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"our understanding is undiminished by this incident" [climategate]
A statement describing the National Academy and its members appears on their website. An excerpt:
"The Academy membership is composed of approximately 2,100 members and 380 foreign associates, of whom nearly 200 have won Nobel Prizes. Members and foreign associates of the Academy are elected in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research; election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a scientist or engineer"
The NAS was created by Abraham Lincoln to advise the United States on scientific issues. Climate deniers would have us believe that the call coming from the climate science community worldwide rested on a house of cards that has collapsed, and that civilization should therefore do nothing to respond to the warnings of potential planetary catastrophe, i.e. that this statement by Cicerone is a lie. Its preposterous.
I have to completely agree here Rod. Just the other day I threw out some Jazz tapes that we do not now have a reader for - god knows what was on them. However in the present cost cutting regime I don't think I could have bought a Jazz drive to read them and archive the data.
Funny thing however - no matter what the state of the company is senior management bonuses always seemed to get paid - don't know why that is .....
I do agree and normally I do not however I also have battled against these people for many years all through the hockey stick wars and I sick to death of it. I do not now do much of this preferring to concentrate on solutions.
However I could not pass up this blatent grandstanding, as you rightly term it, on an Energy blog focussed, as it is on the solutions, rather than undermining the reason we are all doing this.
I loved your dialog of the programmers - priceless!! Perhaps you can add this:Harry: - "What do we do with these old backup tapes?"
COLLEAGUE: "We had the proposal to archive them turned down for lack of money so I guess we have to bin them as they have told us to clean up this whole room for the new data center"
Harry: "But what about if someone needs the data in 20 years? Someone could put in an FOI request and then accuse the university of a conspiracy to withhold data when we cannot supply it?"
COLLEAGUE: "Now you are just being paranoid - pass the tapes and I will bin them up"
I think that even if it were feasible for an ad hoc group of scientists to consult public relations professions, they shouldn't. Teaching is a key role for scientists, and teaching should not be mediated in any way by experts at the art of manipulating public choices.
The accruing weakening of reason in public discourse in the face of such manipulation is indeed a huge problem, but surrender is not a useful option.
HARRY: I'm still testing, you know... Don't use this stuff for publication yet!
COLLEAGUE: Calm down, Harry. I know what you mean by "alpha". Look, everything except the twelfth script looks good to me...
HARRY: But the twelfth?
COLLEAGUE: I'm not absolutely sure. These aren't numbers I could dismiss out of hand, but it looks a bit dodgy...
HARRY: Dodgy? How?
COLLEAGUE: You sure you haven't got a mercator bug? This all looks like it overweighs the polar values.
HARRY: It'll take me ten seconds to find out. I'll just run it again, like that, but here, after I've got the zonal averages, I'll put thirties in all the way except at the poles. Then the hemispheric average will have to be near enough thirty.
COLLEAGUE: Alrightee then, try it. I'll sort out what we should get. (Punching on pocket calculator.)
HARRY: (tap tappity tap tap, tap tap!) Voila! Oh hang on a second... (tappity tappity)
COLLEAGUE: You're documenting a piece of code you're deliberately breaking?
HARRY: Just a little bit, so I won't mistake it for production code. I er, I haven't set up the CVS on this thing yet.
COLLEAGUE: (bemused) The C V wot? Harry, we don't want you wasting your time on computer science nonsense until you get your work done! Still, I suppose the test model might get copied somewhere and cause some confusion. So comment away!
HARRY: (pausing) For the ninetieth time, please don't call this a model. You never know when a visitor from Hadley will be around to take offense! It's just analysis code.
(Tappity tap.)
I'm just commenting it for myself. It's not as if somebody's going to publish it on the iternet, after all!
COLLEAGUE: Ho ho ho. Imagine what those b****s would do with this. Maybe you ought to write ten thousand words justifying this little test in case some bloke hacks into the server.
HARRY: (alarmed) Surely you're not serious??
COLLEAGUE: (bemused) Just joking. Carry on.
HARRY: Let's have a look then... Hang on a mo... (click. click. tappity tap.) It's twenty-eight point seven. Wot's that tell oos?
<MONTHS PASS...>
SOMEBODY WRONG ON THE INTERNET: Computer models were run with mid-run intervention!!! In England! By somebody who knows somebody in Virginia! Attorney General, Hell! Call out the damn cavalry!
Mr. Tobis,
I was referring to the now famous HARRY READ ME.txt portions of the Climategate materials. Were I using the code containing these annotations to fulfill my obligations under a government contract, I would be extremely uncomfortable.
As to the "topic at hand", my answer is that any action which would attract that attention if performed by a non-climate scientist government contractor should also attract that attention in this case. That would include failure to respond timely to an FOIA. Dr. Jones was criticized for such a failure, though apparently an ambiguity in the British law kept him from being charged with an offense. I see no reason why Dr. Mann, or even NASA GISS, should expect to be treated differently than other government contractors.
As to your assertion that the Climategate materials were "illicitly revealed", I do not believe that any such legal determination has been made in Britain, where the illicit act would have occurred. Of course, the difference between a "whistleblower" and a "hacker" could be considered one of perspective. I would certainly agree that the materials were inconveniently revealed.
I believe that, in the case of the CRU, the Met Office has decided to conduct a complete a review of all of the data and the techniques which were used to produce the adjusted "data". I would suggest that such an effort indicates some level of concern about the quality of the data and the validity of the adjustments made to it. It will certainly not be a trivial exercise.
I find it difficult to conceive that the globe's governments are contemplating requiring the investment of $ trillions and a complete revision of the global energy economy based on the information currently in hand and the models used to project potential changes over the next century. A thorough reanalysis of the data, the data adjustment methodology and the climate models, by as skeptical a group of experts as can be assembled, would be a useful first step in response to the current situation.
Still more lies. The data that could be made available was the other was data that was given to the University under a legal non disclosure agreement which could not be revealed. The processes to adjust the data are transparent and peer reviewed and any competent person can follow the procedure. What computer models are you referring to? The data was run through routines to clean it up not in modelling software.
Here is a brief history of MacIntyre by Deep Climate
http://deepclimate.org/2010/02/04/steve-mcintyre-and-ross-mckitrick-part...
Interesting reading
Also I just thought I would include just in case you missed it the TWO enquiries that completely cleared CRU of any wrongdoing or data manipulation.
http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements?notFound=true
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-archive/science-...
And this nice summary of all the consiracy theories at one of the best sources of information on climate science - Real Climate
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/close-encounters-o...
Not sure where you get your data from however you are completely and utterly wrong on all counts.
First of all climategate was a computer hacking effort that really should have resulted in prison time for the person that did it and the people who published it. If you would like any conformation of this please have a look at this email hacking effort and the result:
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/man-convicted-of-palin-email-...
""As Watergate taught us, we rightfully reject illegally breaking into candidates' private communications for political intrigue in an attempt to derail an election," the statement said."
If Watergate taught you anything at all the hacking of private communication without the permission of the people involved is a crime.
Secondly NOTHING in any of the emails supports the outrageous claims you made. Imperfect data exists - the scientists have learned methods of dealing with it and producing valid results from the mish mash of records that we have. If we had a perfect measuring system in place this would be great however we don't so we deal with it.
Now you need to post SPECIFIC examples of where the data was manipulated and changed the result, or stop spewing the crap that MacIntyre and Watts peddle on their climate change denier delusional websites.
I guess the nuclear advocacy and climate change denial do go hand in hand. You have to be pretty delusional to ignore the real problems of nuclear so I guess it is not a long road to climate change denial.
The question is why would you support nuclear power when you deny climate change. I mean if we are not responsible we can go on burning coal and gas till the cows come home and nothing will result in it. Why support low carbon energy when you don't need it? Or are you just using climate change as a vehicle for your hobby horse.
Geoff,
If: the raw data were publicly available; and, the processes used to adjust the data were transparent; and, the computer models were run without mid-run intervention; and, even if the FOIA requests had been honored; then: there would have been no need for PR talent.
We are frequently told that the prime lesson of Watergate was that the cover up was worse than the crime. It is too early to tell whether that is the case with Climategate yet. However, there is now no question that there was an attempt at a cover up. Events since the e-mails and other documents surfaced suggest that the attempted cover up would have continued indefinitely. However, the aftermath appears to have been somewhat of a learning experience for Phil Jones, at the very least. Perhaps Ken Cuccinelli will help Michael Mann learn from the process as well.
Michael,
'Where is the scientific community supposed to find funds for PR talent? Such advice is silly"
Actually, what's silly is refusing to learn the rules that govern the game at hand. If there's no money to hire someone, then do what scientists are supposed to do when encountering something they don't understand: spend time researching the literature. Read a case study or two. Walk over to the B-School and ask a few questions. I'm not an expert on the subject, but rule number one seems to be to take responsibility for your mistakes, even if you don't see them as being nearly as egregious as your adversaries do, and then take steps that demonstrate you've learned something from the experience. (I suppose rule zero is recognizing that you're in a crisis.)
Hunkering in the bunker can work, but it requires you to be able to outlast the opposition and withstand the pain in the meantime. In the context of climate change, isn't that counterproductive?
"There is nothing about "Climategate" in this letter one way or the other and bringing it up is a distraction."
While there is nothing about Climategate in the letter explicitly, the letter is about Climategate. There is no other "trigger" which would have occasioned this letter.
"This is about threats of prosecution for making your best effort at telling the truth."
No. This is about making your best efforts to tell a story which closely adheres to the political storyline. This is about collecting poor quality data and then "massaging" it through "black box" computer programs and claiming it is still "data". This is about destroying data. It is about "cherry picking" data. This is about refusing legitimate FOIA requests.
"When senators and attorneys general come after you with subpoenas because some guy thinks you used the wrong statistical method for plotting your data, ..."
... and you have refused to provide both the data and the details regarding the statistical analysis methods, you are in the wrong, even if the statistical method was correct.
What we are seeing here is science under attack by a political sector that is so averse to bad news that it will punish the messenger. There is nothing about "Climategate" in this letter one way or the other and bringing it up is a distraction. This is about threats of prosecution for making your best effort at telling the truth. Punishing that behavior is a threat to democracy, not just to a branch of science that had the bad luck to have bad news to deliver.
You know, the "circling the wagons" trick, er, strategy, actually worked on occasion. That is why it was employed. Perhaps it looks conspiratorial to the hostile natives, but what of it? When it's your scalp on the line, you do what you can.
When senators and attorneys general come after you with subpoenas because some guy thinks you used the wrong statistical method for plotting your data, it really becomes secondary whether you are right or wrong. You calling for reinforcements is not really where the excess in the situation comes from.
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