Science vs. Politics: Tipping Points in Climate Change Communication

[Proton Soup]

As usual, none of this makes any difference to the science; only to the human failings and personal inconsistencies of two people.

yes, as usual, politics influences science not one iota. it beats to its own drum, completely oblivious to the world around it. what a wondrous thing it must be to be above all this foolishness. oh, how i envy you scientists.

 

[russ_watters]

Okay I have a question i was wondering if anyone can enlighten me on this discrepancy.

I asked Gavin Schmidt on RC whether he thought the climate was a chaotic system. He said he did not know (seriously)...

Please note: this is a thread for discussion of the political implications of the CRU hack only. Please use our Earth sciences forum for discussion of the technical merits of AGW.

 

[Coldcall]

Please note: this is a thread for discussion of the political implications of the CRU hack only. Please use our Earth sciences forum for discussion of the technical merits of AGW.

Okay cheers, i moved the question to Earth sciences.

 

[Evo]

As it turns out, of course, the IPCC process does not follow what Professor Jones is advocating; but something more like what you would prefer. See, for instance this response from IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri: (Guardian, UK, Nov 29)

Pachauri said the large number of contributors and rigorous peer review mechanism adopted by the IPCC meant that any bias would be rapidly uncovered.

"The processes in the IPCC are so robust, so inclusive, that even if an author or two has a particular bias it is completely unlikely that bias will find its way into the IPCC report," he said.

"Every single comment that an expert reviewer provides has to be answered either by acceptance of the comment, or if it is not accepted, the reasons have to be clearly specified. So I think it is a very transparent, a very comprehensive process which insures that even if someone wants to leave out a piece of peer reviewed literature there is virtually no possibility of that happening."​

And indeed, the papers under discussion were in the report. Consensus in science is not enforced; it is descriptive, not prescriptive. The tiny number of papers that go against the fundamentals of AGW are not because they are being banned, but because (almost) no one is writing them (not counting people who don't have a background in climate science and couldn't get a paper on climate science published no matter what its spin).

Is there actually a problem here? Not of ethics, or corruption, surely. It's just that some of these guys have a different idea from you on what might be best for the IPCC. Is it so bad that we find them saying so in a personal email? Should they be punished for that, or actually excluded from any further participation in the IPCC? That has actually been suggested! I don't take that seriously, they've got no more hope of excluding Professor Jones that Professor Jones was able to determine himself what could belong in the IPCC report. I just toss out another ruined irony meter with amusement.

Cheers -- sylas

Last year the IPCC "review" process was exposed as being highly biased. They had refused to release the WG1 review to the public. It was only after a FOI suit that they decided to release it.

The numbers of scientist reviewers involved in WG I is actually less than a quarter of the whole, a little more than 600 in total. The other 1900 reviewers assessed the other working group reports. They had nothing to say about the causes of climate change or its future trajectory. Still, 600 “scientific expert reviewers” sounds pretty impressive. After all, they submitted their comments to the IPCC editors who assure us that “all substantive government and expert review comments received appropriate consideration”. And since these experts reviewers are all listed in Annex III of the report, they must have endorsed it, right?

Wrong.

For the first time ever, the UN has released on the Web the comments of reviewers who assessed the drafts of the WG I report and the IPCC editors’ responses. This release was almost certainly a result of intense pressure applied by “hockey-stick” co-debunker Steve McIntyre of Toronto and his allies. Unlike the other IPCC working groups, WG I is based in the US and McIntyre had used the robust Freedom of Information legislation to request certain details when the full comments were released.

An examination of reviewers’ comments on the last draft of the WG I report before final report assembly (i.e. the “Second Order Revision” or SOR) completely debunks the illusion of hundreds of experts diligently poring over all the chapters of the report and providing extensive feedback to the editing teams. Here’s the reality.

A total of 308 reviewers commented on the SOR, but only 32 reviewers commented on more than three chapters and only five reviewers commented on all 11 chapters of the report. Only about half the reviewers commented on more than one chapter. It is logical that reviewers would generally limit their comments to their areas of expertise but it’s a far cry from the idea of thousands of scientists agreeing to anything.

Compounding this is the fact that IPCC editors could, and often did, ignore reviewers’ comments. Some editor responses were banal and others showed inconsistencies with other comments. Reviewers had to justify their requested changes but the responding editors appear to have been under no such obligation. Reviewers were sometimes flatly told they were wrong but no reasons or reliable references were provided.

In other cases reviewers tried to dilute the certainty being expressed and they often provided supporting evidence, but their comments were often flatly rejected. Some comments were rejected on the basis of a lack of space - an incredible assertion in such an important document.

http://www.sciencealert.com.au/opinions/20081007-17643.html

You can read the WG1 review here.

http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/7794905?n=2&imagesize=1200&jp2Res=.25

 

[Coldcall]

Hepth,

Okay first of all i think i understand the disconnect we have in communication on this subject.

I and you both know this concept of absolute certainty is alien to scientific reason. This is exactly my point and I am not expecting them to know everything for sure. However that CERTAINTY is exactly what is being projected as the "consensus" opinion to the ordinary public who get their news spoonfed to them.

Now as those CRU emails show, these scientists have very cosy realtionships with journalists from "on-side" media organisations such as NY Times, BBC etc..(large promoters of the CERTAINTY proppganda). Those scientists have a duty to either explain why the hell they are so CERTAIN, and explain it in the context of the chaotic physics they are dealing with, OR, correct the idea that there is any consensus on the CERTAINTY.

Thats all. If i am asking hard questions which you deem unfair from a scientific perspective it is only because the agw HUBRIS is demanding it!

 

[skypunter]

I wouldn't panic on that score.

Cheers -- sylas

Stranger than fiction...now skeptics are being asked not to panic.

 

[Andre]

This is really bad because the unity of the consensus position is often touted as de facto evidence of how strong it is. I believe someone even mentioned it earlier in the thread how of several hundred mainstream peer reviewed articles over the past few years, not one forwarded a thesis counter to the AGW position. But if "skeptics" research is being actively suppressed, that creates a self-reinforcing appeal to authority type argument.

We've had some pretty lively debates among the moderators about what kind of evidence/papers/blogs/etc should be acceptible for use on PF and the starting point of such debates is the sanctity of the peer review process. If the peer review process has been compromised when it comes to climate research, then it all but necessitates opening the door for a free-for-all of unverified research. It's a really, really bad situation.

If someone told a story like what we're getting here without these emails, they'd probably have been banned as a conspiracy theorist/crackpot. But what we're seeing is equal in concept (scale still unknown) to the worst of what guys like Rush Limbaugh claim (that AGW is a conspiracy by some scientific establishment). No, he doesn't get a win for making something up that happened to turn out to be true, but it is a very bad situation when a crackpot turns out to be right. It's instant credibility.

Here is another one about "peer review management":

...This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the
"peer-reviewed literature". Obviously, they found a solution to that--take over a journal!
So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering "Climate Research" as a
legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate
research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal...

 

[sylas]

As usual, none of this makes any difference to the science; only to the human failings and personal inconsistencies of two people.

yes, as usual, politics influences science not one iota. it beats to its own drum, completely oblivious to the world around it. what a wondrous thing it must be to be above all this foolishness. oh, how i envy you scientists.

Can we try to keep the context clear?

My remarks you have quoted are specifically addressed to the point of the amount of flying time clocked up by Al Gore and Rajendra Pachauri. And I maintain, none of that makes any difference to the science. You have removed the remark from it's context here, and some people might thing it is now a remark about all the policitical brouhaha surround climate science generally. It is not.

We probably both agree that ideally the work of science in discovering answers to scientific questions should proceed without politically driven influence.

We agree, I suspect, that there IS in fact an influence of politics on this work; and that this is a bad thing. We might disagree on the nature and scope of that impact.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[mheslep]

PS. I do think he could do more about curtailing his own flying; but to be fair, the cricket story is almost certainly from a long time ago; before he or others had recognized a particular importance for curtailing of carbon emissions.

Why certainly a long time ago? Because this http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/bios/pachauri.htm" is beyond reproach? He didn't become chairman of the IPCC until 2002.

 

[Choronzon]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,578486,00.html"

Looks like the story's not going to be going away anytime soon.

 

[turbo]

The loss of the data prevents other scientists from checking it to determine whether, in fact, there has been a long-term rise in global temperatures during the past century and a half.

In that article, FOX is distorting and sensationalizing the story. The data is not lost. It is publicly-available at a host of servers all over the world, subject only to the approval of the organizations that compiled the data, and in the case of NASA, NOAA, and other publicly-funded organizations no approval is necessary - just go get it. CRU is using this raw data to model climate - they did not compile the data. This hack is being used as a political football by the right, who are preaching to a crowd that knows little or nothing about how climate science is conducted.

 

[Andre]

Data is one thing, possible monopolizing and managing peer review is another.

 

[Evo]

In that article, FOX is distorting and sensationalizing the story. The data is not lost. It is publicly-available at a host of servers all over the world, subject only to the approval of the organizations that compiled the data, and in the case of NASA, NOAA, and other publicly-funded organizations no approval is necessary - just go get it. CRU is using this raw data to model climate - they did not compile the data. This hack is being used as a political football by the right, who are preaching to a crowd that knows little or nothing about how climate science is conducted.

Turbo, you need to keep up on what's happening, it's been mentioned repeatedly that the data is NOT available.

Scientists at the University of East Anglia have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit CRU was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

Got to love this

In a statement on its website, the CRU said: "We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenized) data."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,577746,00.html?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a16:g12:r2:c0.560839:b29147990:z10

 

[mheslep]

Turbo, you need to keep up on what's happening, it's been mentioned repeatedly that the data is NOT available.

For clarity, some of the original raw station data has apparently been lost or destroyed as Evo's link states. The information supposedly derivative of that raw data is what has been made available.

 

[Sorry!]

Turbo, you need to keep up on what's happening, it's been mentioned repeatedly that the data is NOT available.

Got to love this

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,577746,00.html?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a16:g12:r2:c0.560839:b29147990:z10

Evo are you trying to say that CRU has dumped all raw data and that the data they have dumped (back in 1980... this is a key point) is not available at the observation stations or from other organizations? The problem here IMO isn't that people want data and CRU dumped it, the problem is that certain people will go out of their way to try and find things wrong with the CRU and its research. Which side is being more political now?

Let's imagine for a second that the CRU did have the data and agreed to release it. What then? It's not like anything new would arise from the skeptic position no new papers showing why the CRU method is wrong that haven't already been written. Instead the CRU would probably, most likely, be facing yet another political method to make them out to seem like a bunch of frauds and that they are involved in a huge scandal. Pretty much the same thing that skeptics had to do when NASA released its data.

This whole dumping of data thing back in the 80s to save space; on a scientific topic that was of really very little political, or public use at the time reminds me of the conspiracy theories surrounding the FBI and the Kennedy assassination.

 

[mheslep]

In that article, FOX is distorting and sensationalizing the story. ...

It was necessary to push Turbo1's well known FOX News-aggravation-button because many of the other major news networks are blacking out this story. With a trillion dollar climate bill passed by the House, a lead author of perhaps the primary section of the UN IPCC report has just stepped down. Penn State has announced an investigation of Dr Michael Mann. What do we see on CNN's front page by way of 'Breaking News'? Tiger Woods on SUV rampages, and 'promo' pieces on Obama's pending Afghanistan announcement.

 

[turbo]

Turbo, you need to keep up on what's happening, it's been mentioned repeatedly that the data is NOT available.

I posted a link to an archive of other links showing that the raw data IS still available, and you deleted my link because you said the link was to a biased site.

I can't re-post the link per forum rules, and prove that the raw data is still available, but it IS still available. There is no pro-AGW propaganda on that page of links, just links to raw data, processed data, and codes.

If you will allow it, I will gladly go to that page, copy the whole page of links, and copy them into a subsequent post with NO link to the hosting site.

 

[D H]

Data is one thing, possible monopolizing and managing peer review is another.

I concur. Fudging data? That happens all the time. Heck, even Nobel laureates (*cough* David Baltimore *cough*) have gotten away with it.

The apparent engineering of a false consensus, strong arming of the journals, and manipulation of the scientific community and the public are a different matter. Those rank right up there with Lysenko's machinations.

 

[turbo]

How can you prove that the totality of data is available ?

CRU did not generate the data-sets. They used the data-sets generated by others. The collection of links that I posted is very comprehensive and most of the links lead to very large data repositories. I sincerely doubt that the organizations hosting that original raw data have destroyed it, as is alleged of the CRU. There is a great deal of politicization of the CRU hack based on their alleged "destruction" of raw data. That is absolutely wrong. There are copies of the raw data all over the place. Can I prove that every piece of data that they used is available in its totality? Of course not. Somehow, nobody from the anti-AGW side is ever asked to prove that the original data has been destroyed, despite the fact that CRU did NOT compile its own data sets, and used the data collected by others.

 

[Evo]

I posted a link to an archive of other links showing that the raw data IS still available, and you deleted my link because you said the link was to a biased site.

I can't re-post the link per forum rules, and prove that the raw data is still available, but it IS still available. There is no pro-AGW propaganda on that page of links, just links to raw data, processed data, and codes.

If you will allow it, I will gladly go to that page, copy the whole page of links, and copy them into a subsequent post with NO link to the hosting site.

Turbo, CRU has admitted the data that was requested is "no longer available", did you read it? Are you saying that CRU is lying about that too? I agree that it's pretty much impossible to believe that they wouldn't keep the original data.

 

[mheslep]

Let's imagine for a second that the CRU did have the data and agreed to release it. What then? It's not like anything new would arise from the skeptic position no new papers showing why the CRU method is wrong that haven't already been written. ...

Absent the raw station data from CRU, how do you know that nothing new would arise?

 

[Proton Soup]

Can we try to keep the context clear?

My remarks you have quoted are specifically addressed to the point of the amount of flying time clocked up by Al Gore and Rajendra Pachauri. And I maintain, none of that makes any difference to the science. You have removed the remark from it's context here, and some people might thing it is now a remark about all the policitical brouhaha surround climate science generally. It is not.

We probably both agree that ideally the work of science in discovering answers to scientific questions should proceed without politically driven influence.

We agree, I suspect, that there IS in fact an influence of politics on this work; and that this is a bad thing. We might disagree on the nature and scope of that impact.

Cheers -- sylas

i don't think it's out of context at all. you imply that regardless of all the shenanigans displayed by Gore, Pachauri, et al. that the "science" they are triumphing is untainted.

 

[sylas]

For clarity, some of the original raw station data has apparently been lost or destroyed as Evo's link states. The information supposedly derivative of that raw data is what has been made available.

For more clarity --- NO.

The original raw data still exists and is maintained by the bodies that own it, and allowed the CRU to have use of it in their research. The CRU has merged all the raw data that was available to it into a single combined database, which has always existed and is being used all the time to get the final processed data products like CRUTEM.
The processing that was involved in the merge of raw data to a database is comparatively minor; for example it involves combining any duplicated records for a single station. Comments indicate that some of the original records may have been discarded by the CRU sometime after being merged into the combined database of underlying climate data.

The combined database cannot be released, because it contains all of that proprietary station data subject to binding non-disclosure arrangements, merged with all the data from other more open data providers. There is an ongoing work in progress to have this whole combined underlying record made available, but that requires permission from all the owners of the data that appears in the merged database.

You can think of it as a three step process.

Lots and lots of raw data --> combined database of merged raw data --> CRUTEM​

The vast majority of the raw data is available. You get it from the holders of that raw data. I don't know that the CRU itself puts up any of it on its own website; that kind of duplication achieves little. You should get the raw data from the owners and maintainers of the raw data, and about 95% of what has been merged is easily available.

The CRU does not release its combined database of merged raw data. It would be a handy thing to have, not so much for auditing, but for use by scientists in other independent calculations of all kinds of things. However, because there is a small amount of data in that merged database that is subject to non-disclosure, you can't simply put up the database for release.

The final processed CRUTEM product is released, of course, and always has been. Other research groups have replicated the entire process as an independent calculation entirely, and obtained the same result to well within measurement errors. This replication is not an audit; but a normal independent repeat as normally done in science to check someone else's results. Such replication takes nothing at all from the CRU, but gets their own data and uses their own calculations to obtain a final result that can be compared with CRUTEM.

Summary:

• It really is the original raw data that is mostly available, not only the processed result. What is available is sufficient for replication in the normal scientific sense of the word.
• The original raw data still exists. It is all held by the appropriate bodies which made it available to the CRU. Scientific replication means taking nothing from the CRU, but doing an independent collection and processing of data.
• The CRU also has a merged database of underlying climate data, which cannot be released because it includes proprietary information that the CRU does not own.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[Sorry!]

If you want to see exactly what sylas is talking about you could of course always head on over to CRUs ftp.

 

[Evo]

No longer available from THEM. That is very different. I don't think that any reasonable person thinks that CRU has the ability to destroy raw data held by NASA, NOAA, or any of the other international sources of their data-sets. CRU may no longer have THEIR copies of the huge data-sets that they obtained from other organizations, but that doesn't mean that the organizations that compiled those data-sets have destroyed them.

Let me post the collection of links that you deleted before (with NO link to the hosting organization) and everyone here will see that in fact the raw data, processed data, and processing code actually exists. The "destruction" of data is the biggest red herring ever in this particular subject. PF gets spidered and trawled over and over again every day, and subject to the storage capacity of the search engines, NOTHING is truly "lost" or deleted so that it cannot be recovered. I have made extensive used of NASA's NED web-site, CalTech's web resources, HyperLEDA, SDSS, and many other astronomical resources in the course of research. If I have limited space (I do) and deleted source data from my drives after populating spreadsheets, databases, etc, (I did), that in no way implies that the source data is "destroyed" or no longer available. I can't destroy that raw data, nor could CRU destroy the raw data that they relied on.

Last time. There is only similar data from GISS, etc... out of all of that data, the specific data that the CRU scientists picked out then changed is what is missing. Are you and sorry trying to troll?

 

[Sorry!]

For anyone interested to read the actually documentation on why CRU cannot release their raw data:

http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/www/ois/Operational_Information/Publications/Congress/Cg_XII/res40_en.html

This is the reason.

 

[DanP]

I guess, it just gets annoying when people on here are complaining about how political AGW supporters are yet their only information comes from media sources. (Which is very clearly twisting the situation)

Why is that "twisting" the situation ? This is all political to the bone, I expect everyone involved will twist and use any leverage possible.

Besides, a lot of controversial info seem to come from CRU itself, through the e-mail hack. That is not "media".

 

[Sorry!]

Why is that "twisting" the situation ? This is all political to the bone, I expect everyone involved will twist and use any leverage possible.

Besides, a lot of controversial info seem to come from CRU itself, through the e-mail hack. That is not "media".

Not really. Most controversy from the e-mails occurred due to understanding the language being used. The continued controversy comes from certain media sources playing on these misunderstandings. As well if you do not think that the released e-mails over the internet is a media source than I do not know what else to say to you.

 

[Evo]

Now you are charging CRU scientists with cherry-picking data? Let me play PF-rule advocate here and suggest that you come up with some unbiased peer-reviewed references for that charge. That's not nice.

They have admitted it. How would a statement they made be peer reviewed? And we don't require peer review anyway.

Do you understand which data is being discussed?

 

[sylas]

i don't think it's out of context at all. you imply that regardless of all the shenanigans displayed by Gore, Pachauri, et al. that the "science" they are triumphing is untainted.

And that is precisely correct.

The shenanigans or otherwise of people who are publicizing science has nothing whatever to do with the quality of the science itself. The IPCC does not do research; it is a report on the state of science done by others.

I don't actually think the shenanigans are anything of the kind, but leave that aside. Certainly I think Gore in particular could do more to reduce his personal carbon footprint, but I don't think that is "shenanigans". It is a personal inconsistency. But this is all so clearly ad hominem for a comment on the science itself that we can presume they are baby eaters, if you like.

Gore has no input at all into the science, none. He is exclusively a popularizer.

Pachauri has almost no input into the science; when he became chair of IPCC he replaced a climate scientist as the previous chair, which some people consider to be a cause for concern. He himself is not a climate scientist, and was widely perceived as being more "industry friendly". His own PhD is in "Industrial Engineering and Economics", and he has a long history of direct industry involvement. Unlike the previous chair he has done no research at all into the science of climate, and has no mention or citations or references whatsoever in the WG1 report.

His alleged personal failings is a classic ad hominem fallacy.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[DanP]

Not really. Most controversy from the e-mails occurred due to understanding the language being used.

What, where those e-mails written in some sort of mystical secret society language and only those knowing the secret handshake can understand them ?

As well if you do not think that the released e-mails over the internet is a media source than I do not know what else to say to you.

It is a big difference. The source of that stolen data is CRU itself. The fact that it was stolen doesn't change it's origins.

 

[Proton Soup]

And that is precisely correct.

The shenanigans or otherwise of people who are publicizing science has nothing whatever to do with the quality of the science itself. The IPCC does not do research; it is a report on the state of science done by others.

I don't actually think the shenanigans are anything of the kind, but leave that aside. Certainly I think Gore in particular could do more to reduce his personal carbon footprint, but I don't think that is "shenanigans". It is a personal inconsistency. But this is all so clearly ad hominem for a comment on the science itself that we can presume they are baby eaters, if you like.

Gore has no input at all into the science, none. He is exclusively a popularizer.

Pachauri has almost no input into the science; when he became chair of IPCC he replaced a climate scientist as the previous chair, which some people consider to be a cause for concern. He himself is not a climate scientist, and was widely perceived as being more "industry friendly". His own PhD is in "Industrial Engineering and Economics", and he has a long history of direct industry involvement. Unlike the previous chair he has done no research at all into the science of climate, and has no mention or citations or references whatsoever in the WG1 report.

His alleged personal failings is a classic ad hominem fallacy.

Cheers -- sylas

so you think all this politicization doesn't influence who gets funding and who does not?

 

[mheslep]

Because the data has always been available.

Uh, where?

The station list has been posted for CRU I believe they use currently over 3000 stations and the list supplied gives all the stations used. (I think its something like 4000 stations). The CRU didn't 'get' their own information, they used other raw information and adjusted it (properly I might add). If you look at the first Station Jan Mayen you can look up the history of the station. It was moved I believe 4 times. So should all the raw data collected from this station be equally used? Of course not.

I didn't ask how or comment on how it should be used, I asked specifically for the raw temperature data.

You can also get the data from Jay Mayen. Knock yourself out?

You seem to be implying the temperature data since its founding in 1921 is somehow archived on this artic island? You know this how?

 

[Evo]

Evo the raw data is not CRUs data. So what this means (what turbo is saying to you) is that even if they DID delete ALL their raw data it's not gone. You can still go and get it for yourself.


IT'S THE SAME DATA.

From CRU's website

We are not in a position to supply data for a particular country not covered by the example agreements referred to earlier, as we have never had sufficient resources to keep track of the exact source of each individual monthly value. Since the 1980s, we have merged the data we have received into existing series or begun new ones, so it is impossible to say if all stations within a particular country or if all of an individual record should be freely available. Data storage availability in the 1980s meant that we were not able to keep the multiple sources for some sites, only the station series after adjustment for homogeneity issues. We, therefore, do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (i.e. quality controlled and homogenized) data.

This is ridiculous, if you know what this is about then you know it is the data Roger Pielke requested and was denied. Odd that the authors of that paper (and you know which paper that is, right?) say the data is gone but you, turbo and sylas claim to have it. Perhaps you should send it to them, they need it.

And turbo, after I nominated you for the Community Spirit award for your Hot Stuff thread. tsk

 

[Sorry!]

You seem to be implying the temperature data since its founding in 1921 is somehow archived on this artic island? You know this how?

Well first of all I am implying that the data is still available. How do I know this? Well because I have seen the data for this location of course. Go look it up like I said instead of doubting me. And no I'm not going to post links to any data on here because they are not to 'CRUs raw data' and no-one cares to look at them.