I want to break away from my normal system trading blogging to report on something that I find fascinating and disturbing as I believe that the Climategate saga will likely shape how the world views science, scientists, and politics, for decades to come.
I am in no way an expert on the research concerning climate science, nor am I an expert on the recent inquiries into the possible problems with climate science as a response to the information within the hacked emails.
And I will not offer my opinion on anthropogenic global warming (AGW).
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The UK has begun an inquiry into Climategate, and the responses submitted to the UK Parliamentary Inquiry are very, very good reading. I think their importance to the debate cannot be overstated.
The committee has accepted submissions, as best as I can tell, from anyone who could meet the deadline. These submissions constitute a general summary of the arguments against AGW, as well as a summary of the alleged fraudulent activities of a group of climate scientists.
It remains to be seen whether the UK Parliamentary Inquiry will investigate these responses without bias and use them to assist in their final judgment, but one must suppose that they will have some impact.
This link is to the responses submitted to the Science and Technology Committee. There are 54 responses submitted there. I highly recommend picking some of them to read, especially the ones from individual citizen scientists.
My favorite submission, simply because it is easy for a layman to read and understand is this response from Stephen McIntyre. However, I prefer this .pdf document which is the same response but with the graphs. The graphs are extremely helpful and I think even the most un-scientific of minds will clearly see the problems Mr. McIntyre presents. There are of course many other submissions from which to choose from various individuals and institutions.
As the American Main-Stream Media has purposefully chosen not to cover this profoundly important story, I highly encourage anyone even remotely interested in Climategate to read some of these submissions, and I implore everyone to watch for the results of the inquiry in the future. The results of the UK inquiry will likely influence future US government policies concerning climate change and AGW, and this means that all of us should be keenly aware of their implications.
Good post.
Some points I urge everyone to keep in mind no matter what your view is.
The opinions that matter on the science of climate change (pro or con) are from working scientists. That is, people who are working in a lab or in front of a computer in a relevant field. Everyone else is at best a well educated layman and at worse scientists who are paid to muddy the waters by special interest groups on either side of the debate. This applies to any area of scientific debate. I’ve seen articles for example, quoting a Canadian economist who disagrees with how the temperature is being modeled. He is not a working scientist in the field. He may be well versed in the mathematics as it applies to his field but different problems require different techniques so his views need to be taken with a grain of salt. On the other hand, someone working in low temperature fluid physics who disagrees with how the ice sampling is done should be listened to as he may well have important insights. Put another way, instead of climate change ask yourself if this was a stock would this person’s investing credentials or industry knowledge cause you to buy or sell it?
Remember the issue is GLOBAL. How cold or hot it is where you or I live is irrelevant. While the eastern US suffered through severe cold earlier this year the global swath from Alaska to Greenland was warmer than usual and Australia was baking. Was the world hotter or colder? I have no idea, we need to see the global data. Point is, don’t let your immediate weather color your opinion in either way. Neither our media or our politicians seem to get this. The analogy is with the market. If the S&P goes up 10% in a year does it mean every stock rises 10%? No, yet that is what most people expect with climate change. Your local area is like one stock in the market.
Pay attention to the news. A trivial thing but relevant. Last summer commercial shipping transited the north east passage. That hasn’t happened before. The sea was clear enough to permit it. The same is expected to happen soon for the north west passage over Canada. So the Arctic climate and seas have warmed. Why? That is under debate. Consequences? Also under debate. But the seas are warmer and you see the proof in the business news. That is a macro tell that is important.
Finally, use the market and how you invest as an analogy for interpreting what you see and hear. I saw a temperature profile that had dipped and was being cited by a layman (with a PhD he said but apparently a non-working scientist as he cited no professional status) who claimed the dip meant that temps were going to continue down. If it had been a stock chart I would have called it a nice bull flag. Market analogies don’t prove anything but they do give you a way of asking questions about what you see and hear in the media rather than simply accepting what you are told.
Ultimately, the scientific facts will prevail either way.
Sikander, I agree. Listen to real scientists, not the post-modern ‘scientists’ who perpetrated this enormous fraud:
The Institute of Physics is a scientific charity devoted to increasing the practice, understanding and application of physics. It has a worldwide membership of over 36,000 and is a leading communicator of physics-related science to all audiences, from specialists through to government and the general public. Its publishing company, IOP Publishing, is a world leader in scientific publishing and the electronic dissemination of physics.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc3902.htm
Post-modern science is not science at all, it is based on feelings, not fact. How do you feel about that?
Shed:
Steve M has singlehandedly taken these fuckers out of the game.
The guy deserves an Congressional medal of honor .
J, it appears that way.
But as I said, I don’t think I understand the research well enough to be sure. And the whole issue is so politicized that it is hard to know where good science ends and advocacy begins.
By the way, has it been hot in Oz?
I’m in Melbourne, shed. We have a few hot days, but for the most part it was a reasonable summer. Not too hot and not dry enough to cause large fires like we had last year.
Nothing unusual though..
This is what I was referring to:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/02/australia-heatwave-deaths
A couple of other points to keep in mind:
1) If this British University fudged their data that means the mathematical model they use to predict future climate conditions is flawed. Theirs is by no means the only model out there. I have wondered from the start of this if the issue was they couldn’t match the other, competing models and so fudged to try and not look stupid.
2) The data on global temperature, CO2 concentration, glacial melt rates and sea level over the past 100 or so years is not in question as that has all been measured by accepted techniques. That shows a clear trend.
3) If, as the data Wood shows above, some of the techniques (tree rings, glacial ice etc) used to determine a profile of the past are invalid, then the data set on which the mathematical models used to predict future climate change are useless. That does not tell one anything about the future situation, only that we go from believing we have predictive capabilities to having no reliable prediction. That does not mean situation resolved, it means situation unknown. So we have rising temp, CO2 concentration, and sea level but no predicative capability to say how that will evolve. Could be better, could be worse. Again, the last 100 years or so of data is not in question.
It is not simply a mater of knowing he science, it is a matter of knowing how the data is used. If “climate gate” turns out to find that this research group falsified data then most will think that proves global climate change is a myth or conspiracy. In actuality it proves nothing nearly that grand.
Sik —
Even NASA now is admitting the data itself is fudged up and the results rendered untestable.
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