24 thoughts on “The Dog”

  1. So much for Bob-1’s earlier statement about respecting science. Since the side of the debate he has chosen has utterly rejected science, continuing to support the politicians backing that side does also.

    Money quote: “Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”

    Go on, tell us these people respect the scientific method. . . AGW has officially become a religion. A cultish, neo-Luddite, anti-science one at that.

  2. That’s a remarkable failure there. After a long history of denying reasonable requests, it supposedly turns out that the original data is lost. My view is that if you throw away the original data then for scientific purposes you no longer have data.

    Apparently, the report was also very influential. I’m not knowledgeable to evaluate the claim, but it is said (as I understand it) in the story that the IPCC used this study through 2007 as primary authority on historical surface temperatures.

    I suppose it’s no surprise that an international group, not particularly interested in facts, happened to rely on a study for which the real data apparently doesn’t exist any more. I hope it is somewhere so that someone more competent and honest can rebuild the study.

  3. As we enter a new ice age, the loss of global warming ‘data’ will be conclusive in supporting the success of the ‘reforms’ we have undertaken. . . .

    Regards,

  4. I think it was the Instapundit who said that the global warming debate is less about concern for the Earth, and more about wanting to boss people around. The more I hear, the more I think that’s correct.

  5. We’ve had so much global warming this year in Colorado Springs that we had our first snow flurries of the season two days ago. Snow in September isn’t completely unheard of but in my 24 years here, it has only happened a time or two that I recall.

  6. Wow. I agree with Mr. Irving, the money quote seems far worse than losing the data. The latter is embarrassing, but the former is just wrong.

  7. If anyone wants to see the current state of the climate surface stations you can visit http://www.surfacestations.org. This private, volunteer group has surveyed most of the climate monitoring network and found that less than 20% meet the highest quality standards set by NOAA and over 50% fall into the worst two bins.

  8. Go on, tell us these people respect the scientific method. . .

    Science is just a hegemonic tool of the oppressor race so they can plunder the third-world! It’s there to create a false consciousness in the proletariat and pacify them with consumerism! /libtard

  9. I can tell you one thing.

    The Global Warming/Climate Change people will need to embrace “lack of sunspots cause cool temperatures.” They will have to. They will need this as a fall back position on why temperatures are cooler — the spin will be that the solar minimum is masking global warming, but when the sunspots come back, look out.

  10. I have to wonder how serious the requests for “the original data” were, since 5 minutes on Google got me the National Climate Data Center which claims to have “the world’s largest archive of climate data.”

    More to the point, a true application of the scientific method is not for a scientist to re-analyze somebody else’s data, but to re-run the experiment with their own data.

    In this case, if Hanson’s data is bad, re-running an experiment with his data will yield the same (bad) result.

  11. Chris,
    The people requesting the data wanted to see the ‘official’ data that was manipulated, summarized, and then used as the basis of the AGW report. They wanted to perform perfectly standard testing on the data by an outside party (you know, peer review). The NOAA database is a completely different item.

    Secondly, they wanted to see the data and determine if the adjustments made to that data were proper, not just re-run the same experiment.

    Nice try, though.

  12. Paul Says:

    The Global Warming/Climate Change people will need to embrace “lack of sunspots cause cool temperatures.”

    I think you are probably correct on on this. “NYT headline: Cooling temps confirm AGW”.

    I’ve written here against the silliness that is AGW Catastrophism. It continues to be a wrong conclusion that we should use massive gov’t intervention to stop people from respiring CO2 (with their machines).

    However, as a matter of fact, it is true that the current solar cycle is probably masking a general warming trend. So the AGW religionists will be on the correct side of this minor point. I’d rather have them continue to predict higher temps.

    BTW, I went googling for current temp data for the last 5 years and I couldn’t find a simple presentation …. hmmmm. Anyone know of a good link?

  13. Chris

    5 minutes on Google got me the National Climate Data Center

    Why is the gov’t charging for this data? Why is it labeled “sample”

    This looks more like a SPAM site than a the transparent scientific organization it should be.

  14. Tom W – there is no “official” dataset. Various experimenters use their own, which includes the NOAA dataset. “Perfectly standard testing” includes getting your own data, and making your own adjustments. Like I said – if Hanson’s data, adjusted or otherwise, is wrong, using it will get wrong results.

    Fred K – yes, NOAA is charging for some of the data, but if you click around, there will be a “free” option for each dataset. I imagine the sample sets are smaller for quick download so that the experimentor can see what they are getting.

  15. I think there’s a significantly bigger problem here, bigger even than a global catastrophic risk scenario based entirely on one bad dataset promulgated by one unscrupulous researcher which somehow got parlayed into a Nobel Prize. A horrendous process failure, to be sure, but …

    In the wake of this, does anybody have a decent understanding of what has happened to the climate over the past century? Are we now flying completely blind — at a time when solar activity is at an entirely unpredicted low?

  16. Chris,

    Did you even read the article?

    “In the early 1980s, with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, scientists at the United Kingdom’s University of East Anglia established the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) to produce the world’s first comprehensive history of surface temperature. It’s known in the trade as the “Jones and Wigley” record for its authors, Phil Jones and Tom Wigley, and it served as the primary reference standard for the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) until 2007.”

    Jim Hansen works at NASA which is – to my recollection – a US agency not run by the United Kingdom. Although he may have used the data in a paper (I have no idea, nor does it matter), this is not “Hansen’s data.” Hansen is not mentioned in the article at all.

    The statement that the data are a “comprehensive history of surface temperature” is a clue that they are coming from historical measurements which are not reproducible without a time machine. The article goes on to confirm this supposition.

    The fact that the data are “the primary reference standard for the U.N. [IPCC]” is an indication that these data are being used to make public policy and therefore should be – ya know – public.

    It’s pretty clear what happened. There’s someone who drew a conclusion from the data and he doesn’t want to share how he drew that conclusion. I won’t guess at his motivation. Normally, I couldn’t care less but since this conclusion is part an international effort to extract money from the public, I don’t think it is too much to ask that the data and methodologies be made available to anyone who asks.

    It’s really not important to hear what excuses there might be for not delivering the data.

    Joe

    PS: I analyzed your Google search data. By using methodologies and data screening techniques I choose not to reveal, I was able to conclude that we are about to attacked by aliens who spit picante salsa from a special gland.

    PPS Not really. Didn’t want to give the wrong idea based on ludicrous evidence. I’m fastidious that way.

  17. I have to wonder how serious the requests for “the original data” were, since 5 minutes on Google got me the National Climate Data Center which claims to have “the world’s largest archive of climate data.”

    What makes you think the NCDC has this data? If they did, then Jones and Wigley could have directed inquiries there. It’s stretching things to claim that nobody (including a number of climate scientists on both sides of this particular conflict) knew of this supposed data source.

  18. this conclusion is part an international effort to extract money from the public, I don’t think it is too much to ask that the data and methodologies be made available to anyone who asks

    Very well said. I would add that we do have consistent temperature data from satellites since 1978, as Carlins report from March indicated. Re-reading that now he seems particularly prescient in his criticisms of the surface data.

  19. “More to the point, a true application of the scientific method is not for a scientist to re-analyze somebody else’s data, but to re-run the experiment with their own data.”

    Please look up the word “data” and learn what it means.

  20. Very well said. I would add that we do have consistent temperature data from satellites since 1978

    Yes, but that isn’t the same thing as the ground temperature data, which was used as the basis for the report being used by the UN, which has gone missing, mysteriously.

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