Jones and CRU exonerated

[a_unique_person]

Only someone who knows little about scientific history would claim such a thing.

Taking Blondlot as an example. People "reinventing" his experiment with their own apparatus in their own labs found inconclusive results. It was only when Blondlot allowed someone sceptical of his claims into his own lab, to get up close and personal with Blondlot's own equipment, was the flaw in his experimental setup made evident.

No, you just confirmed I was right. They could not replicate his experiment. He was wrong.

 

[BenBurch]

Homeopathic junk, UK parliament dossiers and IPCC AR4.

Although technically I would not regard them as "well crafted", but actually pretty inept.

Lets be clear; I am saying that what YOU are promoting is equivalent to homeopathic junk. And just as honest.

 

[lomiller]

No, you just confirmed I was right. They could not replicate his experiment. He was wrong.

Yup, all else was simply finding out why he was wrong.

 

[CoolSceptic]

Yeah, a typo. 2035 instead of 2350. It was corrected and nothing important was derived from the error.

The glacier levels are used later in the report, but the correct numbers were applied. More evidence that the first "error" was a minor oversight that required 2 sentences of correction.

Sure, and the 45 minute claim in the Iraq dossier was a "typo" as well. Sorry, not convinced by either claim.

Are you talking about the criticism from Leake? There was use of a debateable graph by the IPCC-- http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/02/ipcc-mystery-graph-solved.html --but the researcher confirmed it was used correctly by the IPCC-- http://www.rms.com/Publications/2010_FAQ_IPCC.pdf

Direct quote from the second link you provide:

A graph showing averaged global temperature and averaged catastrophe loss since 1970 was included in supplementary material rather than the IPCC report itself and was not itself published. RMS believes that the graph could be misinterpreted and should not have been included in these materials.

This does not sound to me like "the researcher confirmed it was correctly used"? Furthermore, RMS more or less says it is happy that the IPCC quotes from their report - which I have no problem with - but the IPCC had a duty (IMHO) to acknowledge that report went against the prevailing consensus, and was a minority viewpoint. The IPCC failed to make this clear.

Well, on the whole, the IPCC report is incredibly conservative.

We can all hand wave like this. The Iraq dossier was "conservative" in areas as well. That isn't a free pass.

As for Cohn and Lins, they have adopted a skeptical position regarding the testing of hypotheses in climate models. Theirs is a statistical claim and will likely lead to improvements in future modeling.

If you think they were wrongly limited in the IPCC report, I don't know what to tell you. Here's a discussion of their paper:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/12/naturally-trendy/

People are aware of it, they're factoring into their research, we'll see how it goes.

I'm well aware of the presentation of "Naturally Trendy" by RealClimate which really showed that they don't understand the content of the paper. Demetris Koutsoyiannis punches holes in their arguments in the comments section. If they had a valid criticism, it would appear in the peer-reviewed literature.

Of course, if you think that "Naturally Trendy" is the only paper by this group, then of course you will think they should not have more space in the IPCC report. But the reality is there is a lot more than that one paper. There is a fairly extensive body of work in the peer reviewed literature. And to be honest, it is not the sort of work that most people can get their heads around quickly and easily (witness the RealClimate article, which really fails to grasp the arguments being put forward).

Sure, and they will continue doing their work as other climate scientists continue to develop models. I'll be charitable and agree that it's an open question, but they are a very long way from creating legitimate doubt about AGW. Who knows, maybe they will be the guys

What constitutes a legitimate doubt and who gets to decide what is and isn't? I'm not claiming consensus here. I'm happy to say I'm in a minority. Just a minority viewpoint that remains unfalsified and creates serious problems for the consensus (if you are familiar with the corpus of work).

 

[uke2se]

Just going to jump in here and respond to this part of your post:

What constitutes a legitimate doubt and who gets to decide what is and isn't?

Legitimate doubt would be peer reviewed and reproducible science that falsifies a major part of AGW theory. All the so called "sceptics" have managed to produce is nagging the fringes of the theory, and most often they are just dead wrong anyway.

I'm not claiming consensus here. I'm happy to say I'm in a minority. Just a minority viewpoint that remains unfalsified

How do you falsify a viewpoint that something is wrong? Proving it right? Science doesn't do that. Science can falsify something, never prove it. Your viewpoint (that AGW doesn't exist) can only be marginalized by scientific discoveries. This has been done. That you "sceptics" won't accept it is your problem.

and creates serious problems for the consensus (if you are familiar with the corpus of work).

"Sceptics" only create problems by lying and obfuscating, and by spreading false propaganda in the mainstream media. They don't create any scientific problems at all.

As a point of order, I'd like to request that the word "sceptic" is either removed from this debate all together, or at least applied to the proper participants, i.e, the actual scientists (AGW proponents). Denialism isn't scepticism after all. It's just denialism.

 

[CoolSceptic]

No, you just confirmed I was right. They could not replicate his experiment. He was wrong.

Your statement is completely wrong.

Several labs attempted to replicate his experiment, using their own equipment. A number of those labs claimed to succeed in independently replicating it (in fact some claimed to have made the discovery before Blondlot - which was later resolved by the French National Academy). So the experiment was indeed "replicated" using independent set ups. Independent labs repeating the experiment failed to conclusively resolve what was going on, as some claimed to replicate it when others didn't.

It was only when they returned to the original experimental setup, and had someone sceptical of the experimental result look over the exact details of how the experiment was performed, did they find the fault. This is the equivalent of checking over the code and data for errors in climate science.

If you want to learn more about what happened, the story is covered in great detail in "False Prophets: Fraud and Error in Science and Medicine" by Alexander Kohn, a very good book which I would strongly recommend to anyone who wants to learn about the history of science.

 

[TraneWreck]

Sure, and the 45 minute claim in the Iraq dossier was a "typo" as well. Sorry, not convinced by either claim.

Really? You can't see how 2350 became 2035 via typo? And the correct data was used later in the paper. Some scheme that was: "Ok, let's slip in an increased melting rate of Himalayan glaciers on page 495, draw no conclusions based on it, then use the proper data the next it's mentioned. That will really...(?)"

Or in underpants gnome terminology:

Step 1: Falsify two sentences about Himalayan glaciers in a thousand page report.
Step 2: ?????
Step 3: Profit?

The Iraq lies were done with a very clear purpose. What was the purpose of using an incorrect year early in the paper then using the correct year later? Flesh out this conspiracy, please.

Direct quote from the second link you provide:

This does not sound to me like "the researcher confirmed it was correctly used"? Furthermore, RMS more or less says it is happy that the IPCC quotes from their report - which I have no problem with - but the IPCC had a duty (IMHO) to acknowledge that report went against the prevailing consensus, and was a minority viewpoint. The IPCC failed to make this clear.

I think you buried the lead: "A graph showing averaged global temperature and averaged catastrophe loss since 1970 was included in supplementary material rather than the IPCC report itself and was not itself published."

It wasn't published. You're two bits of information to show the faults of the IPCC are a typo and an unpublished graph. *High five*

We can all hand wave like this. The Iraq dossier was "conservative" in areas as well. That isn't a free pass.

Based on the available scientific evidence, whenever the IPCC was presented with a choice between more alarmist data and more conservative, they chose the latter. The consensus position of scientists is far more aggressive than what was published by the IPCC. Sea level was the clearest example.

I'm well aware of the presentation of "Naturally Trendy" by RealClimate which really showed that they don't understand the content of the paper. Demetris Koutsoyiannis punches holes in their arguments in the comments section. If they had a valid criticism, it would appear in the peer-reviewed literature.

Of course, if you think that "Naturally Trendy" is the only paper by this group, then of course you will think they should not have more space in the IPCC report. But the reality is there is a lot more than that one paper. There is a fairly extensive body of work in the peer reviewed literature. And to be honest, it is not the sort of work that most people can get their heads around quickly and easily (witness the RealClimate article, which really fails to grasp the arguments being put forward).

I wouldn't mind seeing you elaborate on that.

What constitutes a legitimate doubt and who gets to decide what is and isn't? I'm not claiming consensus here. I'm happy to say I'm in a minority. Just a minority viewpoint that remains unfalsified and creates serious problems for the consensus (if you are familiar with the corpus of work).

Who gets to decide? THe other scientists. And they've decided. Maybe your guys will get the upper hand over time, but right now their not in the pole position.

We'll see what happens. Like I said, their work isn't unknown nor is it being ignored. It will either strengthen or destroy the models. Not being a scientist I'll just sit back and watch.

 

[CoolSceptic]

Just going to jump in here and respond to this part of your post:

Legitimate doubt would be peer reviewed and reproducible science that falsifies a major part of AGW theory.

The work I refer to is peer reviewed, reproducible science that demonstrates the CIs of many climate science studies are problematic.

It isn't my fault you're not familiar with it, and don't understand all of the consequences...

Your viewpoint (that AGW doesn't exist)

Where did I say this? Why are you making up viewpoints that I do not hold?

"Sceptics" only create problems by lying and obfuscating, and by spreading false propaganda in the mainstream media. They don't create any scientific problems at all.

As a point of order, I'd like to request that the word "sceptic" is either removed from this debate all together, or at least applied to the proper participants, i.e, the actual scientists (AGW proponents). Denialism isn't scepticism after all. It's just denialism.

As a point of order, I'd like to request that you stop making up viewpoints for other people first. Otherwise you might as well just say "CoolSceptic eats babies, because I said so, and he is therefore wrong". Once we've got that bit right, maybe we can move on...

 

[CoolSceptic]

Really? You can't see how 2350 became 2035 via typo?

I can see how it might be a typo. But it wasn't. The source was traced. It was from an informal telephone interview between a journalist and a scientist, that was published in a non-peer reviewed popular science magazine.

The fact that a figure was taken from a journalist informally interviewing a scientist who was giving an opinion somehow managed to get into a document that is supposed to only include peer-reviewed should give cause for concern. Apparently, to some people it doesn't.

Step 1: Falsify two sentences about Himalayan glaciersi n a thousand page report .
Step 2: ?????
Step 3: Profit?

Again, the same weak argument could be made about the Iraq dossier. "It was only a couple of words that was wrong in a document with several thousand words in it..."

As we can see with the Iraq dossier, it isn't the amount of correct (or "conservative") stuff in the document that matters. And that is ignoring the fact the Himalayan example is not the only problem I've highlighted.

The Iraq lies were done with a very clear purpose.

Oh right, the Iraq dossier was done by people who were clearly evil (because they disagree with you?) and the IPCC was all well-intentioned people who make genuine mistakes (because you agree with them?)

Second guessing motives and attributing evil values to those you disagree with, and honest intentions to those you agree with, is the very antithesis of critical thinking. But carry on anyway.

What was the purpose of using an incorrect year early in the paper then using the correct year later? Flesh out this conspiracy, please.

And straight away, just like uke2se, attributing things to me I did not say. Where did I say conspiracy? I said inept. "Flesh out this ineptness, please". I already have.

I think you buried the lead: "A graph showing averaged global temperature and averaged catastrophe loss since 1970 was included in supplementary material rather than the IPCC report itself and was not itself published."

It wasn't published. You're two bits of information to show the faults of the IPCC are a typo and an unpublished graph. *High five*

You were the one who raised the issue of the graph, and you made an incorrect claim about the graph. I pointed out your incorrect claim. Get over it.

My original claim was about more than the graph. It was about the demolition of the IPCC position at the Royal Society debate. You'll find more than just Jonathon Leake's coverage if you look for it.

So in summary of what has gone so far: you ignore my claim, make up your own claim, be wrong about it, then when someone points out even your own claim is clearly wrong by your own references, insist that your own claim might be incorrect, but it is not significant (having bypassed the original claim completely). About par for JREF AGW debates.

Based on the available scientific evidence, whenever the IPCC was presented with a choice between more alarmist data and more conservative, they chose the latter. The consensus position of scientists is far more aggressive than what was published by the IPCC. Sea level was the clearest example.

Again, so what? Aspects of the Iraq dossier were conservative. Does that get the Iraq dossier off the hook? Doesn't really add up, does it?

I wouldn't mind seeing you elaborate on that.

Try reading the peer reviewed literature. I've posted up dozens of papers on other threads. Search button is that way ^^^

Who gets to decide? THe other scientists.

LOL. Funny. Look, this bunch of scientists over here says Koutsoyiannis is wrong, therefore he must be. OK they haven't managed to publish anything that falsifies his position. But look, they say it. It must be true!

Yeah, that's just how science works. Keep telling yourself that.

Bored of this now. I'm just repeating the same points which are consistently not being addressed, while the "debate" centres around other people simply making stuff up that I didn't say and arguing against that. I can find tedious polemics anywhere (this is the internet, y'know). I think it is time to go find some more intelligent debate elsewhere.

I keep hoping for rational debate on JREF, even on such a contentious topic as AGW, and it keeps disappointing me. I should know better.

Have the last word. It won't be relevant to any point I made, I'm sure.

 

[MattusMaximus]

But sadly, we also see that the deniers and the mainstream media who were all over the idea of a “controversy” aren’t so interested in the fact that there is none.

True enough, but to be honest the climate science community needs to grow a pair of balls and start advocating for themselves & their science more actively. If I were them, I'd be splaying this news about the exoneration of Jones & CRU all over the place.

 

[TraneWreck]

Again, the same weak argument could be made about the Iraq dossier. "It was only a couple of words that was wrong in a document with several thousand words in it..."

As we can see with the Iraq dossier, it isn't the amount of correct (or "conservative") stuff in the document that matters.

Oh right, the Iraq dossier was done by people who were clearly evil (because they disagree with you?) and the IPCC was all well-intentioned people who make genuine mistakes (because you agree with them?)

Alright, this is just sort of pointless. We could derail the thread and go into great detail about the yellow cake in Niger, the use of "Curveball," the taxi-driver revelations from the recent British investigation, and so on.

You're trying to analogize that to a group that used 99% peer reviewed work, then peer reviewed that peer review work with hundreds more scientists.

The obvious lies and distortions in the Iraq fiasco were obvious in real time. The weapon inspectors debunked their claims and we knew the Iraq-Al Qaeda stuff was bunk.

But this is a bizarre attempt at slandering an entire body with 2 bits of crappy evidence: a typo and an unpublished graph. You use these two bits of wholly irrelevant info (please, what further conclusions required the Himalayan glacier typo--I'm curious) to slander the whole body.

Second guessing motives and attributing evil values to those you disagree with, and honest intentions to those you agree with, is the very antithesis of critical thinking. But carry on anyway.

Uh, ok. When, exactly, did I do that? I think you got a little carried away with the Iraq stuff.

And straight away, just like uke2se, attributing things to me I did not say. Where did I say conspiracy? I said inept. "Flesh out this ineptness, please". I already have.

I said conspiracy. I'm describing your bizarre attitude towards the typo as conspiratorial. You analogized it to the Iraq intelligence disaster, which was very much a conspiracy.

You were the one who raised the issue of the graph, and you made an incorrect claim about the graph. I pointed out your incorrect claim. Get over it.

They were happy it was used. It wasn't published. Still irrelevant to your claim about the IPCC, which is why you now distance yourself from it.

My original claim was about more than the graph. It was about the demolition of the IPCC position at the Royal Society debate. You'll find more than just Jonathon Leake's coverage if you look for it.

Or you could link it.

So in summary of what has gone so far: you ignore my claim, make up your own claim, be wrong about it, then when someone points out even your own claim is clearly wrong by your own references, insist that your own claim might be incorrect, but it is not significant (having bypassed the original claim completely). About par for JREF AGW debates.

Huh? What claim did I ignore? I haven't seen you make any sort of argument.

From what I linked earlier: "RMS believes the IPCC fairly referenced its paper; with suitable caveats around the results, highlighting the factors influencing the relationship that had been discovered between time and catastrophe costs."

That's literally more than I said about it. RMS said IPCC used it correctly. I guess I should say "fairly," sorry.

I don't see how my claim was incorrect. In general, I have no idea what you're upset about.

Again, so what? Aspects of the Iraq dossier were conservative. Does that get the Iraq dossier off the hook? Doesn't really add up, does it?

So, it rebuts the assertion that it's alarmist. The Iraq dossier was wrong because it was wrong. How was the IPCC report incorrect? A typo and an unpublished graph?

 

[MattusMaximus]

Can we stay on topic, please? The thread is about climate science, not Iraq.

Stop derailing, folks.

 

[Furcifer]

Can we stay on topic, please? The thread is about climate science, not Iraq.

Stop derailing, folks.

Yah exactly!

Anyone care to comment on my observation that this in no way exonerates Jones and the CRU? I mean it is the OP after all.

Let's be realistic, it certainly is forgiving, and it doesn't condemn, but exonerate? Not exactly. The issue of deleting data hasn't been resolved just yet.

If everyone is sitting, it's my opinion this may be a non-issue as well. Forgive the pun, but I am warming up to these guys. I'm not quite convinced they would dump data. I'm actually under the impression they might be the 'cool kids'. The down side is that they might be more, 'influential', than anything. Just a thought. Discuss.

 

[uruk]

No, you just confirmed I was right. They could not replicate his experiment. He was wrong.

And by viewing his data and equipment directly they were able to find out exactly why.

Science isn't about withholding data. Transparency has alway been important.

 

[uruk]

~snip~Or in underpants gnome terminology:

Step 1: Falsify two sentences about Himalayan glaciers in a thousand page report.
Step 2: ?????
Step 3: Profit?

~snip~

Step 1: Falsify two sentences about Himalayan glaciers in a thousand page report.
Step 2: Get recognized by Global Climate Change band wagon.
Step 2a: Get further funding for research that supports Global Climate Change.
Step 3: Profit (scientists need Jaguars too!)
Step 3a: Fund trip back to Himalaya to return to hot Shirpa honey with whom a meaningful relation was established.

You gotta use your imagination man!

 

[Poptech]

Another thread on the whitewash? What is it not getting enough play? Public not biting?

‘Climategate’: what a pointless investigation (Spiked, UK)

But the real question we should be asking is this: what was the point of the investigation? The House of Commons committee self-consciously refused to pose any probing questions, and its main aim seemed to be to ensure that the moral status of the current consensus on climate change remained intact.

So what was the purpose of this staged, performed investigation? The answer, to me, seems fairly obvious. As Labour MP Doug Naysmith indicated, he hoped that the report would serve as a ‘corrective’ to climate-sceptic hysteria. Investigations that are meant to serve as a ‘corrective’ to people’s misguided or immoral sentiments used to be called rituals. And that is what this the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee’s ‘limited inquiry’ was mostly about: a ritualised pseudo-investigation aimed at correcting people’s allegedly backward views.

Politicians cannot help you put the cat back in the bag.

 

[uke2se]

The work I refer to is peer reviewed, reproducible science that demonstrates the CIs of many climate science studies are problematic.

It isn't my fault you're not familiar with it, and don't understand all of the consequences...

What problems with climate science studies does it demonstrate?

Where did I say this? Why are you making up viewpoints that I do not hold?

Sorry, I must have pegged you for a normal denialist. Would you mind telling me what your viewpoint is? AGW exists but isn't a problem? AGW exists but it's not like the scientists are telling us? What's your viewpoint?

As a point of order, I'd like to request that you stop making up viewpoints for other people first.

Again, sorry about that. I just figured that was your problem from your other posts. If you acknowledge that AGW is real there really isn't any reason for us to argue at all. We both accept that climate scientists are better than us at climate science, and that the consensus opinion is the best model to date.

Otherwise you might as well just say "CoolSceptic eats babies, because I said so, and he is therefore wrong". Once we've got that bit right, maybe we can move on...

It's alright now. I'm sorry that I pegged you for a denialist. Obviously you are on board the "AGW is a real problem and we need to do something about it"-train.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

Yah exactly!

Anyone care to comment on my observation that this in no way exonerates Jones and the CRU? I mean it is the OP after all.

Let's be realistic, it certainly is forgiving, and it doesn't condemn, but exonerate? Not exactly. The issue of deleting data hasn't been resolved just yet.

If everyone is sitting, it's my opinion this may be a non-issue as well. Forgive the pun, but I am warming up to these guys. I'm not quite convinced they would dump data. I'm actually under the impression they might be the 'cool kids'. The down side is that they might be more, 'influential', than anything. Just a thought. Discuss.

OP here.

Fair enough, it doesn't completely find them to be angels and does recommend greater transparency. However, the inquiry doesn't seem to have found scientific malfeasance i.e. falsification of results or suppression of contradictory evidence. These were the big claims made by the denialists after the Climatefizzle kerfuffle exploded some time back, and now two separate investigations have largely found these allegations to be unfounded.

For some, this of course just shows that the conspiracy goes deeper than they thought.

 

[BenBurch]

...

For some, this of course just shows that the conspiracy goes deeper than they thought.

Quite So.

Once they are convinced that its an Illuminati Conspiracy to bring about One-World Socialism and thereby Immanentize the Eschaton, all information counter to that, from whatever source, is coverup and disinfo from The Conspiracy itself.

 

[Poptech]

Quite So.

Once they are convinced that its an Illuminati Conspiracy to bring about One-World Socialism and thereby Immanentize the Eschaton, all information counter to that, from whatever source, is coverup and disinfo from The Conspiracy itself.

Stating this sort of ridiculous nonsense is pathetic.