Arguments
What do the 'Climategate' hacked CRU emails tell us?
The skeptic argument...
Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy
“[T]he 1079 emails and 72 documents seem indeed evidence of a scandal involving most of the most prominent scientists pushing the man-made warming theory - a scandal that is one of the greatest in modern science. […] emails suggesting conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.” (Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun)
What the science says...
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A number of independent investigations from different countries, universities and government bodies have investigated the stolen emails and found no evidence of wrong doing. Focusing on a few suggestive emails, taken out of context, merely serves to distract from the wealth of empirical evidence for man-made global warming. |
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In November 2009, the servers at the University of East Anglia in Britain were illegally hacked and emails were stolen. When a selection of emails between climate scientists were published on the internet, a few suggestive quotes were seized upon by many claiming global warming was all just a conspiracy. A number of independent enquiries have investigated the conduct of the scientists involved in the emails. All have cleared the scientists of any wrong doing:
- In February 2010, the Pennsylvania State University released an Inquiry Report that investigated any 'Climategate' emails involving Dr Michael Mann, a Professor of Penn State's Department of Meteorology. They found that "there exists no credible evidence that Dr. Mann had or has ever engaged in, or participated in, directly or indirectly, any actions with an intent to suppress or to falsify data". On "Mike's Nature trick", they concluded "The so-called “trick”1 was nothing more than a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion by a technique that has been reviewed by a broad array of peers in the field."
- In March 2010, the UK government's House of Commons Science and Technology Committee published a report finding that the criticisms of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) were misplaced and that CRU’s "Professor Jones’s actions were in line with common practice in the climate science community".
- In April 2010, the University of East Anglia set up an international Scientific Assessment Panel, in consultation with the Royal Society and chaired by Professor Ron Oxburgh. The Report of the International Panel assessed the integrity of the research published by the CRU and found "no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit".
- In June 2010, the Pennsylvania State University published their Final Investigation Report, determining "there is no substance to the allegation against Dr. Michael E. Mann".
- In July 2010, the University of East Anglia published the Independent Climate Change Email Review report. They examined the emails to assess whether manipulation or suppression of data occurred and concluded that "The scientists’ rigor and honesty are not in doubt".
- In July 2010, the US Environmental Protection Agency investigated the emails and "found this was simply a candid discussion of scientists working through issues that arise in compiling and presenting large complex data sets."
- In September 2010, the UK Government responded to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report, chaired by Sir Muir Russell. On the issue of releasing data, they found "In the instance of the CRU, the scientists were not legally allowed to give out the data". On the issue of attempting to corrupt the peer-review process, they found "The evidence that we have seen does not suggest that Professor Jones was trying to subvert the peer review process. Academics should not be criticised for making informal comments on academic papers".
- In February 2011, the Department of Commerce Inspector General conducted an independent review of the emails and found "no evidence in the CRU emails that NOAA inappropriately manipulated data".
- In August 2011, the National Science Foundation concluded "Finding no research misconduct or other matter raised by the various regulations and laws discussed above, this case is closed".
Just as there are many independent lines of evidence that humans are causing global warming, similarly a number of independent investigations have found no evidence of falsification or conspiracy by climate scientists.
"Mike's Nature trick" and "hide the decline"
The most quoted email is from Phil Jones discussing paleo-data used to reconstruct past temperatures (emphasis mine):
"I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."
"Mike's Nature trick" refers to a technique (aka "trick of the trade") used in a paper published in Nature by lead author Michael Mann (Mann 1998). The "trick" is the technique of plotting recent instrumental data along with the reconstructed data. This places recent global warming trends in the context of temperature changes over longer time scales.
The most common misconception regarding this email is the assumption that "decline" refers to declining temperatures. It actually refers to a decline in the reliability of tree rings to reflect temperatures after 1960. This is known as the "divergence problem" where tree ring proxies diverge from modern instrumental temperature records after 1960. The divergence problem is discussed in the peer reviewed literature as early as 1995, suggesting a change in the sensitivity of tree growth to temperature in recent decades (Briffa 1998). It is also examined more recently in Wilmking 2008 which explores techniques in eliminating the divergence problem. So when you look at Phil Jone's email in the context of the science discussed, it is not the schemings of a climate conspiracy but technical discussions of data handling techniques available in the peer reviewed literature. More on the hockey stick divergence problem...
Trenberth's "travesty we can't account for the lack of warming"
The second most cited email is from climate scientist and IPCC lead author Kevin Trenberth. The highlighted quote is this: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." This has been most commonly interpreted (among skeptics) as climate scientists secretly admitting amongst themselves that global warming really has stopped. Trenberth is actually discussing a paper he'd recently published that discusses the planet's energy budget - how much net energy is flowing into our climate and where it's going (Trenberth 2009).
In Trenberth's paper, he discusses how we know the planet is continually heating due to increasing carbon dioxide. Nevertheless, surface temperature sometimes shows short term cooling periods. This is due to internal variability and Trenberth was lamenting that our observation systems can't comprehensively track all the energy flow through the climate system. More on Trenberth's travesty...
The full body of evidence for man-made global warming
An important point to realise is that the emails involve a handful of scientists discussing a few pieces of climate data. Even without this data, there is still an overwhelming and consistent body of evidence, painstakingly compiled by independent scientific teams from institutions across the world.
What do they find? The planet is steadily accumulating heat. When you add up all the heat building in the oceans, land and atmosphere plus the energy required to melt glaciers and ice sheets, the planet has been accumulating heat at a rate of 190,260 Gigawatts over the past 40 years (Murphy 2009). Considering a typical nuclear power plant has an output of 1 Gigawatt, imagine over 190,000 power plants pouring their energy output directly into heating our land and oceans, melting ice and warming the air.
This build-up of heat is causing ice loss across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Both Greenland and Antarctica are losing ice at an accelerated rate (Velicogna 2009, ). Even East Antarctica, previously thought to be too cold and stable, is now losing ice mass (Chen 2009). Glacier shrinkage is accelerating. Arctic sea ice has fallen so sharply, observations exceed even the IPCC worst case scenario. The combination of warming oceans and melting ice has resulted in sea level rise tracking the upper limit of IPCC predictions.
Rising temperatures have impacted animal and plant species worldwide. The distribution of tree lines, plants and many species of animals are moving into cooler regions towards the poles. As the onset of spring is happening earlier each year, animal and plant species are responding to the shift in seasons. Scientists observe that frog breeding, bird nesting, flowering and migration patterns are all occurring earlier in the year (Parmeson 2003). There are many other physical signs of widespread warming. The height of the tropopause, a layer in our atmosphere, is rising (Santer 2003). Arctic permafrost, covering about 25% of Northern Hemisphere land, is warming and degrading (Walsh 2009). The tropical belt is widening (Seidel 2007). These results are all consistent with global warming.
What’s causing this heat build-up? Humans are emitting huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere - 29 billion tonnes in 2009 (CDIAC). Greenhouse theory predicts that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will trap heat energy as it escapes out to space. What do we observe? Carbon dioxide absorbs heat at certain wavelengths. Satellites over the past 40 years find less heat escaping to space at these wavelengths (Harries 2001, Griggs 2004, Chen 2007). Where does the heat go? Surface measurements find more heat returning back to the Earth's surface (Philipona 2004). Tellingly, the increase occurs at those same carbon dioxide absorption wavelengths (Evans 2006). This is the human fingerprint in global warming.
There are multiple lines of empirical evidence that global warming is happening and human activity is the cause. A few suggestive emails may serve as a useful distraction for those wishing to avoid the physical realities of climate change. But they change nothing about our scientific understanding of humanity’s role in global warming.
Last updated on 18 March 2012 by dana1981. View Archives
And, yes, I can see you're lost; but as you say, you're not the subject of this thread so I'll leave that there.
As to the "other flaws", we have been through this before @29, 35, and 37 above. There we established that:
1) You just make up "facts" because they suit your argument; and
2) The allegations against Michael Mann where reviewed using the standard procedures as laid down by their by-laws for Penn State, procedures which are in line with those typically required in US and Australian universities.
You had nothing of substance to say then, and the mere passage of time adds nothing to your attempts to beat up an issue where none exists.
Why wouldn't they if they had an electric vehicle and there were recharge/replace facilities along the highways instead of servos? Or they could choose high speed rail powered by electricity (from renewable sources).
You're confusing conservation with efficiency. Conservation is about using less of something in order not to waste it. Efficiency is about using the best resource for the task. For transport, using fuel that doesn't have to be mined, transported and burned is much more efficient.
"Michael Mann's conduct was examined by an internal, not independent, review board of the entity which employed him and stood to lose credibility if it were revealed he acted improperly."
This is what I've been saying, it's all that I'm saying, (on that matter) and if you are going to accuse me of "purveying disinformation" please specify what about it is.
It's very simple :
The guidelines for such an investigation - acceptable to be used for any other individual except Dr Mann, according to the so-called skeptics, it would appear - are :
The Committee shall consist of at least five tenured University faculty members, each of whom should have no conflict of interest and be competent, in the judgment of the Vice President for Research, to evaluate the questions before the Committee.
In this case, the individuals involved came from the Departments of Biology, Chemistry and Physics, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, Anthropology, and Human Development and Family Studies. Again, unbiased enough for any individual except Dr Mann, presumably.
Ultimately, if Dr Mann had acted improperly, and it could be proved that he had, the university would have been more than keen to ensure that punishment would have been swift and proportional - if only to preserve the integrity and professionalism of the university itself. The fact that it found no such thing, due to the distinct lack of any form of evidence in the real world, still smarts with the so-called skeptics.
Less of the disinformation and more of the facts, please.
"Michael Mann's conduct was examined by an internal, not independent, review board of the entity which employed him and stood to lose credibility if it were revealed he acted improperly."
Which I simply asked you to point out what about it was such- you could not, [inflamatory deleted]
[inflamatory deleted] ... that because University of Pennsylvania faculty members are from different departments than Dr. Mann, this constitutes an unbiased form of review in a matter which could place the institution's reputation at stake, but buying I'm not.
This form of review which is standard at large universities is fine and dandy for matters of scope on a scale of student-teacher interactions, academic controversies like scoring papers, etc.
When their work becomes influential enough that it leads to national and international policy affecting all of our lives being forged down the road, it is wholly inadequate and amounts to "good 'ole boy" culture of corrupt justice.
You provide a passage which supports just what I am saying, inasmuch as it describes how these faculty members should not have a "conflict of interest", if you can describe how they all do not share the same interests of being faculty members under the employ of the same institution I'm all ears.
Universities function under three things: National laws, their bylaws/regulations and their charter, given them by the government.
Their regulations state how accusations of misconduct (in teaching or research) should be treated. This comes under the terms of their charter and if they do not respect those procedures the government can have an external enquiry, remove their charter and they're out of business.
On the other hand, any acts which violate national law is prosecuted in court.
Justice is blind. No one can decide, outside of the described terms, that some situation is big enough or annoying enough or news-worthy enough to treat in a special or partial way. That is corruption. What batvette and others are advocating is that people should act corruptly and treat some complaints differently to others because, well, they just feel they should.
Pointing at the system and saying "well, that looks like 'good 'ole boy' culture" either has to be substantiated and tackled under national law or has to be seen as a bit of a 'look! rabbit!' trick to distract from their desire for lynch-mob 'justice'.
In the end, nothing will satisfy some people except the public humiliation of climate scientists, following a show-trial decided by debate and a show of hands...
I've been racking my mind to think of any organisation - publicly or privately funded - which tackles complaints in general and misconduct in particular, with anything but an internal panel of professionals from around the organisation; given that the complaint isn't a violation of national law.
...and I mean examples from within the modern western democracies - I'm not, of course, including the USSR, Maoist China etc. I'm sure no one on any part of the mainstream political spectrum would want to encourage political interference anywhere near that level...
Haven't been keeping tabs on Ken Cuccinelli, have ya? :]
;)
http://thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/Climategate-Inquiries.pdf
[DB] If you want to be taken seriously, dispensing denialist literature with a sweeping hand-wave does you no favors.
A focus on the science is best.
Fresh round of hacked emails
Hmmm. The perpetrator claims to be deeply deeply concerned about transparency and openness... and is therefor anonymous.
Norfolk police have said the new set of emails is "of interest" to their investigation to find the perpetrator of the initial email release who has not yet been identified.
Wasn't there a self-proclaimed major news outlet recently involved in an email hack scandal in the UK? Seems like a trend developing ...