The Dog Ate my Global Warming Data (key climate data is missing)

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ZTBiMTRlMDQxNzEyMmRhZjU3ZmYzODI5MGY4ZWI5OWM=

by yummyfajitas • 17 years ago

97 129 17 years ago

article.nationalreview.com

ars3• 17 years ago

Am I reading this right?

All the evidence for global warming comes from a study that has never been peer reviewed? And can't be?

And, the study essentially fitted data to a model?

brazzy5• 17 years ago

No, you're reading it the way that piece of FUD is intended to be read.

There's lots of other evidence that the author carefully avoids mentioning. If you're in Europe, go see some glaciers in the Alps while you still can - they won't exist for much longer.

rimantas• 17 years ago

I saw "lots of evidence" in lots of places, then I saw "there is some evidence" in some places, but I don't recall it going further than that. This is sad, because it makes the whole subject a matter of belief. Even worse, anyone having a bit dissident opinion is likely to be treated as nay-sayer, heretic and the enemy of the Earth. I don't see that as scientific way to tackle the problem.

steamer25• 17 years ago

>> If you're in Europe, go see some glaciers in the Alps while you still can - they won't exist for much longer.

...said the man opposed to the spread of fear, uncertainty and doubt.

axod• 17 years ago

London used to be overrun with vineyards a couple of hundred years ago. Since then it's dramatically cooled. Things change all the time. Chill out, they sky's not falling.

jellicle• 17 years ago

You may be reading what is written correctly.

But what is written is very, very false.

nice13• 17 years ago

What do you mean? In what way is it false?

SamAtt4• 17 years ago

I think the article's correct but it's mistake is in ascribing motive to the lost dataset. The bottom line is that Global Warming traces its origins back to a study done on a dataset that is now incomplete. But the fact that there's only one dataset isn't exactly a conspiracy.

When talking about Global Warming we're talking about measuring a really small number over a really, really big surface area. That's a far bigger job than most people think. All the equipment has to be calibrated exactly, in sync, and distributed across the globe.

And as I said the numbers are relatively small. Global Warming asserts a 1.33 degree increase in temperature over the last Century. To put that in perspective the difference between standing on asphalt during a sunny day or standing on concrete during a sunny day is about 3 degrees (because the concrete reflects where as the asphalt absorbs)

So it's not some big conspiracy. There's probably only one set of equipment in the world capable of measuring what needs to be measured which is why there's only one dataset available. How parts of it got lost is anyone's guess but I can't imagine in was done with malicious intent or that the study based on that dataset was purposely inaccurate (or at least I don't want to imagine that)

anigbrowl6• 17 years ago

mistake is in ascribing motive to the lost dataset

Indeed. When you get down to it, the core of many political skeptics' arguments is: evil liberal scientists can't get real jobs so they cooked up 'climate change' to get endless government funding from honest taxpayers like you and me.

Those political organs arguing most vociferously against action on climate change oppose any kind of public funding for science that isn't obviously defense-related.

MaysonL• 17 years ago

There's plenty of evidence, other than temperature measurements: permafrost, glaciers, and polar ice melting; extended growing seasons; changes in bird migration.

catzaa• 17 years ago

Many articles are peer reviewed without actually looking at the data or recreating all the results.

The whole idea is that a paper should be reproducible so that people can come along later and reproduce it. If they fail to do that then that is what letters are for. Every paper that has been peer reviewed isn’t faultless.

brazzy5• 17 years ago

A conservative think tank shill serving vested interests by spreading FUD about climate change. How quaint.

All over the world, glaciers are receding rapidly, the arctic ice cap is disappearing during summer - changes that are very, very measurable and visible to anyone who cares to look. Satellite measuring does not reach back that far, but shows clear, undeniable upwards trends.

And this guy says measures taken to combat this should be reconsidered because one particular set of historical data may have been cooked?

I guess he didn't get the memo that denying the existence of global warning has become untenable and the methods of choice are now denying that humans caused it, or claiming that reducing CO2 emission is less cost-effective than protecting against the symptoms.

randallsquared7• 17 years ago

How is it that people who want to see and check data on a subject of concern have been tarred with the brush of holocaust deniers? I'm starting to assume that anyone using the word "deny" or "denier" in the context of a question of science is trying to shut down research in favor of politics.

brazzy5• 17 years ago

The thing is: he's not saying "this particular piece of research seems questionable" - he's saying "because this particular piece of research seems questionable, measures based on it and lots of other, better sources should be reconsidered".

It is in fact quite similar in style to holocaust deniers (you brought that up, not I): look through the other side's data carefully, find the weakest parts and make a big show of proving those false and conclude that therefore it must all be lies. (And yes, the holocaust deniers often go one step further and just make stuff up)

In real science, you try to disprove the other side's strongest arguments, not their weakest ones.

antipaganda5• 17 years ago

The Cato Institute is not participating in the worthy, rigorous, hard-nosed scrutiny that underpins any real science. They are a PR firm disguised as a think tank. They exist to serve the interests of the energy industry.

They are called deniers, and derided alongside Holocaust deniers, because their actions are base and foul. They, and others like them, will cause millions of deaths from environmental upheaval in the 21st Century. Millions of deaths that could have been avoided had we worked together and put aside our political differences.

Climate skeptics are the ones to laud for their bravery in the face of scientific consensus. They are the ones that evaluate every result, every harebrained theory, every scientific paper on climate change, and shoot it down in flames if it doesn't add up right. They are invaluable.

However, unlike the deniers, they accept results that go against what they previously believed. They are quite willing to change their minds if they see good evidence to do so, like any intelligent human adult.

Deniers, though, have no reasons beyond self-interest or madness. They simply deny everything, based on lies, speculation, half-truths, false appeals to common sense, and any more underhanded methods. They don't care, or they delude themselves that they don't care (which is worse) about the fact that if we don't fix the world in time, millions of people (at least) will die early.

The holocaust deniers merely insult the memory of the victims of the worst crimes in modern history.

Climate change deniers will cause millions of early deaths. They are WORSE.

anigbrowl6• 17 years ago

In this case, the fact is that they have arrived at questioning the availability and integrity of one dataset (which is not the entire basis for theories of climate change) only after years of empty rhetorical or scientifically absurdist arguments.

It's like being told that 'true scientists are open to new information, you are too close-minded' by an astrology advocate. Astrology buffs love using this argument, for the same reason they love the poster of Einstein with his tongue sticking out and the caption 'imagination is more important than knowledge'. That does not mean they like science.

chasingsparks4• 17 years ago

Cato is a (classic) liberal or libertarian think tank, not a conservative think tank.

Furthermore, arguments against global warming are normally 1) there is a warming trend, but we cannot assert it is anthropomorphic, 2) there is evidence of a warming trend, but due to poorly chosen temperature locations (e.g. cities), it may be overstated, or 3) there is no evidence of CO2 related global warming.

Saying glaciers are receding does not refute any of these hypotheses. I agree with randallsquared: people who do not buy global warming hook-line-and-sinker are likened to holocaust deniers.

Bias notice: I fall into an odd category on the debate. I don't know whether global warming is anthropomorphic, and I don't really care. I believe there are benefits to "clean"(er) energy sources that will lead them to dominate, regardless of environmental views or policy.

brazzy5• 17 years ago

Receding glaciers refute the hypothesis that "there is no global warming" - which is what this article is intended to make people believe (successfully so, look at ars' comment). It states no hypothesis of its own, questions the veracity of one set of data, asserts that this data is the only basis for global warming and concludes that all policy concerning global warming is therefore flawed.

All in all, a very nice piece of classic FUD.

cturner2• 17 years ago

    I believe there are benefits to "clean"(er) energy
    sources that will lead them to dominate, regardless of
    environmental views or policy.

Ha!

It's important that big decisions are made on the basis of cost-benefit comparisons that use reason and real data. First-world foreign policy is directed towards pushing all of the world towards carbon reduction. This includes nations who have very poor people where cost of energy differences at the margins affect your ability to keep your family warm and fed. Carbon reduction puts barriers in front of the people of all nations, and should be justified by real reasons and not thumb in the air judgements.

vixen99• 17 years ago

I don't want to see environmental catastrophe any more than you do so why haven't you convinced me?

Because as ever I'm offered a litany of highly questionable statements supposedly adding up to something so obvious that only an idiot could fail to recognize it but when as here, I (proxy 'I' at least) ask to look at the data, I get Dr. Phil Jones from the UK Met Office saying

"We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?"

As a doctoral student impressed by Karl Popper's views on science I thought the idea was indeed to try to discover any flaws in theories and the data supposedly supporting them with the goal of making genuine progress in understanding the world.

And of course trillions of dollars are linked to the veracity of that and analogous data. This is indeed a scandal.

brazzy5• 17 years ago

Are you actually willing to be convinced?

Yes, if this Dr. Phil Jones said that, it's totally against everything science stands for.

But it says absolutely nothing about all the other sources of data that confirm the existence of global warming.

roc• 17 years ago

Are there really trillions of dollars at stake?

I find absolutely no reason to believe any set of arm-waved statistics. And estimates of global growth decades into the future, from industry groups that can barely predict the fluctuations of their own business from one year to the next are at least as dubious as the most questionable of direct evidence for and against anthropogenic climate change.

lucumo5• 17 years ago

Article lacks sources for its claims.

> Patrick J. Michaels is a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute and author of Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know.

Yeah, figures. Want a grindstone for that axe?

Edit: Quote from Wikipedia[1] about the author:

"Climate scientist Tom Wigley, [21] a lead author of parts of the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is quoted in Ross Gelbspan's book The Heat is On[22]: "Michaels' statements on [the subject of computer models] are a catalog of misrepresentation and misinterpretation… Many of the supposedly factual statements made in Michaels' testimony are either inaccurate or are seriously misleading."[23]

Peter Gleick, a conservation analyst and president of the Oakland-based Pacific Institute, said: "Pat Michaels is not one of the nation's leading researchers on climate change. On the contrary, he is one of a very small minority of nay-sayers who continue to dispute the facts and science about climate change in the face of compelling, overwhelming, and growing evidence."[24]"

Yeah, I'll take a pass on taking this article at face value.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Michaels

byrneseyeview• 17 years ago

You don't trust him, because he agrees with the view he expresses in that article?

This is easy to settle. He says the data don't exist. You apparently say the smart default is to assume that they do. So find the data, and that's the end of it. Right?

Your edit is pretty hilarious: he can't be right, because he's part of Cato and has published stuff arguing against climate change! Look, somebody at the Pacific Institute ("Research for People and the Planet") has published something saying so!

You might be right, but your argument is basically "Galileo is wrong, because he's a heretic. The Pope even said so. Is Galileo a Pope? I. Thought. Not."

lucumo5• 17 years ago

Eh, no. I don't trust him because he's written anti-climate change before and doesn't give any sources for his claim that the data is basically fraudulent.

Seems to me he's just searching for arguments to discard the scientific consensus and not trying to further the debate at all.

frig• 17 years ago

The article comes across spectacularly lazy which bodes ill for the veracity of its contents.

Just look @ how our "researcher" (ahem) "researches" the only known-to-him example of raw data being given out:

- supposedly "Peter Webster" has (a subset of) the "raw data"

- no other "researchers" aside from the data originators have the "raw data" (at least insofar as is known to Michaels as revealed in this article)

- supposedly Michaels is interested in obtaining the "raw data"

Is there any evidence in the article that, you know, Michaels tried calling Webster up and asking for the "raw data"? The kind of thing you'd do if you were, you know, seriously interested in getting your hands on this data?

Not really:

- there's no explicit mention of (attempting to) get in touch with Webster

- there's a half-hearted attempt to strew fear and doubt based on the fact that Webster's findings (about hurricane and warming correlation) are apparently at variance with what others have found, but it's half-hearted b/c:

-- it doesn't examine whether the different findings are due to methodological differences or due to "raw data" differences (only the latter of which implicates the "raw data" as perhaps suspect)

-- as per usual it's not like Michaels tried calling Webster and being like: "do you think your results are different b/c the data has been mangled?"

So just with respect to Michael's actions with Webster there's a rather transparent pattern of some mix of incuriousness or laziness.

Which (quite apart from any think-tank connections) is why he ought to come across as not all that credible: he's lazy or incompetent or both.

I mean really: say you were to read an article wherein the author:

- is supposedly searching for some holy grail

- identifies a source that has it

- makes no mention of trying to get it from that source

...would that not raise a red flag as to the author's sincerity and/or general competence? Would you be more or less likely to take his other claims at face value after seeing that?

rauljara• 17 years ago

The idea that the entire case on global warming comes from a single data set that no one made a copy of is absurd on the face of it. Even if one were to willfully believe that the rest of the article is true, something which I am dubious about, it doesn't mean much in the greater scheme of climate science. One can always find a sloppy scientist. That's why scientists practice things like peer review and replication. The conclusion that global warming is real has been replicated across any number of studies. People opposed to the idea that global warming is real will point to any discrepancy, bit of sloppy science, or dispute on any detail as evidence that it must -all- be wrong. But it's a fallacious and misleading argument. A bit of sloppy science is nothing more than one bit of sloppy science. A slight dispute over details is nothing more than a slight dispute over details. The core of the position that global warming is real and caused by humans has overwhelming evidence behind it. One sloppy scientist doesn't change that fact.

jacoblyles• 17 years ago

Steve Mcintyre is an interesting guy. His hobby is to check the data, statistics, and models published in climate science articles. As far as I know his work is quality, at least several of his corrections have found their way into mainstream climate records. The fact that he has been involved in so many tooth-and-nail fights to obtain the data he seeks, often being flatly denied, ought to concern anyone who cares about the veracity of the claims of climate scientists and activists, as well as anyone with a vested interest in a political system that looks poised to spend trillions of dollars on climate policy over the next decade.

You can check out his blog here: http://www.climateaudit.org/. But be warned, it's not political at all. If you don't have a head for data series and regression models, you'll be put to sleep.

The amount of bad scientific practices and obfuscation that this one man has uncovered is staggering (scientists cherry-picking data for a paper and then refusing to provide the whole data set seems a common complaint). However, as good citizens we must believe that the thousands of papers he has not gotten around to checking are perfectly valid. To do otherwise is to be painted with the label of "heretic".

In the end, it is the poor treatment of the scientific process by scientists and activists, as well as the religion-like enforcement of agreement, that causes me to hold onto my green skepticism. I'm not sure that climate change won't Kill Us All, but I am not convinced by those that do think so.

edit: One final cause of my green skepticism is the fact that so many highly-publicized predictions made by environmentalists in the past, many of whom held PHDs, have been wrong. But more importantly, they have always been wrong in one direction, the direction of overstating the environmental damage done by human activity. The environmentalists of the 1960s foresaw a world that would undergo multiple environmental holocausts by the 1980s, which of course never came to pass.

While the quality of past predictions has no direct bearing on the quality of current predictions, indeed one might even assume that modern predictions are of higher quality given more advanced methods and greater funding, it does make me skeptical of any would-be green Nostradamus, at least until one establishes a good track record of predicting the future.

ajross7• 17 years ago

So how do you weigh your decision? Are you waiting for unassailable evidence? What is your best guess at the cost of regulation needed to fix the problem you are not unconvinced exists? How does that cost change over time as we do nothing? Or do you care about any of that?

This isn't (just) an internet flame war. The goal isn't (or shouldn't be) to "win" by poking holes in the oppositions argument. It should be to make the best/safest decision possible given the evidence at hand.

But that's the point: there has to be a decision made. By advocating inaction, you are expressly taking the side of the denialists, even though you claim not to agree with them, technically.

Alex3917• 17 years ago

"But more importantly, they have always been wrong in one direction, the direction of overstating the environmental damage done by human activity."

In most cases where the predictions have been wrong, they were only wrong because a law has was passed to fix the problem, as in the case of DDT, acid rain, rivers catching on fire, etc.

In just about every case where we haven't passed a law the predictions have come true... fishery deplition, rain forest destruction, mercury and pcbs in fish, etc.

ajross7• 17 years ago

The sad thing is that absurd arguments work. All that's needed for denialism to win is doubt. Just one goof, or bad actor, or wrong result can be spun like this into a "collapse" of the case it is making.

The fact that this is an argument of risk, where the argument for carbon legislation needs to be weighed not against the certainty of the science but on the best-guess risks of inaction is completely lost on the public and the media.

zaphar2• 17 years ago

I don't think any intelligent reasonable person objects to the fact that the global temperature is rising. As for Human activity being the cause that is far from settled.

Don't get me wrong I'm all for reducing emissions and generally doing anything we can to reduce our impact as much as is possible because it's just good sense. But stating that the industrial age caused the rise when we really have so little understanding of how all this works rankles me just a bit. I especially object to the attempts to assign blame as a scare tactic for political gain. Especially when there are equally valid reasons to reduce emissions and lessen our impact local air quality and increased efficiency in manufacturing being just a few of the reasons.

The plain fact is that while there "might" be a correlation with Human activity that does not imply a cause and effect relationship out of hand. I don't think we really have enough data or understanding yet to make an assumption regarding the cause.

[Edit: I had a misplaced sentence which totally made that read wrong. Just fixed it]

SamAtt4• 17 years ago

You echo my thoughts on the issue. But what really bothers me is the logical outgrowth of that logic.

What I mean is, as you said, most agree the planet is getting warmer. That's the actual problem here. But Global Warming advocates are so convinced of their absolute infallibility that they're suggesting a solution based on a cause they can't prove.

So my question is "What if they're wrong?" If the Global Warming movement really believes this trend will lead to the end of life as we know it shouldn't they be considering all options? Shouldn't someone be talking about ways to live if their climate predictions are correct and we aren't the cause?

The fact that they completely ignore that side of the issue tells me their pushing an agenda not trying to solve the actual problem.

_b8r0• 17 years ago

Except for the fact that global temperature is falling, not rising - dependent on how (and where) you measure it.

That's part of the problem. We don't know enough about how this highly complex climate system works to measure it consistently. Given the variation between the hottest and coldest places on earth are somewhere around 100 degrees celsius I have real problems with the term global warming as a whole. It's a series of interconnected problems with interconnected knock-on effects.

nice13• 17 years ago

The conclusion that MAN-MADE global warming is real is plain bullshit. What has been replicated is leftist hysteria.

DanielBMarkham• 17 years ago

The idea that the entire case on global warming comes from a single data set that no one made a copy of is absurd on the face of it.

Bullshit.

This article never claimed to make a case against global warming. It was about sharing data in the scientific community.

If you want to have your snit about global warming falling apart, do it on another (and more appropriate) thread.

adammichaelc• 17 years ago

As always, it has been an intellectual feast to read through the comments on both sides of this debate. I would just like to throw this out there to see what YC thinks. Is this possibly an explanation to the warming we are seeing? Mars Warming Points to Solar, not Human, Causes for Global Warming http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-...

Also, I'm curious if anybody knows what other alternative theories are out there?

duncanj• 17 years ago

The skepticism in the article about Abdussamatov's conclusions says to me that he has a long way to go before he can really show "solar, not human" cause. It's an alright article.

I think it's interesting that it is dated a year and a half after this discussion: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/10/global...

"The shrinkage of the Martian South Polar Cap is almost certainly a regional climate change, and is not any indication of global warming trends in the Martian atmosphere. Colaprete et al in Nature 2005 (subscription required) showed, using the Mars GCM, that the south polar climate is unstable due to the peculiar topography near the pole, and the current configuration is on the instability border; we therefore expect to see rapid changes in ice cover as the regional climate transits between the unstable states."

anamax4• 17 years ago

The sun is doing all sorts of "odd" things.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/40456

And, there are strange correlations.

http://landscheidt.auditblogs.com

jcromartie• 17 years ago

There should be a github for scientific data. Hell, just use github!

nice13• 17 years ago

Scientific data is beginning to be shared these days, at least in some fields.

jakecarpenter• 17 years ago

This article brings up an issue I often face when looking at articles from sites like this. How do I know the slant of a news site I don't often read? I don't have a problem with a little bias, (in fact, bias is nearly impossible to eliminate imho) but I'd like to know how to approach the article in the first place. It is easier with sites like npr, cnn, foxnews, but it takes a little bit of googling to find out about many others.

How do you guys do it?

anigbrowl6• 17 years ago

I look at the form of the argument presented. If it employs rhetorical fallacies, or lacks qualifiers to broad statements, or shies away from more than the most cursory contextual explanations, then it's probably bullshit.

Or in programming terms, watch out for undeclared variables, errors in scope, and abuse of the GOTO statement.

antipaganda5• 17 years ago

+1, awesome analogies.

Tichy2• 17 years ago

To me the article displayed a typical revisionism trait: picking one small aspect, proving it wrong and thereby claiming to disprove the whole theory. It is like the creationists who think finding some obscure bone somewhere that falls outside of the predictions of some obscure application of evolution theory somehow disproves evolution theory.

While I can imagine a lot of things, I very much doubt that the whole climate debate rests on one unobtainable data set.

chasingsparks4• 17 years ago

Ignoring stance, I am just curious -- am I the only one who did not expect this thread to collect so many points and comments?

billswift• 17 years ago

Anyone interested in global warming should read Solomon's "The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud - And those who are too fearful to do so", http://www.amazon.com/Deniers-Renowned-Scientists-Political-... .

Most interestingly, most of the scientists the author interviewed still believe in global warming; they just believe their own research was twisted or misinterpreted to support it, all the rest they still believe. Because of the media barrage supporting global warming, that is all most people, even scientists who do not actually look for disconfirming claims and evidence, ever see.

Also, Moore's "Climate of Fear" (published by Cato), http://www.amazon.com/Climate-Fear-Shouldnt-Global-Warming/d... , points out that the effects even proponents claim have been getting down graded, to the point where the actually expected global warming is likely to be more beneficial than not.

Calamitous• 17 years ago

This is the most civil and reasoned discourse I've ever seen on global warming. Just incredible.

The Dog Ate my Global Warming Data (key climate data is missing)

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