Steve McIntyre and the Data Quality Act

If you’ve never heard of the Data Quality Act go read this article by Chris Mooney.

Back? Good.

Steve McIntyre, still angry after a comment was not released from moderation on Christmas Day, is now trying to use the Data Quality Act against RealClimate. As far as I can make out, because Gavin Schmidt works for NASA, McIntyre thinks that the stringent peer review hurdles of the Data Quality Act (inserted by a tobacco lobbyist to make it harder to use the scientific evidence on the dangers of cigarette smoke) should apply to RealClimate.

I wonder where McIntyre learned about the ins and outs of the Data Quality Act? Has he been hanging out with tobacco lobbyists?

Comments

#1 Hans Erren
December 29, 2007

What if a tornado hits Lonnie Thompson’s fridge?

Unique data is lost forever, because it was never published.

That’s why.
#2 student_b
December 29, 2007

Steve McIntyre says:
December 29th, 2007 at 12:28 am

BTW if one browses back through the posting times of Gavin’s posts (and those of other realclimate authors), many of his posts (though not all) have been made between 9 am and 5 pm – odd timing for posts supposedly prepared during Gavin’s “spare time”.

Ah yeah, global warming is a lie since Gavin makes posts about it during his work hours! (Oh, never mind there’s stuff like automatic posting, lunch breaks, flexible working hours, different time zones and whatever…). Even if it would be true that Gavin slacks of, how does that diminish his arguments?

—-

Whatever, ClimateAudit and McIntyre are a joke anyway and the commenter even more so.

Thanks for bringing it up though, I was in need of a good laugh. It’s really Sadly,No! grade stuff.
#3 student_b
December 29, 2007

Oh, just one more, because it’s so much fun!

bender says:
December 29th, 2007 at 6:14 am

#104 Intelligence and experience are orthogonal. Many intelligent people have still not been exposed to the true facts.

As opposed to wrong facts?

The broken hockey stick is a very important point that needs to be understood by all – even though it is far OT for this thread. To summarize: there is zero probability that we can say with confidence that current temperatures exceed those of the (some would say non-existent) MWP.

Oh, but I say “with confidence that current temperatures exceed those of the … MWP.”

But we had zero probability for that to happen! But I still said it! It’s unpossible!1!

Oh, noes, I’ve destroyed the space-time continuum! Woes to us all!

/*snark
#4 student_b
December 29, 2007

Ah, I screwed up the quote tags twice in a row. The paragraph after the cursive text still belongs to the quote.

Ashes on my bald head, for I suck at previewing!
#5 Ian Forrester
December 29, 2007

Hans Erren said: “Unique data is lost forever, because it was never published”.

Far better for good honest data to be lost (it can always be repeated) than lies and distortion to be promulgated forever on right wing blog sites.
#6 ben
December 29, 2007

I never did quite understand the whole smoking bad for you research issue. For as long as I’ve been alive (and probably a lot longer), everyone but idiots have known that smoking and tobacco use are bad for you. Really bad for you.

I understand but disagree with the tobacco lawsuits. Everyone who used tobacco should have known better.
#7 luminous beauty
December 29, 2007

ben,

The issue was that the tobacco industry was using phony research to convince smokers that tobacco wasn’t bad for them, all the while pushing propaganda meant to create the affective impression that smoking cigarettes is sexier than sex.

A simple matter of false advertising with deadly consequences.

People not presented with accurate information, or by perceiving that information refuted by unjustified doubt, will naturally prefer to believe a lie that conforms to their personal confirmation biases, than accept a truth that undermines those biases.

Witness AGW denialism. It is all FUD. Smokescreens. Obfuscations. Throwing sand in the umpire’s eyes. As much as McSteve may insist he only wants to insure the accuracy of the science, it is obvious to anyone with a lick of sense that he has zero interest in improving the science, but merely invalidating it in the eyes of public opinion through sly politically motivated and demonstrably phony rhetoric.
#8 Paul S
December 29, 2007

Ian Forrester said:
“Far better for good honest data to be lost (it can always be repeated) than lies and distortion to be promulgated forever on right wing blog sites.”

And how do you (or anyone) know if it’s good data if you’ve never seen it?
#9 pico
December 29, 2007

McIntyre did a classic cherry-pick with his complaint, pointing out answers in a question and answer NASA page which quoted two and four, respectively, external links to further information, including to two RealClimate pages. But, if you look at all the Answers on the NASA page, of 55 references/external links, just three of them point to RealClimate.

On the bright side, McIntyre must read a lot of NASA and RealClimate stuff to be able to extract such connections. Maybe some of it will eventually sink in.
#10 z
December 29, 2007

“For as long as I’ve been alive (and probably a lot longer), everyone but idiots have known that smoking and tobacco use are bad for you. ”

A few years ago, I had occasion to see the Hartford Courant’s write-up (a copy, not the original) on President Grant’s death from jaw cancer, which the article obviously took for granted everybody assumed was due to his heavy cigar consumption. This in the late 19th century. On the other hand, a few years back, one of my neighbors asked me, in all seriousness, whether cigarette smoking was actually bad for you. What could have happened in the interim, I wonder? Oh well, whatever it was couldn’t relate to the climate debate.
#11 z
December 29, 2007

Hmm. Not to throw cold water on Stevie Mac’s pursuit of truth, but isn’t he a Canadian citizen? IIRC, agencies of the US government aren’t all that beholden to the demands of furriners.
#12 Hank Roberts
December 29, 2007

There’s more than just parallels between the tobacco, lead, PCB, and fossil fuel lobbying campaigns. Same organizations, same skeptics repeat. You can look them up.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1446868

Am J Public Health. 2001 November; 91(11): 1749-1757.
Copyright © American Journal of Public Health 2001

Constructing “Sound Science” and “Good Epidemiology”: Tobacco, Lawyers, and Public Relations Firms

“Public health professionals need to be aware that the ‘sound science’ movement is not an indigenous effort from within the profession to improve the quality of scientific discourse, but reflects sophisticated public relations campaigns controlled by industry executives and lawyers whose aim is to manipulate the standards of scientific proof to serve the corporate interests of their clients.”

———

http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/97/11/1981

November 2007, Vol 97, No. 11 American Journal of Public Health 1981-1991 © 2007 American Public Health Association
DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2005.078014

GOVERNMENT, POLITICS, AND LAW
Pharmacological and Chemical Effects of Cigarette Additives

“more than 100 of 599 documented cigarette additives have pharmacological actions”
#13 Joe
December 29, 2007

Jeez, with transparently dishonest (and pathetic) reasoning like that McIntyre must be angling to become a Discovery Institute fellow.
#14 Alex
December 29, 2007

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/28/2128286.htm?section=australia
#15 Eli Rabett
December 29, 2007

Thompson’s fridge is in the basement, still you wanna chip in to buy him an UPS? That is really cold concerntrollism Hans.
#16 VJ
December 29, 2007

I wonder if there is a connection to this conversation a couple of weeks ago at Desmogblog, where John Holliday was busy smearing Realclimate, including asking why their posts were not peer reviewed:
http://www.desmogblog.com/singers-deniers-misrepresenting-new-climatology-journal-article

And the RealClimate thread he was referring to:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/tropical-troposphere-trends

At the Desmogblog post, Ian Forrester figured out John Holliday was brucew4yne, based on a particular phrase he used. I noted that Holliday quoted, without attribution, a comment by Richard Sycamore at the Realclimate post. So possibly John Holliday is also Richard Sycamore?

VJ (aka Holly Stick)
#17 Ian Gould
December 30, 2007

“For as long as I’ve been alive (and probably a lot longer), everyone but idiots have known that smoking and tobacco use are bad for you. Really bad for you.”

Up until about 30-35 years ago Ben the link between smoking and health wasn’t even acknowledged by the US government.

Even after the government accepted it the tobacco industry spent a fortune trying first to deny there was any impact on health and then to minimise it.

The whole “everybody always knew” meme is only a few years old.
#18 Paul S
December 30, 2007

Acknowledged or not Ian, most everyone knew cigarettes were hazardous many years ago. That the smoking threat wasn’t taken as seriously or that a few people insisted it wasn’t hazardous doesn’t change the fact that the perils of smoking was common knowledge back then.
#19 John Mashey
December 30, 2007

re: #17

1) Well, z said, for “as long as he’s been alive”, which is a number not yet provided. “The Surgeon General has Determined” was in 1964, thanks to the political cleverness of SG Luther Terry, so that’s 43 years. I strongly recommend Harvard Prof. Allan M. Brandt’s excellent history “The Cigarette Century”, especially because many internal documents have been made available online:
http://tobaccodocuments.org/ makes for fascinating rummaging.

2) Clearly, to this day, not everybody knows, and in particular, kids do not know, and to get people *really* addicted to tobacco, the earlier the better. Early teens are most effective, as it has the chance of wiring the addiction during rapid brain development, and the tobacco companies know this well. Hence, Joe camel, candy-flavored cigarettes, clever advertising.

3) There’s one more (besides the thinktanks/lobbiests) connection between tobacco & AGW: deforestration, both to grow the tobacco and to burn to cure it. See lower left in:
http://www.who.int/tobacco/en/atlas16.pdf

World production has more than doubled since the 1960s.
#20 ChrisC
December 30, 2007

Im at a loss to understand why Steve Mc gives a rats behind about when and where RC posts are made. If Gavin Schmidt is posting while at work, surely this is a issue for his employers? If NASA was concerned, I’m sure they would take it up with him. Given that he has published 11 peer reviewed articles during 2007 (see: http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/authors/gschmidt.html) it doesn’t seem like his volunteer effort at RC is affecting his output.

NASA obviously doesn’t run RC, and is not associated in any way except by association with Gavin Schmidt. US tax dollars don’t fund the site, and contributors take full responsibility for the postings. What’s the issue?
#21 Thaumas
December 30, 2007

Is this is a confession that climate audit and its ilk have lost the science debate and now need to explore narrow procedural issues?
#22 JC
December 30, 2007

Up until about 30-35 years ago Ben the link between smoking and health wasn’t even acknowledged by the US government.

Nice attempt at spinning and twisting reality. Gouldiechops. There was plenty bloody of evidence elsewhere.

Here’s Harry Clerke’s blog to prove just how wrong you are. To suggest big tobacco retarded information on the dangers of cig smoking is simply bullshit, so please stop dissembling, Gouldiechops.

http://kalimna.blogspot.com/2007/09/health-nazis-got-it-right.html

Harry is reviewing a book:

Robert Proctor’s, The Nazi War on Cancer, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1999.

The main startling fact is that German work on the connection between smoking and cancer predated the major English language research (the papers by Levin, Doll/Hill and Wynder/Graham, published in 1950) by more than a decade. It was in Germany in the late 1930s that the addictive character of cigarettes was first recognised and the connection with lung cancer recognised. Indeed in the late 1930s the Nazis launched the world’s most aggressive anti-smoking campaign with public health campaigns, bans on certain forms of advertising and restrictions on smoking in many public places.

These discoveries were driven partly by Nazism with its ethics of racial hygiene and bodily purity. Good science was pursued in the interests of antidemocratic ideals.

Cigarettes had not even been produced in Germany until 1860 though it grew massively after 1900 to peak in 1942. The shift from pipes and cigars is of major consequence – as Henner Hess nicely put it we are talking about a ‘a revolutionary development in the history of drug consumption, roughly comparable to the invention of the hypodermic needle for opiate addiction’ (cited in Proctor, p. 183). Cigarettes got tars and other noxious chemicals into bronchial passageways.

The physician Fritz Lickint wrote a number of papers beginning in 1920 pointing out the connection between smoking and cancer and a monumental survey on smoking and cancer in 1939. He pointed to the fact that women then had much lower cancer rates because they then smoked much less. He identified nicotine as an addictive agent in tobacco comparable in its addictiveness to morphine and identified clearly the dangers of passive smoking. By 1940,anti-smoking activists even initiated much more recent compensation arguments by arguing the low-nicotine cigarettes might cause smokers to increase their smoking to maintain nicotine levels (Proctor p. 202). Lickint was not a Nazi but was heavily involved in Nazi tobacco policies.
In the early 1940s German physicians were aware that smoking caused heart disease and accurately observed that smoking reduced
#23 jc
December 30, 2007

The last three chapters are from harry’s blog (in the interests of proper disclosure).
#24 jc
December 30, 2007

ooops Paras…..
#25 Eli Rabett
December 30, 2007

Let us see, jc notes that 35 going on forty years ago even tho not accepted by the US government and fiercely resisted by the most backward state governments and the same in Congress there was so much evidence that smoking caused a myriad of miseries that any sentient being should have known. Subject to John Mashey’s demurral that teen agers are not sentient we might accept this. Of course we also know that this ignorance was financially supported by industry and front groups that pretended to be scientifically motivated.

Sounds a lot like the climate change debte.

Wait long enough and every troll will eventy self destroy
#26 bill r
December 30, 2007

Back to the “Data Quality Act”: What does it actually require the agency to do? Require them to publish their data and protocols?

IANAL,but any internal data relevant to a lawsuit against an individual or a corporation must be turned over to the “other side”, on request, during discovery (before the lawsuit gets tried.) So what’s the big deal about putting the government in the same situation. They want to take deleterious action against me, I get to see the data first.

You seem to be assuming that the regulatory agencies are populated with saints.
#27 Eli Rabett
December 30, 2007

Bill, AFAIK, NASA does not issue regulations and therefore would not come under the Data Quality Act FWIW.
#28 bill r
December 30, 2007

By the mid-’70′s (30 years ago) cigarette smoking was a standard risk factor in cardiac and cancer epidemiology studies. The only question was how to code it into the regressions (any/none, packs per day, and so on). It was fairly settled at that point. These studies (e.g. the Framingham and Western Electric studies) were funded/sponsored by the U.S. government, through NIH.
#29 bill r
December 30, 2007

Thanks Eli,
True, but NASA’s own guidelines require that they observe it. McIntrye notes that an official NASA faq is disseminating results and conclusions from realclimate. That seems to bring them under the purview of the act.

If Dr. Schmidt wants to promote a particular conclusion as a (very knowledgeable) private citizen, he should. When he starts using NASA to do, then he needs to play by the big kid rules, even if he is right.
#30 Hank Roberts
December 30, 2007

Ah, the tobacco guys play the nazi card.
Who should people trust, after all, prominent businessmen with a product to sell, or a discredited loser military maniac and his friends?

Who wouldn’t know to rely on studies published in the 1930s in Germany instead of what their own contemporary businessmen were (and as below, are still) saying prominently in advertising, eh?

Is that the logic you’re using?

http://tobacco.health.usyd.edu.au/site/supersite/resources/docs/diary_of_denial.htm

http://tobacco.health.usyd.edu.au/site/supersite/resources/images/lying.jpg

Yep. Same approach, same lobbyists, same lies.
That’s what the IPCC means by business as usual, eh?
#31 Hank Roberts
December 30, 2007

Dagnabbit. I killfiled “jc” and then I let myself get suckered into taking a troll by one “JC” — my apologies, folks. I’ve updated my killfile.
#32 Dangerous Dan
December 30, 2007

“For as long as I’ve been alive (and probably a lot longer), everyone but idiots have known that smoking and tobacco use are bad for you. Really bad for you.”

In my dad’s time (1920′s-2006), it was widely known that cigarette smoking was bad for you. Of course, many other things that were widely known in those times turned out not to be true.

Dad loved a saying,
“It’s not what you know that hurts you so.
It’s what you know that isn’t so.”

What is taken as common knowledge is often neither.
#33 John Mashey
December 30, 2007

re: #25 Eli
“Subject to John Mashey’s demurral that teen agers are not sentient we might accept this.”

I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I do think that “not knowing” and “not sentient” are different things. This is akin to the difference between people who don’t know facts, and those who refuse to recognize a fact even when it comes and bites their leg off. The latter, especially if adult, may indeed not be sentient. I figure teenagers deserve a few years’ grace period.

In a contest between teenagers and very, very clever marketing costing $B’s, the kids don’t always win …

I mean, who could pass up: Mandarin Mint, Kauai Kolada, and Warm Winter Toffee (yummy):
http://chicagoist.com/2006/10/12/say_goodbye_to_twista_lime_cigarettes.php
#34 Deech56
December 30, 2007

Is it just me, or does it seem that the dream of CA to have Gavin, Michael, James, etc. being led away shouting “If it wasn’t for those darn kids!” while they (the CA/surfacestations crew) head back to the Mystery Van in triumph. Instead of critiquing papers and data, they now go after RC, Tamino and Eli. And for them it’s just about the science. Right.
#35 Eli Rabett
December 30, 2007

Codgers.

PS John I was being snarky.
#36 Jc.
December 30, 2007

Rabbet,

Tell that to your Democrat colleagues as they were the ones who ran both houses 40 odd years ago. Your hero, Algore, supported the tobacco industry, buddy.

And we’re on science denial, you may wanna explain just what’s wrong with GM crops and why the environmental industry is so opposed.
#37 Eli Rabett
December 30, 2007

jc, you appear to be having an interesting conversation with yourself and it really is amusing to listen in to the birdies between your ears tweeting.
#38 Hans Erren
December 30, 2007

“Thompson’s fridge is in the basement, still you wanna chip in to buy him an UPS? That is really cold concerntrollism Hans.”

Nope, if you’re an american citizen it’s your tax money he has used to sit comfortably on his now unique ice cores. Apparently he doesn’t feel the need to publish detailed core logs, or he is simply hiding controversial information.
#39 Hans Erren
December 30, 2007

#21Is this is a confession that climate audit and its ilk have lost the science debate and now need to explore narrow procedural issues?

Visited the site recently? There is a scientific debate going on. Unfortunately the RC guys don’t participate, never had, never will. If you really want to know the ins and outs of strip bark trees go to CA.

The train is moving, too late to hop on now.
#40 mndean
December 30, 2007

Morphing your nick again, Jc (or jc, JC, jC)? Some trolls never deserve an amnesty.
#41 JB
December 30, 2007

Hans “No net global warming since 1998″ Erren said: “Apparently he doesn’t feel the need to publish detailed core logs, or he is simply hiding controversial information.”

In addition to debating whether global warming is simply self-delusion or complete fraud, the other favorite topic of discussion at Climate Audit is the “Paranoidal”.

Gavin and are withholding/hiding the data/code/Christmas cookies.

Whatever you say, Hans.
#42 pough
December 31, 2007

Am I imagining things or did JC call the US government nazis?

Gouldiechops: Up until about 30-35 years ago the link between smoking and health wasn’t even acknowledged by the US government.

JC: Not true! “Indeed in the late 1930s the Nazis launched the world’s most aggressive anti-smoking campaign with public health campaigns, bans on certain forms of advertising and restrictions on smoking in many public places.”
#43 Ian Gould
December 31, 2007

You mean there are people still reading JC’s posts?
#44 John Mashey
December 31, 2007

re: #43
Once again, Firefox, Greasemonkey+killfile works here & some other places. A Good Thing, although I still pine for good old newsreader KILLFILEs.
#45 dhogaza
December 31, 2007

Several (if not more) lawsuits in federal court have established that agencies can’t stifle an employee’s first amendment right to speak their mind. This right lay at the heart of Hansen’s grievance against Bush’s two-bit attempts to stifle him.

McIntyre’s got his work cut out for him if he thinks he has a case against Gavin Schmidt. On the other hand, the entire episode speaks worlds about McIntyre’s mindset. Not only are climate scientists engaged in fraud about the science, but NASA is engaged in a deep-cover exercise in avoiding a statute that doesn’t even apply to it, by secretly deploying Gavin in his blog role at Real Climate:

NASA has carried out an interesting manouevre that has the effect of evading the federal Data Quality Act, OMB Guidelines and NASA’s own stated policies.

Hans Erren:

There is a scientific debate going on. Unfortunately the RC guys don’t participate, never had, never will. If you really want to know the ins and outs of strip bark trees go to CA.

The train is moving, too late to hop on now.

Yeah, Hans, it’s all about science.

You’re love is as cheap as a two-penny whore’s.
#46 dhogaza
December 31, 2007

McIntyre continues his personal attacks on Gavin, in the “it’s all about the science” mode of personal behavior, of course (cough cough):

Just thinking out loud, suppose that Gavin had posted an account of the 1934 events that was critical of Hansen and contained details known only to insiders. Would Hansen have been content with Schmidt saying that he did so in his “personal capacity”? Of course not. There’s an obvious bias for underlings to flatter supervisors.

And this

But do Americans want a system where federal employees can discuss work-related matters on blogs in their “personal capacity”? Gavin is setting a precedent here. If Gavin can do this, why can’t all federal employees?

It’s true that federal agencies at times have worked hard at stifling employees who want to speak their minds about science-based issues. So much so that there’s an NGO that was created pretty much to lend support and a voice to those who wish to do so (unfortunately I forget their current name, originally it was set up by an ex-USFS employee who’d earlier won a grievance or possibly lawsuit establishing his right to speak his mind on his public time, after having been previously disciplined for having done so).

I’d love McIntyre or a proxy to make a federal case out of this. While it wouldn’t be as much fun as Dover, it would be just as educational for some of those poor self-proclaimed libertarians over at CA who so deeply misunderstand our Constitution.
#47 dhogazas
December 31, 2007

And while McIntyre, as always, is careful not to actually state his belief that NASA scientist are engaged in scientific fraud, he does allow this comment to stand (the “snip” indicates a moderator edit, what’s left unedited is telling):

#136 — Steve M. wrote: “In Gavin’s case, he’s obviously a very able and very bright person…”

If that’s true, then he knows for a fact that General Circulation Models have no skill at predicting global or regional climate; not even to one year on.

He knows for a fact that the Hockey Stick proxy for paleotemperatures was (most charitably) naive at first, and has since transgressed into active scientific fraud.

If he follows surface temperature he knows that Anthony Watts’ volunteer network has demonstrated that USHCN temperatures cannot have an uncertainty of less than plus or minus 2 Celsius, and that the uncertainty in the global surface temperature record must be at least twice that.
snip
#48 dhogaza
December 31, 2007

And, at the end of the day, McIntyre closes the thread, and says that Steven Mosher “is one of the few people who caught my nuance”. And what is this “nuance”?

And when HE is slighted on a NASA web site,
slighted with government funds, slighted by an employee passing off his activities as Private…

Apparently the “nuance” of McIntyre’s position is that Real Climate is a “NASA website”.

Oh my.

Lord preserve us (and the internet wayback machine, this thread on CA…)

And in regard to McIntyre’s allowing the claim of scientific misconduct on the part of NASA scientists to stand … not only was that particular post edited, but when McIntyre closed the thread, he said he deleted some posts entirely (and the numeric references to posts by following responses make it clear that he did so). So claims of scientific misconduct are still welcome at CA, despite endless protests on the part of certain CA participants that “this doesn’t reflect McIntyre’s personal view”.

CA, it’s all about improving the science, oh yes.
#49 Hans Erren
December 31, 2007

No need to foulmouth dhogazas, perhaps statistics of noisy data is not your speciality.
Pound the table if you run out of arguments.

Note the subtle guilt by association by tim:
Has he been hanging out with tobacco lobbyists?
No Tim he hasn’t, Steve MvIntyre has for years been trying to bring scientific data to the open. “The dog ate my homework” is not science you know.
#50 dhogaza
December 31, 2007

No need to foulmouth dhogazas, perhaps statistics of noisy data is not your speciality.

I’m afraid statistics will be of little use in analyzing the noise that passes for “the scientific revolution that will overturn Climate Science” over at CA …

You don’t need statistics to understand phrases like “has since transgressed into active scientific fraud”. Those are direct, unsubstantiated accusations which, if taken seriously, could end the careers of Mann, Schmidt, Hansen etc.

Which appears to be one of McIntyre’s goals at CA.
#51 JB
December 31, 2007

Hans says: “There is a scientific debate going on” [at Climate Audit].

That would be easy to forget, given all the implications and outright charges of scientific fraud in the comments at Climate Audit and all the implications/allegations of hiding/withholding data and code and the like.

Perhaps that was not McIntyre’s intention, but it really does seem to have degenerated into a debate among conspiracy theorists and paranoids.
#52 Thaumas
December 31, 2007

“There is a scientific debate going on”
Tell me Hans, are they still debating if the greenhouse effect breaks the second law of thermodynamics over at CA?
#53 Boris
December 31, 2007

Ooooh, there’s scientific debate at CA. Why doesn’t Steve publish something else? (No conspiracies or social science journals, please.) Even the denialist sympathizer and CA hero Edward Wegman says that blogs are an inappropriate place for this type of discussion.

What a waste of time. They have a thread on the Schwartz sensitivity paper and they don’t even mention Annan’s comment on it. What thorough auditing!
#54 dhogaza
December 31, 2007

If Dr. Schmidt wants to promote a particular conclusion as a (very knowledgeable) private citizen, he should. When he starts using NASA to do, then he needs to play by the big kid rules, even if he is right.

Real Climate is not a NASA site, and carries a disclaimer making it clear that the opinions are those of the bloggers, not their employer, dipthong.

But if you feel you have a case, and care to hire a lawyer, and sue NASA, please please please do so.
#55 dhogaza
December 31, 2007

Check out cosmo’s website for grins … spanish fly … pherlure (pherome lure?) … beauty breast cream …

All climate science, all the way!

Oh, and Koz, don’t bother trying to follow my advice regarding hiring a lawyer and filing suit, you’re not a US citizen and don’t have standing …
#56 Sue
December 31, 2007

I find the discussion here intriguing — largely because regardless of the value (or lack therein) of the citations and references, both sides show an appalling lack of sociological knowledge relevant to the question actually possed about who knew what, when, about smoking. A discussion of who published what research when, and what government agency released what report when, has little to do with what ordinary people know and when they know it.

Smoking is (and has been) a habit that is disproportionately practiced by lower and working class persons, and as one person did point out the majority of these smokers begin when they are teens. These lower and working class teens don’t read newspapers or warnings on packages, much less scientific articles or government resports on any topic (nor do they watch news on TV for that matter). They observe their grandparents and parents smoking, and smoking is an intregal part of social and cultural patterns that are difficult to disassemble.

Tnere are many ordinary people walking around this country today who do not know that smoking is potentially deadly. If you get outside the world of highly educated people, you discover that what people in this country don’t know is enormous and frightening.

[This does not mean that lawsuits by individuals against tobacco companies are warranted.]
#57 Lance
December 31, 2007

OK so now requiring open and verifiable data is a denialist obfuscation?

Oh, I forgot Gavin and his fellow climate priests are infallible. How dare the infidels ask to see the data!
#58 John Mashey
December 31, 2007

re: #57 Sue
Read Brandt’s book. In the US, smoking may now be mostly lower-class, but it certainly didn’t used to be. It is particularly noteworthy that the smoking rates for doctors have dropped rather strongly. The smoking rate also differs rather strongly by state, and while there is some correlation with income/educational levels, there is still a lot of variation, i.e., local culture and anti-smoking education matter. Utah is low at 11.1% smokers [Mormon], CA is at 15.2% [relatively fierce attention, lots of local anti-smoking rules, and at one point, some brutally-effective anti-smoking ads and commercials targeted at teenagers]. At the other end, Kentucky does 28.7%.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5542a2.htm

See table 1.
#59 z
January 1, 2008

well, let me point it still hasn’t been “proved” that cigarettes cause cancer or heart disease, just like AGW hasn’t been “proved”. or evolution. or etc. etc. etc. the kinship between denialists of any stripe is large.

secondly, whether the average guy knows or doesn’t know that cigarettes are bad for him or plutonium is bad for him is somewhat irrelevant to the question of whether manufacturers are permitted to reassure said average guy that, in fact, there really isn’t any evidence that it is bad, and all the science isn’t in, and it isn’t proved, and many notable scientists disagree, etc. especially of interest to the authorities, when it turns out the manufacturers themselves have evidence to the contrary which they are burying.
#60 jacob l
January 1, 2008

what would be the implications if steve won??
would he get to review every post before it go’s public??
just every article??

gavin’s data “model E” is available to all
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/
#61 dhogaza
January 1, 2008

OK so now requiring open and verifiable data is a denialist obfuscation?

Oh, I forgot Gavin and his fellow climate priests are infallible. How dare the infidels ask to see the data!

Careful, Lance.

You still teach courses at a university and therefore are subject to their employment policies, and depending on their funding sources, if McIntyre’s right, possibly the federal regulation he claims Gavin is violating.

If you really believe McIntyre is right, shouldn’t you STFU until you find out if you’re in violation or not, posting here?

Indeed, someone should point that out over at CA, since many of those castigating Gavin claim to be subject to similar restrictions yet (hmmm) continue to post freely …

Lance, who is your employer? I’d like to do a little audit …
#62 ChrisC
January 1, 2008

If I could (and I feel kinda dirty for saying this)…

I feel I should stick up for CA a little. Over a considerable period of time, Stevie Mc has raised some interesting points, and legitimate critiques. The fact that his site wass jumped upon by every wing nut in the universe has led to the sites downfall and with it Steve Mc. While these days the site is nothing more than a clearing house for unfounded alegations, name calling and just about every denialist talking point in the book, back in the day I found it an interesting read.

I seriously don’t know what’s gotten into him lately.

And Lance, Stevie Mc’s fantasy lawsuit has nothing to do with the aviliability or quality of data. Indeed, the data quality act never had anything to do with the availability and quality of data. Gavin Schmidt is a respectable scientist and publishes his data in complience with accepted standards. He plays by the rules and publishes in peer reviewed journals. Indeed GISS publishes most of their data freely on the web:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelE/

Think before you post next time.
#63 dhogaza
January 1, 2008

Over a considerable period of time, Stevie Mc has raised some interesting points, and legitimate critiques.

His history of making thinly-veiled insinuations that leading climate science researchers are engaged in fraud and are guilty of scientific misconduct is not simply a recent phenomena, however.
#64 Hans Erren
January 1, 2008

As a minimum Steve Mc has revealed that the IPCC is based on extremely sloppy science: grey unpublished data, wrong data, reused wrong data, omission of data that doesn’t fit the theory, truncation of data that doesn’t fit the theory, arbitrary splicing, poor understanding of statistics, wrong use of statistics, unpublished statistics, and to top that off, lame excuses to not archive original data…
#65 dhogaza
January 1, 2008

And, Hans, if this is so, why does the world ignore him?

It couldn’t be because his claims don’t hold up to scrutiny, right?

It is most certainly due to a worldwide conspiracy of scientists from a wide array of specialties ranging from physics to biology working on the causes and effects of climate change, right?

Because they’re all commie new world order certified black helicopter pilots, right?

You can place your faith in the blogosphere and “Energy and Environment” if you want. Those of us interested in science will stick to where science is done.
#66 Hans Erren
January 1, 2008

Nice rhetorical trick, dhogaza.
Lot’s of bla bla from you, but you fail address the content of my post:

As a minimum Steve Mc has revealed that the IPCC is based on extremely sloppy science: grey unpublished data, wrong data, reused wrong data, omission of data that doesn’t fit the theory, truncation of data that doesn’t fit the theory, arbitrary splicing, poor understanding of statistics, wrong use of statistics, unpublished statistics, and to top that off, lame excuses to not archive original data…
#67 dhogaza
January 1, 2008

No, Hans, he CLAIMS to have revealed all these things.

It is not a “rhetorical trick” to point out that

a. the world at large ignores him

b. this might be because his claims do not stand up to scrutiny.

If “b” is not true, perhaps you have a favorite hypothesis to put forward? The world wonders …
#68 luminous beauty
January 1, 2008

Hans,

As per your content; a pig with lipstick is still a pig.

Just keep whacking yourself in the head with that hockey stick, pal. You’ll break it yet.
#69 JB
January 1, 2008

Kooky is the only way to describe McIntyre’s implied analogy between the behavior of NASA employees and of criminal activity at Enron:

“NASA Evasion of Quality Control Procedures”
“It is a red-letter rule in business that transactions between a company and its insiders or employees must be disclosed. Some of the most egregious breaches by Enron were its attempts to avoid disclosure of writeoffs by selling worthless assets to the infamous limited partnerships organized by company insiders for equally worthless paper issued by the partnerships. Company insiders cannot evade securities laws by pretending to be be acting in a “personal capacity”.
#70 Hans Erren
January 1, 2008

B. Because Al Gore shouts louder. Most people are not interested in gore-y details. Policymakers don’t read the full IPCC report.

And dhogaza is deaf to facts that contradict his faith.

keep on shouting luminous beauty!
#71 dhogaza
January 1, 2008

Because Al Gore shouts louder.

You really think that Al Gore is the reason why the NAS, the Royal Society, and every other leading professional scientific body in the world, disagrees with McIntyre?

Hans, with all due respect, you’re crazy.
#72 dhogaza
January 1, 2008

To make myself clear, disagree with McIntyre’s thinly-veiled assertions that climate science is a fraud…
#73 Thaumas
January 1, 2008

#72 And Hans is one of the sanest contributors to CA.
#74 Lance
January 2, 2008

dhogaza,

I don’t have a link to my “personal blog” posted at the official university website. If I did I can assure you that it would be scrutinized for compliance to official university policy and all applicable state and federal laws.

I believe Steve McIntyre, IMHO, is mostly rankled by links to RealClimate being posted on official NASA websites, especially when those links are defamatory and not backed up with credible evidence. Some of these links personally attack McIntyre and McKittrick and make assertions not backed by the findings of the NAS or other reviewing bodies.

RealClimate was created as a direct response to M&M’s deconstruction of the Hockey Stick. Gavin is attempting to NASA-wash that little fiasco and if he is in violation of any federal law or policy he should be held accountable. NASA is not the private club of Gavin Schmidt and James Hansen though they often act as though it were.
#75 dhogaza
January 2, 2008

I don’t have a link to my “personal blog” posted at the official university website. If I did I can assure you that it would be scrutinized for compliance to official university policy and all applicable state and federal laws.

And what evidence do you have that Gavin, who works for a NASA-sponsored lab at a NY university, is also the webmaster for the official NASA pages on global warming? That he wrote the page in question? That he put the link there?

Hmmmm?

I believe Steve McIntyre, IMHO, is mostly rankled by links to RealClimate being posted on official NASA websites, especially when those links are defamatory and not backed up with credible evidence.

The world’s leading climate scientists have no credible evidence to support their work.

Got it.

RealClimate was created as a direct response to M&M’s discredited deconstruction of the Hockey Stick.

There, I fixed it for you.

NASA is not the private club of Gavin Schmidt and James Hansen though they often act as though it were.

You are one sick puppy if you believe they do.

It’s OK. We already know that you’re … out there.

I really hope that someone at CA has the balls to try to sue NASA on this. It’s been two years since Dover delivered us Kitzmas against the last anti-science types to go running to court.
#76 Eli Rabett
January 2, 2008

Steve Mc is a drama queen I am a Rabett.
#77 JB
January 2, 2008

Lance said: “NASA is not the private club of Gavin Schmidt and James Hansen though they often act as though it were.’

Oh, but you are wrong, Lance.

I once visited NASA, and above the door, there was a sign that said “Welcome to Club Hansen. Poor a drink on Gavin for me.”
#78 JB
January 2, 2008

Sorry, that would be “Pour a drink on Gavin for me.”
#79 Lance
January 2, 2008

Hansen acts as if he is being pilloried if he is required to follow even basic protocol in regard to press releases.

He openly insults his boss in public statements and we are to believe that he is being restrained from openly presenting his ideas?
#80 pough
January 2, 2008

He openly insults his boss in public statements and we are to believe that he is being restrained from openly presenting his ideas?

No. We are to believe that they tried to restrain him from openly presenting his ideas. I’m having a hard time understanding how that can be so difficult for you. It’s not a trick statement. It’s plain English. There no verb missing.
#81 Lance
January 2, 2008

Asking Hansen to follow protocol is hardly equivalent to attempted censorship.

Hansen claims “swift boating” and censorship and our little leporidae friend calls McIntyre a drama queen?
#82 pough
January 3, 2008

You’re forgetting (or ignoring) the George Deutsch factor in this story. Oh, by the way, congratulations on the nice new location of your goalposts!
#83 Eli Rabett
January 3, 2008

Stevie Mc reaches new heights of indigestion daily.
#84 Steve Bloom
January 3, 2008

McI’s recent derangement is a result of the increasingly obvious irrelevance of the hockey stick/MWP/LIA “debate.” This was a predictable consequence of the publication of the AR4 WG1 report, helped along by lots of more recent science. So McI searches desperately for a replacement issue, but I’m afraid the Arctic sea ice is screaming too loudly for him to be heard. In the end he’s just another libertarian who’s more concerned about his taxes being raised than with future generations, albeit a little slicker than most such (take note, ChrisC).

Regarding Gavin, he’s not an hourly employee and I very much doubt he goes home at 5:00 PM on most days. Given his obvious high productivity, I don’t see a problem if indeed he takes comp time to attend to personal matters while at work. Anybody who has a problem with his extra-curricular activities can and should take it up with his immediate supervisor. Good luck with that.

Injecting a little realpolitik into this discussion, even if there was something to McI’s complaint, the Barton/Inhofe crew are no longer in a position to do anything about it, I doubt Michael Griffin is itching for more humiliation after getting publicly reamed by Hansen for expressing doubts about the implications of global warming and, finally, it is simply too late for the lame duck White House to do aything about it even if they wanted to (noting that Hansen and Schmidt have civil service job protection). Boxer and Waxman would love it if they tried, though.
#85 dhogaza
January 3, 2008

Asking Hansen to follow protocol is hardly equivalent to attempted censorship.

You know, Lance, if you think your dishonesty is going to sway anyone here, you are simply wasting your time.

I would have to say that outright dishonesty on the part of McIntyre and his CA worshippers like you do nothing to promote the notion that there are real reasons to doubt mainstream climate science.

If y’all had shit you wouldn’t need to lie so profusely.
#86 Jeff Harvey
January 3, 2008

Steve Bloom said, “In the end he’s just another libertarian who’s more concerned about his taxes being raised than with future generations, albeit a little slicker than most such”.

Exactly. This hits the nail firmly on the head. The vast majority of the prominent sceptics aren’t interested in understanding the scientific processes underpinning global change – in actuality they detest the science and are mangling and distorting it to bolster a pre-determined worldview and political agenda. That this isn’t patently obvious is certainly partly attributable to the fact that it isn’t openly stated by the denialists; they tend to promote the idea that their political beliefs are wholly separated from their take on climate science. The second factor is that the corporate media rarely, if ever, draw the link between climate change denial and the efforts of industry to obfuscate the truth about it.

The media might write about the predicted effects of climate change, but that fact that the denial lobby is twisiting science to promote a political agenda is almost always off the media radar. This could be because, as the pundits at Media Lens have stated, the mainstream media depends on corporate advertising for much of its revenue; they are fully aware that corporate CEO’s are not going to want to read articles in papers in which they pay big bucks for advertising that conflict with their own agenda of profit maximization. There are many examples of corporations refusing to advertise in papers when articles appeared criticizing either their one of their senior staff, their products or mass consumption associated with their products. Yet even the liberal miedia in the UK avoid discussing this issue (at least until George Monbiot starting writing about it in the Guardian).
#87 JB
January 3, 2008

Arguing science with libertarians is like fighting over bananas with monkeys.

You can’t win, no matter what.
#88 Lance
January 3, 2008

Steve Bloom,

I don’t think the Arctic sea ice is screaming as much as politically motivated alarmists. Funny you didn’t mention that the Antarctic sea ice was at its historically observed maximum during the same period.

Jeff Harvey,

As usual I agree with much of what you are saying. You just neglect to mention that people on the left selectively interpret (to put it politely) the data to suit their political agenda, as Steve Bloom’s sea ice myopia indicates.
#89 Lee
January 3, 2008

Lance said:
“Funny you didn’t mention that the Antarctic sea ice was at its historically observed maximum during the same period.”

Lance, as you either do or should know, Antarctic sea ice is trending dead flat over that historical observed period, slope statistically indistinguishable from zero. In a flat trend with noise, one expect occasional maxima – and this years SH maximum was not distinguishable from normal variation due to noise. IOW, Antarctic sea ice is unchanged over time, with noise around that flat baseline, and this year was perfectly consistent with that.

In contrast, the North Hemisphere sea ice has been declining rapidly for years now, and last summer took a startling nose dive. You can’t wave that away by pointing to southern hemisphere noise,no matter how you might try.
#90 Jeff Harvey
January 3, 2008

Lance,

Can you prove that the bulk of the scientific community – those who are doing the actual research that is being distorted by lobbying groups, think tanks, and other generally conservative groups – is left wing? On the contrary, its pretty easy to establish causis belli for most in the denial lobby which is based around big business and its loathing of government (and constraints in the pursuit of private profit). They wear it on their sleeves; they see any form of government regulation as interfering in the way they do business.

Here’s a suggestion. As Stuart Pimm and I said a few years back in a commentary we wrote in the ecological journal Oikos, one of the ways to establish the truth underlying an agenda is to follow the money. Where does the big money go? Not the comparative pittance in grants and scientific funding. I mean the big bucks. While you are doing your little assignment, you might enlighten me as to why you think a coterie of corporate funded think tanks are investing millions to debunk climate change science. Do you think they are doing it in a desperate search for the truth? Or might there be a very self-centered agenda at play? The answer should be as clear as daylight, but given your track record on the subject I am not too sure your answer will be as it should.

After all, if you follow the money, you hit
#91 Lance
January 3, 2008

Lee,

The Arctic sea ice minimum observed this year was a “minimum” in a record of less than fifty years. There are historical accounts of similar events occurring over the last one hundred and fifty years, just no satellite record to compare it with, for obvious reasons.

While you dismiss the recent Antarctic sea ice maximum as being on the level of “noise” it still was a maximum and doesn’t comport well with AGW catastrophism.

Jeff Harvey,

I think you overstate the case for a right wing conspiracy being funded by the deep pockets of big carbon and understate the huge amounts of money in play for AGW related research and policy makers.

I think the political lines are drawn for ideological rather than monetary reasons. The idea of humans running amok and needing to be regulated into line appeals to the mindset of the modern eco-left while those on the right are inherently suspicious of such scenarios.

I candidly admit that I bring more skepticism to issues that can be used to limit my freedoms than those that do not. That doesn’t mean I am intransigent in the face of compelling evidence just that appeals to the “precautionary principle” based on weak physical evidence have to also be weighed in light of the value I place on free markets versus big government schemes.

I would find it refreshing if people on the left would be as candid about their motivations but rarely do I encounter progressives that will openly admit their predilections.

These relative predetermined value sets don’t make any particular observer better equipped to evaluate the scientific evidence they just bring different perspectives to the issue. Sadly they also foster much of the animosity that is displayed in the often times heated discussions that result.
#92 dhogaza
January 3, 2008

The Arctic sea ice minimum observed this year was a “minimum” in a record of less than fifty years. There are historical accounts of similar events occurring over the last one hundred and fifty years, just no satellite record to compare it with, for obvious reasons.

Actually, no, there isn’t. The fact you believe this is simply more evidence that you’re getting all your information from a handful of denialist sites.

While you dismiss the recent Antarctic sea ice maximum as being on the level of “noise” it still was a maximum

Lance, self-proclaimed physics PhD student, insists that a result which is not statistically valid is meaningful…

and doesn’t comport well with AGW catastrophism.

however it doesn’t contradict AGW predictions of what we expect to sea in Antartica in the near term, which you’re well aware of, you lying s.o.s.
#93 Thaumas
January 3, 2008

Lance, Please can you give a reference for this:
“There are historical accounts of similar events occurring over the last one hundred and fifty years”
#94 dhogaza
January 3, 2008

I would find it refreshing if people on the left would be as candid about their motivations but rarely do I encounter progressives that will openly admit their predilections.

Right-wing nuttery for “if you won’t admit to black helicopter commie new world orderism then you’re not being honest about your predilections”.

I candidly admit that I bring more skepticism to issues that can be used to limit my freedoms than those that do not.

This doesn’t explain why you *lie*, Lance.

One of my left-wing predilections is to loath liars, which leads me to loath you. Libertarians routinely lie about science, and you’re a fine specimen that supports the general observation.
#95 P. Lewis
January 3, 2008

Much as it irks me to give Lance any credibility, his assertion about the NWP has a historical basis. Amundsen navigated it. Of course, that doesn’t give any indication about ice extent in the Arctic in those years, since it does move around a bit, coming and going, depending on synoptics and currents.

See Roald Amundsen, Brief History and Wikipedia
#96 Lance
January 3, 2008

Thaumas,

That the Arctic undergoes cyclical periods of sea ice extent is not in dispute. Even a cursory review of the scientific literature will reveal this mundane fact. The question is whether the recently observed (by satellite) minimum is anything to panic about.

Many anecdotal historical accounts could be cited as evidence of previous episodes of low sea ice extent in the Arctic, but let’s stick to peer reviewed science for the moment.

In a paper that appears in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Dmitry Divine and Chad Dick (2006) of the Norwegian Polar Institute make the point that,

“a similar shrinkage of ice cover was observed in the 1920s-1930s, during the previous warm phase of the low-frequency oscillation, when any anthropogenic influence is believed to have still been negligible.”

(Divine, D.V. and C. Dick. 2006. Historical variability of sea ice edge position in the Nordic Seas, Journal of Geophysical Research, 111, 10.1029/2004JC002851)

The authors go on to say “We suppose therefore that during decades to come, as the negative phase of the thermohaline circulation evolves, the retreat of ice cover may change to an expansion.”
#97 dhogaza
January 3, 2008

Much as it irks me to give Lance any credibility, his assertion about the NWP has a historical basis. Amundsen navigated it. Of course, that doesn’t give any indication about ice extent in the Arctic in those years

That’s the point. The retreat in ice this year was huge, far beyond what’s necessary to sail the NW Passage.

Lance is one of those who would expect us to believe that climate scientists, and more specifically, experts on artic ice extent, would be unaware of Amundsen and his voyage.

Or other data of this sort.

Just like the first guy to reach the south pole and live, in addition to his artic explorations.

I’m sure Lance knows this.
#98 dhogaza
January 3, 2008

“a similar shrinkage of ice cover was observed in the 1920s-1930s, during the previous warm phase of the low-frequency oscillation, when any anthropogenic influence is believed to have still been negligible.”

published in 2006.

in other words data from at best 2005 and earlier.

2007 shrinkage was far beyond that seen two years (or even one year) earlier.

Their paper can’t possibly have addressed this far more extensive shrinkage in 2007 if it were published in 2006.

So:

1. you can’t compare to dates to see which is most recent

2. you reject the concept of statistic significance as it relates to the antartic sea ice record.
#99 dhogaza
January 3, 2008

The authors go on to say “We suppose therefore that during decades to come, as the negative phase of the thermohaline circulation evolves, the retreat of ice cover may change to an expansion.”

Speculation. Mainstream researchers claim the opposite, and they’re wrong of course because what’s happening is happening faster than they’ve predicted.

But at least they have the sign right, reduction, not increase.

Do they also claim that ice volume, estimated to have diminished by about 40% since US nuke subs started doing systematic ice thickness surveys, will also be restored?
#100 dhogaza
January 3, 2008

So, Lance, what other warming indicators do you want to “debunk”? Earlier spring arrival and later fall departure dates for migratory birds in the northern hemisphere? Glacier retreat?

I’m sure you know more than every physicist, biologist, geologist, geographer, etc on the planet.

Very sure you think you do, anyway.