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| Science |
| Slow News Day: Climategate on Front Page of WaPo |
| 2009-12-05 |
| Stolen files of 'Climate-gate' suggest some viewpoints on change are disregarded It began with an anonymous Internet posting, and a link to a wonky set of e-mails and files. Stolen, apparently, Now it has mushroomed into what is being called "Climate-gate," a scandal that has done what many slide shows and public-service ads could not: focus public attention on the science of a warming planet. But not to worry, the science is so strong, it can take the hit. Except now, much of that attention is focused on the science's flaws. Leaked just before international climate talks begin in Copenhagen - the culmination of years of work by scientists to raise alarms about greenhouse-gas emissions - the e-mails have cast those scientists in a political light and given new energy to others who think the issue of climate change is all overblown. Not all of the work is flawed, just the basis for much of it that came from CRU. The e-mails don't say that: They don't provide proof that human-caused climate change is a lie or a swindle. But they do raise hard questions. In an effort to control what the public hears, did prominent scientists who link climate change to human behavior try to squelch a back-and-forth that is central to the scientific method? Is the science of global warming messier than they have admitted? These are the facts: After an increase in 1998, the world has been historically warm, but its average temperatures have not climbed steadily. Does that mean climate change has stopped? The "facts" include a chart that don't show any warm years in the 1930's. "To me, it's unambiguous . . . humans are altering the climate system," said Roger Pielke Sr., a research scientist at the University of Colorado. "It's just that, it's much more than CO2." I don't doubt we are having an effect. I only doubt we can measure it or predict how much. Pielke said his research shows that, in addition to carbon dioxide and other factors, Earth's warming is affected by how people alter the land. When a forest becomes a farm, or a farm becomes a suburb, that changes the amount of heat and moisture coming off the ground, he said. But Pielke said he has seen some papers rejected and has felt so marginalized that he quit a U.S. panel summing up climate change a few years ago. One of the stolen e-mails seems to confirm the idea that he was being excluded: In 2005, Jones wrote to colleagues about some of Pielke's complaints, "Maybe you'll be able to ignore them?" "These individuals, who are very sincere in their beliefs, have presumed that that gives them permission to exclude viewpoints that are different from their own," Pielke said. Wow. Where have we heard that before? Many mainstream scientists say no: This is just a tic of nature, as cycles of currents in the Pacific Ocean and a decrease in heat coming off the sun have temporarily dampened warming. Some researchers, though, have said the models - and, by extension, the human researchers that built them - could be missing something about how the climate works. That point was made in one stolen e-mail, in which climate researcher Kevin Trenberth wrote it was a "travesty" that models could not explain why the Earth hadn't warmed more. "We're simply not tracking where the heat is going," said Trenberth, who heads the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. The diversity of opinion on this topic, however, wasn't evident late last month, when a group of 26 climate researchers issued a report called "The Copenhagen Diagnosis," summarizing scientific advances since the last major U.N. climate report in 2007. "Has global warming recently slowed down or paused?" the report said. "No." Nothing to see here. Move along. |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #5 These are the facts: I smell BS... After an increase in 1998, the world has been historically warm, but ...and now I see it. Is this the history where there was no Medieval Warm Period? its average temperatures have not climbed steadily. Which indicates nothing: 10 years is an instant in the eyes of gods or nature Does that mean climate change has stopped? In other words, have I stopped beating my wife? This is a small, sordid example of the kind of misleading, baiting, and obfuscation we are going to see from Big Media™: I strongly recommend that anything they write be initially presumed false- including 'and' and 'the.' |
| Posted by: Free Radical 2009-12-05 16:51 |
| #4 are data from any humans ever "not" skewed to someones agenda. A good scientist sets up his experiments to remove or test his agenda, 746*. A good scientist wants to know if his hypothesis is true, because he doesn't want to become a sad example in the textbooks later as yet another gullible fool who wasn't intelligent enough to discern the cold underlying reality of the universe. It's very much a Darwinian competition for rank in the hierarchy, where rank is assumed to strongly -- not exactly true, as pattern recognition, also thought of as insight, is not a result of raw intelligence but a complement to it, knowledge versus wisdom, if you will. I rather imagine the snickers are getting louder in certain quarters, as the list of revelations gets longer. I mean, the poor dears actually believed what they were selling, not the contradictory accumulating data, contradictions strong enough to overcome the skews deliberately introduced into the data collection. The Watts Up With That bloggers have an entire paged devoted to documenting biased sensor placement, with photos. *While not a scientist myself, although I did research for an amusing few years, I am the child and wife of scientists, and grew up in the milieu. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-12-05 14:34 |
| #3 Gee, I guess sales of parkas in hell must be brisk these days. |
| Posted by: badanov 2009-12-05 11:15 |
| #2 are data from any humans ever "not" skewed to someones agenda. People are like that , in love with their own ideas. |
| Posted by: 746 2009-12-05 10:24 |
| #1 "value-added data" |
| Posted by: Frank G 2009-12-05 10:08 |