Comments

1. #1 David B. Benson

   2011/08/22

   Bad Locust — National Science Foundation not his employer.

   [I'm afraid TGL has gone down the troll hole -W]

2. #2 David B. Benson

   2011/08/22

   Oh, it seems Bad Locust was boiled in oil and eaten.

3. #3 TheGoodLocust

   2011/08/22

   Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t they just look at Penn State’s “investigation.” [snip]

   [You're wrong. And you're trolling. Do you really have nothing else to do? -W]

4. #4 David B. Benson

   2011/08/22

   Oh dear, Bad Locust jumped out of the troll hole.

   I guess the trolls didn’t care for the taste.

   [Seems tasteless to me.]

   [There really isn't much to say on this one that hasn't been said many times before -W]

5. #5 Michael Tobis

   2011/08/22

   “didn’t they just look at Penn State’s “investigation.”[?]”

   Explicitly, no, they said they did no such thing.

   http://is.gd/8qp9KV

   “We fully examined both the University Inquiry and Investigation Reports. Although the Inquiry Report
   dismissed three of the four allegations, we examined each de novo under the NSF Research Misconduct Regulation.”

   Hope that helps.

6. #6 TheGoodLocust

   2011/08/22

   I read the NSF report myself and I am essentially correct – by and large they merely looked at Penn state’s so-called investigation.

   In any case, there are several obvious flaws here and I quote the report:

   “The University had been provided an extensive volume of
   emails from the Subject and determined that emails had not been deleted.”

   So basically, Mann sent them some emails and from the evidence provided by the accused they determined that he didn’t delete any of the emails they were telling each other to delete in the climategate emails?

   You find that to be proper do you? Usually investigators gather their own evidence rather than asking the accused to provide evidence for them – this is especially true when the person is being accused of falsification.

   That is just one obvious flaw in the report. I’d list more but you’ll no doubt define them as “trolling,” delete them and put up your own strawman of my argument to debunk.

7. #7 NJ

   2011/08/22

   TGL@6:

   and I am essentially correct

   For definitions of ‘essentially correct’ that include ‘absolutely wrong’.

8. #8 TheGoodLocust

   2011/08/22

   @NJ

   Care to comment on whether it is good form to ask the accused to provide the evidence of his innocence like that?

   Independent investigators should’ve taken the emails from the servers themselves. How did Mann provide the emails? Did he print out copies for the investigators? Did he “forward” them to him?

   See any flaws in that investigative methodology?

   I’m a big fan of James Randi – he is often able to reveal scam artists for what they are even though they are quite good at fooling scientists. I think it is because a lot of scientists simply think about how the methodology can work rather than how it can be abused.

9. #9 David B. Benson

   2011/08/22

   Somebody certainly let the troll out of trollheim; seems to be an exscapee.

   Send him back.

10. #10 blueshift

    2011/08/22

    “Care to comment on whether it is good form to ask the accused to provide the evidence of his innocence like that?”

    Very poor form. The accused shouldn’t be allowed to provide evidence that I don’t like.

11. #11 Michael Tobis

    2011/08/22

    Ah, well I suppose we need to await the conclusions of the Randi commission, and see if somebody manages an independent investigation which comes up with the predetermined “right” results.

    But woe betide him if he can’t see anything worth writing home about either. If I were him, I’d just stay away, frankly.

    Y’all are what, 0 for 7 so far?

    Could it be just possible that the only thing going on is that the emails reveal that these guys don’t like your bunch very much? Under the circumstances, it’s hard to find much fault with that.

    Is it really another investigation that you want? Or do you want nothing short of a show trial and a conviction?

12. #12 TheGoodLocust

    2011/08/22

    The emails show them telling each other to delete emails. The emails show them confirming receipt and understanding of those messages.

    The “investigations” vindicate Mann based on emails he provided to them rather than checking the actual servers themselves.

    I could care less if there is another investigation. I think there is so much political capital invested in protecting this theory that nobody will do anything to rock the boat.

    The temperatures will simply go down, this theory will be discredited and more unfortunately all science will be dragged down with it. And if we have a real emergency in the future then the masses will be far less inclined to believe the experts coming forward.

13. #13 Michael Tobis

    2011/08/22

    In the unlikely event that the temperature goes down in response to anthropogenic forcing we will have bigger problems than we already do, as presumably some really major nonlinearity will have kicked in.

    But let’s not worry about that right now, shall we? This imminent cooling concept certainly isn’t playing very well in Texas this summer. I’ll tell you that much from personal experience. So if you see some sign of cooling somewhere outside the bunkosphere, do let us know.

    As for political capital, I promise you that there is no major politician on earth who does not want this problem to go away. The costs of action are “front-loaded”, and the benefits are far away in time, and hard to prove except in the scenario where we don’t act. This is not a problem shaped for politics, and that is the main reason that we are handling it so stupidly.

    That all said, Jones is dinged with a misdemeanor about compliance with some bizarre bureaucratic screwup whereby university science is considered an arm of government, and Mann is guilty only of bearing bad news.

14. #14 grypo

    2011/08/22

    The world could boil tomorrow and they still wouldn’t believe “the experts coming forward” next time if what the experts said isn’t what “the future then the masses” wanted to hear. I find my prediction much more likely based on years of past evidence.

15. #15 njp

    2011/08/22

    @TGL (#14): “I could care less if there is another investigation.”

    We may be getting to the heart of your inability to understand graphs, and hockey sticks, and science. David Mitchell provides an excellent tutorial here:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw

    Start about 1 minute in if you are in a rush.

16. #16 David B. Benson

    2011/08/22

    More blather from the pest insect.

17. #17 Rattus Norvegicus

    2011/08/22

    They should have never banned widespread use of DDT.

18. #18 TheGoodLocust

    2011/08/22

    I agree Rattus, but for different reasons – banning DDT caused millions of deaths from malaria.

    [You've fallen for yet another denialist hoax. See http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2005/02/ddt3.php and many other posts on Deltoid -W]

19. #19 dhogaza

    2011/08/23

    “The University had been provided an extensive volume of
    emails from the Subject and determined that emails had not been deleted.”

    So basically, Mann sent them some emails…

    No, [expletive deleted], this would come from the system administrators with their comprehensive backups kept in accordance with federal (at least) law.

    
    

20. #20 dhogaza

    2011/08/23

    You can’t claim local weather anecdotes of heat in the summer are proof when it is convenient and then go around and claim the MWP and LIA were merely local effects.

    Stupidest post I’ve seen this week, and I don’t mean “just here”.

    Ema Nymton…

    Quit insulting the really fucking dumb, they deserve better :)

21. #21 GoRight

    2011/08/23

    We all know that the Earth’s temperature has been increasing steadily since the last ice age (this is obvious since…

    [I can't decide if you're trolling, or just ignorant. But you spent enough time on wiki before being banned that you should have run across http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png or equivalent, so I think you're just trolling.

    Really: you've been arguing about GW for years, and yet you can still get something as basic as this wrong? Are you not ashamed? -W]

22. #22 John Mashey

    2011/08/23

    WMC: can you create an equivalent of The Borehole?

    [Not conveniently - mt provides me no easy way to move comments. Though it would be nice -W]

    ALL: Firefox+Greasemonkey+Killfile works here.

    People might put on their calendar a year from now to revisit this thread and see if you can say to yourself “YES, that was a really good use of my time …”

    [This is a good time to remind people that I will usually remove trolling. There is no need to respond... remember Eternal September -W]

23. #23 TheGoodLocust

    2011/08/23

    I have some great comments in the Real Climate borehole.

    For example, Gavin had a post about sea level rise. He showed a graph of the sea level rise acceleration for the past 100 years. I merely asked him why the graph showed the greatest acceleration from 1940 to 1970, which, according to the surface station data, was a time when the global temperatures were cooling.

    I guess he didn’t like some of the unstated implications of that such as:

    1) The surface station record being worthless
    2) The sea level record being worthless
    3) The heat/sea level correlation being worthless (least likely)

24. #24 Øystein

    2011/08/23

    TGL: “I have some great comments in the Real Climate borehole.”

    Sure you do. Now, you draw your conclusions from that, and the thinking population will draw the correct conclusions.

    /endthread

25. #25 TheGoodLocust

    2011/08/23

    @Øystein I suppose I could go ask the good folk at WUWT their opinion on my Real Climate comments.

    They are certainly a group of thoughtful people who are mentally capable of engaging in thoughtful and fact-based debate rather than an endless stream of baseless juvenile insults.

26. #26 Marco

    2011/08/23

    For a few minutes I just thought “wow, TGL really is stupid”, but now I realise he is a poe. I mean, no one would ever consider the WUWT crowd “thoughtful”, “mentally capable”, “rational”, and “fact-based”.

    Unless the mice have only blown up itty-bitty parts of the world and replace it with an alternate universe.

27. #27 b_nichol

    2011/08/23

    “They (the good folk at WUWT) are certainly a group of thoughtful people who are mentally capable of engaging in thoughtful and fact-based debate rather than an endless stream of baseless juvenile insults.”

    Words fail…

28. #28 Martin Vermeer

    2011/08/23

    So basically, Mann sent them some emails and from the evidence provided by the accused they determined that he didn’t delete any of the emails they were telling each other to delete in the climategate emails?

    (Mental image of Mike Mann frantically re-composing deleted emails from memory, time stamps, MIME headers and all)

29. #29 Martin Vermeer

    2011/08/23

    > I’m sorry, TGL, but I have to disagree with you on this point. The temperature will not be going down any time soon

    Yep, mee too. You both vastly underestimate the reach of the Conspiracy. We agreed that measured and reported global temperatures will continue to go up at a clip of 0.17 degrees C per decade for now — right, William?

    [There are various people who will accept bets with anyone prepared to put money on cooling. Though they (and I) would probably require surety from an unknown -W]

30. #30 njp

    2011/08/23

    @GoRight

    You seem to be even more stupid than TGL. At least he knows we are still in an ice age, even if he can’t quite grasp the logic of “caring less”. I see from your blog that you got banned from Wikipedia and then violated the ban using multiple sock puppets, and are now bleating that you should be allowed back. Quite why you think Wikipedia would benefit from your erudition is a bit of a mystery.

31. #31 toby

    2011/08/23

    TheGoodLocust have already determined from no evidence that Mann is guilty.

    Hence he finds the report to be wrong.

32. #32 Rumleyfips

    2011/08/23

    Locust mentions emails about deleting emails. Doesn’t he understand that if there was any intention to delete emails, emails discussing the deletion of emails would be the first emails to be deleted.

    He could read the above post about misinformation so unbelievable that it kicks in critical thinking. Can insects read?

    John McManus

33. #33 ligne

    2011/08/23

    “Can insects read?”

    –apes don’t read philosophy!
    –yes they do, otto. they just don’t understand it.

34. #34 Paul S

    2011/08/23

    Martin Vermeer said ‘(Mental image of Mike Mann frantically re-composing deleted emails from memory, time stamps, MIME headers and all)’

    If he were to do that everyone knows the emails would all be upside down and the text right-justified rather than properly centered.
    
35. #35 Paul S

    2011/08/23

    I did put some explicit Troll-on / Troll-off tags in that post, forgetting they wouldn’t appear.

36. #36 Ema Nymton

    2011/08/23

    No, dhogaza, they don’t. They deserve abuse, and lots of it. Unfortunately, they tend not to get it.

37. #37 Former Skeptic

    2011/08/23

    I’m quietly chuckling at how quickly GoRight’s crap gets flushed down the weasel’s loo :)

38. #38 GoRight

    2011/08/23

    Really: you’ve been arguing about GW for years, and yet you can still get something as basic as this wrong? Are you not ashamed? -W

    Ashamed is too strong a term. Perhaps mildly disappointed in myself for making such a silly comment. I seem to recall you pointing out previously that your wife once dropped her mobile into the toilet which was a stupid thing to do, but that didn’t mean that she is stupid. I think the analogous logic applies in my case as well.

    Either way, as I pointed out in my comment which you have now deleted, my point remains equally valid despite my error in the technical definition of “ice age”. Temperatures have been naturally increasing since the end of the “little ice age”

    [This is just denialism. http://www.realclimate.org/wiki/index.php?title=Are_we_just_recovering_from_the_Little_Ice_Age%3F, etc etc. As others have said already, you have no evidence for this -W]

    and there is no reason to expect that trend to change any time soon. Warming is not inconsistent with the current trends in natural variation, as you know.

    [To the contrary, the current warming is inconsistent with natural variation. Its in the IPCC report, you know - you should try reading it some time -W]

39. #39 Martin Vermeer

    2011/08/23

    Temperatures have been naturally increasing since the end of the “little ice age” and there is no reason to expect that trend to change any time soon.

    That’s a little bit less bad, but still not good. The climate isn’t like a dog, slowly sniffing its way from tree to tree… when temperatures go up systematically, there is a cause. No such cause is in evidence for the last few decades — when not only did we have the best observation systems ever, but the increase has been the fastest — except one cause. You know which.

    And no, natural variability doesn’t even come close.

40. #40 rumleyfips

    2011/08/23

    Ashamed or not. Hasn’t the global temperature been increasing since the second last millenium. The “little ice age was a blip, amusing yes ,but a geograhic and temporal blip only.

41. #41 GoRight

    2011/08/24

    Martin Vermeer: … when temperatures go up systematically, there is a cause. No such cause is in evidence for the last few decades … And no, natural variability doesn’t even come close.

    Bah and humbug.

    Natural variability has been moving the temperature both up and down systematically and over far wider temperature ranges than we are discussing in the recent warming. It does so from the top of every peak to the bottom of every valley – and back again.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png

    The global temperature has been systematically increasing since about 1600AD – and from the look of the graph it has been doing so at an accelerating rate the entire time. Since no one knows how high the current upswing will go you can’t say that the current graph is inconsistent with the natural variation which started the warming which ended that most recent minimum.

    [That really is weird. You are capable of reffing the picture, but then completely misreading it -W]

42. #42 Martin Vermeer

    2011/08/24

    Studied statistics much, GoRight?

43. #43 Chris O'Neill

    2011/08/24

    GoRight:

    The global temperature has been systematically increasing since about 1600AD

    Except there’s bugger-all warming before 1910.

    and from the look of the graph it has been doing so at an accelerating rate the entire time.

    With bugger-all acceleration until around 1910.

44. #44 GoRight

    2011/08/24

    Martin Vermeer: Studied statistics much, GoRight?

    What do statistics have to do with reading a plot of temperature vs. time? No statistics required. Math and calculus are all that are required as far as I can see.

    Which raises the question, why did you ask?

45. #45 GoRight

    2011/08/24

    [That really is weird. You are capable of reffing the picture, but then completely misreading it -W]

    Really? Well I am happy to learn. Let me explain my reasoning a bit and then you can correct me so I can learn where I have fallen off the clue bus.

    I will set aside any discussion of the relative value of any of these reconstructions and simply accept them as is. For the sake of discussion I’ll focus on two of the more recent ones represented by the red and orange lines on the plot.

    By simply looking at the reconstructions individually it is a simply matter to mentally smooth out the noise in the plot to discern the overall trend that the plot represents. Then taking the first derivative of that trend line (i.e. by imagining a line tangent to the trend curve at any point in time) you get a general sense of the “rate of temperature change” at that particular point in time.

    Generally speaking, from about 1300AD to 1600AD the slope of the tangent was negative (indicating a decreasing temperature trend during that period). At roughly 1600AD the cooling had slowed to nothing and the slope of the tangent would be zero. From 1600AD through the end of the plot the slope of the tangent has turned positive (indicating a warming trend). The warming trend begins with a slope at or near zero and then increases steadily over time until the end of the plot where the slope is a fairly large positive value indicating significant warming.

    Given this, it should be obvious that if we were to take the second derivative of the trend line for the period 1600AD through the end of the plot we would discern a non-zero positive value indicating that the rate of temperature increase during that period was not constant, but was in fact accelerating.

    These facts are easily visually discernible from the shape of the trend line (sans the noise) with sufficient accuracy for this particular conversation, no?

    Is this not obvious to you? How do you interpret the trends represented by the red and orange reconstructions?

    [Your claim was "Natural variability has been moving the temperature both up and down systematically and over far wider temperature ranges than we are discussing in the recent warming." and you reffed that pic in support. It doesn't support what you say -W]

46. #46 GoRight

    2011/08/24

    [Your claim was "Natural variability has been moving the temperature both up and down systematically and over far wider temperature ranges than we are discussing in the recent warming." and you reffed that pic in support. It doesn't support what you say -W]

    Ah, I see. I apologize for being unclear. The plot I provided was intended to be in support of the paragraph following it, not the one preceding. My rationale for why is now explained above.

    In support of “Natural variability has been moving the temperature both up and down systematically and over far wider temperature ranges than we are discussing in the recent warming.” let me offer up the one you provided earlier:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png

    which I had assumed was already entered into evidence and understood by all.

47. #47 Richard Simons

    2011/08/24

    What do statistics have to do with reading a plot of temperature vs. time?

    I think it might be because you seem to be unaware of the concept of ‘fiducial limits’.

    The point is, of course, that the natural temperature of the Earth has varied by at least an order of magnitude (tens of degrees C) more than the level of change we are discussing in recent times (ones of degrees or even tenths of degrees C).

    And the relevance of this is . . . ? Remember, the changes probably took place over thousands of years and occurred before there were billions of people dependent on agriculture.

48. #48 Lars Karlsson

    2011/08/24

    Regarding the lie that “by and large they merely looked at Penn state’s so-called investigation” that is being spread by shameless individuals here and elsewhere, here are some relevant quotes from the report:

    “We wrote to the University, requesting an extensive amount of documentation related to its investigation, including copies of all documentation the committees used in their assessments, copies of all interview transcripts, and specific transcripts or memorandums about certain conversations to which the report referred. We also asked the University to address several questions ….”

    “Based on our review of both University reports and all material we received and reviewed on the matter, we were satisfied that the University adequately addressed its Allegations 3 and 4 (misusing privileged information and serious deviation from accepted practices) identified in the Inquiry Report.”

    “We next considered the University’s second Allegation, related to the emails. We reviewed the emails and concluded that nothing contained in them evidenced research misconduct within the definition in the NSF Research Misconduct Regulation.”

    “Regarding the University’s first Allegation (data falsification), however, we concluded that the University did not adequately review the allegation in either its inquiry or investigation processes. In particular, we were concerned that the University did not interview any of the experts critical of the Subject’s research to determine if they had any information that might support the allegation. Therefore, we initiated our own investigation under the NSF Research Misconduct Regulation. Pursuant to that regulation, we did not limit our review to an allegation of data falsification. Rather, we examined the evidence in relation to the definition of research misconduct under the NSF Research Misconduct Regulation.”

    “As a part of our investigation, we again fully reviewed all the reports and documentation the University provided to us, as well as a substantial amount of publically available documentation concerning both the Subject’s research and parallel research conducted by his collaborators and other scientists in that particular field of research.”

49. #49 Lars Karlsson

    2011/08/24

    “As part of our investigation, we attempted to determine if data fabrication or falsification may have occurred and interviewed the subject, critics, and disciplinary experts in coming to our conclusions.”

50. #50 dean

    2011/08/24

    Is goright an economist? because this

    “What do statistics have to do with reading a plot of temperature vs. time? No statistics required. Math and calculus are all that are required as far as I can see.”

    makes him sound as stupid as an economist talking about graphs.

51. #51 J Bowers

    2011/08/24

    “Which I had assumed already entered into evidence and understood by all.”

    I’ll wait until it’s understood by you.

52. #52 Martin Vermeer

    2011/08/24

    Remember, the changes probably took place over thousands of years and occurred before there were billions of people dependent on agriculture.

    More to the point, these changes had causes which are known. Just like the cause of the ongoing change. None of these have anything to do with unforced variability (“weather”), which in decadal global temps is just a tiny ripple, the stats of which are known.

53. #53 J Bowers

    2011/08/24

    “Which I had assumed already entered into evidence and understood by all.”

    I’ll wait until it’s understood by you.