Monday
Sep052011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Quote of the day
Sep 5, 2011 Climate: other Quotes
With a tiny handful of exceptions (Judy, Richard Betts, Hans von Storch, Eduardo Zorita, surely there must be a few more?) the whole of “mainstream” climate science seems to be going into collective meltdown. To ordinary scientists their behaviour just gets more bizarre with every day.
I have worked in all sorts of areas of science, some really quite controversial, and I have never seen this sort of childish throwing of toys out of prams in any other context. I can’t see any solution beyond some proper grown ups getting involved and telling Trenberth and Gleick and friends to sit on the naughty step until they learn how to play nicely.
Jonathan Jones at Climate etc.
Reader Comments (81)
"Oh dear. I have just seen the post by jorgekafkazar at 4:03 AM
I can see the point you are trying to make, but the analogy you have chosen goes way too far - climate scientists are not Nazis. I find that association deeply offensive - please withdraw.
Ironically, I see that nobody else has chosen to speak out against that analogy."
Sep 6, 2011 at 9:10 AM | Richard Betts
This sort of thing tends to happen quite a lot here. In fact, I think that particular comment was so offensive, and that your voice carries a little weight around here, that some people will come out of the woodwork to condemn it. But it's now over 5 hours since it was posted, and the fact that nobody has done so until now, speaks poorly of this place.
It comes back to a wider point that I spend a lot of my time here making. For 'sceptics', that scepticism seems wholly turned upon things which lend evidence to AGW being the correct theory, and is almost entirely absent for anything which is in opposition to this, no matter how odd, offensive, or just clearly wrong.
References to the Oregon Petition here are rarely commented upon, and we can look forwards to another winter of 'it's cold, AGW must be wrong' comments being heartily endorsed, rather then dismissed.
dnftt
What would be useful right now is if the actual referees of the S&B paper were to come forward publicly. After all, Wagner has basically trashed their work.
Its back, don't feed it
What do you expect when Prima Donnas are told the whole basis of the science they control is wrong:
1.There is no 'back radiation': it's a failure of the most basic education in heat transfer and the rather more specialised physics of IR absorption/emission by gases. Arrhenius can be let off, the rest can't.
2. There is no hiding of this by the 'aerosol indirect effect': it was the failure of Carl Sagan to understand Van de Hulst's 'lumped parameters' was a curve fit and predictions go the wrong way for thicker clouds.
3. Because the algorithms in many satellite sensors are based on (2) the data wrongly bin bright clouds as having smaller droplets thus giving a false signal when you look at the effect of pollution.
4. Led by Hansen, they're protecting the failed CAGW claim by pushing for double the AID when in reality it was [Asian-industrialisation] polluted clouds that produced the real AGW in the late 20th Century and the same physics explains the end of ice ages via the same bio-feedback from phytoplankton observed in today's polar regions.
These people really do need to be told, forcibly from authority, that they have foiled up and wasted nearly $100 billion by the most basic scientific errors.
Oh sorry, some know this already, otherwise why would NASA have substituted Twomey's correct Mie physics with this fake 'surface reflection': http://geo.arc.nasa.gov/sgg/singh/winners4.html
It's widely believed in climate science because it seems they accepted NASA's scientific authority.. No-one who has a physics degree could ever accept this. Hansen is an expert on Mie theory.
PB
Agreed. But a pity this posting was sent to the same place as the other two?
Richard Betts
Ah yes, I remember the "Statement from the UK science community". I also remember the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade:
"Without realizing how it had come about, the combat men in the squadron discovered themselves dominated by the administrators appointed to serve them. They were bullied, insulted, harassed and shoved about all day long by one after the other. When they voiced objection, Captain Black replied that people who were loyal would not mind signing all the loyalty oaths they had to."
Joseph Heller Catch 22
Correction: for 'was' read 'wasn't'.
It's not a good day!
"You only hear from the noisy ones. So I don't think the whole field is going into collective meltdown!
Sep 5, 2011 at 9:59 PM | Richard Betts"
I fully appreciate that many honest workers in the field of climate science are keeping their heads down for fear of losing jobs, funding, and especially for the threat of having their results published in relevant publications. The resignation and follow-on in regard to SB11 has just illustrated this again nicely.
However - there comes a time when keeping one's heads down must come to an end.
Unlike other cases (e.g. the cloning fraud), which do not impact on the whole population and economy of a country, if not the industrialised world, silence about the various underhand tactics employed both by The Team and the IPCC must end.
Do you, do all those honest climate scientists, think that they will be exempt from the 'green' policies based on the IPCC findings, which are heavily influenced by the findings, some rather questionable (Hockey Stick!), of The Team?
Do you really think that somehow the rising energy costs and the increasing threat of brownouts and blackouts will only apply to private households, but not to your institutes? Do you think that there will be funding still coming in when the economy goes further into recession because people have no money to keep the economy going as more and more of their disposable income must be spent on energy and green taxes?
I think it is past time for all honest scientists to protest at the shenanigans, the abuse of science by scientific activist and politicians.
The simple fact that CO2 emissions have been rising steadily over the last dozen years or so, but temperatures have not should at least lead to asking some pointed questions, as opposed to circling the wagons against any 'sceptic' argument, shouldn't it?
As someone has pointed out, some time ago - evil triumphs when good men do nothing.
Time to do something, methinks.
I doubt I would challenge the scientific establishment if I were a climte scientists. In any event most seem to be convinced that CO2 emissions are going to destroy the world given the wording of the petition Richard signed. By the way Richard I believe that petition was put out as a sign of solidarity with the UEA after their emails were made public and was signed by a good number of academics who receive money from the Met Office, who would otherwise have stayed schtum.
I don't believe anything will come of all this, it is clear that the scientific establishment has swallowed the CAGW meme hook, line and sinker, and aren't about to do a volte face on the basis of what looks like blatant blackmailing and threatening of the editor of a magazine. I say looks like because we don't know, but we were speculating yesterday his actions seemed odd, now we find that his day job is funded through the ESA on the recommendations of a committee chaired by the increasingly strident Dr. Trenberth. I agree with Philip Bratby, it's Occam's razor all over again, if the heat is missing then the most likely place it has gone to is outer space, instead of which we have bizarre theories of it hiding in deep ocean caves, presumably teasing Dr Trenberth with it's puckish sense of humour.
Of course if it proves likely that it has disappeared into outer space then bang go the meetings in Zanzibar, Tahiti, Hawaii and other more prosaic foreign destinations, and, of course the bottomless pit of public money that's feeding this monster.
I've said this from the beginning, it is the duty of scientists to provided information for policy makers, and I'm sure that most will do this with integrity, but the SPM of AR4, which, by the way, forecast warmer wetter winters for the US and Europe, I believe with 95% (very likely) certainty, although it could have been likely, is little more than the environmental movements loaded gun to be held at the heads of the public and their governments so we can all be converted to the faith.
"....now we find that his day job is funded through the ESA on the recommendations of a committee chaired by the increasingly strident Dr. Trenberth"
Is this true? If so then the stink in the Augean Stables gets even higher
Arthur,
check for yourself: http://www.ipf.tuwien.ac.at/insitu/index.php/about-us.html
@Richard - as you very well know - the link you and the thousands signed goes on to laud the IPCC.
However, the corruption of the IPCC, and its decline hiding machinations, are extremely well known and well documented (to everyone, except climatologists, apparently).
Hi richard.. that thing you signed was a clear response to the problems caused by climategate. And is frequently championed as such.
Had you read any of the emails when you signed?
Had any of the other signatuiries?
I've a friend on that list, and when I asked months later if looked at emails, they had not looked at any.
Even though some of their own emails were in the leak!
If accusations are made, surely a professional or just sensible idea, to actually look or check for oneself?
But of course paul Dennis at UEA didn't sign it, (science is not by consensus) and was then 'outed and misrepresented by the Guardian, and inuendos and foi request made about contact with sceptics.
Total groupthink, imho and subtle peer pressure by peers to sign
I agree with Jonathan. Like any active scientist, I've been involved in a number of disputes about research, but the level of political pressure that appears to be placed on members of the climate science community in cases like Dr. Wagner's resignation is something that I have never experienced. Bizarre is truly the best description of what people like Trenberth seem to have done in this case. I can't see that it can be anything other than counter-productive in the long term to behave like this. Now, I have some degree of sympathy for one of the points made by bicitylib (yes, him/her!), at 12:02 AM, writing about Jonathan:
It is easier for scientists working in less controversial fields (I include myself in that description - though I note that Jonathan, to whom bigcitylib was referring, may not agree about his own field) to stick to healthy scientific behaviour, and I think that many scientists both within and without climate science will be making allowances for the anomalous behaviour of climate scientists by 'blaming' it on a reaction to unreasonable assaults from outside science. But I don’t really think that is good enough – there’s enough evidence that this way of thinking seems to be inhibiting full and frank debate within the field.
It is not only in "climate science" that the philosophy and practice of science appears to be breaking down.
In Lee Smolin's book "The Trouble with Physics" (isbn: 978-0-7139-9799-6) he questions whether the "string theory" domination of fundamental theoretical physics research funds and academic posts since the early 1980's has hindered the search to successfully unite the fundamental forces of nature. Though it has had some successes and can explain old experimental data by tweaking parameter values, this theory has not been able to create a new experiment with testable results. He does not say that "string theory" is wrong and he emphasises that it he is not critical of any individual, inside or outside the “string theory” camp. What he argues is that its political might needs to be curtailed so that other theories can given a chance. With several theories, there might be a chance of one encouraging a break through in another.
He lists some of the attributes of "string theory" politics in the chapter called "How do you fight Sociology":
1. tremendous self-confidence, leading to a sense of entitlement and of belonging to an elite community of experts
2. an unusually monolithic community
5. a disregard for and disinterest in the ideas, opinions, and work of experts who are not part of the group, and a preference for talking only with other members of the community.
6. .. interpret evidence optimistically .... believe results are true because they are "widely believed"
Déjà vu!
If you cannot face reading the book (though it is VERY readable!)), the 17 page introduction is worth a read because in it he describes how science has progressed, for the last several hundred years, with one discovery superceeded by an even greater discovery, again and again. The point being that an old theory is proved by experiment to be "not good enough" and then another theory is created that explains all the old data and predicts a surprising result with a new experiment that can be shown to be true or false. Quite a lesson in history and the philosophy and practice of science!
The book itself does go into some detail about the standard model, quantum gravity and supersymmetry, but the thread is not this detail; it is the importance of experimental results and in not having a monoculture.
String theory is not going to cost Europe £250,000,000,000, but it is interesting to note the similarities with climate science.
To Geronimo I have to say your recent posts have been great - sharp,inciteful and to the point.
sorry for this, I usually subscribe to the "don't feed the trolls" line, but...to the trolls, both here and WUWT. Where are you? You have all been strangely silent. Has the penny finally dropped?
oxonmoron
Climate research at the Met Office Hadley Centre is relevant to policy but in a neutral way, neither opposing nor advocating any particular policy - just providing unbiased scientific information in order to inform policymakers.
So I guess strictly speaking if someone in my team wrote something that directly spoke against govt policy then yet I would not allow that to go out, but similarly I would not allow release of work that directly spoke in favour of policy. It would all have to be presented in a neutral way.
Some of my own work has been criticised by members of the wider community because it has been used to argue against particular "green" policies - eg: Betts 2000 which (allegedly) argued that trees were bad (it didn't!) and Betts et al 2007 in which we concluded:
A lot of people elsewhere (including Kevin Trenberth) didn't like that paper or our other work on this subject, seemingly because it dared to acknowledge that CO2 can have beneficial as well as detrimental effects.
However, from the Met Office or our funders there were no objections. Indeed Defra told me "you must do what is scientifically correct".
Anyway, as I've said before here, there is more than one policy area to which climate science is relevant - all kinds of policy areas are considered how adaptation to climate change and variability may need to be considered. Energy policy is only one part of the picture, and trying to bias messages to support that would only create difficulties elsewhere.
thinking scientist - they are awaiting instructions from on high. Those forces must be disconcerted that the mass media are ignoring the resignation of Wagner and are pondering what to do next. Meantime, Hengist, Zeds, Dhogaza, Marco, Mashey, Hank Roberts, Stoat, jeff Bowers et al, are sitting happily with their thubs up their bottoms
Hi Barry (and ZT)
Yes I'd read the UEA emails before signing, and nobody made me do it.
Clearly the reputation of climate science was badly damaged by the whole episode, but the strength of evidence for climate change does not rely on a few papers or people, whatever may or may not have been done by them. The letter was just saying that we are confident with the overall evidence and the integrity of our field as a whole (even though many others clearly were not, and still aren't).
Hi Richard
"The letter was just saying that we are confident with the overall evidence and the integrity of our field as a whole (even though many others clearly were not, and still aren't).
And after reading the "Climategate" emails you were quite at ease as a professional scientist to put your name to the following?
"That research has been subject to peer review and publication, providing traceability of the evidence and support for the scientific method."
Is that still the case? Would you put your reputation on the line tomorrow and sign the same statement?
Hi Green Sand
(And this also serves to respond to BH's question on the AR5 thread)
Yes I would!
Peer review is not perfect. Some papers get published that are not very good, others get rejected even though they are good (or only needed minor tweaks). Happens to us all - you just try again somewhere else.
However overall I am happy with the system.
I have been active in climate science publication for nearly two decades, as an author, reviewer and editor. There is a wide range of standards of work and interpretations of evidence, but generally it evens out and bad papers get countered by other papers.
There is an increasing move to open-review journals, in which papers are published online as discussion papers, the peer-reviews are published, and others are also allowed to comment. Shame Remote Sensing has not decided to take that route!
Hi Richard
Thanks for your reply though it worries me greatly. I appreciate that peer review is not perfect but it is the best (only) we have and the more spotlight that is shown upon its failings hopefully the open it will become.
However, from your conformation that you had read the emails prior to signing, I can only assume that you are still ambivalent to scientists proposing subversion of the process? That gives me great cause for concern, more so with the time that has elapsed.
That you are still, after all that is now known, prepared to put you name to "providing traceability of the evidence and support for the scientific method." Gives me even more concern, almost along the lines of John McEnroe’s pleading!
But the more the indefensible is defended the harder the resolve will become.
Richard I really do appreciate your contribution to this debate, mine is not a witch hunt. I want, nay beg resolution, within my own mind.
Your ongoing support of the actions carried out and proposed in the CRU emails brings no solace whatsoever. I would much rather debate the science of AGW with you but I have difficulty in debating science with somebody who can either not recognise or is happy to support malfeasance. As long as you do you lose the opportunity to sway the sceptical views.
Regards, thanks for your contributions, maybe sometime soon we will all tell it as it actually is?
"but generally it evens out"
Does that mean the good and the bad cancel each other out and we are left with nothing? The above quote sounds like "tell them what they want to hear" kind of nonsense. I would hope that it doesn't "even out" and that there are more good papers than bad. Yikes.
Andrew
Thanks for the comments Richard.
Good luck in your research.
Try to focus on the truth...
Hi Green Sand
Of course I think the peer-review process should not be misused, and clearly the emails look very bad indeed, and the reputation of climate science has been damaged as a result of that whole episode.
I was able to sign the letter because I have wider experience, and can see the integrity of the field is nevertheless still good. I appreciate that most people do not have the benefit of that.
Bad Andrew
No, I meant the right answers come out through the process in the end. The process does the right job overall, despite drawbacks. (Nevertheless bearing in mind that in in a field subject to high uncertainty in many areas, we don't actually know what the right answers are).
ZT
Thanks, I will!
Jeremy, quantum information has been more controversial than one might think, not just because of the issues in fundamental quantum mechanics, which attract a number of very smart people and an equally large number of nutters (plus a few utterly brilliant nutters of course), but also because links to cryptography and cryptanalysis means that the military and intelligence communities were really quite involved in the early stages. At one point there weas a rumor circulating on usenet that my lab was under military guard by the US Navy (?!?) and we had a remarkable day when two dozen demonstrators turned up with placards protesting our supposed invention of a "quantum time bomb". (The philosopher Harvey Brown was around, and he went out and gave them an informal seminar on epistomology and quantum mechanics which seemed to leave them happy).
But I was more referring to my earlier career in biochemistry and biomedicine, when I first worked with people who did animal experiments (and who were genuinely in danger of attack, not the sort of pretend threats that CRU is talking about), and later on prion analogues while BSE was still a very hot issue and there were real questions about how dangerous our experiments were. Interesting times.
Richard ... You read ALL of them in that timescale, i imagine you are one oof very few that signed to do this.
I had thought Tom Wigleys devasting reply to Mike Hulmes Invitation to influence Kyoto was news to you and you hadn't see that one (out of many of course) but i thought this was the most damming as scientist being advocates...
As I thought the Met Office statement was a very simlar exercise, to make a consensus response to climategate, and a political statement by scientist to influence Copenhagen, politicians and the media.
Paull Dennis wouldn't sign it..
And I know of others that did sign it and have read none of them to this day
Wigley criticism, in my mind would equally apply here.
I am surprised in Richards confidence in the IPCC process, moving forward.
As with Climategate, we had clear evidence of key scientists, lead authors, etc, subverting the IPCC processes, with back channels and calls for deletions of any emails relating to doing this.
This in a key area to the whole IPCC such as attribution and declaring warming as unprecedented..
As the IAC recommendations procedures seem to have been completely ignored for AR5 as well.
I have less confidence that machinations behind the scenes will stop...
As surely, all those key people have learnt the hard way, not to uses their work email...
But will just all have signed up to googlemail instead, and maybe use the telephone a bit more..
That is the lesson the climategate leaker has given them..
how to prevent the sort of behaviour seen at CRU and their colleagues globally?
No one will have the NEED to ask please delete emails for AR5 anymore.
Which is the one question I cannot believe no one asked Phil Jones.
Not whether or not he deleyted emails, also not asked..
The lawyers question would be. WHY the NEED to ask for deletion. ie evidence of knowing that it was wrong.
So how to police ensure googlemail bypassing procedures, at this stage we need to have confidence that this is not happening (Remote Sensing debacle, imagine the emails, reinforces my view)
I read Gleick in Forbes, the gruesome threesome memo and many many more and the more I read the more I conclude that we have got to stop this embarrassment to science. The naughty step suggestion is a good start but follow-up with a basic science course or something. If it were not so tragic it would be funny.