Comments in ClimateGate source code: unambiguous smoking gun
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Comments in ClimateGate source code: unambiguous smoking gun
1–10 of 37 posts
Re: Comments in ClimateGate source code: unambiguous smoking gun
#2Please. This is not a "smoking gun." It's another comment that looks bad to the layman, but may well be legitimate science. I don't know because I'm not a climate scientist. And you don't know because you're not a climate scientist.
Re: Comments in ClimateGate source code: unambiguous smoking gun
#3Is that really suspect? One comment (in two places) saying not to use some function beyond 1960 because it will give divergent results?
The author of the post says something like, "see, these programmer people leave comments in code to remind themselves later of what they really mean the code does. Armed with this knowledge, we can read some comments and find out what's really going on!"
No, dude, I'm a programmer and you can't just take random chunks of comments from code and authoritatively state what you think they mean.
It's also hard to take seriously a blog plastered with ads for $49 "Make-your-own-free-energy"-kits. The comments are a freak show of conspiracy theorists.
Re: Comments in ClimateGate source code: unambiguous smoking gun
#4That's nothing compared to the comments that show up in "HARRY_READ_ME.txt": http://www.tickerforum.org/cgi-ticker/akcs-www?post=118625&#...
Re: Comments in ClimateGate source code: unambiguous smoking gun
#5Please. This is not a "smoking gun." It's another comment that looks bad to the layman, but may well be legitimate science. I don't know because I'm not a climate scientist. And you don't know because you're not a climate scientist.
Haha. Don't criticize the scientists cause "they are so much smarter than us!!"
Re: Comments in ClimateGate source code: unambiguous smoking gun
#6Please. This is not a "smoking gun." It's another comment that looks bad to the layman, but may well be legitimate science. I don't know because I'm not a climate scientist. And you don't know because you're not a climate scientist.
You know, 20 years ago, the place of "climate scientists" in the scientific hierarchy was (justifiably) about the same as the placement of dentists in the medical hierarchy.
The physics behind global warming makes a lot of sense. The warming models aren't pure physics, however, and require feedback effects. Now, are the models right about 6 degrees of warming in the next century? I don't have a clue because the historical climate reconstructions are so shitily done. I have no idea if the temperature anomaly over the last 30 years exceeds historical bounds for standard deviation. I have no idea what the magnitude of the Medieval Warm Period was.
This is an important question. A trillion dollar question. We need to throw the hopped-up climate scientists out, fools who were lucky to be in the field when it became important, and get some real intelligence working on this problem. Cause this ain't it.
Re: Comments in ClimateGate source code: unambiguous smoking gun
#7This has been debunked over and over already. The predictions based on the tree ring data in question are known to have diverged from actual, measured temperatures from 1960 onward. They're known to be fairly accurate prior to 1960, to the best of our knowledge. This is a scientific thing - if you can prove that tree rings were affected enough by non-temperature factors prior to 1960 to lead to inaccurate temperature predictions, you'd be making a huge contribution to the field of dendrochronology.
Re: Comments in ClimateGate source code: unambiguous smoking gun
#8I'm more in the skeptic camp, but I don't find the comments cited in this article very suspect, especially without further context. The comments may just be warning users not to use the function past 1960.
The most damning excepts from the leaked email are the following:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/11/024996.php In this one, they delete emails rather than respond to a FOIA request
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/11/024995.php In which they lie to the NYTimes in response to a question of data cherry picking. They tell the NYTimes that they looked into the criticisms and that the criticisms were completely unfounded. But behind the scenes they were emailing each other that they could not explain the results, and in fact, other scientists had found the criticisms to be quite valid.
Re: Comments in ClimateGate source code: unambiguous smoking gun
#9Please. This is not a "smoking gun." It's another comment that looks bad to the layman, but may well be legitimate science. I don't know because I'm not a climate scientist. And you don't know because you're not a climate scientist.
Agreed. Which is why open access to code and data would make this text publication ready.
When I ship code to a client you can bet the ambiguities have been removed. Thorny parts have defensible explanations.
Re: Comments in ClimateGate source code: unambiguous smoking gun
#10Is that really suspect? One comment (in two places) saying not to use some function beyond 1960 because it will give divergent results? The author of the post says something like, "see, these programmer people leave comments in code to remind themselves later of what they really mean the code does. Armed with this knowledge, we can read some comments and find out what's really going on!" No, dude, I'm a programmer an…
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