U.S. Senate Minority Report Questions for Critical Thinking 19

[zdas04]

Yesterday the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee published Minority Report Critical Thinking on Climate Change. The Senators in the minority party saw the hearings being held in a somewhat different light than the majority. Starting on Page 12, they list 5 "Questions for Critical Thinking".
[ol 1]
[li]If the computer models and predictions have been inaccurate, what strategies are being implemented to correct these errors? Should potentially economically crippling policies be put in place before those errors are resolved?[/li]
[li]If global warming has truly been “worse than predicted,” why won’t the federal government provide the data supporting this claim?[/li]
[li]As it continues to be recognized that the Earth has not warmed for at least the past 15 years, will we see the term “global warming” abandoned and replaced in its entirety by “climate change?”[/li]
[li]Given that many of these models predicted warming trends well before China surpassed the United States as the largest GHG emitter, and given the fact that emissions continue to grow at a pace beyond what was originally incorporated into the models, shouldn’t the warming be far worse than what was predicted in the worst case scenarios rather than well below predictions?[/li]
[li]Given Earth’s long history of a changing climate, why does the public discussion only tend to focus on the last 70 years or so?[/li]
[/ol]

I think that these questions are excellent. Anyone want to take a shot at them?

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. —Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[IRstuff]

Didn't say you were, just that your opinion is the same as those being paid financed to have those same opinions.

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[IRstuff]

As for the models, that's a presumption; CFD and FEA are based on discretizing the differential equations relevant to the problem at hand. If the models are FEA, then they are using discretized equations that are relevant, otherwise, they are not FEA, by definition. And, there is no way to predict the future, much less even come close to matching the past.

If hundreds of scientists are all fudging the evidence and fudging the models, one would think, again, that someone would have spilled the beans by now, yet, there is no evidence, only innuendo and downright insults against people simply because they are producing results that are contrary to someone's party line.

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[rb1957]

i guess "climategate" doesn't count as an example of scientists making data conform to their expectations.

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[cranky108]

Have we convenced anybody yet?

I've seen the same graphs, the same data, and the same propaganda over and over, with no answers to to my questions. So I am thinking this is just a talking points argument with no real depth.

However the solution is very left wing, and if we ignore how we get there (as my questions have), then we are becoming the ones behind the wall.

 

[rconnor]

i guess "climategate" doesn't count as an example of scientists making data conform to their expectations

...because, despite as much as "skeptics" want it to be, it wasn't.

 

[zdas04]

If you say that often enough someone may believe it, right?

A preponderance of organizations with a vested interest in Climategate being false all concluded that it was false. Sorry for my lack of confidence in the University of East Anglica determining that scientists working for that university "did no wrong" in manipulating data, selectively ignoring data that didn't fit their narrative, and "adjusted" computer models to better fit the ACC narrative. I hope that if I'm ever investigated it is by an organization that needs be to be without blame.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. —Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[rb1957]

and destroying the original data.

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[rconnor]

If a member of any credible institution was (erroneously) charged with scientific dishonesty, then that institution should and would launch an independent investigation. That's exactly what happened. In all cases, the charges where meritless. See the list below:
Penn State, Inquiry Report - "there exists no credible evidence that Dr. Mann had or has ever engaged in, or participated in, directly or indirectly, any actions with an intent to suppress or to falsify data"

Penn State, Final Investigation Report - "there is no substance to the allegation against Dr. Michael E. Mann"

International Assessment Panel, established by University of East Anglia - "no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit"

UEA Independent Climate Change Email Review Report - "we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt"

Furthermore, numerous third party investigations were conducted, all with the same result. See below:
UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee - "Professor Jones’s actions were in line with common practice in the climate science community"

UK Government - "The evidence that we have seen does not suggest that Professor Jones was trying to subvert the peer review process."

EPA - "found this was simply a candid discussion of scientists working through issues that arise in compiling and presenting large complex data sets"

http://www.oig.doc.gov/OIGPublications/2011.02.18_IG_to_Inhofe.pdf]Department of Commerce Inspector General[/url] - "no evidence in the CRU emails that NOAA inappropriately manipulated data" (Please explain to me the "vested interest" the Department of Commerce has in this matter?)

National Science Foundation - "Finding no research misconduct or other matter raised by the various regulations and laws discussed above, this case is closed"

Like any conspiracy theorist, zdas04, you've conveniently ignored or blindly rejected any and all credible evidence that invalidates your conspiracy. While, at the same time, blindly accepted any and all evidence from the sketchiest of blogs and "think tanks" with the most obvious vested interest. And you have the gull to portray yourself to be some sort of paragon of true skepticism and attack us as being "religious zealots". Amazing.

 

[zdas04]

"Conspiracy theorist?" What an easy, blanket attack. Kind of like calling a person a racist prior to 2008, the charge is so damning that it completely derails discussion.

I said absolutely nothing about any collusion among those esteemed institutions. It isn't required. Penn State, East Anglica, UK government, EPA, and for god's sake the National Science Foundation? The NSF report is simply forwarding "The University" (without ever saying which university, I find that interestingly incompetent for a national science foundation). Every single one of them has a huge vested interest in the outcome of the investigation and the reports that you linked all smell very much like rotting offal.

The Penn State analysis is particularly telling. The only person interviewed by the entire committee was Dr Mann

In an interview lasting nearly two hours, Dr. Mann addressed each of the questions and follow up questions

Several other "interviews" were reported second hand by individual members of the committee talking to former colleges of Dr Mann (no transcripts were kept, just the committee member's recollection of the conversation). The committee also independently evaluated 47 e-mails after deciding the other 290 e-mails that Dr Mann participated in were not germane to the inquiry. I'm sure that there is a lawyer at Penn State who could have counseled the committee on the rules of evidence. They chose not to bother. This is a "foxes and henhouse" whitewash that truly does more harm than good. It even went so far as to provide a committee rationalization of the term "Trick".

I don't know if Dr Mann did anything wrong or not. The problem is that after this whitewash, no one else will ever know whether he did anything wrong or not. In my estimation this report does much more harm than good. Believers applaud it as "proving" the absence of misconduct (much like computer models prove future hurricanes). Deniers see it as interested parties protecting their own. This particular discussion will never be settled because the facts will forever be buried in the mists of self-serving rhetoric.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. —Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[zdas04]

I'm sorry, I missed your question about the Department of Commerce's "vested interest".

They work for a President that has proclaimed that "Global Warming is the single most important issue of our time". I was in meetings on the subject of greenhouse gases with senior EPA officials and after Mr. Obama's first major address on Global Warming the attitude of those officials changed dramatically. Topics that had been resolved in previous weeks were reopened with less of a willingness to reconcile differences. Same with BLM. I'm sure that if Commerce had been in those meetings they would also have been emboldened by their leader's clear position statement.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. —Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[rb1957]

my belief is that Mann did not intentionally subvert his analysis to obtain the result required.

I believe that he allowed his analysis to arrive at the result he wanted, and felt satisified.

I fault the peer reviewers who IMHO obviously didn't interogate the analysis methodology as thoroughly as M&M.


another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[TGS4]

Penn State... Now, where have I heard about that esteemed institution self-policing itself before...

Oh right, they protected a known child-molester because he was bringing in lots of money to the esteemed institution. And when the molester was finally investigated by outside resources, it was revealed that many layers of upper management protected this molester - all the way up to the President of the University.

But ya, sure, if you want to say that Penn State exonerated one of their own, who was bringing in millions of dollars of research money, after examining a single witness - the accused, then more power to ya. I'm sure that you would have said that same thing if Enron has performed in internal audit of its finances, too...

 

[cranky108]

It's so funny what people will do to protect there job, event sell arms to,... No that's another topic.

We even see it in the power industry, the heavy hand of goverment trying to do the bidding of our goverments leaders.
Don't get me wrong, some of it is good, but we need so many more people to handle the paperwork.

I do believe people in universitys are under pressure to meet the goals of there grants, and that's all you need to know about "any collusion among those esteemed institutions".

 

[rconnor]

Zdas04, you’ve both implicitly and explicitly accused climate scientists (well pretty much the entire climate science community) of academic dishonesty and professional misconduct. You’ve made numerous claims of data manipulation and suppressing the uncertainty of results. Furthermore, you’ve claimed that these actions were done purposefully and knowingly by these scientists. You’ve justified how such (supposedly) corrupted research passed through peer-review by claiming that it’s “pal-review” and that the reviewers are in on the game. This is a conspiracy that you’ve theorized . However, you’ve provided almost no evidence to support besides states like “the reports that you linked all smell very much like rotting offal” (aka “I can’t disprove it but I will nevertheless blindly reject this reality and replace it with my own”). This is pretty well the definition of a conspiracy theorist.

And can you not see the irony of your first comment? Allow me to help you by slightly changing it.
“”Conspiracy theorist?” What an easy, blanket attack. Kind of like calling a person a climate “zealot” that “bow to the altar of AGW”, the charge is so damning that it completely derails discussion.”

TGS4, good for a chuckle but completely irrelevant to a discussion on scientific misconduct. But ok, let’s blindly reject (which seems very popular) the Penn State review. What about the other 7?

 

[JJPellin]

A second rate TV actor is a valid source for climate science? Valid, peer reviewed science has been offered to prove that the dominant scientific position in the 1970's was that the planet was likely warming.

Johnny Pellin

 

[TGS4]

University of East Anglia inquiry - reviewed 11 self-selected papers, reviewed the papers only, and interviewed only the authors. Didn't find any smoking guns, although:

...Rather we found a small group of dedicated if slightly disorganised researchers who were ill-prepared for being the focus of public attention. As with many small research groups their internal procedures were rather informal.
2. We cannot help remarking that it is very surprising that research in an area that depends so heavily on statistical methods has not been carried out in close collaboration with professional statisticians.

Yup - total exoneration.

The Muir Russel report -

But we do find that there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness, both on the part of the CRU scientists and on the part of the UEA, who failed to recognise not only the significance of statutory requirements but also the risk to the reputation of the University and, indeed, to the credibility of UK climate science.

and

On the allegation that CRU does not appear to have acted in a way consistent with the spirit and intent of the FoIA or EIR, we find that there was unhelpfulness in responding to requests and evidence that e-mails might have been deleted in order to make them unavailable should a subsequent request be made for them. University senior management should have accepted more responsibility for implementing the required processes for FoIA and EIR compliance.

But, of course...

The team did not carry out interviews other than with CRU and other UEA staff (apart from preliminary discussions with ICO and the police and interviews with two relevant IPCC Review Editors). We recognise that natural justice requires that those in respect of whom findings will be made should have an opportunity to be heard: this does not apply to the authors of submissions and other parties, in respect of whom the Review has made no findings.

Ummm - Where have I heard about these internally-focused reviews before?? (cough-Penn State)

Even the NSF investigation, which you quoted, also said:

Regarding the University's first Allegation (data falsification), however, we concluded that the University did not adequately review the allegation in either its inquiry or investigation processes. In particular, we were concerned that the University did not interview any of the experts critical of the Subject's research to determine if they had any information that might support the allegation.

And then they failed to interview any of the experts critical of the Subject's research themselves. Fail.

Need I go on...

One quick personal question to rconnor, if I may, regarding peer review: do you have any papers/publications that have gone through a journal/conference peer review? How many papers/publications have you acted as a reviewer for in a formal peer review sense? I'm trying to understand your reverence for the peer review system and disdain for the term pal-review.

 

[IRstuff]

A proper peer review selects people who are knowledgeable in the subject AND who can give an unbiased review. This is often not the case, either intentionally or unintentionally, and can often occur when papers are submitted to journals that are not directly in the mainstream of the paper's subject. What can then happen is that no subject matter experts (SMEs) are found to review, and the review becomes cursory, as in the case of a recent paper claiming to debunk climate change. Upon proper review, it was clear that the authors used both bad math and bad science, and the paper was withdrawn, and the editor of the journal resigned.

TTFN
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Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

 

[TGS4]

Just out of curiosity , how does one go about debunking climate change?

What exactly needs debunking?
That CO2 is a greenhouse gas? Pretty much non-controversial.
That, all things being equal, higher concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to a higher lower tropospheric temperature? Again, pretty non-controversial.
That, with feedbacks, the average global surface air temperature will increase by 3 Deg C with every doubling of CO2 concentration? That seems to be a major point of contention.
That the sole source of increase in the atmospheric CO2 concentration is man made, primarily from the burning for energy of fossil-fuels? Two years ago I may not have considered that as particularly controversial, however, we are learning more about natural fluxes within the carbon cycle that vastly overwhelm our contributions. So, maybe...
That an increase in the global average surface temperature of 2-3 deg C would be catastrophic and must be avoided at all costs? Again, more than somewhat controversial.
That the solution to this "problem" involves higher taxes and more government control over day-to-day living? Yup, very controversial.

So, what exactly was being "debunked" exactly?

 

[IRstuff]

?? did you miss the whole pause thing, amid all the graphs and stuff ;-)

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Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529

Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

 

[rb1957]

"What exactly needs debunking?" ... my 2c ...
"That CO2 is a greenhouse gas? Pretty much non-controversial." ... sure
"That, all things being equal, higher concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to a higher lower tropospheric temperature? Again, pretty non-controversial." ... the rub here is "all things being equal", but yes with all other things being equal, wouldn't any increase in CO2 lead to a run away ?
"That, with feedbacks, the average global surface air temperature will increase by 3 Deg C with every doubling of CO2 concentration? That seems to be a major point of contention." ... yes, i believe this is contentious, now that you're bringing real world climate into the problem ... do we Know every climate interaction ?
"That the sole source of increase in the atmospheric CO2 concentration is man made, primarily from the burning for energy of fossil-fuels? Two years ago I may not have considered that as particularly controversial, however, we are learning more about natural fluxes within the carbon cycle that vastly overwhelm our contributions. So, maybe..." ... that AGHG are the sole (or at least overwelmingly most significant) contributor to present day CC is contentious, i believe 'cause the only "proof" are the models ... yes, the models.
"That an increase in the global average surface temperature of 2-3 deg C would be catastrophic and must be avoided at all costs? Again, more than somewhat controversial." ... yes, this too is contentious ... would it melt a significant portion of the polar ice ? would it lead to significant sea level change ?
"That the solution to this "problem" involves higher taxes and more government control over day-to-day living? Yup, very controversial." ... i think there are three elements here ... a) there are examples of taxation helping the economy, there are examples of Carbon taxation schemes being labelled "an economic disaster"; b) some distrust governement control (N.A.), some seem to tolerate it (Europe), some don't have much choice (China); c) the problem can't be addressed by individual governments.


another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?