Ni sa bula!

I thought it was hilarious that this hoax was exsposed. I hope the very first person to go to prison for this extortion is Al Gore. I hope [snip two parts vulgarity and one part idiocy]

And the method of getting to Fiji and return was . . .

Coby:

Welcome back.

Another Wall of Shame idea: This blog attracts one-time hit-and-run raiders (like TS here) who will of course never attempt to justify their blustering declarations like . . .this hoax was exsposed[sic].

Start making a list of guys like that?

Skip

"I guess the Greenland ice sheet will be well refrozen by now, and the sea levels have stopped rising.".
Coby - that is a poor attempt at dismissing this matter. I think the tone of RealClimate's take on this is actually quite revealing. I also suggest you read George Monbiot's admission that this is in fact a big blow and that Prof. Phil Jones should resign:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/nov/23/global-wa…

Skip, the problem with that is that these guys typically change their handles all the time. My view is that the best response is none and let the comment speak for itself. It is a long time since I gave any thought to that approach, so maybe things have changed...

The point is of course a true one. Whether or not there is a conspiracy by people to hide, or collaborate on certain misinformation, nature is unconcerned. If indeed the planet is warming, which of course it is, than it is not relevant whether scientists agreed on the report or not. That said, it is a major disappointment, and as a scientist it may very well mean thousands of reminders from non scientists that scientists are no better than politicians. I always hold up the scientific method as being an honest way to probe reality. When the privilege to do that is abused, it hurts us all.

that scientists are no better than politicians

Yes, it shows that scientists are human - they are passionate about their work and aren't afraid to admit, in what they thought was private correspondence, what they really think of those who misrepresent their findings. It also reveals the level of confirmation bias, shadow projection, correspondent inferences, and apophenia endemic in the denialosphere -- insinuating cover-ups and ill-intent from quotes taken out of context. But this is to be expected as we approach COP15 where the proposed solutions imply a loss of control over the freedom to pollute by the denialists. Lack of control has been shown to increase pareidolia and hence raises the tendency to see conspiracies where none exist. It is no surprise that the stolen CRU emails are showing up on forums where conspiracy theories about new world order and global government are being discussed.

Hello Skip,

Seeing as how you are the resident expert on narratives i was wondering if you could give us an insight into Prof Jones thinking in light of the climategate emails?

For example maybe you could attempt to explain why someone like Jones would aggressively fight FOI requests to the point of deleting data rather than releasing it?

I would have thought this would present a golden opportunity to silence the skeptical scientists once and for all?

Also what are thoughts on "hiding the decline"

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=154&filename=942777075.t…

Any thoughts on what this means?

Here is Trenberth discussing the apparent lack of warming, stating that there must be something wrong with the data.

http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1048&filename=1255352257…

Now my question here is what would make an educated scientist like this beleive so much in a theory that he now questions the data rather than question the theory?

I look forward to reading your narratives on these people Skip.

Crakar24

PS a slight name change but never the less it is i Crakar, if anyone is interested in the name change i would be more than happy to explain.

Hi crakar,

The phrase "hide the decline" is not refering to a decline in global temperatures that is inconvenient and so must be hidden, it is referring to a decline in the tree ring proxy of the most recent decades' temperature trend which is in direct contradiction to the actual temperatures and so must be wrong, so must be hidden (trying to intuit their logic here).

This is called the "divergence problem" and is a subject of active research. Growth rings are known to be good indicators (all else equal) of temperature and seem to preform very well for past temperatures but the proxy fails in the late 20th century. Temperatures didi go up, but the proxy starts to diverge. No one knows why.

Do any of your sceptic venues tell you that?

Hi Coby,

I tried to write the post without attracting too many tomatoes (how did i go?)

I dont visit many skeptic venues i try to avoid them normally. I was just asking what peoples thoughts might be, actually i read it in one of the so called hacked emails and it comes with no context so i treated it with a bit of suspicion. It would be easy to hack the emails and then plant only a few to give a false impression so we must be careful of course.

Run out of time for now see you later Coby.

First of all,

Welcome home, mate!

The Crak Attack is back!

No resident expert here, and I'll concede what some deniers have aptly pointed out about some of those emails: A few do seem to show some climate experts at their worst. It is no more profound than when I proposed a public pillory for people, for example, who repeat a long-debunked skeptical point about . . . what's a good example . . .I don't know . . . residence time of CO2?? But I should be slaughtering the fatted calf for you, not rubbing salt in an old wound.

Narratives? No doubt. If you think people are wrong and promoting a destructive interpretation of the scientific evidence then it is easy to see how one could justify fighting by the rules of the enemy by going after the kneecaps, downplaying evidentiary findings which complicate the consensus, and so forth. If you think AGW is at some level, a real threat worth addressing, then strategically you worry about anything that could weaken people's commitment to addressing it. Its the same slippery slope by which my country found itself rationalizing torture in the past several years.

My further non-expert assessment: Scientists are clumsy at this. I have always argued that the legitimate considerations which would cause anyone, including me, to constantly question the consensus should be openly embraced and debated. By trying to turn the climate debate into a Moncktonian battle of cheap shots and half-truths climate scientists are playing on enemy turf.

An analogy would be my nation's conduct during WW2, in which "Jap Bastards" were outrageously demonized in popular media. It was nasty and shitty tactics but for the right war.

Skip

I would not go that far Skip, i was just interested in what people thought about the climategate emails. Thanks for responding although i really did not understand what you were saying (barring the obvious cheap shots).

I would like to expand on my original post if i may,

Pachauri becomes a denier of scientific corruption occuring right under his nose:

Rajendra Pachauri defended the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the wake of apparent suggestions in emails between climate scientists at the University of East Anglia that they had prevented work they did not agree with from being included in the panelâs fourth assessment report, which was published in 2007....

âThe processes in the IPCC are so robust, so inclusive, that even if an author or two has a particular bias it is completely unlikely that bias will find its way into the IPCC report,â he said....

Pachauri was responding to one email from 2004 in which Professor Phil Jones, the head of the climatic research unit at UEA, said of two papers he regarded as flawed: âI canât see either ⦠being in the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. Kevin [Trenberth] and I will keep them out somehow â even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!â

Pachauri said it was not clear whether the wording of the emails reflected the scientistsâ intended actions, but said: âI really think people should be discreet ⦠in this day and age anything you write, even privately, could become public and to put anything down in writing is, to say the least, indiscreet...â

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/29/ipcc-climate-change-l…

So when Pachauri reads IPCC scientists saying theyâll âkeep ... outâ sceptical papers from, the IPCC, he thinks thatâs unclear? Just âindiscreetâ wording?

I like this one

Hi Tom
How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where
energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not
close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is
happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as
we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!
Kevin

From: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1052&filename=1255523796…

So in summary we have scientists actively blocking FOI requests and threatening to delete data (actually they all ready have deleted a lot of the raw temp data), we have scientists manipulating the peer review process so as to stop certain studies being published and being considered by the IPCC and we have comments as per above were the scientists admit to having a very little understanding of the atmospheric process and preferring to "beleive" in their theory rather than the empirical data.

This is a scandal but so much a scientific one but a political one.

we have scientists manipulating the peer review process so as to stop certain studies being published

The papers referred to are McKitrick & Michaels 2004, and Kalbnay & Cai 2003. Both were cited and discussed in the relevant IPCC report. Phil's going to need more than lame jokes if he wants to manipulate the peer review system. Incidently, the emails document McIntyre's very real obstruction of Rutherford et al (2005). If Steve were a scientist, his attempts to obstruct the publication of research would reflect badly on scientists.

0/1.

So in summary we have scientists actively blocking FOI requests

There's no evidence for that. We have records of FOI requests and FOI responses to those requests and that's all we have. The "evidence" in the emails is denialist innuendo; it does not even rise to the level of circumstantial evidence. What you don't seem to realize is that an FOI request really is a request, and thus that it can be turned down. It's the FOI officer who decides what can or cannot be legitimately denied; not the scientists. The emails merely document the scientistsâ annoyance at FOI requests from denialists. But we didn't emails to learn denialists are disruptive, clueless jerks to scientists, did we. In some of the emails it looks as if the scientists thought they got that point home to the FOI officier, which wouldn't be a crime if it were true, but anyway it isn't true, because in subsequent emails they are complaining to each other about FOI requests again. Obviously their ability to manipulate the FOI officer is on a par with their ability to keep out papers from the IPCC report.

0/2

(actually they all ready have deleted a lot of the raw temp data)

Uhm, no, they deleted a copy. The CRU doesn't collect raw data. The data is archived by the national metereological offices that collect it.

0/3

and we have comments as per above were the scientists admit to having a very little understanding of the atmospheric process and preferring to "beleive" in their theory rather than the empirical data.

You are predictably wrong again. See

http://climateprogress.org/2009/11/21/hacked-emails-ncar-kevin-trenbert…

0/4 -- another perfect denialist score.

Thanks for responding

always a pleasure.

although i really did not understand what you were saying

Well, one of us fell short somewhere along the way, eh?

(barring the obvious cheap shots).

Oh, come on, Crakar, lighten up.

If I claimed that the Earth's temp had risen 17 degrees since 1980, and you called me on it, would it be a "cheap shot"?

I admit to having not studied the denier take on what these emails supposedly prove but I'll watch with interest. And I'll save you some roast calf in the mean time.

Skip

Good legwork, AB.

So I read your CP link, where they actually *quote* Tremberth in depth. Brother, that kind of distortion and rending of a quote so heinously out of context . . .

And yes, Crakar. It really is an example of narratives at work. I would ask you rhetorically, Was there ever *any* doubt in *your* mind that these emails were "proofs" of a "cover up"? Are you even going to *consider* the alternative explanation--that scientists, like everybody else, sometimes just talk shit?

The email I need to see is where someone says, "Let's just pretend there's dangerous anthropegenic global warming even though we all know there isn't." And even then it would prove little because the overwhelming majority of climate scientists accept the AGW hypothesis. Even if, lets say, a *dozen* specialists were really fixing data (presumably as a pretext to turn us into socialist greentopias, if I understand the denier narrative right), you still have an overwhelming consensus of science that supports the fundamental AGW hypothesis.

Analogy, Crakar: If I began concocting phony data in my own field, blatantly inventing numbers to prove, lets say, that the onset of criminal behavior is associated with early child abuse, and someone caught me and showed that I was just making shit up, I would be a fraud, yes, and would be rightly driven from the academy for such an ethical breach.

But the fact that child abuse is associated with subsequent onset of crime is --this is the key--still *true*, and overwhelmingly supported in the data and in the body of available scholarship. Crakar, you seem to be thinking that any statements by three guys that can be twisted as showing a sinister connivance means you can throw everything else out the door. Even if the connivance existed--and it doesn't--it only reflects on *those* actors--not the overwhelming body of scholarship.

Skip

Skip,

Once again your posts drift off into ramblings i am finding it increasingly hard to follow the conversation with you.

Ali Baba and the 40 thieves,

0/1 No we have email evidence of collusion between these people attempting to avert the peer review process read the emails

0/2 After finally agreeing to divulge the raw data Jones said it had been lost/deleted back in the 80's.

0/3 Once again read Trenberths email

0/4 Keeping score does not support your case

0/5 Has anyone read the Harry read me txt yet?

www.anenglishmanscastle.com/HARRY_READ_Me.txt.

Here is a small sample of what the code writer had to say in his comments

"But what are all those monthly files? DON'T KNOW, UNDOCUMENTED. Wherever I look, there are data files, no info about what they are other than their names. And that's useless ..." (Page 17)

- "It's botch after botch after botch." (18)

- "The biggest immediate problem was the loss of an hour's edits to the program, when the network died ... no explanation from anyone, I hope it's not a return to last year's troubles ... This surely is the worst project I've ever attempted. Eeeek." (31)

- "Oh, GOD, if I could start this project again and actually argue the case for junking the inherited program suite." (37)

- "... this should all have been rewritten from scratch a year ago!" (45)

- "Am I the first person to attempt to get the CRU databases in working order?!!" (47)

- "As far as I can see, this renders the (weather) station counts totally meaningless." (57)

- "COBAR AIRPORT AWS (data from an Australian weather station) cannot start in 1962, it didn't open until 1993!" (71)

- "What the hell is supposed to happen here? Oh yeah -- there is no 'supposed,' I can make it up. So I have : - )" (98)

- "You can't imagine what this has cost me -- to actually allow the operator to assign false WMO (World Meteorological Organization) codes!! But what else is there in such situations? Especially when dealing with a 'Master' database of dubious provenance ..." (98)

- "So with a somewhat cynical shrug, I added the nuclear option -- to match every WMO possible, and turn the rest into new stations ... In other words what CRU usually do. It will allow bad databases to pass unnoticed, and good databases to become bad ..." (98-9)

- "OH F--- 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." (241).

- "This whole project is SUCH A MESS ..." (266)

"In global warming circles, the CRU wields outsize influence: It claims the world's largest temperature data set, and its work and mathematical models were incorporated into the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2007 report. The report ... is what the Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged it 'relies on most heavily' when concluding carbon dioxide emissions endanger public health and should be regulated."

And based on stuff like this, politicians are going to blow up our economy and lower our standard of living to "fix" the climate?

Are they insane?

Crakar:

You're not even good at plagiarizing.

This tidbit is all over the denialsphere, and when you ask us rhetorically if we read it, its a ham-handed bluff because I *know* you didn't, Crakar. Its 318 pages in a Word Document. I know, because I cut and paste it--and I further admit I did not read it all.

I also could not find many of the text bits using Word search although I am willing to be shown to be wrong on that.

But its obvious you have *no idea* what this is. Its engineers complaining about the function of the *database* and how the data are differentially recorded across sources. Its not about the actual *data* or the *theory* of AGW.

Crakar, you have *no idea*--*none*--about what this is or its significance. You blatantly stole it from some other blog (who got it from God-knows-where although there must be a point of origin), tried to pass it off as your own clever diagnosis, and didn't even think to explain in the bottom of your post that the quotations switch from the record of the exchanges to the commentary of the denier blog author you ripped this off from.

Why not save me the depressingly pointless and redundant ritual of publicly humiliating you and just post the *link*--if you think its worth anything??? (Not that it is but why--why--do you do this?)

Once again your posts drift off into ramblings i am finding it increasingly hard to follow the conversation with you.

That is truly rich, and your stock strategy every time you don't have an answer. I can forgive the run-on sentence, and as far as rambling goes, I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. One thing I can say for my posts, Crakar, is at least *mine*, and at least they're preceded by cognition.

Skip

Skip you would have to be one of the most dumbest people i have ever had the displeasure of talking to.

It was quite a long post so to save time i simply cut and paste what i found in an article, so [bleep] what.

Another reason why you are so dumb is that you obviously have no idea how to search through a document i suggest you find out how and try again.

How do you know what i have read and what i have not Skip? Are you also psychic?

Do you understand what the programmer is saying?I doubt it as you are obviously as thick as [bleep].

These comments indicate a multitude of problems with the temperature database, one good example is a station where no station exists (Cobar airport station).

You are the prime reason why this place has become an echo chamber, just another [bleep]

When people say LOL on a net message its a often just blustering to mask irritation, but . . .

for the record . . .

LOL!!!!!

i simply cut and paste what i found in an article, so fucking what.

But you pretended otherwise.

How do you know what i have read and what i have not Skip? Are you also psychic?

For all I know, Crakar, you've memorized the Song of Solomon. What I do know is you did *not* read that document. I don't need to be psychic. I just need to know *you*.

Do you understand what the programmer is saying?

Not entirely, of course not. But I know what he's *not* saying.

You are the prime reason why this place has become an echo chamber

Little old me? That's the first time the concept of primacy was ever attributed to me. I might be flattered except . . .

just another stupid fucking yank

Well, you might have my number there. There are quite a few of us running around. We tend to breed and vote, too. (Its a sad but separate discussion . . . ) But for a brief moment there, Crakar, I did bask in your affection.

When did you get this hard-on for *me*, Crakar? Consider the abuse lavished on you over the past two years. All I've ever done is nail you when you're wrong. I'm not going to shoot your wallaby for chrissakes.

Oh, by the way, Crakar: You wanna talk about the residence time of CO2 or Latif--while I've got you worked into a pugilistic fervor?

Another Stupid Fucking Yank (Skip)

PS Coby can I keep this one as my new moniker?

crakar should please reduce to use of explicatives, little kids may be playing here.

But crakar, when you cut and paste material you should be upfront about it and let us know the source. There are many good reasons to do so and many bad reasons to not do so. I won't presume to know what your reasons for not doing so are, but people will assume the worst (eg. to pretend it is original, to obfuscate the context, to misrepresent).

I think one programmer's private venting about a difficult or maybe just tedious job is evidence of nothing. I curse the author of code I work on all the time calling him lazy, stupid, irresponsible, disorganized and guess what? I wrote every scrap of code in the system I am working on! (and I'm good ;-)

Messy jobs get messy. That dispatches with the majority of what you have lifted from somewhere, if there is a particular snippet you think is more damning then let's focus and properly source it, okay? That gattling gun style is usually for arguments that are fundamentally weak and the idea is overwhelm the opponent, not establish a logical train of reasoning.

For example, you raised the "hide the decline" bit and never acknowledged my explanation of it. Why? Are you not interested in defending what you right or learning from the answers you solicit? Will this pop up again as if I never said anything the first time?

That is the main thing that we "alarmists" get frustrated about with you "denialists"

Crakar--A textual analysis.

Skip you would have to be one of the most dumbest

rage confounds grammar here

people i have ever had the displeasure of talking to.

Ending a sentence with a preposition but stylistically acceptable in context. Best would have been, " . . . with whom I have had the displeasure of speaking."

It was quite a long post

Except for the plagiarism there was very little posted.

so to save time i simply cut and paste

We need the past tense but I made the same mistake earlier so here I'm the pot calling the kettle black.

what i found in an article, so fucking what.

We have a two errors here. There is a run-on sentence and the rhetorical question requires appropriate punctuation (i.e., a question mark.)

Another reason why you are so dumb is that you obviously have no idea how to search through a document

Confusing cause and effect. My stupidity would be the underlying impetus for my technical ineptitude, not its result.

How do you know what i have read and what i have not Skip? Are you also psychic?

Ambiguous rhetorical question. Is he trying to decipher whether I am psychic in addition to my other qualities or whether I'm psychic in addition to others he has identified?

you are obviously as thick as pig shit.

In the degenerate circles in which I grew up (and still largely associate, to be perfectly honest), there is a generally accepted First Law of Insults: If by your insult you set yourself up like a softball for the Mother of All Comebacks, then by rule you must be blasted. I will suspend this law but suffice it to say it involves rhetorical inquiries in to how the discussant is in a position to claim familiarity with pig shit and/or its alleged "thickness".

You are the prime reason why this place has become an echo chamber, just another stupid fucking yank

Somehow I personally have become the Moriarty to Crakar's Holmes--or the Joker to his Batman . . . or the Lector to his Agent Starling . . .or the Road Runner to his Coyote. (Beep Beep.) I cannot be sure how (I think I'm as quick as anyone on this site to admit my limitations and, where appropriate, my ignorance) but its bizarrely flattering in a way.

But you know Crak: I want to propose something that will sound really mean, really dirty, and really off topic (which it is, to be sure), but is genuinely not an attempt to be cruel. But the wild swings in your verbiage from articulate expression to the quasi-coherent slurs exhibited above (remember "mumbo jumbo" from your faux exit speech?) in combination with the chaotic undulations of your level of civility suggest the following question:

Is it possible--just possible, now--that you're bipolar?

I've got plenty of my own problems (I blame my Irish genes) so no high horse here. But is it just possible?

--just another stupid fucking yank (aka Skip)

Coby,

Please accept my apologies for using certain words, of course if people responded with coherent succinct posts in replies there would be no need and of course you are right there are some children playing here.

In regards to "cut and paste" i am not sure what all the fuss is, i could have typed the whole thing out myself but had little time so i simple pasted the examples of what is written in the code and posted a link to the actual txt file. If i have mislead anyone then i am truly sorry, i thought the "" was a dead give away.

Private ventings only proves that the code was/is in very poor shape. This is a far cry from what one would expect from the centre of excellence that has been entrusted by the IPCC and governments to keep an accurate (down to 3 decimal place) global temperature record. The code is a mess as you say to the point that we have stations where stations do not exist i expected better from these people but maybe thats just me. Maybe this is just a storm in a tea cup and i am over reacting if so then i will acknowledge that and recind what i have said previously.

I am accustomed to working in a very bureaucratic environment (my email address tells you that)where this type of behaviour would not be torlerated.

I thought i did acknowledge your point in regards to "hide the decline", if i recall i said it was mentioned in one email so it is hard to understand what context it was used in therefore we need to be careful with how treat it, or words to that extent. Maybe you missed it or did not understand what i was saying, i hope this attempt clears that up.

Skip i want to give you the chance to answer a post without drifting into melodramatic ramblings what does 2 plus 2 equal? Now you only need to write the answer and nothing more, give it a go. As far as CO2 time is concerned post away Skip.

Four, I think. At least that's the consensus (as you know I am want to believe.)

Now its your turn, Crakar.

Do you want to talk about Latif and/or residence time--or is it a "cheap shot" to even ask?

Are you bipolar?

Compare your last post with the prior. Its amazing, Crakar. Amazing.

Skip

Are you blind? I offered you to post away on the CO2 issue, what are you doing here asking me about it again.

Nothing wrong with my two posts is there? i appologised for hurting sensitive ears, explained why a cut and paste is not a bad thing but still appologised just to make people feel better, then what.....yes i clarified my point to Coby in regards to "hide the decline" oh and of course i toned down my attack on the unprofessional state of the CRU database. I thought Bi polar would mean both posts were the exact opposite, maybe in your eyes they are?

Lets compare your last two posts, the first long and rambling and the second short and to the point, Bi Polar?

Perhaps they were.

So, are you bipolar?

Do you want to talk about Latif and residence time?

Repeat: Do you want to talk about Latif and/or residence time of CO2?

Skip

PS One more thing, Crakar: Do you want to discuss Latif and/or residence time of CO2?

I dont think i am bi polar but maybe i am, no hang on thats indecisive isnt it. Last time i checked i was not.

If you wish to make a post about Co2/latif/whatever and you wish me to make a comment on that post then by all means Skip make a post, this is the third time i have said this in three different ways i would hope by now you have understood.

Ok that's cool.

So you did have it "checked"?

I'm not bi either but I do think I'm undiagnosed ADD. Perhaps it shows at times and if so I apologize.

Glad we're on speaking terms again.

Its not a post, its a question:

Do you stand by all of your previous posts about (1) Latif and (2) the residence time of CO2?

I think that's a fairly straightforward, non-"melodramatic" question.

Skip

Do you stand by your earlier

the last line was an unintended redundancy.

skip

Cant remember what i said to be honest, may have been incoherent ramblings or Gods truths. I will try and find the thread to refresh my memory (help here would be appreciated).

Christ maybe i am bi polar? What are the warning signs Skip?

Good evening, man.

Obviously we're on at the same time. I have to admit my honest assessment would be "incoherent ramblings" but shelve that for the moment.

Let's not discuss our various medical conditions over this public server net.

If you like you can email me privately. (Of course it would be eventually hacked and it would all be public record anyway . . . ok at least *I* thought that was funny.)

Coby: you can give Crakar my email.

Skip