"Climategate" Researchers Largely Cleared

[RamboLiberal]

Source: CBS News

The first of several British investigations into the e-mails leaked from one of the world's leading climate research centers has largely vindicated the scientists involved.

The House of Commons' Science and Technology Committee said Wednesday that they'd seen no evidence to support charges that the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit or its director, Phil Jones, had tampered with data or perverted the peer review process to exaggerate the threat of global warming two of the most serious criticisms levied against the climatologist and his colleagues.

In their report, the committee said that, as far as it was able to ascertain, "the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact," adding that nothing in the more than 1,000 stolen e-mails, or the controversy kicked up by their publication, challenged scientific consensus that "global warming is happening and that it is induced by human activity."

The 14-member committee's investigation is one of three launched after the dissemination, in November, of e-mails and data stolen from the research unit. The e-mails appeared to show scientists berating skeptics in sometimes intensely personal attacks, discussing ways to shield their data from public records laws, and discussing ways to keep skeptics' research out of peer-reviewed journals. One that attracted particular media attention was Jones' reference to a "trick" that could be used to "hide the decline" of temperatures.


Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/30/tech/main6347584.shtml?tag=stack

[nxylas]

1. I'm sure this will be all over the "liberal media"

If the scientists are lucky, the column inches of the retraction may match the size of the headlines of the original "scandal" story.

[hay rick]

2. Media liberalism denier? nt

[nxylas]

35. Damn straight

If you think there is a liberal bias in the corporate media, other than on relatively "fuzzy" and non-controversial areas like racism where liberals have already largely won the arguments (the racists of the Tea Party are throwbacks to the attitudes of an earlier era, and they know it, hence thair anger), then you have drunk way too much Fox News kool-aid.

[Rage Inc.]

5. You're confusing the deniers!

Those poor things can't be expected to visualize! :silly:

[jakeXT]

61. Even Spiegel is waking up

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,686697,00.html


* Part 1: A Superstorm for Global Warming Research
* Part 2: Politically Charged Science
* Part 3: A Climate Rebel Takes on the Establishment
* Part 4: The Smoking Gun of Climatology
* Part 5: The Reality of Rising Sea Levels
* Part 6: The Myth of the Monster Storm
* Part 7: Climate Change's Winners and Losers
* Part 8: The Invention of the Two-Degree Target

[booley]

3. As I recall, so was ACORN

Later Acorn declared bankruptcy and cons STILL cite ACORN as proof of a vast Liberal corruption and conspiracy.

[karynnj]

14. True - and the sad thing is that we still have no way to deal with

the lies spread in the RW echo chamber.

Here is an article on one of the people that spread the climate change lies, who in 2004 spread the lies about Kerry's service. http://www.esquire.com/features/marc-morano-0410

Although thought and effort has gone into how these lies can be defeated, it seems to me that we were LESS successful in countering the ACORN and climategate lies than Kerry was in countering the SBVT. By the election, polls showed that it was likely that few people likely to have voted for Kerry believed the lies. In addition "swiftboating" has been used by Republicans, like Guilliani to discredit negative stories about them. But, what was lost via the lies was the image Kerry had in the primaries as a strong, dependable hero, calm in crisis, who could get the US through the mess it was in.

Here, the problem is that the lies have led to a huge shift in the percent of people who are convinced that climate change is real and we need to ask now. It is hard to ask people to do things they are afraid of doing if they are not certain about the underlying reason.

[existentialist]

58. Ain't that the truth.

The Republican lie machine gets caught lying, but because of the coverage it still succeeds.

What else is new?

[Igel]

40. Eh.

Not an unusual occurrence.

Arthur Andersen was cleared of wrongdoing in the Enron scandal. Yet they'd all but gone out of business by then and their being cleared seems to have been overlooked.

Enron's major financial wrongdoings occurred before 1/2001. Yet the power grid manipulation occurred in the first half of 2001 and the financial scandal occurred in 2001 and 2002, so most people assume that it was some deregulation from 2001 or after that led to the accounting "irregularities" from c. 1996 to 2000.

Of course, this would argue against the MSM being all that conservative or pro-business. Sort of uncomfortable evidence for trying to pigeonhole the MSM in that way. You can argue that Enron was a Clinton darling, but Arthur Andersen?

What you're left with is that scandal sells and is worth headlines. Mea culpas and "oops" tend to make the back page.

[Hissyspit]

4. Well, yeah.

MOST people here knew that pretty much immediately. Same thing with ACORN. We can smell right-wing slander campaigns and disinformation a mile a while. Same thing with ACORN, but it's all about The Big Lie. Some people, though...

[DissedByBush]

7. I knew immediately what the verdict would be

Too many politicians, scientists and businessmen have careers attached to this thing. The result was predestined before any "investigation" began.

[Hissyspit]

10. No politicians and businessmen have careers attached to denying climate change?

[tclambert]

13. Sure, but oil men and the Saudi royal family and the Bush family enjoy wide recognition

as honest, unbiased observers who cherish their reputations for accurately measuring and reporting data. Besides, all their claims are peer reviewed by Fox News.

[DissedByBush]

15. Of course we know that

It's the denial of the same on the other side that's annoying.

[Hissyspit]

18. Aw, yes. DU. Home of the false equivalence now.

It was a non-scandal played up by right-wingers and deniers.

[DissedByBush]

19. It was an insight into the machinations of the ideologues

Nothing speaks more the truth than what they don't want you to see.

And that they didn't want you to see it was right in the emails.

Even worse for me was the readme file.

As a programmer and database administrator, I wouldn't trust any results of that system.

[Hissyspit]

22. We've been over this shit already and your arguments were soundly undermined.

I've got other things to do.

For anyone who is interested: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=4295279

[DissedByBush]

23. Only undermined in the eyes of the true believers

I remember one of the things that "undermined" my argument was that NASA supposedly had an independent dataset that produced the same results.

Now we find out that NASA considers its own data crap and has been using THIS data.

THIS is the best data you have.

And it's crap.

It is your supposed undermining that has been undermined.

[muriel_volestrangler]

33. Where have you pulled "NASA considers its own data crap" from?

For that matter, where has "THIS is the best data you have. And it's crap" come from? The whole point is that this data is fine. The scientists just got pissed off at the harrassment tactics of the deniers and didn't share some of the raw data.

[DissedByBush]

39. Heard it on the news a couple days ago

You of course won't trust any source I can find, so feel free to find your own:

Google something like "nasa admits its own climate data is bad."

"The whole point is that this data is fine. "

Based on the readme file in the leaked information showing the frustration of a programmer having to deal with it, it is definitely not fine. It is in fact crap.

Apologists have as much as admitted since coming up with the counter-argument that it doesn't matter that the CRU data is bad, because NASA has independent data that agrees.

Turns out NASA doesn't. All the data is intertwined.

"The scientists just got pissed off at the harrassment tactics"

Scientists wanted to violate a basic tenet of science, sharing the data, for political reasons.

I don't give a shit if they were tired of people asking for information. They have an obligation to give it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

41. No, you go ahead, tells us your sources

And tell us as well who amongst 'apologists' has 'admitted the CRU data is bad'. Go on. This could be your big journalistic moment. It may be your world exclusive.

No, they were not 'violating a basic tenet of science'; again, if you read this report, it says they didn't do anything out of line with accepted practices, but the report calls for more data sharing to become the new norm, so that the Fox News propaganda arm can be proved wrong, in public.

[time_has_come]

51. Oh, but the report came out of a government though, right?

So, of course they're going to say "climategate" wasn't a big deal, because they want to hold onto power. Simple, huh?

I think our boy is just to "skeptical" to be fooled, sort of like Glen Beck.

[time_has_come]

52. You're not skeptical

you're just scared.

And sharing data with non-scientists who harass you constantly is not a "basic tenet of science." I am of the opinion they should have kept feeding data to them to avoid just that kind of assinine accusation, but at no time did they withold data from an legitimate scientist wanting to conduct a legitimate review. So, what's important here? Making hay over something inconsequential, or looking at the truth of this situation and living with that? You seem uninterested in the truth...more interested in suggesting that global warming is some kind of bogus conspiracy propagated by one-world "UN types" and power-hungry politicians.

I'm sure you can see how dishonest and robotic you're being with your responses. I'm always curious to know if a person knows they're being dishonest, or if the fear of truth has overcome their reason.

[DissedByBush]

54. They did share it with one scientist

He said the data was crap.

They were scared to share with that one person because he had poked holes in the analysis of previous datasets that he could get his hands on.

He may have been a non-scientist, but he is extremely good with numbers and statistics, the perfect person to catch these errors.

He's the reason NASA had to revise the "1998 was the hottest year" claim.

He caught their error.

The CRU didn't want him catching their errors.

[muriel_volestrangler]

57. You are a complete cynic

Rather than dealing with the reality of the situation, you are repeating, without attribution, the spin of the global warming deniers who make their home on Fox News and in the right wing think tanks.

For the information of DUers who are wondering what reality the denier spin is trying to twist, it's this:

A recent correction of a NASA data set of yearly average U.S. surface temperatures has been misconstrued in the media. NASA’s error applied only to U.S. land surface temperatures, not global temperatures. When discussing climate change, it is the global temperature that matters. The error did not change the fact that 1998 remains the warmest year on record globally. In fact, no annual global temperature rankings changed. Moreover, focusing on individual years has little relevance to climate change, as climate is defined by average conditions over several years.

NASA made an error in how it corrected for the urban heat island effect in its U.S. land surface temperature data for the years 2000-2006. The effect of the correction was to lower the U.S. land surface temperature for 2000-2006 by an average of 0.15 °C. Changes to earlier years were insignificant.

Some journalists and commentators have claimed the correction made 1934 the warmest year in the United States instead of 1998. However, in a paper about U.S. temperatures published by NASA scientists in 2001, 1934 was reported to be 0.01 °C warmer than 1998 (in the United States only). In that paper, NASA noted the top rank of 1934, but explained that the difference was so small that the two years were statistically indistinguishable. After making the correction, NASA found the relative ranking of 1934 and 1998 remained unchanged. The difference between 1934 and 1998 is now indicated to be 0.02 °C, which remains statistically indistinguishable.

http://www.pewclimate.org/analysis/nasa_us_temp

Yeah. The hyped 'NASA data is crap' turns out to be a correction of 0.01 °C for 1998. But to listen to someone like Michelle Malkin, you'd think the whole history of temperature measurement for the wolrd had needed to be thrown out. 0.15 °C, for the United States only, is not significant for global warming either, since the US is, as the article says, only two percent of global surface area. Fox News and its viewers tend to think the world revolves around the US, of course, so it's not so surprising if some of them think this means "NASA's data is crap". They are woefully misinformed. They need to watch something other than Fox News, and listen to people more intelligent and honest than Rush Limbaugh. They could do with opening their eyes to news sources discussed on DU.

[time_has_come]

60. Oh brother. The old "revise the 1998 hottest year" red herring...

...I followed that at the time. Absolutely inconsequential, changed nothing.

And it wasn't a global thing, correct?

Why do you sink your teeth into these wholly inconsequential happenings and act as if all scientific evidence for global warming is put in question by them?

And please, which scientist said the CRU's data was "crap"? This I'd be interested in. And don't make claims about how many scientists they shared their data with, because you don't know that.

[time_has_come]

46. What "thing"? Global Warming? That shows you aren't plugged in politically...

...most politicians would LOVE for the issue of global warming to go away. They're tired of playing lip service to something they don't think is a priority.

The intelligent ones that can decipher the truth of the situation and have the integrity to want to act may seem to have attached themselves to the issue, but to say they're attached their "careers" is just nonsensical.

As for scientists, most of them who are loudest about global warming are doing very little science on the issue anymore. Sure, there's a lot of monitoring ongoing, but the bulk of them are not doing the science anymore. They've finished with it and just want to see action now. And regardless, the idea that thousands of dispersed scientists are engaged in some collective conspiracy to preserve their salary is moronic.

Businessmen, you have a leg there...many do feel attached to global warming. Probably most of them (i don't know, businessmen aren't all stupid or immoral) who make a profit that could be impacted by global warming measures would want to trump up this bullshit "climategate" thing.

[DissedByBush]

48. I'm a bit more skeptical

I see the intelligent but dishonest politicians (that would be most of them) seeing the power of the Global Warming movement and how they can hitch a ride on it in order to garner more political power, and for their governments to gather more power over the people.

UN types of course see it as a way to get even closer to an oppressive one-world government.

The Republicans with blinders on are just owned by old-time dumber industries that thrive on oil. They know where their paychecks come from.

More modern, innovative businessmen realize the MASSIVE amount of money to be made off Global Warming, so they of course push it as hard as they can.

The science is irrelevant at this point. It's about the political movement.

[time_has_come]

50. I notice you left out the scientists...

or are those the "UN types"

I think you are mired in tendencies towards conspiracy and simplistic generalizations.

It's easy to say all politicians are dishonest, or that all "UN types" want a one-world government, and subsequently write off everything from those quarters and self congratulate yourself as being "skeptical."

Your premise is essentially that everyone wants to make money, that there's money to be made off of global warming, ergo that's everyone's motivation in this thing regardless of the science - which you say is irrelevant.

How, exactly, is the science irrelevant? Why is it irrelevant?

Don't impress me with your razor-like skepticism, tell me what YOU believe.

Do you think the science has demonstrated global warming is happening and that human activity is the main contributing factor?

[muriel_volestrangler]

53. You're not skeptical, you're cynical, if you say "the science is irrelevant at this point"

The science says global warming is man-made. It's not irrelevant - it's central to the entire issue. If you dismiss the science, you're worse than any politician who actually wants to examine the science.

You're saying 'most politicians are dishonest'. That maybe cynical too; are you really claiming the members of the Commons Science and Technology Committee are 'garnering power' for themselves, and their governments? Look at the membership. These are backbenchers. Their main career question is whether they get re-elected in the upcoming election. And if you think that their report on the UEA emails is going to be a big part of that, then you haven't a clue about British politics.

[PreacherCasey]

6. I'll wait until the full investigation is complete. Between the possible environmental outcomes and

proposed Global Carbon Tax (to be paid directly to the IMF!), I think we should dig a lot deeper.

Snipped from the full article:

"Lawmakers stressed that their report which was written after only a single day of oral testimony did not cover all the issues and would not be as in-depth as the two other inquiries into the e-mail scandal that are still spending.

Willis said the lawmakers had been in a rush to publish something before Britain's next national election"

Sounds like a POLITICAL investigation to me...

[Hissyspit]

11. It was a POLITICAL scandal.

[kestrel91316]

8. this story will be hastily mentioned ONCE and then forgotten by the MSM,

who will then continue to repeat the meme about GW being a fraud because of the emails.

[Beartracks]

9. But it snowed during winter!!!!

How can there be global warming if it snowed in February???

:eyes:

[tclambert]

12. And here it is almost April and it's STILL COLD

inside my refrigerator!

[DissedByBush]

16. Still cold here, outside

I've been here six years, never that cold before this time of year.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

20. Two can play the anecdotal evidence game.

Come to Rio. Seriously. Each summer gets steadily hotter and longer than the previous one.

[DissedByBush]

21. I know, Global Warming explains everything

That's why no matter what happens, no matter what the conditions are, it's taken as proof of global warming.

[Beartracks]

24. Local weather can not be taken as proof...

... of anything, beyond the local weather.



But global warming would produce global trends, which not even Sarah Palin can see from her window.

-------------------------

[DissedByBush]

25. Yet when it's warm I'm told that's because of Global Warming

When it's abnormally cold I'm told either that weather doesn't equal climate, or that GW predicted that too.

I see a lot of "have your cake and eat it too" with Global Warming.

[Beartracks]

37. Best I've heard it described...

... is that as the average global temperature increases, weather and weather patterns will become more extreme -- colder, wetter, winters; hotter, drier droughts; more and stronger tropical storms; etc. So much of weather stems from, say, the warmth of oceans, that even a slight increase in global temps can cause ocean temps to rise a bit, and THAT in turn magnifies the effect into observably more extreme weather phenomena. In my understanding, a severe snowstorm that blows away all previous regional records does not at all fly in the face of climate change theory, but rather supports it. However, without lots of other weather statistics, that storm by itself doesn't PROVE climate change any more than it DISproves climate change.

------------------------

[DissedByBush]

38. I've heard it explained that way too.

And that's one of my problems.

It supposedly explains everything, even many contradictory things.

So what could possibly happen to disprove it? Apparently nothing.

[Beartracks]

42. What would disprove it?

Perhaps an observable global record showing decreasing or unchanging frequency/severity of extreme weather events (i.e. climate-as-usual).

Weather always produces hundred-year-storms, freak occurrences, and such, but when extreme weather events start moving away from the fringes of the bell curve, globally, that's gotta mean something. If they slide back to their historic rarity -- or if further data shows they never really moved outside their norms at all -- that, too, has got to mean something.

I'm not saying that extreme weather HAS in fact increased in frequency or severity, as I'm no climate scientist. Regardless, I'm certain climate change theory involves more than measuring the frequency of extreme weather events. But even if they are one form of yardstick by which climate change might be measured, then a decrease or stability in their frequency/severity could be evidence that climate change is either not completely understood, or perhaps isn't happening at all.

-------------------------

[DissedByBush]

43. They predicted more severe hurricanes in '07

That didn't happen. In fact, they blamed Katrina on GW, yet things have been pretty calm since.

We've been trying to model El Nino for decades and still aren't even close to figuring it out. Yet somehow we think we can model the Earth's whole climate to such precision as we've seen. I don't buy it.

Read what Dyson said about the models, which are the basis for these predictions.

[Beartracks]

44. btw, I'm just playing devil's advocate

My personal jury is still out. I think the whole science of climate change is too young for global warming proponents to have everything locked down just yet, but by the same token I don't think naysayers can be any more certain of their positions either.

Who's this Dyson person, and is there a link?

----------------

[DissedByBush]

47. Dyson

Freeman Dyson, world-renowned scientist and all-around crank.

He thinks the world is warming, but dared to state that the scientists put too much trust in their models and confronted them about their treatment of "heretics." For that he was excoriated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_dyson#Global_warming

[Beartracks]

49. Cool, thanks. n/t

[tabasco]

45. Why are glaciers melting around the world?

Can't wait to hear the explanation.

1941



2004

[tclambert]

17. A local TV weatherman recently put up a nice bar graph of temperature by decade.

It showed the 1960s barely warmer than the 1950s, 1970s barely warmer than the the 1960s, 1980s significantly warmer than the 1970s, 1990s significantly warmer than the 1980s, and the 2000s significantly warmer than the 1990s. Averaging by decade smooths out the annual fluctuations that so easily confuse those not good at figuring out the trends in fluctuating data.

Six decades is really not that much data to go on, but it looks to me like the change is ACCELERATING.

[fascisthunter]

26. Inquiry: Climate data not manipulated

Source: MSNBC

LONDON - The first of several British investigations into the e-mails leaked from one of the world's leading climate research centers has largely vindicated the scientists involved.

The House of Commons' Science and Technology Committee said they had seen no evidence to support charges that the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit or its director, Phil Jones, had tampered with data or perverted the peer review process to exaggerate the threat of global warming — two of the most serious criticisms levied against the climatologist and his colleagues.

In their report released Wednesday, the committee said that, as far as it was able to ascertain, "the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact," adding that nothing in the more than 1,000 stolen e-mails, or the controversy kicked up by their publication, challenged scientific consensus that "global warming is happening and that it is induced by human activity."

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36104206/ns/us_news-environment/

[Rage Inc.]

27. Quick! Somebody call Glenn Beck!

I'm sure he'll wanna be the first to broadcast this news!

:crazy:

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. For that matter the faithful on Sunday at Falwell's Church

We are naughty you know.

[kpete]

29. UK 'Climategate' inquiry largely clears scientists

Source: Washington Post

UK 'Climategate' inquiry largely clears scientists

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER
The Associated Press
Tuesday, March 30, 2010; 7:03 PM

LONDON -- The first of several British investigations into the e-mails leaked from one of the world's leading climate research centers has largely vindicated the scientists involved.

The House of Commons' Science and Technology Committee said Wednesday that they'd seen no evidence to support charges that the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit or its director, Phil Jones, had tampered with data or perverted the peer review process to exaggerate the threat of global warming - two of the most serious criticisms levied against the climatologist and his colleagues.

In their report, the committee said that, as far as it was able to ascertain, "the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact," adding that nothing in the more than 1,000 stolen e-mails, or the controversy kicked up by their publication, challenged scientific consensus that "global warming is happening and that it is induced by human activity."
ad_icon

The 14-member committee's investigation is one of three launched after the dissemination, in November, of e-mails and data stolen from the research unit. The e-mails appeared to show scientists berating skeptics in sometimes intensely personal attacks, discussing ways to shield their data from public records laws, and discussing ways to keep skeptics' research out of peer-reviewed journals. One that attracted particular media attention was Jones' reference to a "trick" that could be used to "hide the decline" of temperatures.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/30/AR2010033003472.html

---

U.K. Panel Calls Climate Data Valid
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/science/earth/31climate.html

[truthisfreedom]

30. Wow, I didn't see that comin'.

Scientists being scientific? Wow.

The repugs see everything thru a repug prism. They play dirty so they expect everyone else to.

[Lautremont]

31. They also assume everyone has the same motivation as they do.

Money, power, more money. So naturally the whole idea of climate change must be a big scam so these scientists can secure tenure or make money some other way. No, it couldn't possibly be because the climate actually is changing.

[defendandprotect]

32. Good news . . . but it was a "red herring," anyway -- obviously . . .!!

[tom_paine]

34. But the Bushiganda PR/propaganda Op was a complete success.

For WEEKS the Corporate-controlled M$M was keening with this phuny "scandal".

How much play you think the clearing of the scientists is going to get on our Corporate-controlled M$M?

Maybe a quick listing of it as the bottom scrolling, to provide themselves with "plausible deniability".

Once again, Bushiganda shows that the truth is no match for PR.

[Supersedeas]

59. John Fishface Roberts did a segment last Friday pushing the Climategate agenda

[Psephos]

36. One day of oral testimony. Right.

From the article:

“Lawmakers stressed that their report—which was written after only a single day of oral testimony—did not cover all the issues.”

This committee is made of politicians. They are, to put it mildly, incapable of grasping the scientific principles and relationships. Politicians work by vilifying one group and beatifying another. They carve the world into evil bad people and shiny happy people...the hallmark of the ignorant and the unsophisticated.

Such a committee cannot by definition work scientifically. Furthermore, it does not speak for two pending investigations of far more substance. The issue isn’t whether “global warming is happening and that it is caused by human activity” vs. the implicit “global warming isn’t happening or isn’t caused by human activity.” The questions have always been: Was the data treated apolitically, capably, and transparently? Are the results repeatable by other parties? How does the primary data support existing mathematical models, and to what extent? Is the raw data itself complete, open, and above reproach?

The judgment of Jones is secondary to the question of whether all of the data, computer models, code, and documentation are made public and available for independent analysis. If policy prescriptions involving potentially billions or trillions of dollars depend on scientific analysis and recommendations, then absolute transparency must be the standard. Anything else is not science. Science alone will vindicate Jones et al., or it will show their errors. Fuck off, politicians.

[Quantess]

55. K & R

[Overseas]

56. Kicking. //nt