltdown Mann", and while he's spent years claiming "it was just a joke! I don't think Mann's a fraud!" the reality, is that at the time, he put it forward as a truthful claim. And now these same people are trying to get Mann fired.
""Mosher, don't take us for fools. Your track record shows what your true motives and intentions and agenda are. Read John Mashey's file, for example. Your intentions are not remotely honorable.""
Earlier I said this was a great, accurate statement.
I stand by my endorsement.
Mosher - you will *never* be accepted as an "honest broker" or even a "non-slimeball fuckhead denialist" by anyone tuned into the science side of the argument.
Go park your ass at the McI "we agree that the climate's warming, we're just worried about the nth degree, and that's why we oppose action" lying scumsite.
(not that the site is actually like that, and not that you *actually* believe that climate science is valid, and the only reason you oppose political action is because of minor, inconsequential, hypothetical, unproven problems that you admit are probably meaningless).
Watts is totally stupid, so may be forgiven his sins, so to speak.
But the others ... evil. Just evil.
I still don't get the part about 40 requests being more efficient/superior to a single request.
I mean, the "more the merrier" part is pretty easy to understand, but somewhere up this thread some guy called "steven" spent a lot of words trying to explain why responding to 40 requests is exactly like responding to one. If there were only a single request, "steven" would not have needed to do that.
See how fast 40 requests can make things more cumbersome than necessary? 40 requests: childishly simple.
Maybe I should try this post again, over at McIntyre's site, except put each word in a separate submission? No, that would be inefficient, not to mention rude, inconsiderate and disruptive. I doubt it would be the right way to get a straight answer to a question of childish simplicity.
So, Mosher, gotta ask...do you know any good hackers? And for the because you were talking of being "on the record" about certain aspects, please for the record, state whether or not you had any role direct/or indirect in the CRU hack. Would be smart on your part, arrange to have the data and emails hacked and then write a book on it. I do hope that your writing skills in the book are better than those ambiguous musings posted here.
Dhogaza, thanks for your candid summary. Now I know where the "PIltdown man" crap originated from that is widely spouted by denialists.
I maintain that this "official" stance on AGW is just window dressing to try and add some semblance of credibility to your real agenda.
Mosher "I'm not convinced its a problem, neither Am I convinced that its not a problem."
This sounds remarkably like what McI told the Canadian media about his view on AGW.
Free the CA emails, free the truth!
steven @3:56PM: "when Anthony visited menne at NCDC I passed along a request for Menne's code. nope."
Here's the best reply I've seen to these requests for "the code":
"I find this replication discussion to be a bit strange. I am currently mulling over a method used by a colleague in a paper. I could be lazy and email him and ask for his code. But if I really want to use his method what I should do is to write my own code based on what he describes in his paper. Replication is checking if I get the same results as he did. ... The “audit” philosophy of asking for code and data and then looking for bugs is of limited use for advancing science. Replication is hard work."
-- Halldór Björnsson, http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/09/hey-ya-mal/comment-page-3/#comment-136775
Replication is hard work.
And therein lies the rub. Doing real science is hard work. Spinning tinfoil-hat conspiracy theories and smearing one of the leading climate-scientists as a "Piltdown-Mann" isn't.
It just isn't any more complicated than that.
I maintain that this "official" stance on AGW is just window dressing to try and add some semblance of credibility to your real agenda.
...or as the saying goes, "As we all know, this isn't about truth at all, its about plausibly deniable accusations." Right?
"Nick stokes argued that the anomaly method should take care of the problem. I agreed. EM Smith then refered me back to the code."
And just what did he find there? So far as I can tell, he read the code for how GISS combines stations to find a record at a grid point, completely misunderstood it, and didn't read Hansen/Lebedeff (1987) which spells out what they do.
The simple fact that you're using anomalies and spatial averages means that he's full of it. And not being able to tinker with the GISS code is not an excuse.
As I've been saying, any competent person can implement the method separately for themselves. Just do it, instead of spreading half-baked thoughts all over.
Steve
"It will eventually come down to doing the same with other data from ROW. In some cases ( ireland pops to mind) the TOBS adjustment is not done using the Karl method."
I was not aware Ireland did TOB adjustments that make it into v2.mean. If this is the case, please provide documentation.
"Basically those of us who believe in this argue that for a publication to count as science the DATA as USED and the CODE as RUN, has to be supplied with the paper."
That's a load of bull. I have to hand in every last spreadsheet and script with every publication? That's the sort of work you're supposed to do for yourself, if it's a topic you're interested in.
"You want me to BUY your results? supply the code and data. If you don't I'm under no rational obligation to prove you wrong or to do my own work..."
BS, through and through. This isn't the norm in any field of science. The authors of any paper are not obliged to hold the hands of every reader and spoon feed them.
You being too lazy or thick to try to do some calculations is no excuse. None. You read the papers, try to do it for yourself, and if you can't, only then you might contact the authors to see what the issue is.
Are you a programmer by any chance?
Steve said,
The real issue is what lies below GISS. They import GHCN. adjusted data. That's where it gets interesting. So basically GISSTEMP is an temperal/spatial averager. hard to get it too much wrong. JohnV showed this just by whipping together a simple program for the US. So, thre are some minor interesting quirky things in GISSTEMP
So Steve, if you are so concerned about the effects of GHCN adjustments, why haven't you whipped together a "simple program" that performs temporal/spatial averaging of the GHCN data to compare raw vs adjusted GHCN results?
You are certainly aware that the complete raw and adjusted GHCN data sets are available for anyone to download. If this geospatial averaging is so simple, and if you are so concerned about GHCN adjustments, why haven't you bothered to whip together a simple geospatial averaging program to compare global averages based on raw vs. adjusted GHCN data?
Or is it just easier for you to smear the people who actually do this sort of thing than it is for you to do it yourself?
As a scientist, it would never occur to me that I'd have to keep detailed, conveniently filed records of who specifically requested that their data not be redistributed. Mostly, I deal with other scientists, who have respect for the fact that any request is an imposition on the time of working scientists. It certainly would not occur to me that somebody would hound me for data that doesn't even properly belong to me. Any reasonable scientist, when told "That data isn't ours, you should request it from the owners," would say "Oh, sorry," and do so.
Frankly, I find the list of requests and demands quite shocking. That somebody would be too lazy to bother to find out how to contact the various Met services themselves, and instead abuse the FoI mechanism to try to force a scientific laboratory to do their work for them is simply outrageous.
It is quite clear that there is no legitimate scientific basis for what was demanded--and indeed, there has been no evidence that the data that was provided was put to any scientific use (while the Clear Climate folks have achieved substantial progress simply by acting with respect and consideration for the time of others). The only plausible motivation I can think of for these burdensome FoI demands is either personal animosity or a desire to impair climate research.
""You want me to BUY your results? supply the code and data. If you don't I'm under no rational obligation to prove you wrong or to do my own work..."
Yet, you're free to scream "PILTDOWN MANN!" based on someone not meeting your personal, as opposed to professional, standards...
Got it.
I agree with Jim's comment regarding replication. The only time I'd ask for somebody else's code would be if I were convinced that it was correct, and I wanted to apply it to my own data.
When I want to check somebody's methodology, I intentionally avoid looking at their calculations or code. Instead, I'll recreate it. When you look at how somebody else did it, it is all too easy to unconsciously to pick up and replicate their errors. Only if the conclusions differ do I go through the code or calculations looking for differences.
The idea that "auditing" of code by amateurs would add value seems scientifically questionable, and the efforts of self-styled auditors of climate science seems to validate those doubts. So far, all they seem to have achieved is to consume an immense amount of the time of the scientists who are doing the real work, while making no real contributions to the science themselves--just a few trivial corrections that do not influence conclusions in any meaningful way (but for which they've patted themselves on the back at great length). On the other hand, efforts like those of Clear Comment to rewrite and clarify code seem quite valuable.
So Mosher has still not answered this question put to him here:
"So, Mosher, gotta ask...do you know any good hackers? And [for the] because you were talking of being "on the record" about certain aspects, please for the record, state whether or not you had any role direct/or indirect in the CRU hack."
Hmmm.....
M&M&M must be getting a little anxious:
http://www.desmogblog.com/who-hacked-cru
I'm not sure why desmogblog thinks it couldn't be a 14 year old in a basement. I don't know much about this sort of thing, but I would guess that there are lots of unaffiliated hackers who have the skills to break into an academic mail server. Let's not talk this up into being some mammoth task, just to make it sound sinister.
"I'm not sure why desmogblog thinks it couldn't be a 14 year old in a basement."
The desmogblog piece points to a guardian piece, which has done a concordance analysis (words in common minus articles, conjunctions etc) on the e-mails. A relatively small set of words pop up frequently ("model", etc) - could easily have been done by grep'ing and manual inspection of those mail files returned. Laborious - maybe a 14 year old kid in a basement on meth :)
Anonymous @4:38PM: M&M&M must be getting a little anxious
I wonder if Mosher has lawyered up yet?
If nothing else the break into Real Climate
Actually, it depends on how it was done, and I've not seen anything from Gavin describing it (and I don't blame him, plug the holes but don't advertise what they were).
Plenty of kids have used rootkits to gain control of servers once they've gotten shell access. Linux has gotten far more secure over the years. It just takes one user with a weak password though to open the potential to crack the server with a dictionary attack.
Gavin's too smart to do this, I'm sure, but remember Real Climate's hosted by some non-profit. It wouldn't surprise me if someone with access to the server had a weak password.
The tools - shell scripts typically - to do this kind of thing are widely available.
Hmm ... scripts ... kids ...
Why, that's where the term "script kiddy" for folks with relatively little knowledge but good success breaking into systems came from. They learn which scripts to run against which versions of an OS, doesn't require anything more sophisticated than that.
Now, with all that, I'm in the camp of CRU being the target of hackers funded by some denialist group, or some group of cracking auditors...
oops ...
"Linux has gotten far more secure over the years"
Meant to say " but it's not invulnerable".
Let us play devil's advocate with the denial team:
The forensic data show "Significantly, that analysis suggests that the archive was created on a machine running five hours behind GMT, which would put it on the east coast of North America."
Now who lives in that time zone? M&M. Also, who has taken data off the CRU servers before without permission and then tried to cover it up? McI.
"McIntyre was behind the first leak, though he initially was coy about it, talking about a "mole". But he emphatically denies being behind the second. McIntyre is generally meticulous, straightforward and consistent in what he says. But over the July incident, his description of events is opaque. "
"....My guess [says McI] is that they will not make the slightest effort to discipline the mole.
This was a tease. There was no human "mole" in the sense of someone deliberately leaking material. Just a security breach. The "mole", he now says, was simply the person who "put the station on the CRU server."
Just wonderin folks, just wonderin.
Also,
"This version of events is consistent with Mosher's claim, in a blog last week (12th) that "on the morning of Nov 19th two people held the file (that I know of). Me on a CD and a blog moderator who was holding the FOIA comment. Embargoed at the request of the blog owner... Did I download the files? No. How did you [I] get them? On a CD. Who gave them to you? Can't say.""
Now why is that Mosher? Why can't you say?
Anon 10:02 says:
Now why is that Mosher? Why can't you say?
Hmm. Because it's data held that is commercial in confidence maybe?
Cymraeg llygoden
Good gosh, people. There's more than just a few people who live in GMT-5.
It's pretty obvious it was done by somebody who reads the climate blogs and is a fan of Steve Mc. That's about all.
I don't know anything about hacking, but from the idea I get from reading the newspaper, individual hackers with no funding can do some pretty impressive things.
Hi Eli and friends,
I am not a climate scientist and I get pretty lost in statistics, but I understand the scientific process, having published several articles in biology journals. I like a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but I happen to consider this 'climate conspiracy' to be a pretty poor one. After all, a good one needs to be effectively unprovable....
Anyway, I have been following several debates on Eli's blog (and many others), but I have found this one and the comments below it to be the most dumbfounding.
As I understand it, and correct me if I am wrong, one of a group of the most influential anti-AGW camps (Steve Mosher with strong links to Climate Audit) has just explained that he BELIEVES in AGW, and that the full release of data and code from the CRU (and others) won't make a significant difference. No 'smoking gun'. That he and McKintyre are indulging in some sort of pissing contest against 'real climate scientists' to see if they can find a 0.1 degree difference in the projections of warming.
Yet in spite of that fact, blogville is full of accusations of fraud and demands for the removal of Michael Mann, Phil Jones and others and a feeding frenzy of unparalleled proportions is taking place in 'journalistic' circles with attacks on the IPCC and almost any individual associated with it. Mosher himself has attacked the peer-review process and claimed that it prevents 'non-consensus views' from getting through.
Do not these allegations of fraud originate from blogs like Climate Audit? Are they not driving the feeding frenzy (or at the very least standing idly by)?
WTF??!!
How do they live with themselves, knowing the damage they are causing for the sake of an intellectual willie comparison?
How many arguments are occurring right now, not just among intellectuals and scientists, but among friends and within families, because of the snake-oil these people are peddling?
I am horrified.
Cymraeg. Huh? Let us apply some logic here. They blasted prvate information (illegally?) all over the bloody web, and now you are suggesting that Mosher cannot reveal his source of the "data" b/c it is may be "held in commercial confidence".
The police need to speak to Mosher.
Carrot, yes tens of millions of people live in that time zone. But a few vectors are pointing towards M&M country. McI has had his hand in the cookie jar without permission before and tried to cover it up, rather badly in the end.
Personally I do not think that McI would be so dumb, but perhaps McK. If note them, very likely one of their acolytes.
As for hacking and kids. I do not think that this was done by a kid. Someone grep'd or did a search though the large sum of files and emails to weed out the information on Jones and his colleagues.
Also, kinds would go for the glory. There is not much glory hacking into CRU. They tend to go for corporations or government agencies in the hopes of getting a job with Apple of Microsoft.
The person/s who obtained the data knew exactly what they were looking for.
It is troubling that Mosher won't reveal his source. If it is part of the criminal investigation, fine. Then he could have said that. But he didn't and Pearce did not push him on it. Why?
Adrian, most of the prominent ones have said at one time or another that their major concern is that their taxes not be raised for the purpose of mitigating climate warming until it's proven to their satisfaction. The problem is that they're greedy and self-centered, probably spoiled from childhood, and such people are not psycholgically configured to care about things that aren't directly affecting them. Indeed, they will happily make stuff up to undermine the science and feel quite justified in doing so. The parallel with the teabagger response to health care reform is informative.
Adrian @7:38AM: "I am horrified."
And it's ever so much worse than you think. Check out John Mashey's new paper, Plagiarism? Conspiracies? Felonies? Breaking out the Wegman File.
I extracted one of his central graphs: Graph of the Day: Climate Anti-Science Activities, 1989-2010
Also required reading: Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming.
Adrian:
"How do they live with themselves, knowing the damage they are causing for the sake of an intellectual willie comparison? "
Because it's not really an intellectual willie comparison.
Their product is not the relatively tiny impact they've had on the science itself.
Their product is the other stuff you talk about:
"accusations of fraud and demands for the removal of Michael Mann, Phil Jones and others and a feeding frenzy of unparalleled proportions is taking place in 'journalistic' circles with attacks on the IPCC and almost any individual associated with it. Mosher himself has attacked the peer-review process and claimed that it prevents 'non-consensus views' from getting through."
They pretend like their findings are earthshaking evidence of scientific fraud on the part of researchers.
Mosher's true feelings are revealed by his use of the term "Piltdown Mann", for instance, to impeach Mann's scientific credibility. That's an outright accusation of fraud, not an attempt to wiggle the science 1/2 degree up or down.
Shorter summary: don't trust Mosher (or McI) when they pretend to be reasonable. It's a front, an act, a diversion. By posing as reasonable people, they hope to fool people into believing that their wildest accusations are also reasonable.
Obviously, it's not working with you. But it works with many, including, apparently, far too many journalists.
dhogaza @9:29AM: It's a front, an act, a diversion. By posing as reasonable people, they hope to fool people into believing that their wildest accusations are also reasonable.
Isn't that the definition of "concern troll"?
Re Jim and dhogaza's comments. Can someone please spell this out to the journalists like Revkin and Pearce and Rose and...!
Mapleleaf
"Also, kinds (sic) would go for the glory. There is not much glory hacking into CRU. "
Looking around, there clearly was.
Again, it's probably very safe to say that whoever did it was a reader of the different climate blogs, in particular CA. That's what motivated the person. But I'm sorry, there's simply no reason (yet, at least) to think one of the principals of CA actually did it.
"The person/s who obtained the data knew exactly what they were looking for."
Hardly. No more so than any random but regular reader of CA. Why are people thinking it's a sign of sophistication that the person searched for certain names and terms? It isn't. I'd also say the person had little understanding of the scientific significance of what he found (basically, none). Though he shares that in common with much of the denial-blogosphere.
Yes, Carrot, the CRU hack has gotten a lot of undue attention, BUT would a kid have known that a priori? And would a kid have known about Yamal etc.?
I think not. Anyhow, you let's just hope that they find whoever did this and hold them to account.
I'm with carrot eater on this, which is why I pointed out that it doesn't necessarily take a sophisticated cracker to make their way into a server hosting web sites such as real climate.
"But I'm sorry, there's simply no reason (yet, at least) to think one of the principals of CA actually did it."
If caught, the discovery would hurt their cause. I can't imagine the kind of free pass given them by so many journalists would survive such a disclosure.
The obviously were pleased that it happened, and sleazily tried to downplay their role in distributing stolen information by insisting it's a protected whistleblower doing it (BTW this is why I doubt it's someone inside CRU, such insistence by friends would make any such person nervous, I should think).
But I don't think they did it.
"The person/s who obtained the data knew exactly what they were looking for."
The concordance study down at The Guardian's request make it clear that a relatively small set of grep's using words like "modeling" would've been sufficient to grab the purloined e-mails. Now, as to how many "false positives" (i.e. useless e-mails) that would return, they can't say because they only have the purloined messages to work with.
But since the 1300 (?) or so messages contain a mere handful of gems worth misrepresenting or lying about, ITSM that they kept much, most, or all of the mails returned by simple grep'ing for such terms.
"And would a kid have known about Yamal etc.?"
Anybody who reads CA on a regular basis, regardless of age, would have searched for whichever terms they searched for.
All we can say is the person probably read CA, followed the controversies generated there, saw there was a campaign to send FOIs, was motivated by it, knew how to break into an email server and search for certain terms, and then put the results in places where his sympathizers could find them. And also tried to put them where non-sympathizers would find them, as well.
Beyond that, I don't think we know anything, so it's irresponsible to speculate about M&M themselves, or Russian spies, or any of that.
___
By the way, like Adrian's take and dhogaza's reply. It's completely inconsistent for Mosher or McIntyre to say they're just looking for minor errors and that they basically think the science is correct, while instigating the feeding frenzy of baseless claims of fraud and major error.
"That's an outright accusation of fraud, not an attempt to wiggle the science 1/2 degree up or down."
Oy. Drop the temp record by half a degree over the last century, and all talk of AGW - and all of its funding - disappears. Half a degree IS what the cruxt of the matter is at this time.
Therefore, if that was done intentionally, yes, it is fraud.
--Demi
Anon 8:49 needs to put his sarcasm head on and re-parse.
Cymraeg llygoden
Demi: I see your point, but based on context, I assume Mosher was talking about relatively trivial differences there. If he meant to say he thought it was possible there had been no warming at all since the 1970s, I'd think he'd use different language.
Then again, elsewhere he or at least his friends try to make it sound like that's a possibility, so you never know. So only he can clarify his statement.
"Oy. Drop the temp record by half a degree over the last century, and all talk of AGW - and all of its funding - disappears. Half a degree IS what the cruxt of the matter is at this time."
You really don't get it, do you?
If temperatures did not behave as predicted by some fairly straightforward physics, that would make the problem -more- interesting to the like of Jones et al. It would also undoubtedly guarantee funding to assist with and explanation
These people are following the muse of their human curiosity. Their annoyance with being pestered by gullible idiots is the same as you'd feel if you were on Lover's Lane about to get to first base and a cop showed up with a flashlight at your window.
How can people be so dense?
The core of the campaign is a network of professional lobbyists, rightwing activists and politicians, tame journalists and a handful of scientists (including some at the University of East Anglia itself) who present themselves as independent seekers after truth, but are actually in regular contact to co-ordinate their actions and talking points.
The main mechanism of harassment was the misuse of Freedom of Information requests in an effort to disrupt the work of scientists, trap them into failures of compliance, and extract information that could be misrepresented as evidence of scientific misconduct. This is a long-standing tactic in the rightwing War on Science, reflected in such Orwellian pieces of legislation as the US “Data Quality Act”.
The hacking was almost certainly done by someone within the campaign, but in a way that maintained (in Watergate terminology) “plausible deniability” for the principals. ... much the same team had their first outing in the controversy over the Mann et al “hockey stick” graph. All the same elements were there – supposedly disinterested citizen researchers who were in fact paid rightwing operatives, misuse of accountability procedures, and exceptional gullibility on the part of the “sceptical” mass audience.
Climategate revisited
Thanks to all for the follow up comments.
I'd like to add that Demi did rather miss the point. The "1/2 degree up or down" was introduced into the conversation by dhogaza to make a point.
What Steve Mosher referred to was "0.1C" and clarified later with
"it = the .1C type problems".
He also said (and this was got me going):
"nobody with any credibility expects to find some huge smoking gun in the code. No error that accounts for the warming"
This would indicate that none of those wankers expects any of the current witch-huntery to change a thing. All they are hoping to achieve is a delay in the ability for anyone of us to do anything about a problem that they know exists - AGW.
The irony is, again correct me if I'm wrong, that they don't want anything done about it until they are absolutely certain that the models are 100% accurate because of the potential economic burden. That economic burden, of course, being assumed by the application of a bunch of other models (that are so unreliable that they didn't even predict the recent economic melt-down).
Meanwhile, a serious article in Nature has at least one scientist calling for the IPCC to be scrapped in favour of a 'Wickipedia-style' open debate. Does anyone else find that a little scary? Isn't that effectively what we have outside of the IPCC - blogville?
Thanks to steven for all the free data on whether you can reason with sociopaths.
My working hypothesis is now "no."
Adrian, it is a crazy idea. the WG2 and WG3 are now being reevaluated as if they were things they are not.
In all honesty, what's really happened is, yet again, brain infection from market fundamentalism.
People are hypercritical of the IPCC WG2 and WG3, and are not proposing how to fund a better replacement, or keep anyone dumb enough to get involved with it from being harrassed non-stop until they can't work.
It's the old story - This gummint stuff sucks, and it better damn well improve itself, oh, and we're cutting all its funding. and using the money we saved to work a mob up and buy them pitchforks and torches. Get to work.
Marion, good summary.
And yes, Wikipedia-like IPPC reports would be a goon fest, a gong show, useless and a waste of time and effort.
Dr. John Christy, I think, floated that ridiculous balloon.
Isn't it odd that when WG2 and WG3 came out about 3 years ago they were dismissed by the "skeptics" who climate dot have read them. Well, they clearly had not. They just dismissed them out right....
Mistakes learned, move on and they'll address the concerns and lessons learned in WG2. Nothing wrong with that, so long as they do follow through. I for one, do not want to give the "skeptics" one error to blow out of proportion....but that would be an unrealistic goal.
An open debate IPCC would be pointless. On the other hand a moderated wikipedia type setup with only scientists involved, as I kind of thought was the case now, would stand a reasonable chance. Of course one can allow non-scientists to read it, and you could employ some graduates to filter the sensible from the stupid comments - even our old pal from the coal board, richard courtney, despite lying and fouling up the science actually made some usefull comments on the way the last report was written, which resulted in a section or two being re-written for clarity.
Guthrie,
In otherwords, Courtney so clearly misunderstood (or distorted) what was said that I rewrite was deemed necessary so that he could not get it wrong?
Rattus - that may well be it, after all you want the IPCC report to be written as unambigously as possible.
Is the Steven Mosher posting here the same nice, reasonable person who posted this at Deep Climate?
steven mosher // February 8, 2010 at 7:42 am | Reply
The death threats are troublesome for two reasons.
1. Jones caregivers should be reading his mails if he is in such a state of mind.
2. I know his supporters are mad at him, but why are they writing death threats
Adrian,
Yes, you got it. What McFraudit and fellow travellers are up to is spreading FUD and lies. At the same time, they pretend that, oh, no, we are just asking questions! We never use smear tactics and ad hom, oh no. We are so reasonable.
FUD and lies...
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