Posts Tagged ‘global warming’

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Climategate and Hausergate: Different routes to the faking of science

August 30, 2010

Clearly academia can only reflect surrounding society. Scientists are not saints and political motives, financial greed and fame-seeking will be just as prevalent within academia as in the surroundings. Frauds and fakers will inevitably exist. Nevertheless it is peer review – by colleagues within the organisation and within the peer-review process – which is supposed to maintain the quality of scientific work but perhaps it must now be expanded to protect and maintain the integrity of scientific work as well. Reviewers cannot continue to use the independence of the review process as an excuse to remain cocooned within their comfort zones of anonymity. They do need to stand up and be counted.

In recent months two very different scandals in the scientific world but both relying on fake science have surfaced. In one peer-review has been lax and in the other it has been perverted to a cause.

In the case of Climategate (and the IPCC), the peer-review process was perverted to falsify scientific conclusions and suppress dissent in support of a particular political (and financial) agenda.

In the case of Hausergate predetermined conclusions were supported by falsified data which were then endorsed by the peer-review process to make non-science seem to be science. The financial motive is probably only secondary to the primary motive of seeking acclaim and reputation.

http://www.stochasticgeometry.ie/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/snakeoil.jpg?w=257

In both cases the normal sequence of the scientific method of

Question > research >hypothesis > experiment /test > analysis > conclusion

has been distorted.

In the case of Climategate a small clique of academics perverted the peer-review process to control and prevent the publication of opposing views. The IPCC (where the authors were often the same academics with a few charlatans, railway engineers, thrill seekers, politicians and financiers thrown in for good measure) not only prevented the consideration of alternate views but went further by including non-peer-reviewed advocacy reports, newspaper articles and the like when they were favourable to their cause. Of course the IPCC is a political institution so perhaps it is asking too much to expect it to be a force to maintain scientific integrity.

“Since the IPCC gives Lead Authors the sole right to determine content and accept or dismiss comments, it is more like a weblog than an academic report.”

See “Fix the IPCC process” by Ross McKitrick at http://opinion.financialpost.com/2010/08/27/fix-the-ipcc-process/

An alarmist agenda was used to satisfy the greed associated with the Carbon Offset and Trading scams. Some data manipulation is also evident from the Climategate e-mails but the control of peer-review was the main tool used.

In the case of Marc Hauser he simply fabricated data to fit the conclusions he had already come to (and it is irrelevant that his theories or conclusions may or may not be correct). It is stated that he was publishing at the rate of a paper – each one peer-reviewed – every month for 4 years. Obviously not too difficult to do or too time-consuming  if data only had to be fabricated whenever needed. What were the peers and reviewers doing? Had his colleagues and reviewers no suspicions or doubts?

What is not clear is why Hauser felt it was advantageous to fake the science instead of doing the science. Clearly he could not have been as prolific if he had to actually do the science and perhaps account for data which did not support his  theories. It would seem therefore to be connected with the gaining of an academic reputation quickly and perhaps also with the financial benefits flowing from that.

But the message coming through is that peers and peer-review must be transparent and very much more rigorous. They cannot restrict themselves to quality control alone – which itself is not applied uniformly – and not take a position on the integrity of the work. Reviewers are effectively servants of the Journals they serve and the Journals too cannot escape responsibility for what they publish and what they choose not to.

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Posted in Non-Science, Science, Scientific Fraud | 3 Comments »

Mild rap on the knuckles likely for IPCC / Pachauri from friendly IAC

August 29, 2010

The Hindustan Times reports that former railwayman Pachauri will likely get away with a mild rap on his knuckles from the Inter Academy Council (little known)-  an establishment body tasked with defending another establishment body.

There is speculation that Pachauri might get away with just a rap on the knuckles for IPCC’s assessments that the Himalayan glaciers will be gone by 2035, and the Amazonian forests were in danger too. The Wall Street Journal quoted an unidentified member of the probe team to say the report will merely suggest that IPCC “should beef up its capacity to ferret out errors in its scientific assessments”.

http://www.cartoonsbyjosh.com/index.html

The Telegraph comes out a little stronger and suggests that the IPCC could actually be “warned”. But when the IAC report is presented to Ban Ki Moon tomorrow it is unlikely to find much fault with one of its own.

The United Nation’s climate change organisation faces a warning over how it uses scientific facts in its influential reports, following the discovery of a series of embarrassing errors in its work.

Professor Robert Watson, the chief scientific adviser to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and a former chair of the UN’s IPCC, told the InterAcademy Council’s review committee that more needed to be done to prevent errors appearing in the panel’s reports.

He described the way the IPCC handled the mistakes as “totally and utterly atrocious” and suggested that the panel should consider hiring additional staff to check through the sources of information, or references, to ensure the accuracy of statements made in future reports.

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Posted in Bureaucracy, Science, Scientific Fraud | Comments Off on Mild rap on the knuckles likely for IPCC / Pachauri from friendly IAC

Flattening the Mann hockey stick

August 15, 2010

The shape of Mann’ s hockey stick is morphing. The long horizontal handle (obtained by eliminating the MWP)  actually turns out to be sloping and the sharp upturn gets flattened.

WUWT reports a new and important study on temperature proxy reconstructions (McShane and Wyner 2010) submitted into the Annals of Applied Statistics and is listed to be published in the next issue.

A Statistical Analysis of Multiple Temperature Proxies: Are Reconstructions of Surface Temperatures Over the Last 1000 Years Reliable?

BY BLAKELEY B. MCSHANE∗ AND ABRAHAM J. WYNER†
Northwestern University∗ and the University of Pennsylvania†
This paper is a direct and serious rebuttal to the proxy reconstructions of Mann. It seems watertight on the surface, because instead of trying to attack the proxy data quality issues, they assumed the proxy data was accurate for their purpose, then created a bayesian backcast method. Then, using the proxy data, they demonstrate it fails to reproduce the sharp 20th century uptick

FIG 16. Backcast from Bayesian Model of Section 5. CRU Northern Hemisphere annual mean land temperature is given by the thin black line and a smoothed version is given by the thick black line. The forecast is given by the thin red line and a smoothed version is given by the thick red line. The model is fit on 1850-1998 AD and backcasts 998-1849 AD. The cyan region indicates uncertainty due to t, the green region indicates uncertainty due to β, and the gray region indicates total uncertainty.

The Mann Hockey Stick
Multiproxy reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere surface temperature variations over the past millennium (blue), along with 50-year average (black), a measure of the statistical uncertainty associated with the reconstruction (gray), and instrumental surface temperature data for the last 150 years (red), based on the work by Mann et al. (1999). This figure has sometimes been referred to as the hockey stick. Source: IPCC (2001).

The authors conclude that:

“…..we conclude unequivocally that the evidence for a ”long-handled” hockey stick (where the shaft of the hockey stick extends to the year 1000 AD) is lacking in the data.…..Climate scientists have greatly underestimated the uncertainty of proxy based reconstructions and hence have been overconfident in their models.”


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Posted in Environment, Science, Scientific Fraud | 1 Comment »

IPCC / GISS: This is fraud !

August 12, 2010

Post by Willis Eschenbach in WUWT

There seems to be no end to the fraud-based advocacy being touted as science and propagated by the IPCC.

Temperatures in Nepal seem to have been particularly crudely “homogenised” by GISS.

IPCC Table 10.2 says: Nepal:  0.09°C per year in Himalayas and 0.04°C in Terai region, more in winter

The black line below is unadjusted temperatures and the red is temperatures after homogenisation. The yellow represents the level of “fudging” that was introduced to convert a cooling trend (in spite of the explosive urbanisation of Kathmandu and the consequent UHI effect) into a “warming” trend.

As Willis Eschenbach puts it

GISS has made a straight-line adjustment of 1.1°C in twenty years, or 5.5°C per century. They have changed a cooling trend to a strong warming trend … I’m sorry, but I see absolutely no scientific basis for that massive adjustment. I don’t care if it was done by a human using their best judgement, done by a computer algorithm utilizing comparison temperatures in India and China, or done by monkeys with typewriters. I don’t buy that adjustment, it is without scientific foundation or credible physical explanation.

This is not just shameless – it is simple fraud.

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Posted in Environment, Ethics, Non-Science, Scientific Fraud | 1 Comment »

When “models” and fudge factors are touted as evidence

August 6, 2010

Doomsday scenarios are taken to be evidence!!

Dr. Nepstad is at it again but he has a great deal of money to protect.

The same actors, the same advocacy and the same techniques to forecast DOOM.

Only this time drought, land use, illegal logging and climate change  are taken together to provide the necessary forcings to provide the catastrophe. It is called a “study” and implies some objectivity but the models use a variety of fudge factors to decide on the impact of the various variables. It might be more accurate to call it The Doomsday Scenarios since the “study” is no more than the generation of scenarios to come to a pre-determined conclusion. The conclusion is of course that we must immediately reduce greenhouse gas emissions drastically!

The Daily Telegraph reports today that

Rainforest loss may have been overstated, scientists

Climate change and illegal logging could wipe out rainforest wildlife by 2100

Daniel Nepstad, an ecologist at the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts, said only a cut in greenhouse gases can save the world’s wildlife.

“This study is the strongest evidence yet that the world’s natural ecosystems will undergo profound changes — including severe alterations in their species composition — through the combined influence of climate change and land use,” he said.

Unfortunately Dr. Nepstad is already rather tainted. He works for the Woods Hole Research Centre which is associated in Brazil with the Instituto de Pesquiza Ambiental da Amazonia (IPAM).  IPAM is a Brazilian advocacy group. He appears to have a vested interest in magnifying the value of carbon contained within the Rain Forests.

He is entitled to advocate for his point of view of course and to advocate for getting even more funding but his advocacy is not science.

Booker had this to say about 3 weeks ago:

This curious episode may also point to another reason why WWF and Woods Hole have been so active in recent years to promote concern over the danger of global warming for the Amazon rainforest. As I revealed here on March 20, they have been closely allied in support of a scheme known as REDD (Reduction in Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation of Tropical Forests). Its aim is to turn the CO2 in forest trees into “carbon credits”, saleable on the world market to allow firms to continue emitting CO2. Backed by $80 million from the World Bank, WWF, Woods Hole and IPAM are partners in a consortium, supported by the Brazilian government, to protect and manage a vast area of forest in the Tumucumaque region, in return for which they would have the right to sell its carbon credits. In 2007 Dr Nepstad published a formula which would allow the carbon contained in the entire forest to be valued at $60 billion.

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Posted in Alarmism, Ethics, Non-Science, Science | Comments Off on When “models” and fudge factors are touted as evidence

New Carbon Dioxide Emissions Model !!

August 3, 2010

Yet another model which seems to indulge in circular argument – again.

The now discredited methodology  of the 4th IPCC Asessment report will be used to produce model calculations for the 5th IPCC Asessment report and, I suppose the 5th will lead to the 6th and so on ad infinitum!

It seems like a methodology to ensure the keeping of climate modellers in work for ever.

Erich Roeckner, Marco A. Giorgetta, Traute Crueger, Monika Esch, Julia Pongratz. Historical and future anthropogenic emission pathways derived from coupled climate-carbon cycle simulations. Climatic Change, DOI: 10.1007/s10584-010-9886-6

According to Science Daily

The scientists used a new method with which they reconstructed historical emission pathways on the basis of already-calculated carbon dioxide concentrations. To do this, Erich Roeckner and his team adopted the methodology proposed by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for simulations being carried out for the future Fifth IPCC Assessment Report: earth system models that incorporate the carbon cycle were used to estimate the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions that are compatible with a prescribed concentration pathway. In this case, the emissions depend solely on the proportion of the anthropogenic carbon in the model that is absorbed by the land surface and the oceans. Repetition of the experiments using different pre-industrial starting dates enabled the scientists to distinguish between anthropogenic climate change and internal climate variability.

“It will take centuries for the global climate system to stabilise,” says Erich Roeckner.

And perhaps decades for the funding to continue.

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Global warming – science versus political correctness

August 3, 2010

When a scientific question diverges from a treatment of evidence, facts or theories it is often based on beliefs (and a belief by definition comes into play only when facts are lacking). Hypotheses and theories necessarily must rely – to some extent – on belief.

As soon a question regarding facts becomes instead a question regarding beliefs it leads to a political label (right wing, left wing, capitalist, communist, liberal, fascist). A political label generally assumes an adherence to a particular set of beliefs on many diverse topics. A scientific discussion then becomes a political argument. Positions on any topic under the umbrella of the political label – whether or not relevant to the topic under discussion – are then used to “discredit” or “support” a particular belief.

But I note that the “tools” used in political argument are the same whichever side of the political divide one is. These “tools” are used to reinforce the views of those already in agreement or to “convert” those on the fence.  They are only rarely used to “convert” those on the other side of the divide. These tools are for the manipulation of belief and have nothing whatever to do with science or the scientific method. The “tools” commonly used are

  • Alarmism (or the pseudo-science precautionary principle which permits common-sense to be ignored)
  • Claiming to be the “majority” view (and this is resorted to because a “majority” in a democracy is ascribed the “right” to summarily over-rule and oppress a minority)
  • Guilt, wrongness, injustice or immorality  – all by association
  • Ridicule
  • Distortion, misrepresentation and even fraud
  • Inquistions against heretics and witch hunts

The entire AGW argument – for it  has degenerated into a political argument and is no longer a scientific discussion (if it ever was one) – is permeated by the use of such tools. The sound and fury mask the underlying question which remains:

What is the magnitude and significance of man-made effects on the global climate?

My position is that I don’t know.

I believe that it is not of any great significance – but not that it is absent. I believe that whatever effect man has pales into insignificance compared to what the sun does primarily through the oceans and – only then – through and to the atmosphere.

There are those who believe – note “believe” – that posing the question is itself a matter of belief and denies the obvious. For posing the question I have been given various political labels. But the simple fact is that the answer is not obvious and not a settled science for me.

It is entirely a political matter – and perfectly valid as a political matter but it is not a matter of science – when the belief in something so dreadful in the future – but which cannot be proven – is used as a vehicle for satisfying greed (carbon trading, so-called environmental subsidies or research funding) or a political agenda.

There is nothing wrong with having a political agenda. But it cannot be labelled science.

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Posted in Alarmism, Environment, Non-Science, Philosophy, Science | Comments Off on Global warming – science versus political correctness

NonScience — not even Pseudo-Science

July 31, 2010

No doubt it is the quest for funding for what are “fashionable” projects which leads to this kind of rubbish. This is not even worthy of being called pseudo science – this is just nonscience (pun intended).

We find that an increase in a state’s unemployment rate decreases Google searches for “global warming” and increases searches for “unemployment,” and that the effect differs according to a state’s political ideology.

This is is what passes for science for University of California economists Matthew Kahn and Matthew Kotchen in their peer-reviewed paper (abstract here) “Environmental Concern and the Business Cycle: The Chilling Effect of Recession”.

Apparently this is funded by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Clearly they have surplus funds to disseminate, or was it the trigger words “Environmental Concern” which loosened the purse strings.

image

Does it really take two University economists to come to the conclusion that

Finally, in California, we find that an increase in a county’s unemployment rate is associated with a significant decrease in county residents choosing the environment as the most important policy issue.

One wonders who the peers who reviewed this article and recommended publication could be — and are they getting any funding from the NBER?

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Posted in Environment, Non-Science, Science | 1 Comment »

Global Warming: The wagons are circling

July 29, 2010

Met Office report: global warming evidence is ‘unmistakable’

A new climate change report from the Met Office and its US equivalent has provided the “greatest evidence we have ever had” that the world is warming.

Report cover

They protest too much.

Since it is the Met Office “this is powerful evidence – perhaps definitive – that the hysteria is overdone”.

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The big global ice melt is not happening

July 26, 2010

Global ice quantities are not decreasing. There is no polar meltdown at either pole.

It would seem that temperatures in the Arctic are running lower than average and the ice extent in the Antarctic continues to be higher than normal.

Perhaps the predictions of global cooling for the next 20 – 30 years are getting more probable. Moreover the sun continues to be far less active than predicted.

I cannot help feeling that global climate can only be consequent to the sun and that the primary vehicle for heat transport is the oceans. Within the atmosphere – where the heat content is puny compared to the oceans – the primary constituent of any significance is water in all its forms and the effect they have on solar radiation and the earth’s re-radiation.

The effects of man or CO2 and woefully inadequate climate models remain in the realms of the fly on the chariot wheel saying “Wow! Look at the all the dust I am raising”.

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