MSimon,
The things I mentioned I have ACTUALLY STUDIED to the best of my ability.
They sounded like a list of "bad data points" for measurements. The scientists get no credit for *recognizing* these data points and *correcting* them to the best of their ability.
We look at USHCN data and we see statements "oh my god they adjusted upward for decades!" Yet over the exact time frame they moved from PM to AM, requiring a slight adjustment upward.
I advocate open science openly done. Release all data. Starting with station records. Then adjusted station records. Then data ensembles.
So do I. I am glad I am in America where all science products in almost every public field (astronomy, space, climate) are publicly available, for free:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html
Yes, it is all there, MSimon. It really, really is. Note, I do find it unfortunate that you have to pay for the data, however, I just see it as the result of a capitalistic society.
Fortunately, and here's the fun part, if you browse the site from .edu or .gov or .k12 or whatever the elementary school domain is, you are able to view the data for free. All of it. Every morsel. Mmm. So cool.
Then all the transformations required to get from raw data to the data ensembles.
Those are explained in the papers, however GISS does release source code that can do it. Hey, I'm with you. I said I think ClimatePrediction.net should be open, since everyone who runs their software is donating their hard earned electricity to do it! But, it is a distinctly European affair, and we know how those pesky Europeans are. I call it the Oxford School of Science, where taking their word for it is the final say.
Then we look at all the models and all the parameterizations used in the models. Check them against data.
That is what the peer review presumably does. At least in the case of American data you most certainly can do this, and we have the whole blogosphere ripe with individuals who can do this, but instead of doing it, instead of finding problems with the methodology, they point out "funny graphs." McIntyre (CA) did it once, and GISS was thankful, it worked out well. It's been a while since he's been able to point out a real error in the data and methods though. (But it does show that the peer review is happy to take suggestions.)
Of course with funding dependent on ever more dire predictions it will be hard to get honest science done.
Yeah, Bussard has shown all too well why scientists are coerced into doing things a certain way. Not from some sort of evil way, it's just capitalism for ya. However, groups like GISS and NOAA are guaranteed funding, there's no evidence that they're not doing the job as best they can.
BTW in the science experiment did the experimenter saturate the container with water vapor? You know as a cross check against confounding variables in the real system?
The video I saw that did the experiment was on Discovery channel, teaching children about how CO2 absorbs IR. The details of the experiment are not available to me, however, it was simply set up and can easily be reproduced. In fact, as seedload mentioned, it's possible he saturated the whole glass container with huge amounts of CO2. The point is that it does absorb IR. It wouldn't happen with either Oxygen or Nitrogen, and the experimentor showed that, so if he was being honest (and he was just a high school teacher), it would have used relatively the same amounts of gas for each. It would be really crummy, if on the CO2 experiment, he introduced water vapor or used more gas. That was not how it was shown, though.
You will note I found Hansen's double dealing in 2007.
You have not established that in any way whatsoever, in fact Hansen regularly invokes Enron when decrying the problems with cap and trade. Given that the article you quote is the only thing I can find in the first 5 pages of Google about this "Enron-Hansen" connection, I find it spurious at best. Even if true it doesn't prove anything about Hansen is or has in the past "double dealed." If anything it shows the scope at which denialists will go to trash a good name.
Hansen predicted CO2 would be distinct from warming by the mid 90s. Throw out all land based measurements, go only with satellite data. He was right. Dead on right. Why this doesn't give him credibility with you guys I don't know.
Start with this premise: the whole field of climate science with very few exceptions is corrupt to the core.
That requires putting the whole of science into question, and I'm over 30, I grew past my metaphysical phase where I questioned science and whether or not it was good at approximating reality. If climate science is corrupt, then why isn't space science? Could it really be that NASA has been hiding alien artifact images from the public for so long? Does Area 51 really harbor aliens? That is the line of questioning you are provoking me in to.
It is now two years later and the nictitating membranes are still covering your eyes.
Erm, trying to connect Hansen to fossil interests is rich coming from a group who has dozens upon dozens of verifiable connections to the same industry. Look at the Global Climate Coalition whose job is no longer necessary because the conspiracy nuts on the internet have taken up the slack for 'em.
It goes deep, MSimon, very deep.
Which is more reasonable? The science is corrupted and all climate scientists that agree with IPCC numbers are climate activists? Or that the blogosphere and forums and internet personas that are against taking responsibility for the scientific implications of catastrophic climate change are mostly dis-informed by a lobby that doesn't want to act in order to maintain its profits?
Coal bad. Natural gas good.
Yes, I find it unfortunate that natural gas gets a good image in environmentalist circles, particularly those who favor wind. I get into long arguments with a wind guy over at DU with regards to natural gas. (Why develop natural gas further when you're going to replace it with storage anyway? Why not do the storage at the same time as wind?) Stuff like that.
Connecting James Hansen to natural gas, though, is awfully wrong of you. There's no connection there whatsoever.
Engineers get disabused of that sort of thinking by having to solve real problems in real time. I can't tell you how many times when I was SURE of the cause of the problem I was lead astray.
I write software, programs, and have had similar problems. I am extremely careful when I do modifications on the TMS forums and sister site, building test cases beforehand, and only applying them when I have a large degree of certainty about their behavior. Several people have attempted to run similar sites, they have been hacked to oblivion (applying buggy third party upgrades, or simply failing to update at all).
These days I tend to gather more data and look for causes outside my normal frame of reference.
I think you are accusing me of doing something that I am not doing, though. I mean, sure, people have come to me with the claim that raw data can't be found (kind of like how you said all data needs to be open), and I showed them that link. But the truth is that I had it long before then. I'm a NASA freak, and I love government data sets, you can easily get lost in them.
Talked to a guy a few weeks back who helped archive some of the PDS stuff. Apparently they had to use iron filings and a magnifying glass to hand-transcribe the data on those tapes! Have 3-4 guys do it, you get rid of most of the errors. Of course, I'm just waiting for some of the alien guys to come find me now and say "what if they made errors on the Viking data and the Face on Mars was really there!"
And Josh. I think I put 20 or 30 hours into that one and was rather active in the discussion of the subject at Climate Audit.
Who is too close to the politics, you or me? I don't spend days on Real Climate. I post in E&E on DU and that's about it. And my concern about the environment really hinges on my desire for self-sufficiency, buying a farm, living on it with my chickens!
Farm boy for life!
But [gundecking] is so common in the Navy that they actually have a term for it.
Eh, my dad was Army and Navy, two brothers one Army one Navy. I know all too well about military (ir)responsibility.
So you have to wonder how you can find a REAL .6 deg signal in a system whose calibration is no better than .5 deg.
The error bars are smaller because the methods of measuring are more accurate. The error bars are bigger further back you go, because the data sets were in flux for some 50 years.
And that does not even discuss the station site quality issues.
Got something better? Got a better data set? Or should science just say "well, the data is so messed up we should just give up"?
Heh. I guess you missed the post I made earlier in the thread. So is the warming happening or is it not happening? If it's happening and galactic cosmic rays are responsible for it, and we find that they're not, are you going to say the warming isn't happening to the extent that is measured?
It accounts for about 5% of the network (see, I actually read your links!), it should be included though, perhaps USHCN v3 will include it.
Effective communication requires accurate usage of language.
That's nothing, I used to write "chick" as "chic," for about 5 years there. Oh, and I spelled "official" as "offical," for I don't know how long. No one ever corrected it! Bastards.
