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Comments in ClimateGate source code: unambiguous smoking gun

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Re: Comments in ClimateGate source code: unambiguous smoking gun

#31

Post by nkurz »

zosi wrote: post #24
nkurz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're known to be fairly accurate prior to 1960, to the best of our knowledge. This is a scientific thing This sounds backwards. We calibrate against the instrumental record up to 1960, we know that there is increasing divergence post 1960, thus should we presume we can have greater trust for the previous eras where we have no instrumental record? Wouldn't the onus be on explaining the divergence? I haven't seen an…

Absolutely. I'm not very good at finding information in scientific papers, but here's the first few I found with Google. If those don't satisfy you, I'll see what I can find when I get home from work. http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/fac/trl/downloads/Publicati... (PDF) is a paper that specifically addresses a lot of the concerns about temperature prediction using tree rings. In particular, I'd like to quote the foll…

I appreciate it. The first link is coming up 404, but I'll check the other two. I think I'm superficially familiar with both, but I haven't actually read them in their entirety. Will do if I have time.

there is a substantial amount of overlap between these reconstructions and our actual instrumental record during the calibration period

From memory, I don't think this is quite the right conclusion. Rather, the instrumental record is used to calibrate the reconstruction, so the overlap approaches 100%. Worse, the accusations are that the correlation is even better because any trees not matching the temperature record have been eliminated as non-performing! I don't think either of these papers shows accuracy of reconstruction on an out-of-sample set for which there exists an outside measurement. I'll recheck, though.

None of this really changes what the comment says, which was basically "Don't use this to plot past 1960, because we know that part needs corrections".

I don't disagree here. In the absence of some overriding context, that seems like a valid reading of the comment.

Re: Comments in ClimateGate source code: unambiguous smoking gun

#32

Post by bliving »

abstractbill wrote: post #23
bliving wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're referring to the dataset that is the basis of enormous de-industrialization projects. Is it too much to ask to have it properly designed with sufficient documentation? ~A Jedi hand wave~ "These are not the smoking guns your are looking for."

"enormous de-industrialization projects" Honest question: What projects are you referring to?

I apologize if I've distracted anyone with the "industrial" reference. I'm much more interested in the science behind the climate change [insert synonym for industry here]. I am very sorry that any industrial effects are more interesting the the quality-of-science issues. But here we are discussing industry...

It's my understanding ( and please correct me if I'm wrong ) that the dataset in question is one of the core underpinnings of the findings of the UN's IPCC. And I'm not up-to-date on the policy implications in your country, unless you live in Canada. But in chilly Canada, I see our local carbon-tax lobby use the global warming meme in their effort to impose heavy taxes on our industrial base. Hence, the "de-industrialization" angle.

I'm concerned that this might involve more power-grabbing than scientific concern for our future. Hence the interest in properly designed and documented datasets.

Re: Comments in ClimateGate source code: unambiguous smoking gun

#33

Post by zosi »

nkurz wrote: post #31
zosi wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. I'm not very good at finding information in scientific papers, but here's the first few I found with Google. If those don't satisfy you, I'll see what I can find when I get home from work. http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/fac/trl/downloads/Publicati... (PDF) is a paper that specifically addresses a lot of the concerns about temperature prediction using tree rings. In particular, I'd like to quote the foll…

I appreciate it. The first link is coming up 404, but I'll check the other two. I think I'm superficially familiar with both, but I haven't actually read them in their entirety. Will do if I have time. there is a substantial amount of overlap between these reconstructions and our actual instrumental record during the calibration period From memory, I don't think this is quite the right conclusion. Rather, the instrum…

Hmm, it looks like the first link got eaten by HN's linkerator due to the %27 (single quote) in the URL. Sorry about that, try http://preview.tinyurl.com/ydb8h28.

As for the calibration period, you're right, there are definitely some issues there, and that's a problem with the entire temperature reconstruction approach. We only have reliable instrumental records back to the middle of the 19th century, so it's hard to test any kind of reconstruction on a large scale.

Personally, I don't put much faith in the reconstructions themselves - I just think that it's important for people to understand the context around these experiments, since there's so much blatantly false information going around. It's hard enough for those of us who aren't climatologists to keep up with the information without people screaming bloody murder over a few lines of comments that they don't even understand.

Re: Comments in ClimateGate source code: unambiguous smoking gun

#34

Post by byrneseyeview »

youngian wrote: post #30
byrneseyeview wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you trust an astrologer to validate another astrologer's data?

Do you seriously place as little faith in climate scientists as you would in an astrologer? Obviously it's not as mature a field as, say, medicine, but refusing to believe that any of the results are at all valid is just being wilfully ignorant.

No, but it should illustrate the point. If the only people who can validate the work of an X are fellow X's, then X's are either specialists or frauds.

Re: Comments in ClimateGate source code: unambiguous smoking gun

#35

Post by azgolfer »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #34
youngian wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you seriously place as little faith in climate scientists as you would in an astrologer? Obviously it's not as mature a field as, say, medicine, but refusing to believe that any of the results are at all valid is just being wilfully ignorant.

No, but it should illustrate the point. If the only people who can validate the work of an X are fellow X's, then X's are either specialists or frauds.

Science is the organized skepticism in the reliability of expert opinion - Richard Feynman

Re: Comments in ClimateGate source code: unambiguous smoking gun

#36

Post by fauigerzigerk »

lionhearted wrote: post #19
bokonist wrote: post #8

I'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.powerlineb…

> I'm more in the skeptic camp, but I don't find the comments cited in this article very suspect, especially without further context. It's another piece of circumstantial evidence. By itself, it wouldn't mean too much. Considering everything else, it doesn't reflect well upon them. You need to be very, very careful when normalizing or adjusting a complex system, and you need to be extremely clear that you're adjustin…

I agree, but taking a code comment that says something is being adjusted does not mean a lot. Any criticism would have to look at what is being adjusted and how. You'd have to make a statistical argument based on the model.

I am a skeptic as well, but the way these emails and code comments are analysed is entirely meaningless.

However, it goes to show how incredibly stupid it is for scientists to not be as transparent as possible in the first place.

Re: Comments in ClimateGate source code: unambiguous smoking gun

#37

Post by pyre »

byrneseyeview wrote: post #34
youngian wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you seriously place as little faith in climate scientists as you would in an astrologer? Obviously it's not as mature a field as, say, medicine, but refusing to believe that any of the results are at all valid is just being wilfully ignorant.

No, but it should illustrate the point. If the only people who can validate the work of an X are fellow X's, then X's are either specialists or frauds.

The idea isn't that only a doctor can evaluate a doctor's performance, but that you need a doctor to explain why the other doctor may have done what he did. Without this expert opinion, no conclusions that you can try to draw from it as a non-doctor hold any weight.

i.e. Get some climate scientists to weight in on this and evaluate what they have to say on it rather than just looking at some of the evidence on your own and drawing your own conclusions.

I'm not saying to have a climate scientist give you a 'yes/no' answer to "Is this a fruad?" and then blindly trust their answer. I'm saying that someone in the field of climatology should be able to explain some of this away in a reasoned and understandable manner with facts that can be verified if this isn't some sort of fraud.

Declaring something a fraud by looking at snippets of emails and comments from source files out of context is not the way of rational debate. I highly doubt that you or many of the people rushing to label this as "100% of everything said about Global Warming since the beginning of time is now false" have done more than read snippets from blog posts.

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