WTF? Is this Really What They Do?
In fact, the Met [UK meteorology office] still asserts we are in the midst of an unusually warm winter — as one of its staffers sniffily protested in an internet posting to a newspaper last week: “This will be the warmest winter in living memory, the data has already been recorded. For your information, we take the highest 15 readings between November and March and then produce an average. As November was a very seasonally warm month, then all the data will come from those readings.”
Look, I think some of these guys’ process is nuts, but this is too crazy to believe. Any other background on tis?
backscatter:
Doesn’t winter begin around December 21st? Rather convenient for them to lump November in as a Winter month. Gee, why not August?
January 10, 2010, 12:40 pmMetro Gnome:
It’s hard for me to understand what an average computed in this way might represent, other than the average of the 15 warmest days. But what would that mean? And if they think an “average” has some sort of significance, don’t they have sufficient computing power to consider more than just the 15 highest readings? Surely degree-days measured on an absolute temperature scale would be a more meaningful representation of the location of the temperature distribution? It wouldn’t seem that hard to compute that.
January 10, 2010, 1:56 pmMichael:
I read that article this morning too. It’s nice to see the country’s papers feel secure enough to print stories that it is cold and the country is running out of natural gas supplies.
The guys at the MET, CRU, and the UK IPCC team at a tight bunch going back to around 1990 so it’s not surprising that the 2010 record has been written.
January 10, 2010, 2:07 pmMichael:
I found this at the Met site.
January 10, 2010, 2:10 pmBob Hawkins:
“As November was a very seasonally warm month, then all the data will come from those readings.”
They use the “Monty Python Cheese Shop Metric.” Well, it seems to be entirely free of winter data.
January 10, 2010, 2:42 pmKevin B:
The seasons are defined as three month periods and winter is December 1st to February 28/29th so it is unlikely that this was anything but a spoof.
Having said that, I still wouldn’t put it past the Met Office to downplay the severity of this winter by fiddling the figures, but they certainly wouldn’t be this crass.
January 10, 2010, 3:09 pmTheLastMan:
Whoever was spoken to at the Met office had no idea what they were talking about. This is their latest report on the winter.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/seasonal/2009/winter/
It states on the page that Winter is classifed by the Met office as December to February (just like everywhere else!). Already they are putting the odds on a colder winter at 45% compared to 25% for milder. That only takes into account December. They will redo their appraisal of the season after January’s figures are in and a final report after February.
I have lots of issues over the politics of the Met office, but they are at heart a scrupulously scientific organisation and they would not do anything as stupid as to take the warmest days and average them. Sounds like a statement given by a grumpy telephonist rather than a scientist.
January 10, 2010, 3:14 pmLenty:
They didn’t speak to anyone. It’s a random comment that someone left on a newspaper internet blog by someone claiming to be from the met office. Whether it was designed as irony or to despoil the met office’s reputation it’s quite clearly not true.
January 10, 2010, 3:51 pmhunter:
What a gullible twat you are. What you could do, if you had a brain cell, would be to presume this unattributed, unreferenced quote from an unnamed source was simply the invention of a desperate denier. However, if you only had half a brain cell, you might be taken in for a moment. Then, you could just look at the many, many publications which tell you how they actually do things. For example, here, it says “seasonal values are calculated from the monthly data by averaging the three monthly values”.
But you’ve got no brain cells at all, so you write a note on the internet to say that you don’t understand, you don’t want to understand, and that you’re too lazy and too stupid to understand even if the answer is trivial to find. You disgust me with your inability to think and constant desire to show off how stupid you are in public.
January 10, 2010, 4:39 pmJim:
The truly sad thing is that the incompetence of the Hockey Team has conditioned people to believe that something like this might actually happen. I mean, look at Mann’s Hockey Stick! Crap like that gets published. Mann’s code cherry picked proxy data to fit the instrumental record, so who’s to say the Met Office doesn’t systematically cherry pick their temp readings?
January 10, 2010, 5:04 pmADiff:
Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?
Talk about Orwellian! This seems exactly like the treatment of ‘fact’ in the darkest Stalinist days of the former Soviet Union!
Amazing!!!
January 10, 2010, 5:47 pmkuhnkat:
TheLastMan,
They still are forecasting a 55% chance of normal or warmer!! Do YOU believe they will be sunbathing in Thongs in Scotland in February?? That is what it would take to balance the weather already experienced!!
They need to purchase expertise from Piers Corbyn and Company who DO forecast over 6 months ahead with an alledged 85% right!! Only the people who pay them big bucks for their forecasts know for sure!! ;>)
http://weatheraction.com/
January 10, 2010, 9:21 pmD. Ch.:
Doesn’t winter begin on the winter solstice (Dec 21 plus or minus a day) and end on the spring equinox (March 21 plus or minus a day)? Why are people talking as though winter lasts all December and ends in Feb.?
January 10, 2010, 9:43 pmdearieme:
“Doesn’t winter begin on the winter solstice (Dec 21 plus or minus a day) and end on the spring equinox (March 21 plus or minus a day)?” No.
January 11, 2010, 5:09 amAWM:
TheLastMan
Whilst I agree that the November is winter statement looks like a spoof, I think you are being somewhat optimistic about the ‘scrupulously scientific organisation’ statement.
There are already mutterings of legal action against the Met. Office from parties affected by relying on their long range weather forecasts, due to the disruption caused by the lack of preparedness for the bad weather we are presently experiencing in the UK. Politically, they have been in the Warmest camp for many years, and so of course the models they have for long range forecasting are in lockstep with those beloved by the IPCC. Other forecasters (notably Accuweather in the US) forecasted the present UK weather quite accurately but of course, it doesn’t fit the politics does it, so we are condemned to continuing long range forecasts of ‘Barbecue’ Summers and mild winters which then never happen but have to be forecast as such because that is how the model has been constructed to forecast.
January 11, 2010, 6:17 amBob Sykes:
Well, almost all dictionaries and encyclopedias use the equinoxes and solstices to define the beginning and end of the seasons. So, the correct answer is “yes.”
However, some agencies might prefer other limits for various reasons, including data recording convenience, compatibility among data bases, etc. For example, the USGS defines a “water year” to be Oct 1 through Sept 30. This is a convenient basis for water supply reservoirs in the eastern US, as it puts in wet period at the beginning of the year and the drought at the end.
What Met does, I do not know.
January 11, 2010, 6:21 amhunter (the sane one):
hunter the twit,
January 11, 2010, 6:45 amTrolls are as trolls do.
Our host posted this as a question.
Here you get some free time at the clinic, and you waste it again.
holly:
I think it’s pretty obvious that this was not a genuine post from a Met Office employee. They classify winter as Dec, Jan, Feb so obviously wouldn’t care about what happened in November, and as for taking averages of the 15 highest temps -that is clearly nonsense.
It’s a shame that Dominic Lawson didn’t try and check his sources (as good journalists are supposed to do) before broadcasting this sort of tripe to the nation as fact.
January 11, 2010, 7:51 amJohnR:
The Met Office is in a sad state when this is believable rather than being immediately recognized as satire. But the Met has been defensive of its errors rather than being transparent.
January 11, 2010, 8:36 amhunter:
Perhaps a better interpretation of the alleged Met office posting is that we ahve gained an insight on how they cook their books?
January 11, 2010, 9:11 amJP:
I think the Met employee was referring to the Borreal Winter and not astronomical one. This is how the game is played:
1)First do not limit yourself to weekly, monthly, or seasonal intervals. That way, you can mine for predtermined mins or maxes that cross over these time limits. For instance, in March 2007 NOAA published that the period Dec through Jan 2006-07 was the warmest Dec through Jan period in 120 years for the US. What they failed to mention was that the period Feb through March was one of the coldest late winters in the US since 1940 (This continued into Spring, as in the Midwest May frosts destroyed much of the fruit crop).
2)When a cold event occurs, scour the data for any period(s) in recent weeks or months that may have been abnormally warm. Use any geographic location. For instance, as many forecasters know, if one area has an abnormally cold wet weather, usually an adjacent area will have abnormally dry hot weather. Highlight the warm areas and find any scientists who can give a blurb that it is the warm areas we should be concerned about.
I cannot tell you how many times NOAA does this very thing. 48 states could be having the coldest Jan in 40 years. But NOAA will focus on the one state that is having a heat wave or drought. Of course, this is all weather and not climate. And one wonders why NOAA continues to obsess with seasonal variations. In several blogs I warned about this type of spin (using weather events to prove climate). The Alarmists were setting themselves up to look like fools once we began having cool summers or frigid winters. They can’t have it both ways, despite thier demands to the contrary.
January 11, 2010, 10:40 amTheLastMan:
AWM – Jan 11 6:17
I agree with you. I was not commenting on the accuracy (or otherwise) of their long range forecasts only on their reporting of temperatures. This story is clearly a hoax and just plain bad journalism.
I have no idea on what they base their long run forecasts, and if you read their web site it does not give a clue either. I doubt whether you could sue them for getting it wrong though, after all they could just blame God…
Their web site seems to be transforming into an outlet for global warming political propaganda. They should stick to their original brief – which is to monitor and predict the weather. If anything they should be critically monitoring the climate research not spouting the party line.
I think it has a lot to do with their current director, Robert Napier, who previously headed the WWF. Prior to that he had a business background – from his biography:
“Prior to WWF, Robert had a commercial career and was Chief Executive of Redland PLC from 1991 to 1997. He has served as a non-executive director of Rentokil Initial PLC and of
United Biscuits PLC, as President of the Council of Building Materials and as Chairman of the CBI [Confederation of British Industry] Transport Policy Committee.”
I am not sure how a background in business and environmentalism qualifies him to run what should be an objective information service like the Met Office – an agency of the Ministry of Defence. He should be first against the wall in the upcoming budget cuts!
January 11, 2010, 11:39 amsteven mosher:
time stamp test
January 11, 2010, 3:45 pmPharynghoula:
surely a spoof/parody or something taken out-of-context… or, maybe not.
January 11, 2010, 3:54 pmhunter:
“Our host posted this as a question”
Yeah, because he’s stupid enough to believe a journalist with an imagination, but too stupid to work out where to find the answer. And it seems you’re too stupid to understand the answer, even when it’s spoonfed to you. Thick cunt.
January 11, 2010, 4:56 pmkuhnkat:
If you search the CRU e-mails you will find one where they talk about releasing temps before they are actually compiled. The purpose was to get a particular alarming point into the public a couple of months before the real temps are released.
They were released with the warning that they were PROVISIONAL!!
Of course, after all the press releases and strutting no one noticed how much lower the real temps were when they were finally released a couple of months later!!
The apologists then claim that the CRU NEVER SAID THAT!!! Only those silly press types and delusional Deniers said they did!!
January 11, 2010, 8:15 pmkuhnkat:
Here is that e-mail series I was arm waving about:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=18&filename=.txt
January 11, 2010, 8:41 pmMark:
If the paragraph is stated correctly, then in most years all the winter temp data is from Novemeber – with maybe a few days from March, if temps warm early in March for some reason or other.
Basically skips data from DEC, JAN, FEB all together.
Wouldn’t they also want to take the 15 coldest days too for average?
January 12, 2010, 7:50 amhunter (the sane one):
hunter(the disgusting one),
January 12, 2010, 9:04 amNurse Ratchet is coming. Med time for you, so run away!
Since the UK Met has gone political in its reporting, and is associated with other corrupt climate science organs, like CRU, it is not unreasonable to question what they are actually doing, vs. what they say they are doing.
And your anatomically impossible description of me reveals so much of you.
Quick, hide under the desk!
Cloneof:
Actually, talking from the finnish perspective as well, the cold hitted the Southern Finland around the end of the December, November was a mediocre month in that aspect.
January 12, 2010, 4:29 pmhunter:
“it is not unreasonable to question what they are actually doing, vs. what they say they are doing.”
So check the numbers, you dopy piece of shit. Takes five minutes – saves you embarrassing yourself in public. The problem, in your case, is that you’re too scientifically and mathematically inept to understand the numbers, let alone process them, so you just bleat noisily instead.
It’s not just science that you’re inept at. Looks like you can’t read either. The character was called Ratched. Is it some kind of perverted pleasure, for you, to expose your ignorance in all fields to the world, repeatedly? Guess you like being humiliated or something.
January 12, 2010, 5:35 pmbaxman:
kuhnkat:
“Here is that e-mail series I was arm waving about:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=18&filename=.txt”
I dunno, that seems pretty much completely devoid of any sort of conspiracy to me. It basically says “Let’s give them an early prediction and TELL THEM THAT IT IS JUST A PREDICTION”. Where’s the supposed conspiracy and nefarious intent?
January 12, 2010, 5:52 pmkuhnkat:
baxman,
thanks for ignoring that they were KNOWINGLY misleading the public as to the temps in a way they KNEW was incorrect. Also, thank you for offering them the excuse of a PREDICTION. You must be an RC level apologist to get that word out of that e-mail exchange!!
January 12, 2010, 8:04 pmhunter:
hunter(the ignorant one),
The point is, as far as the AGW scamis concerned, that there is not really any reason to trust many of the numbers at all at this time.
The point regarding public humiliation is that of course anyone reading these threads know that you are the epitome of public self-humiliation.
In fact, Nurse Ratchet has some quotes that describe you and your fallacies so well, you may have personally inspired them:
http://nurseratchet.blogspot.com/2009/03/quotable-quotes.html
hunter/scientist/troll,
January 13, 2010, 8:08 amYou behave as if you were in a butter spreading contest with no butter knife, and no ability to tell the difference between butter and poop.
baxman:
kuhnkat,
Are you saying the evidence of knowingly misleading the public is in that email? Or are you bringing that to your analysis of the email from somewhere else? Because I don’t see it in that email.
About saying it’s a prediction…
January 13, 2010, 4:49 pmThe email clearly reads that the proposed plan is to
“explain that data is provisional and how the data has been created so early (ie the estimate for Dec)”
Provisional means not final. They are talking about calculating a final number using an estimate for Dec, because they don’t have the actual data yet.
In other words they’re talking about making a prediction. There’s just nothing nefarious going here as far as I can tell.
hunter:
baxman,
January 13, 2010, 5:45 pmIt is not just that they were playing games with the numbers, releasing press announcements and them making sure the results matched.
It is the hiding, and destroying, and evasion, and contrived code, and defaming and etc. that paints the damning picture.
If the press manipulation in the e-mails you are trying to assert says nothing were the only pixel then you would be reasonable in your stand.
But it is just one of many pixels, and none of those pixels paint a picture different from one that looks like a corrupt practice.
And people do not use corruption to hide success. They use corruption to hide failure.
Waldo:
I could not find this quote on the MET website, only other blog posts or decidedly conservative online rags. Has anyone here done any homework to see if the MET actually made this comment?
January 13, 2010, 11:43 pmhunter:
The question is not if this is official Met policy. The question is if this is yet another example of cherry picking by AGW promoters?
January 14, 2010, 8:37 ambaxman:
hunter,
“It is not just that they were playing games with the numbers, releasing press announcements and them making sure the results matched.”
But that email doesn’t *say* they’re going to “make sure the results matched”. It says they will use the actual data when it is available. Again, maybe you know some information that I don’t know which shows they didn’t in fact do what this email proposes, but failing that, there’s just nothing incriminating in that email.
“If the press manipulation in the e-mails you are trying to assert says nothing were the only pixel then you would be reasonable in your stand. But it is just one of many pixels, and none of those pixels paint a picture different from one that looks like a corrupt practice.”
Hmm, to me it looks like you and kuhnkat are really stretching to find something incriminating in that email when it’s just not there. To me that looks like a “pixel” in a bigger picture of an irrational conspiracy theory against AGW proponents. I’m trying to be neutral here, but you guys aren’t making it easy.
January 14, 2010, 11:28 ambaxman:
Ok, I’ve done some searching around, it seems most people who point to this email as a smoking gun are latching on to this part of it:
“Remember all the fun we had last year over 1995 global temperatures, with early release of information (via Oz), “inventing” the December monthly value, letters to Nature etc etc? I think we should have a cunning plan about what to do this year….”
Particularly the words “inventing” and “cunning”. Is that the part that you guys are looking at mostly?
So why was “inventing” in quotes? If he was literally talking about having “invented” the temperatures for 1995 then there would be no reason to put the word in quotes. It looks to me like he may be referring to accusations made by others that they invented the numbers, probably because they didn’t make it clear enough they were releasing forecasts. So part of the strategy for 1996, he’s saying, should be to make it clearer that they are just predictions based on the data they have, to forestall such accusations this time around. The phrase “all the fun” seems pretty clearly a sarcastic remark. It seems they got a lot of flak for their work in 1995 (like accusations of “inventing” numbers). So he means it wasn’t fun at all in 1995, hence a plan to avoid that in 1996. If you go for a literal interpretation of “all the fun” it makes much less sense. Releasing data simply isn’t all that fun.
As for cunning, just sounds to me like he’s suggesting they be smarter about it this time around (particularly if you read the proposed plan that follows, which involves nothing that I would classify as trickery). Note particularly the emphasis about not responding to inquiries until the real data is available. Seems clear they’re worried about getting inundated with inquiries (presumably because that’s what happened in 1995 when they released their preliminary estimates).
Is this the most damning evidence anyone has been able to find in that pile of emails? If so then it seems a pretty weak case. I heard about the “Nature trick” email too. Also not very convincing. I sometimes refer to mathematical techniques I use in my work as “tricks”, because it’s amazing how effective they can be, but that doesn’t mean they are lies. Look up “the kernel trick”, for instance. Wikipedia’s page is a good start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_trick
January 14, 2010, 12:24 pmWaldo:
Oh little hunter: “The question is not if this is official Met policy. The question is if this is yet another example of cherry picking by AGW promoters?”
You miss the point. Holly and several others pointed this out earlier in the thread. Did this actually come from someone in the MET office? Or is this a little bit of creative writing that the credulous people here buy becuase they, like Pat Robertson, want so badly to believe in a particular religion barring all reason?
January 14, 2010, 2:43 pmhunter:
Waldo,
January 14, 2010, 3:32 pmGosh willickers, your trollishness is just dripping out for all to see.
I am glad you are here to remind us that Pat Robertson is a climate skeptic.
And next you will tell us that global warming is caused by ‘Big tobacoo’.
Are you at least fooling yourself into thinking you are clever?
hunter:
baxman,
January 14, 2010, 3:40 pmHow many e-mails get written by defenders of the cliamtegate team rationalizing how many actions and words before the message sinks throug that these guys are up to no good?
I am not taling about true beleivers posing as rational thinkers like ‘waldo’. I am talking about reasonable people who are actually willing to apply normal thiking skills to this.
Why is so much rationalization required, if these guys are up to nothing but good?
Where are the e-mails where they are sayins ‘ha! this really shows what we have been theorizing.’
Instead it is all about ‘hiding’ ‘destroying’ ‘changing the rules’ etc. etc. etc.
I submit that you and the rest of those who have maintained confidence in the AGW promoters have been used badly.
baxman:
hunter,
My reaction to what I have read of the East Anglia emails matches closely with what the editorial in Nature had to say about it:
“In the end, what the UEA e-mails really show is that scientists are human beings — and that unrelenting opposition to their work can goad them to the limits of tolerance, and tempt them to act in ways that undermine scientific values.”
“Where are the e-mails where they are sayins ‘ha! this really shows what we have been theorizing.’”
Call me crazy, but somehow I don’t think the climate skeptic blogosphere has really been looking very hard for such emails.
So lack of reports about such is hardly proof they don’t exist. Anyway, science doesn’t usually work the way you suggest. At least not in a field like climate science where they’re studying noisy complex systems. There isn’t likely to ever be *one* piece of evidence that suddenly cinches the deal. It’s usually a slow buildup of little clues that eventually guide you toward a correct understanding.
So I didn’t find any exuberant emails like you seek, but this is probably about as exuberant as you’re likely to see a real scientist get (if a scientist tells you he’s just ‘proved global warming’ (or disproved it) with a single study, nod reassuringly and slowly back away):
http://eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=69&filename=907258644.txt
This one also offers some balance vs the stuff I usually see pulled from the archive:
http://eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=552&filename=1121869083.txt
Particularly this sentence and what follows:
“I **ABSOLUTELY** AGREE THAT WE MUST AVOID ANY BIAS OR PERCEPTION OF
BIAS. MY COMMENT ON “NAILING” WAS MADE TO MEAN THAT ININFORMED PEOPLE KEEPING COMING
BACK TO THE MWP, AND DESCRIBING IT FOR WHAT I BELIEVE IT WASN’T.”
This looks to me like a good example of how what looks incriminating in one email is often just a case of sloppy use of language. It’s a lot easier to say “I want to nail the MWP” than it is to say “I want to analyze the data carefully to reveal the true nature of the MWP, which I believe is not what a lot of uninformed people say it is”. Do you think that you would carefully hedge your statements like that in a private email to a fellow climate skeptic? I’m guessing not, because you don’t even hedge your statements here on this public forum.
Now you may argue that if they are true scientists they should keep an open mind. Well, apparently they do. That’s why this guy goes on to say “OUR JOB IS TO MAKE IT CLEAR WHAT IT WAS WITHIN THE LIMITS OF THE DATA. IF THE DATA ARE NOT CLEAR, THEN WE HAVE TO BE NOT CLEAR.” So yeh, this guy has a bit of a bias — he believes his hypothesis — but the important thing is *he is aware he has it* and that he needs to be careful that it does not interfere with his analysis of the data. That’s more than I can say for the majority of skeptic commentary I have read. (BTW if you know of some good skeptic literature that does NOT fall into the trap of chronic bias I’d love to know about it. I’m looking for a book that does a really even-handed job of arguing the science without resorting to a lot of cherry picking of facts or politicization of the issue. I’m reading Singer 2007 right now, and it doesn’t score well by those criteria.)
January 15, 2010, 12:16 ambaxman:
[apologies if this gets double posted, first time it wasn't showing in my browser]
hunter,
My reaction to what I have read of the East Anglia emails matches closely with what the editorial in Nature had to say about it:
“In the end, what the UEA e-mails really show is that scientists are human beings — and that unrelenting opposition to their work can goad them to the limits of tolerance, and tempt them to act in ways that undermine scientific values.”
“Where are the e-mails where they are sayins ‘ha! this really shows what we have been theorizing.’”
Call me crazy, but somehow I don’t think the climate skeptic blogosphere has really been looking very hard for such emails.
So lack of reports about such is hardly proof they don’t exist. Anyway, science doesn’t usually work the way you suggest. At least not in a field like climate science where they’re studying noisy complex systems. There isn’t likely to ever be *one* piece of evidence that suddenly cinches the deal. It’s usually a slow buildup of little clues that eventually guide you toward a correct understanding.
So I didn’t find any exuberant emails like you seek, but this is probably about as exuberant as you’re likely to see a real scientist get (if a scientist tells you he’s just ‘proved global warming’ (or disproved it) with a single study, nod reassuringly and slowly back away):
http://eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=69&filename=907258644.txt
This one also offers some balance vs the stuff I usually see pulled from the archive:
http://eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=552&filename=1121869083.txt
Particularly this sentence and what follows:
“I **ABSOLUTELY** AGREE THAT WE MUST AVOID ANY BIAS OR PERCEPTION OF
BIAS. MY COMMENT ON “NAILING” WAS MADE TO MEAN THAT ININFORMED PEOPLE KEEPING COMING
BACK TO THE MWP, AND DESCRIBING IT FOR WHAT I BELIEVE IT WASN’T.”
This looks to me like a good example of how what looks incriminating in one email is often just a case of sloppy use of language. It’s a lot easier to say “I want to nail the MWP” than it is to say “I want to analyze the data carefully to reveal the true nature of the MWP, which I believe is not what a lot of uninformed people say it is”. Do you think that you would carefully hedge your statements like that in a private email to a fellow climate skeptic? I’m guessing not, because you don’t even hedge your statements here on this public forum.
Now you may argue that if they are true scientists they should keep an open mind. Well, apparently they do. That’s why this guy goes on to say “OUR JOB IS TO MAKE IT CLEAR WHAT IT WAS WITHIN THE LIMITS OF THE DATA. IF THE DATA ARE NOT CLEAR, THEN WE HAVE TO BE NOT CLEAR.” So yeh, this guy has a bit of a bias — he believes his hypothesis — but the important thing is *he is aware he has it* and that he needs to be careful that it does not interfere with his analysis of the data. That’s more than I can say for the majority of skeptic commentary I have read. (BTW if you know of some good skeptic literature that does NOT fall into the trap of chronic bias I’d love to know about it. I’m looking for a book that does a really even-handed job of arguing the science without resorting to a lot of cherry picking of facts or politicization of the issue. I’m reading Singer 2007 right now, and it doesn’t score well by those criteria.)
January 15, 2010, 12:18 ambaxman:
hunter,
January 15, 2010, 12:21 amI have a reply but I’m having trouble posting it.
baxman:
[one more try...]
hunter,
My reaction to what I have read of the East Anglia emails matches closely with what the editorial in Nature had to say about it:
“In the end, what the UEA e-mails really show is that scientists are human beings — and that unrelenting opposition to their work can goad them to the limits of tolerance, and tempt them to act in ways that undermine scientific values.”
“Where are the e-mails where they are sayins ‘ha! this really shows what we have been theorizing.’”
Call me crazy, but somehow I don’t think the climate skeptic blogosphere has really been looking very hard for such emails.
So lack of reports about such is hardly proof they don’t exist. Anyway, science doesn’t usually work the way you suggest. At least not in a field like climate science where they’re studying noisy complex systems. There isn’t likely to ever be *one* piece of evidence that suddenly cinches the deal. It’s usually a slow buildup of little clues that eventually guide you toward a correct understanding.
So I didn’t find any exuberant emails like you seek, but this is probably about as exuberant as you’re likely to see a real scientist get (if a scientist tells you he’s just ‘proved global warming’ (or disproved it) with a single study, nod reassuringly and slowly back away):
http://eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=69&filename=907258644.txt
This one also offers some balance vs the stuff I usually see pulled from the archive:
http://eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=552&filename=1121869083.txt
Particularly this sentence and what follows:
“I **ABSOLUTELY** AGREE THAT WE MUST AVOID ANY BIAS OR PERCEPTION OF
BIAS. MY COMMENT ON “NAILING” WAS MADE TO MEAN THAT ININFORMED PEOPLE KEEPING COMING
BACK TO THE MWP, AND DESCRIBING IT FOR WHAT I BELIEVE IT WASN’T.”
This looks to me like a good example of how what looks incriminating in one email is often just a case of sloppy use of language. It’s a lot easier to say “I want to nail the MWP” than it is to say “I want to analyze the data carefully to reveal the true nature of the MWP, which I believe is not what a lot of uninformed people say it is”. Do you think that you would carefully hedge your statements like that in a private email to a fellow climate skeptic? I’m guessing not, because you don’t even hedge your statements here on this public forum.
Now you may argue that if they are true scientists they should keep an open mind. Well, apparently they do. That’s why this guy goes on to say “OUR JOB IS TO MAKE IT CLEAR WHAT IT WAS WITHIN THE LIMITS OF THE DATA. IF THE DATA ARE NOT CLEAR, THEN WE HAVE TO BE NOT CLEAR.” So yeh, this guy has a bit of a bias — he believes his hypothesis — but the important thing is *he is aware he has it* and that he needs to be careful that it does not interfere with his analysis of the data. That’s more than I can say for the majority of skeptic commentary I have read. (BTW if you know of some good skeptic literature that does NOT fall into the trap of chronic bias I’d love to know about it. I’m looking for a book that does a really even-handed job of arguing the science without resorting to a lot of cherry picking of facts or politicization of the issue. I’m reading Singer 2007 right now, and it doesn’t score well by those criteria.)
January 15, 2010, 12:22 ambaxman:
[maybe too big? let's try it in two parts...]
hunter,
My reaction to what I have read of the East Anglia emails matches closely with what the editorial in Nature had to say about it:
“In the end, what the UEA e-mails really show is that scientists are human beings — and that unrelenting opposition to their work can goad them to the limits of tolerance, and tempt them to act in ways that undermine scientific values.”
“Where are the e-mails where they are sayins ‘ha! this really shows what we have been theorizing.’”
Call me crazy, but somehow I don’t think the climate skeptic blogosphere has really been looking very hard for such emails.
So lack of reports about such is hardly proof they don’t exist. Anyway, science doesn’t usually work the way you suggest. At least not in a field like climate science where they’re studying noisy complex systems. There isn’t likely to ever be *one* piece of evidence that suddenly cinches the deal. It’s usually a slow buildup of little clues that eventually guide you toward a correct understanding.
So I didn’t find any exuberant emails like you seek, but this is probably about as exuberant as you’re likely to see a real scientist get (if a scientist tells you he’s just ‘proved global warming’ (or disproved it) with a single study, nod reassuringly and slowly back away):
http://eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=69&filename=907258644.txt
This one also offers some balance vs the stuff I usually see pulled from the archive:
http://eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=552&filename=1121869083.txt
Particularly this sentence and what follows:
“I **ABSOLUTELY** AGREE THAT WE MUST AVOID ANY BIAS OR PERCEPTION OF
BIAS. MY COMMENT ON “NAILING” WAS MADE TO MEAN THAT ININFORMED PEOPLE KEEPING COMING
BACK TO THE MWP, AND DESCRIBING IT FOR WHAT I BELIEVE IT WASN’T.”
This looks to me like a good example of how what looks incriminating in one email is often just a case of sloppy use of language. It’s a lot easier to say “I want to nail the MWP” than it is to say “I want to analyze the data carefully to reveal the true nature of the MWP, which I believe is not what a lot of uninformed people say it is”. Do you think that you would carefully hedge your statements like that in a private email to a fellow climate skeptic? I’m guessing not, because you don’t even hedge your statements here on this public forum.
January 15, 2010, 12:23 ambaxman:
Hunter,
The blog doesn’t seem to let me want to post it. (Censorship!!! — just kidding. Too long maybe?)
Anyway, I get your point, but to me your apparent certainty about the nefarious intent of these guys says way more about you and your beliefs than the emails do about the character of the guys who wrote them.
And either way it’s got little to do with whether their science is correct or not. I think you would agree with me that the science should be evaluated on its merits.
January 15, 2010, 1:31 amhunter:
“Has anyone here done any homework to see if the MET actually made this comment?”
Oh, how naive. Of course they haven’t! You make the mistake of thinking that any of them might have an ounce of sense or intelligence. It would have taken them two seconds to find out what the actual situation is, if they wanted to. But their interest is in pretending it’s all a vast conspiracy – they have neither the will nor the ability to understand the truth.
January 15, 2010, 1:50 amhunter (the sane one):
bauxman,
January 15, 2010, 4:13 amThis blog does have structural limits on posting links, it seems.
Nefarious motives are not really needed to fabricate and spin things.
Distraction by offering up strawmen like attribution of motive, or misrepresentations of my beliefs, is not really very effective.
We know from Crutape that miselading people about temps and trends in fact is a tool of the AGW promotion community.
This thread quotes a post alleging that the Met, which no one can reasonably say is not shaping its work product to enhance public concern about AGW, may be also manipulating its work product to bolster that effort.
Our host, in his leading post of this thread, is openly skeptical of this specific allegation.
That you and other AGW true believers are so defensive as to need to attack even the discussion of the idea that the Met, which is led by an AGW activist, might be playing climategate-esque games with their work product, I submit is more informative of your beliefs, and those who agree with you.
hunter:
And now we see that GISS has been playing with the data as well.
January 15, 2010, 5:17 ambaxman:
Hunter,
“We know from Crutape that miselading people about temps and trends in fact is a tool of the AGW promotion community.”
Yep, there is certainly some selective use of information. And the climate skeptics do much the same. The main difference I see is that members of the AGW community seems to be much more likely to include their error bars and mention competing explanations than the skeptics, which suggests to me a greater degree of scientific integrity in the AGW folks. Generally speaking of course. There are certainly exceptions. Anyway, we need to focus on the science, and not the rhetoric. Both sides have their mindless proponents. Existence of “true-believers” and propagandists on both sides has little to do with whose science is right.
“Distraction by offering up strawmen like attribution of motive, or misrepresentations of my beliefs, is not really very effective.”
Agreed. And these tactics can be seen in spades on both sides of the debate.
“That you and other AGW true believers are so defensive as to need to attack even the discussion of the idea that the Met, which is led by an AGW activist, might be playing climategate-esque games with their work product, I submit is more informative of your beliefs, and those who agree with you.”
Er, it may be informative about someone’s beliefs, but I haven’t made any comment on the original subject of this post. All my posts have been on the topic of UEA emails, which kuhnkat brought up.
I agree that the actual blogpost above these comments (by Warren Meyer?) is appropriately dubious about whether the MET would do such a thing.
Sorry, but I think I’m not the AGW true believer you’re looking for. For instance I’m interested in what comes out of this cosmic ray theory of Svensmark. So far evidence seems far from conclusive, but it looks like we should know soon if it’s a real effect or not thanks to efforts like CLOUD (http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/Research/CLOUD-en.html), and other ongoing efforts to verify the hypothesis. Also it seems to me that evidence for GW-caused catastrophic famine or species extinctions is slim. Ditto for massive GW-linked increases in storm severity. Large sea-level rise seems more likely than those, given that the Eemian temps were only a few degrees higher than now, yet sea levels were several meters higher. But I think it’s very hard to say when we could expect such a rise to occur.
January 15, 2010, 12:19 pmhunter:
baxman,
January 15, 2010, 1:20 pmThank you for a clear answer.
Anyone that is willing to step back from the apocalyptic clap trap filling so much of hte public square is worth speaking with.
Waldo:
*****”Oh, how naive. Of course they haven’t! You make the mistake of thinking that any of them might have an ounce of sense or intelligence. It would have taken them two seconds to find out what the actual situation is, if they wanted to. But their interest is in pretending it’s all a vast conspiracy – they have neither the will nor the ability to understand the truth.”
WTF?! hunter this makes no sense. This entire thread is predicated upon the notion that somehow the above statement reflects the position of the MET on GW.
Specifically: “the Met [UK meteorology office] still asserts we are in the midst of an unusually warm winter.”
But the statement did not come from the MET. It came from a neocon blog and was cross-posted here and, rather than simply admitting that CS posted incorrectly, you are coming up with some nonsensical gibberish in an attempt at rationalization.
That was your single most ridiculous post, my man.
January 15, 2010, 11:27 pmBrian N.:
I think that was Mr. Meyer’s point in asking for ‘background’. He said it was, and I quote, “too crazy to believe.”
January 20, 2010, 7:13 amWaldo:
REeeeeeeeeaallyy?
So why post it at all?
January 21, 2010, 2:25 pmhunter:
Because it is an interesting issue. People are interested in how the UK Met has gone so far down the credibility and effectiveness scale.
January 22, 2010, 6:31 amIs it corruption, as is the case in other areas of climate science?
Time will tell.
hunter:
Also, is it any less interesting than the standard AGW believer position that skeptics are funded by or dupes, of a conspiracy of Exxon Mobil and ‘big oil’?
January 22, 2010, 6:38 amSorry- keep hitting ‘submit’ too soon.
Waldo:
“Interesting”? No hunter. It is a lie. It is a falsehood. A little fibber. A made-up something that you are apparently still buying into. And that in itself is actually quite interesting. I have an interesting picture in my head about what you look like…
I suspect that if the MET has “gone so far down the credibility and effectiveness scale” – which is not apparent that it has – is because bloggers (such as Mr. Meyer) post deceptive, inaccurate and outright false statements on their blogs. Who is corrupt in this case, my funny hunter man?
Yeah, I am somewhat fascinated by your attempts to justify this post.
And no, it is far less interesting than the number of anti-AGW scientists who accept money from Exxon. But it is very telling about the mentality of the deniosphere.
January 22, 2010, 2:28 pmBrian N.:
Waldo, you’re not stupid, I assume. The point here is about media irresponsibility. The Times Online writer is the one who credulously reiterated a quote ‘too crazy to believe’…
“I have an interesting picture in my head about what you look like…”
Obvious trolling, not to mention abuse of the guests. If this were my house, you’d be out. Not stupid, but definitely a troll.
January 23, 2010, 6:15 pmWaldo:
Well Brian, I can only say that I really disagree with you here. I don’t believe Mr. Meyer posted this as a polemical statement or a call to journalistic responsibility. I believe it is exactly the opposite.
Look around at CS. Look at Mr. Meyer’s statements, the sources he posts, the news articles (none of which are responsible journalism), and the people responding to these posts. No, Mr. Meyer happily posts anyone or anything that might denigrate AGW scientists, no matter how verifiable or true. As he did above.
It would have been fairly simple to check up on the quote. Then Mr. Meyer could have simply said, ‘This quote reflects irresponsible journalism and clouds the issue of AGW.’ Or could have simply ignored it as journalistic dishonesty. Instead he turned it into propaganda. You, like hunter, are attempting to rationalize his character and his posting. Stupid is as stupid does – forgot who said that…can you remember?
As for being a troll, I’ve never denied that – and I find it curious that this site is so insistent about calling me one. It makes no difference if I am “a troll” or not; Mr. Meyers and the people who defend him are far more pernicious and offensive internet creatures.
Perhaps, Brain, I will find your house one day and then you can very bravely show me the door.
January 23, 2010, 11:56 pmhunter:
To answer our host’s question, “Is this what they really do?”, apparently the answer is yes.
The IPCC, which is run by, and whose work is reviewed by, people of the same political persuasion as the Met, is proving to suffer from a huge disconnect from its stated procedures and what it actually does:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245636/Glacier-scientists-says-knew-data-verified.html#ixzz0dUoPiTkG
- The IPCC shapes its claims to influence policy makers and and the AGW true believers, not to report accurately on the state of the science:
“Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.”
- The IPCC editors knew their glacier claims was phony:
“Dr Lal said: ‘We knew the WWF report with the 2035 date was “grey literature” [material not published in a peer-reviewed journal]”
-This was in direct contradiciotn of IPCC stated procedures:
“Having been forced to apologise over the 2035 claim, Dr Pachauri blamed Dr Lal, saying his team had failed to apply IPCC procedures.”
So yet another major player in the AGW promotion community is found to be playing fast abd loose with the facts and with the ethics.
Is it unreasonable to also be suspicious and skeptical of the Met?
No.
The fun part of this is how true believers are saying that the IPCC, which was touted for years as the definitive source of AGW theory and science, is now being down played, even while the theory of AGW is cliamed to be solid and untarnished.
This is really no different from listening to UFO believers talk about how UFO’s are real, in the face of the fraud and and failures of each claim of UFO promoters.
Even the term UFO believers use to describe skeptics is similar to AGW true believers:
‘debunkers’ for UFO skeptics, and ‘deniers’ for AGW skeptics.
The only real deniers in this conversation are those who deny that substantial grounds for skepticism of AGW exist and who also deny that the major promoters of AGW have been wrong in detail and in general in many areas of their work, their claims, and their ethics.
January 24, 2010, 8:32 amhunter:
Waldo,
Sorry to have once again hit the submit so soon.
Please do tell us all what I look like, according to your great insights.
So the influence of the evil wicked deniosphere is strong enough to make the BBC review its contract with the Met?
http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/big-question/the-big-question-should-the-bbc-drop-the-met-office-as-its-official-weather-forecaster-1872008.html
You have arrived at a conversation of ideas not only unarmed, but wearing tinfoil on your noggin.
January 24, 2010, 8:37 amhunter:
Here is a nice link about what science is, and is not:
January 24, 2010, 8:57 amhttp://www.haystack.mit.edu/hay/staff/jball/SerScience.pdf
I like this quote in particular.
“The history of science contains, one after another, a series of blows to
mankinds anthropocentric ego”
What is a bigger expression of a modern anthropocentric ego than the idea that we can manage the climate by regulating CO2, and that by doing so, we can avert a human caused climate apocalypse?
Waldo:
Hmmmmm…
January 24, 2010, 8:29 pmWaldo:
hunter, did you check out either of your stories?
To keep this brief – can you actually find Lal’s statement, published by the Dailymail, on the WWF website? Have you checked? Do you know if it is a legitimate story? Or is another bogus piece of journalism? It has made the rounds of the blogosphere, for sure, but is it real? I think I already know the answer, but I was wondering if you could find out for yourself.
Is there anything on the BBC website about dropping the MET? They might be looking for a new weather service – and this would be the first instance in which CS posted real journalism – but can you confirm that anywhere?
Let’s get back to your essay later, it looks interesting.
And by the way, I never said my image of you was particularly bad. In my mind, you are rather outdoorsy and energetic, a rather trim, handsome chap with a perennially bunched mono-brow. That’s all.
January 25, 2010, 8:50 amWaldo:
By the way, hunter, for some reason I am having trouble posting on the other thread, so you might try looking here for code and data:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/
January 25, 2010, 8:57 amhttp://www.ipcc-data.org/
hunter:
Waldo,
January 25, 2010, 9:12 amMany other in a losing situation do as you are doing, moving the goal posts. So now the standard of proof for you is that the players have to confess their activities in official form, or else it is all just fabricated stuff?
Yet for you any defamation or slander of a skeptic is just fine.
Do you actually think that the WWF is going to publish on their website a confession of corrupting the IPCC?
Keep moving those goal posts.
You are reminding me of Baghdad Bob, giving that famous interview about how Baghdad was secure from the Americans, very convincingly, until the building in the background was blown up by Americans.
Mono-brow?lol.
The AGW social movement is turning out to be a combination of sleazy business and politics, and UFO mythology.
Waldo:
Huh?
It is very simple, hunter, did Lal publish the statements attributed to him by the Dailymail on the WWF website? The Dailymail claims that Lal admitted to falsifying data on the WWF website – is that statement there on the WWF website? Or did you just get willingly duped?
January 25, 2010, 9:27 amWaldo:
By the way, here are your codes and datasets:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/
http://www.ipcc-data.org/
Just won’t post on the other thread.
January 25, 2010, 9:33 amBrian N.:
“You, like hunter, are attempting to rationalize his character and his posting.”
I was not aware that you were a mind reader. I’ve read enough of Meyer’s work to conclude as I have, perhaps erroneously.
“Perhaps, Brain, I will find your house one day and then you can very bravely show me the door.”
Where I come from a statement like this is usually construed as a threat.
January 25, 2010, 10:56 amWaldo:
Chill, dude. Relax. You will be okay. I simply meant that some day you can ban me from your blog. Geeze, you CS-types are wired. I should not be surprised on such a paranoid site.
And yes, I am a mind reader. And this thread has also outlived its usefulness.
January 25, 2010, 11:21 amhunter:
Waldo,
January 26, 2010, 9:03 amPerhaps you have a reading dysfunction?
What Lal confessed is that evidence on the WWF website is false.
It would take a deliberate effort to misread his statement as an assertion that he confessed on the WWF website to his fraud.
But deliberate ignorance is your specialty.