Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
You've probably read about this silly little brouhaha about someone hacking an email account and getting emails from some climate scientists talking about their data. The Worldnutdaily and most of the rest of the right wing blogosphere has exploded with ridiculous claims about it, distorting those emails to prove that global warming is a fraud.
Rational people, like the folks at RealClimate, James Hrynyshyn and Nate Silver have pointed out the distortions and debunked the vastly overblown claims, but Andrew Sullivan really nails the mentality and the rhetorical games being played here:
The key to these bloggers' mentality is simply to find some tiny thing and focus all attention on that in order to persuade people that the bigger reality is untrue or irrelevant. This is not an argument; it's a technique. It's a technique to persuade people not to examine all the evidence, since the source of the evidence - secular humanist scientists - are evil suspects and against God and in favor of making your gas bill higher.You can't actually persuade people that way, of course. But you can fortify their resistance to examining all the evidence.
Absolutely accurate. It's the same technique used by creationists, of course. That's why they're still talking about Nebraska Man - one mistaken fossil identification - from nearly 100 years ago.
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That is letting the climate researchers off way too easy. It is quite clear that man made climate change is occurring and action is needed. However, the actions of these researchers set the cause back a decade or more. Science requires a full hearing of all hypotheses. These researchers were trying to hide data, destroy emails that were subject to freedom of information act inquiries, ignore peer reviewed data and have certain journal editors fired. These were despicable things that the deniers will never let go of. How are we supposed to convince a denier that he or she is wrong if the leading climate researchers are so opposed to including peer reviewed articles in reports, opposed to showing all data and not just data that suits them, opposed to complying with freedom of information acts and opposed to journal editors who disagree even slightly with them?
Posted by: Mike | November 25, 2009 9:31 AM
They're also talking about Nebraska Man because creationists use a different form of reasoning than we empiricists do. Empiricists critique the evidence they use to ensure its validity, then frame hypotheses based on the totality of the valid evidence, and test those hypotheses against any additional evidence that emerges, and against rival hypotheses. For us, the most recent scholarship is the most important.
But for creationists, and Christianists generally, it's a different story. They use theological argument, which ever since antiquity has relied not on all the evidence but rather on cherry-picked snippets of it - a verse here, half a verse there, scotch-taped together to give you Justification by Faith (Paul of Tarsus) or the Secret Rapture (John Nelson Darby) or whatever other foreordained conclusion you were seeking, totality of evidence, and even context, be damned. Any evidence that contradicts your theology is simply ignored, or dismissed. This is what creationists are doing when they pick out some isolated bit of fraud like Piltdown Man and use it to dismiss evolution. It's also what they're doing when they take some body of evolutionist, or climate-change, texts and find a single line, or phrase, that they can use, or alter, to suit their ends, and ignore the rest. Paul did the same thing repeatedly in his letters, when arguing his partisan case for setting aside Jewish Law. Furthermore, in Christianist circles, old and authoritative evidence and texts trump more recent material. So you always go back to the Masters. Paul carries more weight than Luther, and Luther more weight than Barth, and Barth more weight than whoever wrote last year. So they dismiss evolution by attacking some isolated snippet in Darwin, or some bit of misunderstood or faked evidence from a century ago, because, while from our perspective newer is better, from theirs, if you can find error a century ago, that destroys everything that's been done since.
Posted by: dricey | November 25, 2009 9:37 AM
I would expand on that. The average "conservative" today is really an authoritarian, so they put a lot of emphasis on the argument from authority. If George Bush says Abdul is a terrorist, then Abdul is a terrorist. By extension, if the authority is discredited, then whatever that person advocated is wrong. Thus if Al Gore has a big electricity bill, then global waring is a hoax. Ironically, these "conservatives" argue for a a very strong version of the social character of knowledge, enough to make the most trippy post-modernist graduate student blush.
Posted by: Theron | November 25, 2009 9:38 AM
These were despicable things that the deniers will never let go of.
No, these were things that were taken out of context (a very complex context, both scientifically and organizatinally), and LABALLED "despicable" by liars who stole emails.
How are we supposed to convince a denier that he or she is wrong if the leading climate researchers are so opposed to including peer reviewed articles in reports, opposed to showing all data and not just data that suits them, opposed to complying with freedom of information acts and opposed to journal editors who disagree even slightly with them?
And here you prove yourself part of the rank dishohesty: your allegations are not backed up even by any specific factual assertion, let alone evidence.
Just for starters: Other, more honest, commentators have already pointed out that that the FOIA requests at issue were frivolous and vexatious, dealing with informatin that was already freely available to the public, and clearly made (in ridiculous numbers) with the intent of hindering the CRU's ability to do its job.
Lying tools like Mike have also, for example, alleged that the stolen emails prove "conspiracy" to commit "felonies," again without giving any specifics or explaining why the "evidence" was taken to a blog and not to the cops.
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 25, 2009 9:44 AM
Anyone have a link to the stuff Mike's claiming, I'd like to check it out in more detail.
Posted by: Matty | November 25, 2009 9:47 AM
I am sorry to say, you seem to be parroting the "circle-the-wagons" mentality of the true believers. If you had taken the time to read through the exposed material yourself, with an open mind, and a properly skeptical attitude, you could not have written what you have.
Yes, no doubt, there are a lot of childish responses to certain phrases in these materials... the "trick" word being the most obvious example and the assumption that "hide the decline" refers to temperatures. (Does it? I don't know.) There is a lot of immature analysis surely.
But if you take the time to read through, say, the document titled Read Me Harry.txt, you will see that the data for climate is not just a disorganized mess, but the methods by which most data were arrived at are at best un-reproducible, and at worst, completely fudged in the first place, using all manner of specious statistical tricks and selective choices and assumptions.
My understanding of the matter, based upon this telling document and the rest, is, the actual amount of truly reliable data about climate may only amount to a few years worth.
However, it must be said that the programmer whose notes comprise "read me harry" seems to have tried extraordinarily hard to be conscientious in fulfilling his assignment to rescue the climate data from itself. He should be commended, whoever he is.
Posted by: Read Me Harry | November 25, 2009 9:50 AM
If you had taken the time to read through the exposed material yourself, with an open mind, and a properly skeptical attitude, you could not have written what you have.
If YOU have read the material, then by all means, show us the specific bits that prove us wrong. We're waiting...
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 25, 2009 10:17 AM
Anyone have a link to the stuff Mike's claiming, I'd like to check it out in more detail.
Ask Mike -- he's the one making the claims, so he's the one who gets to back them up.
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 25, 2009 10:20 AM
Raging bee,
Nice ad hominem attacks on me. Other than those attacks, your best defense of the researchers is that they are too busy to follow the law and provide emails and information they were required to do.
This infighting between those who agree on global warming just helps the deniers. I consider the best way to move forward would be for all to denounce those actions which were wrong. Rather we see people circling the wagons with tribal mentalities in which if a researcher believed global warming was occurring, then he or she could do no wrong.
If everyone would say to Phil Jones, You were wrong to have researchers delete emails so that they would not be subject to freedom of information requests. You were wrong to try redefine peer review to keep out articles you disagreed with.
These emails don't just impugn climate research, they cast doubt upon all scientists when the public sees how some scientists tried to manipulate the data and the peer review process.
Posted by: Mike | November 25, 2009 10:33 AM
Since the vast majority of the FOIA requests they got were deliberately frivolous and filed only for the sake of forcing them to deal with them instead of doing any work (over 50 in a 5-day span! That is absolutely insane) ...
... and the courts denied those requests ...
... in fact, it turns out these researchers were not required to provide those things! But I guess you don't have trouble with lying as long as it's lying for the right, huh?
Posted by: Michael Ralston | November 25, 2009 10:40 AM
Ed are you friggin KIDDING me? how is it that for the second time in a week, you're painting 'the right' as whatever WorldNutDaily is saying? (which btw, is ALWAYS an easily attackable position - way to go tough guy). Oh, but the 'right-wing blogosphere' agrees! Oh do they now? Look - no matter how much you want to believe it, no matter how much you think it to be true, there is a world of conservatism beyond fundamentalist christian populism. Equating 'creationism' with 'the right' is like appalling - even for a person of your caliber.
ReadMeHarry hits on some other points that I won't have to rehash.
Theron - both the Left AND some of the Right are authoritarians - but you'll find more on the Left still.
And again - just because your anointed spokespeople for 'the right' use incorrect reasoning does not mean they miss the conclusion.
Posted by: james | November 25, 2009 10:49 AM
Here are some links to actual emails and quotes
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125883405294859215.html
"In another, Phil Jones, the director of the East Anglia climate center, suggested to climate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State University that skeptics' research was unwelcome: We "will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!""
"Can you delete any emails you may have had with Kieth re AR4? Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don't have his new email address. We will be getting Casper to do likewise."
Posted by: Mike | November 25, 2009 10:51 AM
Michael Ralston,
I am curious about your claim that the FOI were deliberately frivolous. Much of the FOI requests were to get the raw climate data so that the raw data could be analyzed. These requests were not fulfilled because of confidentiality agreements from the countries providing the data. That hardly seems frivolous to me.
Posted by: Mike | November 25, 2009 11:00 AM
james wrote:
You're attacking a straw man. Not only do I not believe that all conservatives believe the same thing, I go out of my way to say the opposite - see this post from just yesterday making that very point, that merely attaching a label to someone does not tell you what they believe on every issue.
But we have to have some shortcuts in such discussions, obviously, because we can't list everyone we are responding to in a case like this. So we use broad labels like "the right wing blogosphere." You can interpret that in a reasonable manner ("this is a popular meme at the moment on many right wing blogs") or you can interpret it in an obviously unreasonable manner ("this is the unanimous opinion of every single person in the world who is conservative"). Do you really think I'm dumb enough to think that every conservative in the world is a creationist, especially since I've discussed the work of Larry Arnhart, Charles Krauthammer, John Derbyshire and other conservatives who think creationism is absurd? That might be a clue that you should opt for the more reasonable interpretation of a broad label than the obviously unreasonable one.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | November 25, 2009 11:10 AM
It's too bad, Ed - there's about a thousand "climate email trolls" wandering scienceblogs who pick up on any post about the subject and inundate the comments. After this point, very few of Ed's regular readers will be able to get a word in edgewise.
Posted by: Moderately Unbalanced Squid | November 25, 2009 11:12 AM
Mike: Ralston gave you several good reasons why the FOIA requests were considered frivolous; and you once again proved your dishonesty, and comtempt for the truth, by ignoring them.
And it seems james is REALLY on the defensive about the loony right. Guess what, james: we're "Equating 'creationism' with 'the right'" because so many people on "the right" are so desperately pandering to the creationists and other loonies; and so unwilling to say "no" to them. Why is Sarah Paloon the current face of this "world of conservatism" you speak of? Because they all invited her onto their bandwagon, starting with John McCain's handlers.
Theron - both the Left AND some of the Right are authoritarians - but you'll find more on the Left still.
Name names or admit you're full of shit.
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 25, 2009 11:16 AM
James said: world of conservatism beyond fundamentalist christian populism
Until the GOP starts running candidates from that world who will openly oppose the willfully-ignorant anti-science anti-modern-life positions of fundamentalist christian populists, Ed has his emphasis right where it should be.
Posted by: Science Avenger | November 25, 2009 11:20 AM
Raging Bee,
What were the reasons that the requests were frivolous? The only reason he cited as to why the requests were frivolous was the number of requests. That has no value in determining whether or not the request was legitimate. The requests that have been made public about why there were denied had to do with the raw data collected from the field as opposed to the analyzed results. What makes that a frivolous request?
Again it seems like you are unable to discuss this topic without circling the wagons and hurling ad hominem attacks.
Posted by: Mike | November 25, 2009 11:22 AM
"In another, Phil Jones, the director of the East Anglia climate center, suggested to climate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State University that skeptics' research was unwelcome: We "will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!""
And WHY did the CRU folks consider "skeptics'" research unwelcome? Probably because they all knew that such "research" was BOGUS, and had been exposed as such, both in and out of scientific circles, for many years already. There's nothing wrong with filtering out obvious crap to save time and trouble. The denialists are merely reusing the creationist strategy of pretending to be openminded, and calling the rest of us "closed-minded" when we kick their obvious lies to the curb.
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 25, 2009 11:26 AM
Mike,
If the release of these emails sets the cause back a decade, its because people like you are parroting the AGW denialist lines about them. I've gone through a few of the emails and there is nothing there to cast doubt on the worldwide scientific body of work supporting the AGW hypothesis. But they are intended to mislead to this conclusion by casting ordinary discussions about data analysis and preperation as something nefarious to an audience mostly ignorant of the norm for such discussions (as are most all of us outside our fields).
Sure, individual scientists occasionally wander outside legal and ethical bounds, just as individuals in other walks of life do. That's the best one could hope to prove from these emails, and it's hardly news. To treat them as having more significance, without, as Ragee Bee rightly notes, citing specific statements by specific people, AND making the logical connection between that and the AGW hypothesis, is to be part of the problem, not the solution.
Posted by: Science Avenger | November 25, 2009 11:30 AM
What were the reasons that the requests were frivolous?
You were given the reasons, in plain English, and now you're pretending you can't see any. That's pretty obvious denialism.
The only reason he cited as to why the requests were frivolous was the number of requests. That has no value in determining whether or not the request was legitimate.
Yes, actually, it does: fifty requests in five days is clearly the FOIA equivalent of a DDoS attack: a deliberate attempt to sabotage an organization by forcing it to comply with more requests than it can handle.
He also cited the fact that a judge had denied the requests; and you ignored it. Don't you get tired of proving you're a liar over and over again on the same issue?
And why the Hell should we trust the word of people who STEAL EMAILS and then LIE about them? When are you denialists going to stop committing crimes and start doing science?
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 25, 2009 11:35 AM
Mike said:The only reason he cited as to why the requests were frivolous was the number of requests. That has no value in determining whether or not the request was legitimate.
The hell it doesn't. Ever worked in an industry where you've got to handle data requests Mike? It doesn't sound like it. It's not as if the data requested is always sitting right there, compiled and in the form requested, ready to go with a flick of the wrist. Far more often, the data request bears no resemblence in those regards to the data you have (and why should it, the agency requesting it doesn't care what your workload is like), which makes it just one more project. Let someone make all the data requests they like and they could shut down virtually any data-driven business. Wake up and smell the coffee. The AGW deniers are trying to gum up the works any way they can. Bogging down scientists with data requests is just one of many techniques.
Again it seems like you are unable to discuss this topic without circling the wagons and hurling ad hominem attacks.
This one's right out of the denialist playbook - harping on the namecalling you rightfully provoke, mislabelling it as "ad hominem", rather than dealing with the substance of the arguments against you. You can go read virtually any Panda's Thumb discussion and see evolution deniers do exactly the same thing. Birds of a feather...
Posted by: Science Avenger | November 25, 2009 11:43 AM
If the AGW hypothesis is a hoax, or in any way flawed, then no one should have to hack any emails to prove it. The denialists could do their own research, gether their own data, and write up their own hypotheses, using all the data available to them, without having to break any laws.
The fact that they're now resorting to THEFT, and pretending it proves anything significant, pretty much proves they have no case. Their shrillness escalates as their credibility declines.
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 25, 2009 11:46 AM
Science Avenger,
When scientists wander outside the legal and ethical bounds, science in general is best served with a strong rebuke of such lapses by the scientific field. That is the exact opposite of what is happening now. Case in point, Raging Bee. Anyone who thinks these researchers did anything wrong must be a denailist according to him.
The process of science and peer review has such strong value not just because it advances science, but because it engenders trust by people outside of that field. When scientists do or say things to make people trust peer review less, it hurts all of science.
Posted by: Mike | November 25, 2009 11:47 AM
Posted by: James Hanley | November 25, 2009 11:49 AM
What? Hard-core ostrich-like conservatives are conducting a smear campaign to get their way? The devil you say!
Does anyone actually find it rational to claim that the only thing in life that lacks any negative consequences is burning fossil fuels? Do we actually give more weight to arguments aimed at destroying the character of a person than arguments aimed at honestly disproving the person's conclusions?
Posted by: jws | November 25, 2009 11:52 AM
"When scientists wander outside the legal and ethical bounds," as Mike so vaguely alleges, then the evidence of such misconduct should be taken to law-enforcement or an ethics board, not to the media or the blogsphere. Have you taken your evidence to law-enforcement, Mike? If so, what was their response? If not, WHY NOT?
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 25, 2009 11:53 AM
Raging Bee,
Yet again you prove you are incapable of making a substance based comment and instead resort to even more ad hominem attacks.
You claim I am a denialist even though I said that man made global climate change is real and that we must take action on it. I am dissapointed in these researchers because they have set the cause back.
So a reason a person is guilty is simply because a judge says so? No. The reason a person is guilty is because of the evidence presented such as DNA evidence, fingerprints, etc. Just as like the reason the FOI requests are frivilous is not just because a judge says so. That is not a reason, that is a finding. I did not ignore the statement that a judge found them to be frivolous, I just recognized that is not the reason that the requests were frivolous.
Posted by: Mike | November 25, 2009 11:54 AM
Bee, doesn't that phrase bother you in the slightest?
Not when it comes in an informal internal email, with no evidence that anyone actually attempted to do such a thing. And certainly not when it ALLEGEDLY comes in an email that was STOLEN by people who are well known for fabrication and misrepresentation. Can we even be sure that the people who STOLE these emails are scrupulous enough not to tamper with them?
Besides, people hare have talked freely and flippantly about killing right-wingers in all sorts of interesting ways; and no one makes an issue of it because it's obviously just humor born of momentary frustration.
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 25, 2009 11:58 AM
I think some people are missing the point of this post. The question is not whether these particular researchers at a university most of us had never heard of a week ago did anything wrong. They may well have, and like James Hanley I think some of the things said are troubling. The point of this post is that to blow that up into the nail in the coffin of global warming is not a serious argument, it's a typical rhetorical technique, a cognitive shortcut.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | November 25, 2009 11:58 AM
I did not ignore the statement that a judge found them to be frivolous, I just recognized that is not the reason that the requests were frivolous.
So now you're refusing to recognize the legitimacy of decisions that don't fit your prejudices? Thanks for clearing that up.
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 25, 2009 12:01 PM
Science Avenger,
I work as a scientist in a field subject to FOI requests. I readily admit that I have not had such a request. I also have no doubt that such requests would be time consuming. However, I consider freedom of information to be of great importance for transparency. If too many requests come in at once, stagger when they are fulfilled, but don't just write them off as being frivolous.
I disagree as to your second point. A person uses ad hominem attacks when he or she knows that there is no substance to support the argument. This is why it makes so much sense that Raging Bee has had to resort to so many ad hominem attacks.
Posted by: Mike | November 25, 2009 12:02 PM
Mike: answer my questions in post #27, if you can.
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 25, 2009 12:10 PM
Just a quick insert unrelated to the ongoing debate of the thread:
Nebraska Man may have been a mistake, but it wasn't a mistake by a scientist. The original author, if I remember correctly, stated that the bone fragments either came from a hominid or a pig. The press went nuts with the hominid side of the equation, while the scientists involved did what scientists are supposed to do: More investigation. Turned out they were right, it was a pig. The press has a long history of running wild long before it's justified.
So, creationists are not only harping on one mistake over all of the available evidence, they're harping on a press mistake instead of a real science claim.
Scientists, of course, are human, and make lots of mistakes. Leave it to the creationists to fail to find any of them while harping on a mistake that isn't.
Posted by: Michael Suttkus, II | November 25, 2009 12:24 PM
Re Michael Suttkus
As Enrico Fermi once said, a scientist who has never been wrong is a scientist who has never accomplished anything. Even the most important scientists who have ever lived were occasionally wrong.
1. Issac Newton was wrong in his claim that a particulate theory of light could explain diffraction and interference.
2. Charles Darwin was wrong in asserting that inheritance was an analog process when, in fact, it turns out that it is a digital process.
3. Albert Einstein was wrong in claiming that black holes would never form.
Posted by: SLC | November 25, 2009 12:43 PM
Mike: the people who STOLE those emails and passed them on to others who were not entitled to them, are people of exceedingly poor character. They are, in fact, criminals. And when you trumpet this information, you reveal yourself to be a "man" of similarly poor character yourself. So get used to the character attacks: they're relevant, they're based on undisputed fact, and they're not going to stop. If you don't like it, take a good look in a mirror and CHANGE YOUR CHARACTER -- we won't try to stop you.
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 25, 2009 12:48 PM
To take comfort that Climategate does not prove the climate sceptics correct is I think to miss the point, which is the apparent degrading and partial breakdown at the East Anglia CRU of the normal rules, culture and institutional checks and balances that are needed for science to work. Is this just a problem at this one institution? We need to find out but I suspect it's reflective of a more general problem.
With climate change we need to be especially on guard because of the large political and economic forces and incentives that have been set in motion. In my opinion, just as one would expect, we're seeing resulting pressures to tone down the normal institutional protections of science, the result of which is a tendency to overstate what we know and to understate the still vast areas of ignorance. I'm frequently amazed at the dogmatism with which some people working on this issue insist that "X or Y is science", by which they mean it is an unassailable certainty, betraying considerable intellectual naivety about the nature of science, which is only a collection of hypotheses that are somewhat more or less well verified or probable (in a bayesian sense). In this regard I would classify climate science as a relatively "soft" science, perhaps halfway on a continuum with, say, sociology on one end and physics on the other.
Sadly, I'm afraid the dogmatism and overstatement of the climate enthusiasts will hurt rather than help the cause of sensible policy action on climate change, and could in some circumstances severely damage it. Suppose, for example, we have a temporary 10 or 20 year global cooling only after which does the long run warming trend resume, probably with greatly intensified ferocity. I think that's quite within the bounds of possibility given how little we understand the system. Given the extreme way in which the issue has been posed by the enthusiasts, it will then be pretty hard to backtrack and say " well, umm, this too was within the error margins of our - you know - really quite primitive climate models". One can readily foresee a loss of credibility and a breakdown of political resolve for action, with tragic results.
Posted by: rr | November 25, 2009 12:49 PM
Sadly, I'm afraid the dogmatism and overstatement of the climate enthusiasts will hurt rather than help the cause of sensible policy action on climate change, and could in some circumstances severely damage it.
Yeah, saying theft and lying are bad really hurts a guy's credibility.
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 25, 2009 12:58 PM
Is this just a problem at this one institution? We need to find out but I suspect it's reflective of a more general problem.
You "suspect" this based on what evidence, exactly?
And what about the widespread support for criminal theft and hacking the denialists are now showing? Do you suspect that's reflective of a more general problem?
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 25, 2009 1:01 PM
Mike, an ad hominem is an attack on the person not the argument. An insult is an attack on the person despite the argument. Many here think you are an idiot, not because your argument is sound (it isn't) but because your reasoning is specious, illogical, and is well, idiotic. As Ed pointed out, the focus on one thing, one small event while ignoring the greater context is what is at fault. You perpetuate the methodology with your incessant non sequiturs and inability to form a coherent argument. Expect insults to be thrown your way, you deserve them and seemingly enjoy them as you consistently attempt attract them.
Posted by: Onkel Bob | November 25, 2009 1:01 PM
Raging Bee,
an off-topic note, but what happened to those emails is not "THEFT." It's at worst unauthorized copying. "Theft" implies that the legal owner of the property is no longer able to obtain benefits from that property. If you're going to call what's happened to those emails "THEFT," then you might as well say that everyone who has used a VCR or DVR to time shift a program and then fast forward through the commercials is a thief as well. IMO, you would be just as wrong as Jack Valenti was when he made that very assertion. It might be a fun rhetorical device, but it's not going to convince anyone who doesn't already agree with you.
I don't want to derail this conversation any more than this note has already done, so respond if you like. I won't continue here. I'm sure that will convince you that you've won any argument with me.
Posted by: Shawn Smith | November 25, 2009 1:03 PM
Shawn: I call it "theft" for the same reason as we commonly use the phrase "identity theft."
"Theft" implies that the legal owner of the property is no longer able to obtain benefits from that property.
Well, the owner of a credit card can still benefit from it after an identity thief gets the number...at least until the thief maxes it out. Does that mean we can't call it "identity theft" until all the credit cards are maxed out?
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 25, 2009 1:07 PM
Shawn, break into a DoD computer and copy classified material. (In reality you can't because the DoD will keep classified material off internet connected machines, but for the sake of argument let's pretend, shall we...)
Do you think that despite the fact that you haven't "stolen" the material, that you will be treated any less harshly then someone who made off with the paper version? There might even be a special circumstance where penalties are added because of the nature of the theft.
Espionage, whether by governments or private parties, is still unethical - and usually spies who are captured are punished. Your foray into semantics and false analogies truly bolstered your argument.
Posted by: Onkel Bob | November 25, 2009 1:17 PM
Bee,
If the emails have been tampered with, and don't actually say that, then all is well with these scientists. If the emails actually say this, then it doesn't matter that they were stolen. The Pentagon Papers were stolen, too, and that didn't diminish their contents in any way.
I'm not saying that this "disproves" global warming, or any such type of claim (that is, I agree with Ed that the "meaning" of these emails has been blown out of proportion). But I can't cavalierly dismiss scientists talking about rigging the peer-review process. That's serious shit in the research fields, even in an email, because it suggests a willingness to commit scientific fraud.
You do give the impression of someone who is so angry about illegitimate criticism of your side that you can't even recognize legitimate criticism. Apparently your side is somehow wholly immune to critique--no critical statements about them at all can ever be allowed. And that's bullshit. If I ever heard one of my colleagues saying something like that, even just in our Friday afternoon sessions at the bar, I'd read him the riot act.
If you want to be seen as having integrity, then you just damn well have to have that integrity, top to bottom. It can't be a matter of convenience.
Posted by: James Hanley | November 25, 2009 1:21 PM
If the emails actually say this, then it doesn't matter that they were stolen.
The hell it doesn't -- the emails were informal communications, not much different from everyday office conversations, and the thieves took them completely out of the context in which they were written, thus significantly distorting or misrepresenting what they actually meant. (Try to remember EVERYTHING you ever said and heard in informal conversations with your coworkers: chances are, there's LOTS of perfectly harmless remarks that would be really embarrassing if taken out of context and broadcast to people who don't understand the situation. This is one of many resasons why we uphold a strong concept of confidentiality. Why are you suddenly so eager to throw that out the window?)
The Pentagon Papers were stolen, too, and that didn't diminish their contents in any way.
The contents of the Pentagon Papers were important because a) they were NOT taken out of context, and b) they coincided with an observed pattern of Pentagon actions. Oh, and yes, that was criminal theft too, and the perpetrators were -- in theory at least -- just as accountable for their criminal actions as any other thief.
(BTW, nice attempt to give a '60s hippie rebel polish to a bunch of liars and con-artists.)
That's serious shit in the research fields, even in an email, because it suggests a willingness to commit scientific fraud.
"Willingness to commit scientific fraud" is "suggested" by actual attempts or conspiracy to commit scientific fraud. All I see is ONE email, cavalierly mentioning an egregious act, with no actual plan, suggestions, or directive to do anything out of bounds. Was there even a reply to the offhand comment? A "conspiracy" of one, with no specific actions even alleged? Take that sort of thing seriously, and you'll be chasing brown air for the rest of your life.
If I ever heard one of my colleagues saying something like that, even just in our Friday afternoon sessions at the bar, I'd read him the riot act.
Would you have him fired, or call the cops? Probably not, because you know it's just one comment, and doesn't even prove intent, let alone criminal action.
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 25, 2009 1:41 PM
Jesus Christ, Raging Bee. Where did I ever say I would try to have him fired or call the cops? I'm just saying he was wrong and absolutely deserves to be sharply criticized for it. You've lost all perspective on this if you think I'm advocating calling the cops. Now if he ever actually did make any efforts to actually change peer-review processes, then he should indeed be fired. But since that's not been alleged, I'm not advocating his firing, either. Can you please stick to what I actually say, not some alternate-universe version of what I say? Likewise, the claim that I'm trying to give someone a positive hippy spin is beyond stupid. I was just using the example that came to mind. But it's never beyond you to distort what someone says to make them look bad, is it?
The fact is that whether or not the emails were stolen is an issue that's entirely irrelevant to their content. What matters is the context of their content, and that content and its context was created pre-theft and are not changed--neither made worse nor better--by the theft. The theft stands alone as a separate issue and does not mitigate any bad action that was revealed by the theft. Sure, I admit the revelation of all my emails would provide some embarrassment (I wasn't serious about beating that colleague with a sack of Russet potatoes!), but I can guaran-dam-tee you that you'd never find one in which I advocated fucking with the legitimacy of the scientific process. If the email was just a joke, then it's just a joke (albeit an ill-considered one). But if it was anything more than just a joke, it really is a problem. And given the way it's reported to read, it really doesn't have the feel of a joke. Perhaps a sort of hopeless wish, but it's not really acceptable for a researcher to even harbor that wish.
You don't live in the world academics and researchers do, so perhaps you don't recognize the seriousness of this. There are certain things that you just don't ever say. Period. And this guy (allegedly) said one of them. Hell, think of how much shit Behe took for trying to redefine science. He'll never live that down, nor should he. And even hinting that perhaps we should redefine peer-review so it excludes things I don't like--that by definition are peer-review worthy, or such a change wouldn't be "necessary"--is something this guy should have a hard time living down. I doubt you'll find many scholars willing to cavalierly dismiss this guy's statement as wholly irrelevant. But as noted, you don't live in our particular world, so maybe it's just not so evident to you why it matters.
Posted by: James Hanley | November 25, 2009 2:04 PM
I completely agree with James Hanley assuming the emails are legit. There are at least three issues here that should not get mixed up. 1) The right-wing blogs going apoplectic 2) Someone stole emails and 3) the content of the emails, independent of how they were obtained.
The content of the emails, at face value, is troubling. And as Hanley stated, one can certainly argue there are some serious questions about professional conduct that merit further investigation without denying AGW. Just because the researchers may be on the side of the angels, they don’t get a free pass. One thing is for sure: those emails look nothing like the emails I exchange with other nuclear physicists.
Posted by: heddle | November 25, 2009 2:15 PM
"It's the same technique used by creationists, of course. That's why they're still talking about Nebraska Man - one mistaken fossil identification - from nearly 100 years ago."
I laughed yesterday when Instapundit published a comment from a reader that “The more I read about Climategate, the more the term ‘Piltdown Man’ pops into my head.” I don't think either Reynolds or his reader appreciated the irony of that comment.
Posted by: Screechy Monkey | November 25, 2009 2:18 PM
Michael Suttkus wrote:
There's a kernel of truth here, but it's not accurate. HF Osborn, the scientist who published the find of the tooth in Nature, said that he thought it belonged to an anthropoid ape, but he made clear that this was a very tentative identification that would require more evidence to confirm. He then set up a research project to find further evidence at the same site and they found that the tooth belonged to an extinct peccary (related to the pig). So yes, his identification was an error but it was a very routine error and it was only offered tentatively in the first place. It is an example of how science operates at its best.
The media did, in fact, distort what Osborn said. A British magazine took that very tentative identification and had an artist create a picture of a hominid, complete with wife and kids. Osborn himself criticized the image as fanciful and unsupported by the little evidence they had.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | November 25, 2009 2:23 PM
heddle,
That's twice in two days we've agreed. I hear the Devil just bought himself an overcoat.
Posted by: James Hanley | November 25, 2009 2:29 PM
And if those "too many" requests all come from one person? Because that's what happened. Steve McIntyre filed over fifty requests in a five-day period. (I forget the exact number - I believe it was either 56 or 58.)
That is prima facie evidence of frivolity. There is simply no way he could have used all the information he asked for, even aside from the fact that significant portions of the requested information were already publicly available, and much (most, maybe even all?) of the rest didn't belong the CRU at all, and they might not have even had it anymore - someone else's raw data that they processed in a documented fashion and then discarded the raw data because all the CRU cared about was the processed data.
Did the CRU scientists do anything unethical? Maybe, but none of the emails that the denialists claim are evidence are anything I would call "strong" - the strongest "evidence" seems to be the use of the word 'trick' when referring to a specific technique, and they seem to be collectively afraid of going to law enforcement. One wonders why.
Posted by: Michael Ralston | November 25, 2009 2:34 PM
James Hanley,
Either that or one or both of us needs to adjust his meds.
Posted by: heddle | November 25, 2009 2:43 PM
I agree that the content of the emails is troubling, although we probably disagree on the reasons. I had no idea that McIntyre was a dick to the level he's painted in the emails. I knew he was a genius at using tiny bits of truth pasted together to present a grand (and plausably deniable) lie, but he's more aggressive at wasting time than I thought.
I'm not sure where you can find the emails now, but I highly recommend getting them and reading them, if you want to feel like getting a real picture of what's in them. The things I learned were that Jones and Santer are very good at snark, getting bogged down in frivolous FOIA requests can be a grind, John Cristy has made a career out of being wrong, and apparently people who knowingly perpetrate a fraud will never write emails as though they are aware of it.
That last one was very surprising. It's almost as though they feel confident in their science and think that McIntyre is a vexatious boob whose main purpose is to derail real science for ideological reasons. How likely is that? I mean what's more realistic? That a guy working outside of climate science and inside the energy industry knows climate science better than climate scientists and has no axe to grind, or that thousands of nerds worldwide are clueless in their area of expertise and / or are knowingly perpetrating fraud in the hopes of using environmental causes to weed grant money (they'd get anyways) out of right wing governments?
Posted by: pough | November 25, 2009 3:00 PM
what does the harshness of punishment for a given crime have to do with what manner of crime was committed?
you can get executed for killing somebody; execution is a very harsh punishment; that does not mean murder is theft.
Posted by: Nomen Nescio | November 25, 2009 3:04 PM
The business about the use of the word "trick" maybe the least of it. The wretched CRU drudge "Harry" opens up more disturbing possibilities in his cri-de-coeur HARRY_READ_ME.txt. I don't have time to get into it, but McCardle has a post with the essential links and the key point: " the CRU's main computer model may be, to put it bluntly, complete rubbish."
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/11/the_real_problem_with_the_clim.php
Reading Harry reminded of my days running 900 equation macroeconometric models that only yielded reasonable looking "scenarios" after lots of tweaking and stuffing in of "add factors." But at least our models - add factors and all - were available for public scrutiny. People could evaluate where our results were coming from. That doesn't seem to be the case with the CRU model. Poor Harry spent 3 years trying to and completely failing to reproduce earlier results.
Posted by: rr | November 25, 2009 3:09 PM
Do you guys that approve of the theft (or maybe illegal access or breaking and entering and pre-emptive salvage are more appropriate), really know what was going on in the office on that day? I don't and we probably never will.
Who ever pointed it out is right: There are three things going on here...
1) Confusion of the issue: Does anything in any of the data removed from the servers change the data or analysis in peer-reviewed research?
2) Attack on scientists: Make no mistake about it, this was an attack on legitimate science. And those that support this are treading a very dangerous line. This is no different than animal rights activists breaking into a lab and 'freeing' monkeys. So who's next? What will hackers do now? Will they secretly upload data to make their position look more legitimite? Will the just delete data and damage equipment that could ruin decades of work?
3) Does it all really matter? As I understand it, all of the data was available on-line for anyone at any time. The programming and such are (and properly are) the property of the developers and/or the university depending on the contracts. If someone wants to do their own analysis, then let them write their own programs. And that's were all this ends up, where is the peer-reviewed article that re-analysizes this?
I am much more frightened by the implications of 2 than any changes in climate change modeling on this event.
Posted by: OgreMkV | November 25, 2009 3:09 PM
Ed is right, this is not the final nail in the coffin of AGW.
However, so far I have seen analysis of the FOIA.zip file that calls into question the level of statistical confidence the CRU scientists have been claiming (in short, the % error potentially exceeds the reported delta T). Also, what I have seen of the software code they are using is disturbing at best (I write and use custom CFD software). The code is sloppy and poorly documented and involves an awful lot of adjustments that appear to make the results better fit the data.
Aside from that, the tenor of the emails does make me wonder how much of the science being done at the CRU is being driven by politics.
Posted by: Madrocketscientist | November 25, 2009 3:11 PM
I've skimmed some of the online links, but none of the ones I've found were complete.
However, I don't see anything horribly damaging that isn't being completely blown out of proportion by GW deniers.
I'm an engineer for a large military aircraft manufacturer and I've gotten similar emails to some of those. i.e. emails from my boss asking me to remove certain key words from emails, or to rephrase something differently to *ducks* frame it in a specific manner.
If any of it was blatantly dishonest, I would have called the ethics office, but it was just a matter of knowing what the customer would latch on to.
My cursory reading of this material indicates that they were similar. I'm sure if our customer audited all of our internal emails, they'd probably find plenty of things to be unhappy about (some of which would be the comments that get made about them...), but that doesn't mean that there is any fraud or other illegal activity going on.
Posted by: FastLane | November 25, 2009 3:15 PM
I'll try straw men for $100, Alex.
Posted by: James Hanley | November 25, 2009 3:18 PM
I should also add that I don't know (as of yet) whether the code I have seen is the code currently in use, or something older that is not current. I hope it's old.
Also, re: the file -
The 63 MB file that is out there was named FOIA.zip, and I've seen speculation that it was a file prepared by the CRU in response to a FOI request. The legal department denied the request, and a few days later this shows up? Either a hacker has really good timing and found it during a casual romp through a server, or it was released into the wild by a CRU employee.
Posted by: Madrocketscientist | November 25, 2009 3:19 PM
It's a technique to persuade people not to examine all the evidence...
You mean like withholding the raw data that you purport shows that the human race is in peril? and are using to ask people to rework the whole global economy so that the human race can be saved?
Posted by: Juice | November 25, 2009 3:36 PM
For those looking for the emails, do a bittorrent search for
hadley cru foi2009.zip
Posted by: Juice | November 25, 2009 3:44 PM
Point 1: I'm a left wing liberal. Let's head that little ad-hom off at the pass.
Point 2: The sound-bite denial game is being played far more more heavily by the UEA/CRU gang than by the "denialist". As the emails reveal, the communication strategy throughout has been "keep it short; keep it unsubstantive; deny everything". I strongly encourage you to do the heavy lifting, and read the archive yourself whether this material is shocking or not. It is deeply, chillingly disturbing, in a way that a sound-bite cannot do justice to.
Isn't that more relevant to the Creationist comparison? Whether you are willing to examine the issue for yourself, rather than beleiving what you're supposed to?
Point 3: That the shocking part of the email is the "trick" is a misrepresentation.
It's about a "trick" that Phil Jones (author of the email) explicitly denied using, on the public record, specifically with reference to the Nature article in the email; and generally about all temperature proxy records. But most especially about those of Mike Mann, author of the "Al Gore" graph, who -- as it turns out -- invented the "trick".
Point 4: Whether it was "stolen", or released by a whistleblower is unclear at this point. The UEA would have you beleive that it was stolen. and edited in some arbitrary way by a russian hacker. But internal evidence strongly suggests that the compilation was actually assembled by an FOIA officer inside the University of East Anglia. UK law protects whistleblowers, so at this point, it has not been established that an illegal act occurred.
Point 5: The issue of motive cuts both ways. These guys are top of their field, publishing in premier journals, drawing in millions of dollars in grant funding. They have plenty of cold hard reasons to be less than scrupulously honest. This isn't the first time an article in Nature has turned out to be fraudulently produced; and it won't be the last.
Posted by: edrowland | November 25, 2009 3:55 PM
Man, the concern trolling in this thread is great. I can get most kinds of troll on /b/, but you have to go to a serious site for the really good concern trolls.
Posted by: user@example.com | November 25, 2009 4:00 PM
One of my favorite files that no one is talking about is RulesOfTheGame.PDF. It's a little pamphlet that explains to those who would communicate about globalclimatewarmingchange how they should properly use fear and and celebrities to push the message.
When you use fear don't do it without agency. IOW, don't scare people unless you can also tell them what to do about it, otherwise people will be apathetic and not scared.
And never treat people as if they were rational. There is no 'rational man.' Evidence disproves this theory.
Posted by: Juice | November 25, 2009 4:06 PM
Damn, I post a comment and half the Internet turns to molasses. Sorry, folks, my bad...
You've lost all perspective on this if you think I'm advocating calling the cops.
Read the post again: I explicitly suggested you would NOT, repeat NOT, fire the guy or call the cops, because one offhand remark is not firing or arrest material. You're the one "losing perspective" here, not me.
If the email was just a joke, then it's just a joke (albeit an ill-considered one). But if it was anything more than just a joke, it really is a problem.
The most important word here is "if." We have no evidence that this is anything more than an offhand remark in an informal communication. As I said before, I haven't even seen a reply to the comment. Was there one?
Perhaps a sort of hopeless wish, but it's not really acceptable for a researcher to even harbor that wish.
What, researchers are supposed to be superhuman and never harbor incorrect wishes? Have you never expressed an incorrect wish to a close friend, relative, or colleague?
You don't live in the world academics and researchers do, so perhaps you don't recognize the seriousness of this.
I live in a world where people talk to each other, sometimes with their guard up, sometimes not. And I've heard things said (and, yes, said things myself) that anyone familiar with the current situation would know are harmless and forgettable, but which, if taken out of context, or repeated to someone not intended to hear it, could easily be made to sound incredibly silly or worse. We all say things like this, both orally and in emails and twitters, when we're sure we're speaking only to trustworthy people who will understand the context and not blab it to others indiscriminately.
My girlfriend is a social worker, and, from what I gather, a competent and consciensious one at least. But guess what -- it's a stressful and exasperating job, and she often has to express some VERY hostile and unprofessional feelings to someone; which she does, both to me, and to other colleagues who understand why even the most mature social worker would feel the way she does. Furthermore, she is entitled to this outlet, and entitled to the discretion of others in not repeating her remarks to just anyone else. This is the issue here: the emails in question were informal internal communications, and the organization, and its employees, are entitled to a certain amount of privacy, which the denialist thieves violated with no legal authority, which then resulted in gross misunderstandings and misrepresentations of what was said and what it meant. In short, this theft is WRONG, both legally and morally, and no agenda can justify it. It was done for the purpose of disinformation, not information.
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 25, 2009 4:27 PM
But internal evidence strongly suggests that the compilation was actually assembled by an FOIA officer inside the University of East Anglia.
Why would an "FOIA officer" shoot the emails he'd gathered out to the Internet, and not to his "FOIA office" or whatever legal authority had placed him within the organization?
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 25, 2009 4:31 PM
No, there isn't. There aren't THAT many incidents of outright fraud at that level of science--and of those, the vast majority have been caught fairly quickly by other top flight scientists.
Posted by: gwangung | November 25, 2009 4:47 PM
Raging Bee,
You brought up the issue of calling cops, not me, and your purpose for doing so was...? That's a dishonest rhetorical technique of its own. I think I was being quite clear all along that what he was doing was academically illegitimate. No more, no less. Just because it's not illegal and policeworthy does not make it a legitimate action.
And I'll repeat the question I asked OgreMKV. Who here has defended theft? Did I? Please stop with the red herrings.
As to harboring "wishes," I can honestly say that, no, I have never harbored the wish to distort the scientific or peer-review process to suit my own ends. I have harbored secret wishes to beat the shit out of certain academics (including certain anonymous ones in the peer review process!), just as one of these emails expresses a wish to beat up Patrick Michaels. I don't find that email problematic, even though it--like my similar wishes--is clearly hostile and somewhat less than professional.
But secret wishes to rig the peer-review system? No. Absolutely not. Again, you're arguing from an outsider's perspective, and it's clear that you just don't understand the reality of academic standards. You may not like that reality, but it exists outside of your subjective feelings about it.
Now, if you want to discuss this more, please leave aside all red herrings about police and about defending theft, etc. I am focusing on one thing, and one thing only: whether it is acceptable for a researcher to say, "We need to keep their work out, even if it means changing the peer review process." All other issues aside, it is simply not acceptable for a researcher to make such a statement.
Posted by: James Hanley | November 25, 2009 4:55 PM
If the peer review process is letting poorly supported junk science articles into what had been a reputable journal, then I can see this having merit. If Answers in Genisis suddenly started getting their stuff published (assuming it was of the quality we've seen from them in the past) in a reputable biology journal I can see myself saying nearly the very same thing.
Posted by: Abby Normal | November 25, 2009 5:17 PM
Peer review is not magic. Some peers are not sufficiently expert and make mistakes. Some peers even have agendas. Wanting your manuscript to only be reviewed by competent peers is not at all inconsistent with being a competent scientist. Wanting incompetent journals to fold is not inconsistent either.
No one has published anything that gives a hint that the fundamental global warming mechanism, that CO2 in the atmosphere reduced infrared emissions and will result in compensatory heating of the Earth’s surface is wrong.
Arrhenius published on that over 100 years ago. He was right then, and no one has produced any data or theory to suggest that he was wrong.
The GW deniers are simply generating fear and doubt. The details of AGW are complex, the fundamentals are not. The details are important in figuring out the detailed time line of when the different ice sheets will melt; when does Greenland melt and add 7 meters to sea level? When does the West Antarctic ice sheet melt and add another 7 meters to seal level? When does the East Antarctic Ice sheet melt and add 50 meters? These are important questions. But these are details, whether 65 meters is added to sea level in 100 years, or 1000 years, future generations will find a world with sea level 65 meters higher a world that is more difficult to live in.
CO2 in the atmosphere, right now, is higher than it has ever been in over 10 million years. If reasonable projections hold, then in this century, CO2 will reach levels in the atmosphere that last occurred when there were dinosaurs. There were no ice sheets then. Ice sheets are unstable and will melt when CO2 levels get that high.
Where is the data or analysis to refute that? There isn’t any. The AGW deniers don’t have any. They are focusing on minutia and trickery to trick people into delaying serious action against global warming.
Posted by: daedalus2u | November 25, 2009 5:25 PM
Abby Normal #70,
I don't get it. AIG "research" isn't published in peer-reviewed journals because it can't make it through the process. Peer-review works, at least 99% of the time. Articles challenging AGW, if they are as bad as AIG articles, will get rejected. But if they make it through the process, then they deserve to be published. You don't change a process that works reliably. It smacks of gaming the system.
Posted by: heddle | November 25, 2009 5:39 PM
Skeptic: Have you heard about the climate scandal?
Me: Oh you mean how the denialists illegally hacked into email archives and stole thousands of emails? Yeah. I heard about that.
Posted by: MarkusR | November 25, 2009 6:05 PM
Which, of course, is precisely the background to the comment that James finds so objectionable. One of the editors of Climate Research let in papers so bad three of the other editors resigned in protest.
Posted by: MartinM | November 25, 2009 6:43 PM
Ditto what heddle said. Indeed if peer review was letting junk science through, then there would be justification for taking a hard look at the peer review process of that particular journal in order to bring it back up to normal peer-review standards. There wouldn't be justification for revising the normal standards.
If AIG started getting articles published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, for example, would you expect to see evolutionary biologists writing that, "we need to reconsider the peer review process," or would you expect to seem them writing, "WTF happend to JTB?" (Of course I'm assuming there's no possibility that AIG actually started doing real research. ;)).
And in addition to this, I have read that the same CRU folks allegedly--and I emphasize allegedly--selectively withheld original data from other academics who requested it, and made some facially dubious claims about their records of the original data. Frankly I don't know who to believe here, so I don't know that they actually did this. But the allegations are serious enough to deserve an investigation, because what is alleged is simply not acceptable behavior.
Look, all, I'm not a global warming denier. I lack the necessary basic knowledge to make any claims about AGW. But I do know that if CRU researchers actually did commit some kind of misconduct that their actions do not falsify the scientific community's claims about AGW. For an analogy, if some group of paleontologists started falsifying findings, pretending to have discovered some astounding new transitional forms, it wouldn't falsify evolutionary theory.
So let me reiterate, that I am not using this issue as a stalking horse for an anti-AGW stance. The issue here is not AGW itself, it's what these guys at CRU did, or did not, do.
Posted by: James Hanley | November 25, 2009 6:53 PM
Which, in fact, was precisely the response of the CRU scientists.
Nobody was talking about redefining peer-review as a whole. That comment was an off-the-cuff reference to the problem of deciding what literature should be included in the IPCC reports. All they were saying was that they weren't going to include a crap paper just because a biased editor gave it a pass.
Posted by: MartinM | November 25, 2009 7:02 PM
A quick skim through that article reveals nothing untoward, AFAICT. Hughes, McIntyre and McKitrick weren't given the data because they're all shameless hacks. As to the data records, there's nothing particularly problematic about processing data to suit your needs then tossing the original, especially when the original data is still held by the source that gave it to you in the first place.
Posted by: MartinM | November 25, 2009 7:14 PM
James and Heddle, has MartinM satisfactorily answered your concerns? (BTW, you two need to stop agreeing. It's creeping me out!)
Posted by: Abby Normal | November 25, 2009 7:40 PM
They would not, obviously.
But what FOIA officer is going to leave an archive like this parked on a publicly facing server?
It speaks to either (1) a deliberate leak by an insider; or (2) possibly a disclosure through incompetence. A plausible theory: that the archive was posted on the site for download by someone else; and the person who placed it on the site didn't realize that directory listings were turned (they were, and still are), and that the directory wasn't secure from access by anyone.
In either case, "hack" is a mischaracterization.
Posted by: edrowland | November 25, 2009 8:15 PM
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
Heheheheee, and you liberal dipshits wonder why NO ONE with a brain believes ANYTHING that comes out of your mouths. Even when you're caught in an obvious lie all you can do is deny, deny, deny, and then get your spin doctors in full out damage control mode to try and claim that what is printed is really what it means. How pathetic!
Combine this revelation with the recent data released by Dr. Richard Lindzen from the ERBS satellite, and the argument put forth from Lord Christopher Monckton that man made climate change is nothing more than a socialist money grab, it's clearly time for you chicken littles to take your ball and go home. No one is going to play with you cheats any more.
NAH NAH NAH NA, NAH NAH NAH NA, HEY HEY HEY GOODBYE!!
Posted by: Berbel | November 25, 2009 8:26 PM
I see Berbel is still a bit bitter from having his ass handed to him in the other thread.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | November 25, 2009 8:39 PM
NOPE, not bitter,
JUSTIFIED!!!
I do really love how the fat-headed crank Mr. Brayton tries to some how turn this all back creationists...
"Absolutely accurate. It's the same technique used by creationists, of course. That's why they're still talking about Nebraska Man - one mistaken fossil identification - from nearly 100 years ago."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!.... heeheeheeheeheee!...
ahhhhh... AHH... heeheeheehee!
LOSER!!!!!
Oh, I wish that I could stop laughing at this jack ass because my face is starting to hurt...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!
Posted by: Berbel | November 25, 2009 8:57 PM
Using Berbel's logic @ 80 to consider Christianity; it appears all I have to do falsify all its dogma is:
Find a handful of Christians who might have behaved badly.
Find one scientist who can't find any evidence of a divine Christ or God for that matter. Hmmm, which one do we ask?
Find some guy with "Lord" in front of his name to claim that Christianity is all a hoax to fleece people from their money (Tony Blair's dad Leo, a famous non-theist who served in the House of Lords will do).
And presto - Christians now have to "take their ball and go home", they are "dipshits" "without a brain" and "no one will play with them anymore".
Man, that was easy, thanks for the tip Berbel.
Posted by: Michael Heath | November 25, 2009 9:01 PM
Just go back to sucking Ed's dick Mr. Heath, he needs all the comfort he can get right now.
By the way Mr. Brayton... Just how do you like to eat your crow? I'll be happy to prepare it for you to suit your taste.
Posted by: Berbel | November 25, 2009 9:07 PM
"NOPE, not bitter,
JUSTIFIED!!!"
Cool story, bro.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | November 25, 2009 9:15 PM
edrowland: "It's about a "trick" that Phil Jones (author of the email) explicitly denied using, on the public record, specifically with reference to the Nature article in the email..."
Do you have a cite or some other backup for this claim? Unless I'm misunderstanding you or them, everything I've read from climate scientists and other knowledgable commenters (at RealClimate and elsewhere) says the exact opposite: that this is a non-revelation because the "trick" had been published openly in Nature years before and everyone knew about it and used it. And a non-issue because it's a perfectly legitimate "trick."
Posted by: MPW | November 25, 2009 10:03 PM
Berbel the Barbarian is on a tear! It's good that he's taking a break from his passive aggressiveness. It would be better if it wasn't a psychotic break.
Blowboy:
Just a small caution. When you fuck with people like me it is to laugh. When you fuck with Ed--and that's the only tool in your kit--you can expect a timeout.
Posted by: democommie | November 25, 2009 10:10 PM
I don't know what's funnier, that Berbel clearly didn't even read Ed's post, or that he probably thinks that this ridiculous constructed "gotcha" somehow validates creationism wholesale.
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | November 25, 2009 10:14 PM
Berbel is history here. He has nothing of substance to add to any conversation.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | November 25, 2009 10:17 PM
Give it up MPW, the jig is up. You need to find some other "man made" reason to try and take our money to support some socialist agenda. Not only doesn't the science support your claim anymore, but it's evident to all that you falsified your precious data and deliberately attempted to silence the truth from being told! I'm sorry that the federal funding for your "research" might be cut off, but perhaps you can now research real meteorological phenomenon like tornadoes that could truely be beneficial to society.
Posted by: Berbel | November 25, 2009 10:22 PM
but what happened to those emails is not "THEFT." It's at worst unauthorized copying. "Theft" implies that the legal owner of the property is no longer able to obtain benefits from that property. If you're going to call what's happened to those emails "THEFT," then you might as well say that everyone who has used a VCR or DVR to time shift a program and then fast forward through the commercials is a thief as well
It wasn't a regular, but there you go.
If, as edrowland put forth, this was found on a public server, then this may or may not qualify as theft. If...
And no one has answered my question of "Does this change any of the conclusion of human influenced global warming?
Posted by: OgreMkV | November 25, 2009 10:23 PM
Burrinhisbutt says:
"but perhaps you can now research real meteorological phenomenon like tornadoes that could truely be beneficial to society."
Well, that's a whole different way of looking at the plus side of "windpower".
Posted by: democommie | November 25, 2009 10:41 PM
Berbel is the Dunning-Kruger Effect in action.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | November 25, 2009 10:45 PM
OgreMkV "And no one has answered my question of 'Does this change any of the conclusion of human influenced global warming?'"
Yes. If global warming was real, in personal emails no scientists would talk like actual people who live outside of ivory towers and, therefore, their correspondence would contain no dissent, no variance, nothing petty, no lingo and, further, no discussion whatsover. It would be like Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, but with underweight eggheads instead of commie cabbageheads. Note also that if they were to agree completely on all details, that would prove that there was a conspiracy and, ergo, would also prove that global warming was false.
Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a check waiting for me at the offices of Consol Coal Group. In addition, there's one at the Discovery Institute for another matter that, like the one from Big Coal, is completely unrelated to the subject of this page, no matter what it happens to be. And before I forget, Teach the Conrotservy*!
*(aside: "What do you mean I'm not getting paid, Mr Chapman? If you wanted me to say 'controversy', you should've spellchecked the fax before you sent it to me. Don't hang up on me! Hello? Hello?!" *Grumble* They'd never have treated Charles F. Kettering like this...)
Posted by: Modusoperandi | November 25, 2009 11:06 PM
Thank you, Berbel, for showing us all, once again, the intellectual and moral stature of the AGW-denialist crowd.
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 26, 2009 12:14 AM
And no one has answered my question of "Does this change any of the conclusion of human influenced global warming?
Short Answer, Not Really
Longer Answer, it does call into question the methodology and professionalism of the handful of researchers in question. There may be shoddy work involved, there may be confirmation bias in the work, there may other instances of bad science or behavior, but just as Hwang Woo-Suk did not herald the end of cloning science, this will not stab AGW in the heart.
I would hope that other researchers, who have based their work in part on the work of those associated with this incident, pay attention to all of this and double check their results. I would also hope that other climate scientists see this and remember the words of Thomas Kuhn
"One of the strongest, if still unwritten, rules of scientific life is the prohibition of appeals to heads of state or to the populace at large in matters scientific."
Stick to the Science, let others worry about policy.
Posted by: MadRocketScientist | November 26, 2009 1:08 AM
The record clearly shows otherwise. Briffa's data was only recently released after a senior journal finally insisted on proper archiving of data, after almost 10 years. The emails document various strategies used to NOT provide the requested data. This posting provides a fascinating illustration of the problem, by lining up actual correspondence on an FOIA request against internal emails. The emails document deliberate attempts to evade the request. http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/willis-vs-the-cru-a-history-of-foi-evasion/
"Felony" is an American term; the British term is "criminal offense". Deleting emails subject to an FOIA request is a criminal offense. email 1212063122.txt provides evidence of conspiracy (no quotes) to commit a criminal offense, even if you try to make the specious argument that the emails may not have actually been deleted.
1212063122.txt
Phil Jones wrote:
Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. He's not in at the moment - minor family crisis.
Posted by: edrowland | November 26, 2009 1:24 AM
Ironic that the topic of the post is Rhetorical Technique vs. Reality.
Rhetorical technique (such as it is): "Lying tools like Mike".
Reality: 1212063122.txt: Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
Posted by: edrowland | November 26, 2009 1:27 AM
That's right, they deleted all their emails on a topic, except the one that told them to delete the emails. Man, those are some stupid scientists there.
Got any context? Can you explain why nobody has gone to the police about it if it's such blatant evidence?
Posted by: Michael Ralston | November 26, 2009 2:26 AM
I've actually spent the last few days reading various climate blogs in an attempt to understand the context of this whole issue, so I have to say that I'm slightly disappointed to see people who I respect saying things that clearly reveal that they haven't done the same.
That's understandable, of course, given that there isn't time to educate yourself about each and every issue, but I would advise those people to at least spend a few hours at Real Climate where Gavin and others have answered hundreds, if not thousands, of questions in the comment sections.
I am now satisfied that all of the emails that have been making the pseudo-skeptics and denialists froth at the mouth have satisfactory, if not always entirely ethical, explanations. One or two are ethically troubling, but as raging bee has been persistent in saying, how many of us would not be embarrassed if our informal conversations were released for all to see, and crucially, without any of the context attached?
For example, I am certain that most of us would not wish that a selection of our comments from years of interacting with people on scienceblogs were suddenly, and crucially stripped of all meaningful context (the kind of people and questions that we were responding to, the flow of the conversation, etc), handed over to our work colleagues, and perhaps even people who we knew held a grudge against us, for whatever reason.
And it's important to remember that the written word is far easier to take out of context, due to the fact that it strips all of the usual communicative clues that often reveal our real meaning: the familiarity with the people that we are interacting with (i.e. if we are in a playful mood, often outrageous things can be said, and the person that we are interacting with understands that we are not being serious), and even more importantly, all body language, which can reveal an individuals real meaning, is lost.
I am not suggesting that there is nothing that is even in the slightest bit troubling in the emails, but I can certainly imagine saying that I would be determined to prevent a creationist from publishing in peer-review, if — and this is crucial — I knew that the people that were facilitating it were not being honest in doing so. After all, several people resigned from the particular publication in question in protest, and the remark was about including the paper (which was apparently awful) in the IPCC report, if I am not mistaken.
Posted by: Damian | November 26, 2009 5:26 AM
Edrowland = concern troll.
Posted by: democommie | November 26, 2009 7:21 AM
It's hard to examine the evidence, when people like Phil Jones write in response to requests for that evidence: "We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?""
Posted by: William Wallace | November 26, 2009 10:29 AM
Phil Jones' point is fairly clear to those of us that aren't intellectually lazy — i.e. we have bothered to attempt to understand what is going on, rather than getting our information from known liars.
What he is talking about is his reluctance to cooperate with people who he knows only too well have no interest in doing anything other than using his work dishonestly. I too would take offense at having to deal with people that I know will dishonestly misrepresent my life's work in pursuit of their ideological goals.
For example, something like 98% of the climate model data is freely available to the public, and has been for years, and the other 2% belongs to commercial interests who allow the scientists to use it on the understanding that they won't release it, so that it can be sold.
So, you tell me why people who haven't even bothered to do any science with the 98% of data continue to harass the scientists for the other 2% that they know they cannot release (because it isn't theirs to release)? And why haven't these "seekers of truth" done anything useful with the mountains of data that is freely available to them, already?
Once you understand the answers to those questions, William, my opinion of your intellectual honesty might well improve.
Posted by: Damian | November 26, 2009 11:22 AM
"Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?" We all know exactly what the answer is to that question. And that's what makes it shocking. Because science requires transparency.
The deeper level of "shocking" which isn't immediately apparent, is that the result do not replicate with the publicly available data. I've tried it. You can't accuse me of intellectual laziness. There was a controversy. I was curious. So I downloaded the GHCN datasets, spent a couple of weekends writing code to process it, grid it, and plot it, to see what the controversy was really about. Besides becoming intimately aware with what the problems in the datasets are (thin, intermittent, with alarming discontinuities in the 90s right where things get interesting), I was also surprised to find that I wasn't able to replicate the reuslts with public data.
So "more data" really does seem like an appropriate request: what stations did you use, how did you process them, where do your results differ from mine. All valid questions.
Posted by: edrowland | November 26, 2009 5:12 PM
Go ahead and publish your results, then. I'm sure everyone will be fascinated.
Posted by: MartinM | November 26, 2009 6:32 PM
MartinM wrote:
Sure. The HadCRU global warming estimates seem to be overstated by about 100% (i.e. the actual results of gridding and averaging the public GHCN data (with GHCN adjustments), produces about 1/2 the value of HadCRU values. (Actually a well known result).
My personal discovery At least .15 degrees of the HadCRU error seems to be attributable to a peculiar choice of gridding algorithm that overweights Arctic and Antarctic temperatures (this from the recently released HadCRU code, without the comments that were released last week). The HadCRU code grids on a Mercator projection, and then de-weights cells by surface area in order to produce a global average. The more reasonable approach would be to grid on a Lambert projection, in which case, deweighting is not required, because grid cells are equal area. The emphasis occurs in the HadCru method because high-arctic and antarctic stations are exceeding rare, and have effect over huge cells.
Confidence intervals claimed by HadCRU are clearly incorrect. The gridding algorithm alone accounts for more error than HadCRU claims for global error. A simple test: rotate the polar coordinate system used for Lambert gridding so that the pole of the coordinate system sits over the equator. The result: a .12 degree reduction in the global average temperature. Conclusion: even a Lambert-prjection grid overstates the influence of polar stations.
These seems like a fairly obvious statistical test for a processing algorithm this complicated. That it apparently wasn't done confirms impressions from published material that the HadCRU guys really weren't very good at statistics. (Confirmed now, in the emails, where it turns out that the error metrics were pretty much pulled out of a hat).
Those are my personal discoveries. However, I was able to confirm to my own satisfaction that a number of other well known deficiencies in GHCN (and by extension HadCRU, which allegedly uses 98% of the same data) are in fact serious. The most troubling is the sparsity of reliable long-term temperature records. Stations in the southern hemisphere provide entirely inadequate coverage, South America and Africa are amost entirely devoid of usable temperature records. Particularly troubling because zonal comparions seem to indicate that northern and southern hemisphere temperature trends go in opposite directions.
Station records for both of these regions seem to have serious problems. The Russian stations are intermittent, and seem to have serious quality problems. The Canadian stations are marred by a huge drop-out of stations in the early 90's due to buget cutbacks at Environment Canada. (Canadian stations are also "pre-adjusted" by Environment Canada in current GHCN datasets).
Also significant: the difference between "adjusted" and non-adjusted GCHN records exceeds the total estimated global warming signal, raising the distinct possibility that we are suffering from global adjustment rather than global warming. I haven't had time to dig into this, but there's definitely something odd going on.
My guess: surface temperature records should be equal-weighted based on lattitude, rather than grid surface erea, to give better estimates of actual global warming.
Anyway. The results of my personal investigation made me change my mind about the likelihood of whether global warming trends are real or manufactured. Not a bad result for a couple of weekends of intellectually honest hard work.
If you'd care to supply grant money, I'd be happy to look into it further. :-)
Posted by: edrowland | November 26, 2009 7:50 PM
Concern Troll Edrowland:
I don't think what you published is "results". It seems to be your opinion of what your unpublished "results" imply. I think, me being a non-sciency sorta guy, that "results" would include the totality of the methodology, computations and the products derived thereby.
Posted by: democommie | November 26, 2009 10:40 PM
Semi-literate democommie:
I don't think that word means what you think it means. Go look it up.
I'm not expression concern. I'm telling you you're an idiot.
Posted by: edrowland | November 27, 2009 12:54 AM
edrowland:
I am delighted that you claim to have the intellectual curiosity to actually get off your backside and do something, but you must surely understand that what you have said in this thread is, as of this moment, at least, utterly useless, and frankly, unbelievable?
Oh, I'm sure that believe what you are saying, but then, the internet is positively brimming with people who believe that they have shown the entire edifice of evolutionary biology to have been a hoax, or that a perpetual motion machine is actually a material reality. As of yet, you are no different to every other crackpot or snake oil salesman that claims to have overturned long established scientific findings. But all of that can change, as I will explain below.
For all I know, you could well be making it all up, obviously, so unless you do publish those "results" — and I have no idea why you believe that requires a grant? — you are just another voice in the denialosphere bragging about nothing in particular.
So, unless you attempt to get those results published; that is, unless you actually write up your findings and at least offer them to publications; I have no other reason to believe that what you are saying is true. After all, I can go to the various peer-reviewed publications, right this minute, and read hundreds, if not thousands, of papers that establish quite clearly that AGW is happening, and the models, while flawed in many ways, are consistent with all other findings.
And let us entertain for a moment the notion that the pseudo-skeptics are correct, and that — as it is with all other crackpots and creationists and reality deniers — they really are barred from publishing in reputable journals, that still doesn't get you off the hook. You can still write up you results, which you can link to in this very thread, and then offer your paper — in whatever form — to the people at Real Climate, or to any other climate scientist that has a history of, at the very least, taking the time to look in to the claims of the "opposition".
And I will promise you this. I have absolutely nothing to either gain or lose from all of this, as far as I am currently aware (who knows if that might change). Frankly, my life hasn't changed one iota due to all of the talk about climate change, except that I now have to recycle much of my weekly rubbish, which requires me to place different materials in different colored boxes, so it cannot be said that I have anything other than a laypersons interest in the science and future of the planet.
So, here's the deal. You write up your findings in to a form that you believe might be of interest to anyone that is simply attempting to understand what is happening to our planet. Link to it here, offer it to publications, and attempt to show it to some of the people that will be able to assess its merits, properly. If, as I'm sure you will claim, nobody will want to touch it, as it really does show what you claim to be able to show, I will do everything within my power to publicize your findings, and to show up the climate scientists for what you clearly believe they are.
Of course, should you choose not to accept, well, there really will only be one conclusion, won't there? I will take any further attempts (such as claiming that you need a grant to write up a paper, which is nonsense) to weasel out of this challenge as prima facie evidence that you are just another member of the denialosphere, and that you, in fact, have no idea what you are talking about and cannot be trusted. The challenge is simple and it is clear. Get to work. If, as you claim, you are already in a position of being able to show that those models do not show what they claim to show, you should take no longer than a few weeks to write that up in to a form that clearly exposes those claims for what they are.
I wish you luck.
Posted by: Damian | November 27, 2009 5:28 AM
Concern Troll Edrowland:
"Semi-literate democommie:
I don't think that word means what you think it means. Go look it up.
I'm not expression concern. I'm telling you you're an idiot.
Posted by: edrowland | November 27, 2009 12:54 AM"
I used about 40 words in my last comment; you need to be a bit more specific. Is this the same sort of keen analysis you applied to the figures that you don't want to show to anybody.
I'm not calling you an idiot. I'm calling you a liar.
Posted by: democommie | November 27, 2009 6:06 AM
demicommie:
Ah. That's pretty much what I thought. Then you need to go look up the word "concern troll". I don't think it means what you think it means.
Posted by: edrowland | November 27, 2009 10:20 AM
Please please please read the "harry read me" file. Yes they perverted the peer review process, yes they dodged foi requests and probably destroyed material subject to foi, but the real truth is this......... the data is worthless.. just read the file, we will be years recovering from this. It's not time to attack the sceptics #as they should now be called# It's time to demand the real numbers
Posted by: get a clue | November 28, 2009 10:12 PM
"get a clue:" if you've read the file you mention, and if you know it contains evidence to prove your (suspiciously vague and unspecific) allegations, then you should be quoting the relevant bits, not just telling us to read the file. Or, better yet, you should be taking your evidence straight to the appropriate law-enforcement authorities. Why are you not doing so?
We know that you know that we know that you're bluffing.
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 28, 2009 10:41 PM
Raging Bee: I guess you are used to being spoon fed? The funny part is I believed these clowns. The only question is how dependent GISS ect. were/are on cru data.......... If "harry read me" is authentic the data is worthless. You don't have to believe a bluff, just look at the cards yourself.
Posted by: get a clue | November 28, 2009 11:09 PM
RAGING BEE SHUT UP AND OPEN YOUR DAMN EYES TO REALITY
Posted by: JUDGEDREDD | November 28, 2009 11:38 PM
Here's one place to get some highlights; the actual file itself is available for dowloads in many locations. I suggest you utilize this new tool called a search engine in order to locate http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:u-uVU9tlUhsJ:www.prisonplanet.com/climategate-hide-the-decline-%E2%80%93-codified.html+climategate+site:prisonplanet.com&cd=13&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
Posted by: get a clue | November 28, 2009 11:39 PM
Raging Bee: I guess you are used to being spoon fed?
RAGING BEE SHUT UP AND OPEN YOUR DAMN EYES TO REALITY
I make a standard and perfectly reasonable request for specific citations, and you respond with insults? This shows the anti-science mentality in a "nut" "shell."
And referring to a wingnut site like Prison Planet? Priceless. Not to mention brainless...
Posted by: Raging Bee | November 29, 2009 12:43 AM
Edrowland:
I'm perfectly clear on what a concern troll is, you're an exemplar of the breed.
Posted by: democommie | November 29, 2009 9:44 AM
I'm a bit late with this. I've been following what's called "Climategate" (and should be called "CRUgate") on other blogs. Also, I've been busy in RL.
Mike wrote: "If everyone would say to Phil Jones, You were wrong to have researchers delete emails so that they would not be subject to freedom of information requests. You were wrong to try redefine peer review to keep out articles you disagreed with."
Which assumes: a) that was Dr. Jones' actual motive; b) that the e-mails really were deleted; and c) that the articles he disagreed with did deserve inclusion. I have no assurance that a) and b) are true; and if the articles are the two scientific papers I think they are, they should have been rejected although they were not.
"These emails don't just impugn climate research, they cast doubt upon all scientists when the public sees how some scientists tried to manipulate the data and the peer review process."
Which outcome, I have a feeling, is exactly what you hope for. Let us both wait for the conclusion of the independent review before we pass judgement.
Posted by: Chris Winter | December 3, 2009 7:45 PM
Juice wrote: "You mean like withholding the raw data that you purport shows that the human race is in peril? and are using to ask people to rework the whole global economy so that the human race can be saved?"
It sure is unfortunate that the only climate science research in the world is being done by that corrupt bunch at East Anglia CRU... ;-)
Posted by: Chris Winter | December 3, 2009 7:53 PM
Edrowland wrote: "The record clearly shows otherwise. Briffa's data was only recently released after a senior journal finally insisted on proper archiving of data, after almost 10 years."
Everything I've read says that these data (the "raw data" whose loss is much lamented by CRUgate protesters) came from sources outside CRU. So why is there the claimed lack of opportunity to review it?
Posted by: Chris Winter | December 3, 2009 7:57 PM
Chris Winters:
Now you've given them reasonable questions to ponder they'll have to go back and mumble amongst themselves for a bit.
Posted by: democommie | December 3, 2009 10:38 PM
The Harry file - comments
A very frustrated programmer yes. Poor bugger.
But hey they managed to produce a world temperature series with a 95% confidence limit using
databases that are in a hopeless state with no uniform data integrity that nobody gives a hoot about.
FROM HARRY-
This still meant an awful lot of encounters with naughty Master stations, when really I suspect
nobody else gives a hoot about. So with a somewhat cynical shrug, I added the nuclear option -
to match every WMO possible, and turn the rest into new stations (er, CLIMAT excepted). In other
words, what CRU usually do. It will allow bad databases to pass unnoticed, and good databases to
become bad, but I really don't think people care enough to fix 'em, and it's the main reason the
project is nearly a year late.
I am seriously close to giving up, again. The history of this is so complex that I can't get far enough
into it before by head hurts and I have to stop. Each parameter has a tortuous history of manual and
semi-automated interventions that I simply cannot just go back to early versions and run the update prog.
I could be throwing away all kinds of corrections - to lat/lons, to WMOs (yes!), and more.
OH FUCK THIS. It's Sunday evening, I've worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done I'm
hitting yet another problem that's based on the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform
data integrity, it's just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they're found.
Posted by: Will | December 5, 2009 1:32 AM
What's the optimal temperature of the planet?
Posted by: WhatIsTheOptimalTemperatureOfThePlanet | January 3, 2010 10:12 PM