Global Warming Alarmists Adjusted Raw Temperature Data and Then Threw It Away - Now It's Trust Us

From Best of the Web Wall Street Journal Monday, November 30, 2009; see http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574567780798946274.html

From The Sunday Times November 29, 2009 "Climate change data dumped" at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece

"Scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.
It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years. . . .
The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals--stored on paper and magnetic tape--were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building. . . .
Roger Pielke, professor of environmental studies at Colorado University, discovered data had been lost when he asked for original records. 'The CRU is basically saying, 'Trust us.' So much for settling questions and resolving debates with science,' he said."

Al Gore Used Michael Mann's Global Warming Hockey Stick Chart in "An Inconvenient Truth"

See Hockey Stick Hokum, a July 14, 2006 Editorial at the Wall Street Journal at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115283824428306460.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks

It includes:
■ The assertion "that the 1990s were the 'warmest decade in a millennium' and that 1998 was the warmest year in the last 1,000. … is often recited without qualification, and even without giving a source for the 'fact'."
■ "The claim originates from a 1999 paper by paleoclimatologist Michael Mann. Prior to Mr. Mann's work, the accepted view, as embodied in the U.N.'s 1990 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was that the world had undergone a warming period in the Middle Ages, followed by a mid-millennium cold spell and a subsequent warming period -- the current one. That consensus, as shown in the first of the two IPCC-provided graphs nearby, held that the Medieval warm period was considerably warmer than the present day."
■ "Mr. Mann's 1999 paper eliminated the Medieval warm period from the history books, with the result being the bottom graph you see here. It's a man-made global-warming evangelist's dream, with a nice, steady temperature oscillation that persists for centuries followed by a dramatic climb over the past century. In 2001, the IPCC replaced the first graph with the second in its third report on climate change, and since then it has cropped up all over the place."
■ "Al Gore uses it in his movie."
■ "In 2003, two Canadians, Ross McKitrick and Steven McIntyre, published an article in a peer-reviewed journal showing that Mr. Mann's methodology could produce hockey sticks from even random, trendless data."
■ "three researchers -- Edward J. Wegman of George Mason University, David W. Scott of Rice University and Yasmin H. Said of Johns Hopkins University -- are not climatologists; they're statisticians. Their task was to look at Mr. Mann's methods from a statistical perspective and assess their validity. Their conclusion is that Mr. Mann's papers are plagued by basic statistical errors that call his conclusions into doubt."
■ "Mr. Wegman brings to bear a technique called social-network analysis to examine the community of climate researchers. His conclusion is that the coterie of most frequently published climatologists is so insular and close-knit that no effective independent review of the work of Mr. Mann is likely. 'As analyzed in our social network,' Mr. Wegman writes, 'there is a tightly knit group of individuals who passionately believe in their thesis.' He continues: 'However, our perception is that this group has a self-reinforcing feedback mechanism and, moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that they can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility'."
■ "published climatologists is so insular and close-knit that no effective independent review of the work of Mr. Mann is likely. 'As analyzed in our social network,' Mr. Wegman writes, 'there is a tightly knit group of individuals who passionately believe in their thesis.' He continues: 'However, our perception is that this group has a self-reinforcing feedback mechanism and, moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that they can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility'."
■ "climate research often more closely resembles a mutual-admiration society than a competitive and open-minded search for scientific knowledge. …the dismissive reaction of the climate-research establishment to the McIntyre-McKitrick critique of the hockey stick confirms that impression."

Michael Mann Hockey Stick Chart and Embarrassing Global Warming Emails

See Steven McIntyre's web site http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7810 and post about the embarrassing emails regarding global warming "Mike’s Nature trick" written by by Jean S on November 20, 2009. It shows a November 16, 1999 email from Prof. Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia to including Mike Mann. The email includes "I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline."

Who is Michael Mann? A Professor at Pennsylvania State University, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_E._Mann "Michael E. Mann (born 28 December 1965) is an American climatologist, and author of more than 80 peer-reviewed journal publications. He has attained public prominence as lead author of a number of articles on paleoclimate and as one of the originators of a graph of temperature trends dubbed the "hockey stick graph" for the shape of the graph. The graph received both praise and criticism after its publication in an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report."

Did Mike Mann use a trick to manipulate the data? I bet he did. He was mentioned in a Wall Street Journal editorial "Kyoto by Degrees" way back on June 21, 2005 See http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111931466624264760,00.html It includes:
■ "Most global warming alarms are based on computer simulations that are largely speculative and depend on a multitude of debatable assumptions."
■ "there's the famous "hockey stick" data from American geoscientist Michael Mann. Prior to publication of Mr. Mann's data in 1998, all climate scientists accepted that the Earth had undergone large temperature variations within recorded human history. This included a Medieval warm period when the Vikings farmed Greenland and a "little ice age" more recently when the Thames River often froze solid. Seen in that perspective, the slight warming believed to have occurred in the past century could well be no more than a natural rebound, especially since most of that warming occurred before 1940."
■ "Mr. Mann, who suggested that both the history books and other historical temperature data were wrong. His temperature graph for the past millennium was essentially flat until the 20th century, when a sharp upward spike occurs -- i.e., it looks like a hockey stick. The graph was embraced by the global warming lobby as proof that we are in a crisis, and that radical solutions are called for."
■ "But then, in 2003, Canadian mathematician Stephen McIntyre and economist Ross McKitrick published a critique calling Mr. Mann's work riddled with "collation errors, unjustifiable truncations or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, geographical location errors, incorrect calculations of principal components, and other quality control defects." Correct for those errors, they showed, and the Medieval warm period returns."
■ "Mr. Mann has never offered a serious rebuttal to the McIntyre-McKitrick critique. He has refused to fully explain his methodology, claiming he's the victim of "intimidation." That's odd when you consider that the sine qua non of real science is independently verifiable and reproducible results."
■ "There's also the matter of the alleged melting of the Antarctic ice cover, threatening a catastrophic sea level rise. In fact, recent data suggest the ice is thickening and temperatures are dropping in most of the continent. Finally, an increasing number of scientists are concluding that variations in solar radiation associated with sun spots -- that's right, the heat of the sun -- play a major role in Earth's climate."

Global Warming Alarmists Ignore and/or Manipulate the Facts

I wrote this letter to the editor October 16, 2007.

Concerned and want to be informed about global warming? Where can one get accurate information?

See linked to the NASA website at http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=17087 It says” The high temperatures of 2004 make it the fourth hottest year since the late 1800s, the time that most scientists recognize as the start of accurate meteorological record keeping.” But that was written February 9, 2005. What does NASA say now?

See the NASA website http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/2005_warmest.html It says “The year 2005 was the warmest year in over a century, according to NASA scientists studying temperature data from around the world.” But that was written January 24, 2006. What does NASA say now?
From http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/08/1998_no_longer_the_hottest_yea.html “Steve McIntyre, of Toronto operates www.climateaudit.org and began to investigate the data and the methods used to arrive at the results that were graphed by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies”.
See http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200708/CUL20070816b.html “on Aug. 4, 2007 blogger Steve McIntyre of the ClimateAudit.org website, sent an email to NASA asserting that the data collected by the agency after 1999 was not being adjusted to allow for the times of day when readings were taken or the locations of the monitoring stations”. “NASA climate modeler Gavin Schmidt …said the data analysis was then adjusted accordingly, and a note of thanks emailed to McIntyre”. Corrected data is at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt

“According to the new data published by NASA, 1998 is no longer the hottest year ever. 1934 is. Four of the top 10 years of US CONUS high temperature deviations are now from the 1930s: 1934, 1931, 1938 and 1939, while only 3 of the top 10 are from the last 10 years (1998, 2006, 1999).”
Well, at a minimum, it’s complicated.

Gas Could Literally Transform The Global Energy Equation

See important Letter to the Editor Nov 9, 2009 Wall Street Journal at http://online.wsj.com/public/page/letters.html

Note: "Despite the conclusion of [President Obama's] own Energy Information Agency that fossil fuels will still account for 79% of energy demand in 2030 regardless of how many tax incentives are thrown at solar, wind, algae, biodiesel and the like.

"Gas could literally transform the global energy equation because North America is endowed with huge shale formations in virtually every part of the continent. But while technology, price and demand are important factors in the prospects for higher production, new drilling will only occur if Washington and the various states provide an accommodating fiscal and regulatory environment. Unfortunately, this is not likely to be the case.
For example, President Barack Obama wants to hike taxes on the oil and gas industry and use those revenues to subsidize renewables, despite the conclusion of his own Energy Information Agency that fossil fuels will still account for 79% of energy demand in 2030 regardless of how many tax incentives are thrown at solar, wind, algae, biodiesel and the like. Opposition to gas drilling from environmentalists will also retard new gas supplies, as evidenced by New York's decision to ban drilling in the New York City watershed. Plans to drill on Colorado's Roan Plateau are also meeting stiff resistance.
New technologies now enable us to potentially extract trillions of cubic feet of natural gas from domestic shale formations that, in turn, can reduce our dependence on imported energy. Let's not squander this unique opportunity."

Bernard L. Weinstein
Maguire Energy Institute

Fear of Health ‘Reform’ Is Warranted

President Barack Obama - Do you believe him?

See Thursday, November 5, 2009 editorial at http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/nov/05/fear-health-reform-warranted/
■ "Consider the president’s basic promises about his health overhaul:"
■ "it actually would save money"
■ "the only new taxes would be on the very wealthy"
■ "individuals would be free to keep their present coverage and doctors"
■ "save money is largely based on the preposterous assumption that hundreds of billions of dollars would be cut in Medicare and Medicaid programs"
■ "an IRS-administered and collected levy on individuals without health insurance is really a tax. The bills before Congress call it a tax. But apart from this semantic debate, there are also new taxes on insurers, drug makers, health care providers and medical devices that would be passed along to consumers. Of course middle-class pocketbooks would take a big hit."
■ "The claim that people happy with their present health care would be unaffected ignores the fact that if the 'public option' were available, employers would have a financial incentive to drop private insurance in favor of cheaper government coverage. And even if the final bill didn’t include this option, private coverage would be microregulated on what it has to provide — and lawmakers swayed by contributions from medical specialists have already indicated plans to vastly expand what services must be provided. The inevitable result would be far costlier private insurance."