The Climate Change EMails

[Hermit]

The conservatives are having a field day month since several hundred emails have been stolen from a server belonging to the University of East Anglia. The emails concern exchanges between staff of its Climatic Research Unit, including its director, Phil Jones, and like minded scientists. Here is an example of how one site portrays the situation:

From: Phil Jones. To: Many. Nov 16, 1999
"I've just completed Mike's Nature [the science journal] trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."
Critics cite this as evidence that data was manipulated to mask the fact that global temperatures are falling. Prof Jones claims the meaning of "trick" has been misinterpreted

From Phil Jones To: Michael Mann (Pennsylvania State University). July 8, 2004
"I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"
The IPCC is the UN body charged with monitoring climate change. The scientists did not want it to consider studies that challenge the view that global warming is genuine and man-made.

From: Kevin Trenberth (US National Center for Atmospheric Research). To: Michael Mann. Oct 12, 2009
"The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't... Our observing system is inadequate"
Prof Trenberth appears to accept a key argument of global warming sceptics - that there is no evidence temperatures have increased over the past 10 years.

From: Phil Jones. To: Many. March 11, 2003
“I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor.”
Prof Jones appears to be lobbying for the dismissal of the editor of Climate Research, a scientific journal that published papers downplaying climate change.

From Phil Jones. To: Michael Mann. Date: May 29, 2008
"Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise."
Climate change sceptics tried to use Freedom of Information laws to obtain raw climate data submitted to an IPCC report known as AR4. The scientists did not want their email exchanges about the data to be made public.

From: Michael Mann. To: Phil Jones and Gabi Hegerl (University of Edinburgh). Date: Aug 10, 2004
"Phil and I are likely to have to respond to more crap criticisms from the idiots in the near future."
The scientists make no attempt to hide their disdain for climate change sceptics who request more information about their work.

While I have no sympathy for scientists who act like tribal warlords during a jungle fight, I hate to think just how much propaganda value the arseholes - whose opposition stems from a greedy desire for short term profits rather than proper analysis based on evidence - will manage to get out of this.

[Animavore]

Here's a rebuttal to the whole fiasco. Although I reckon it won't do anything to help against the denialists position.

[youtube]http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m4/nov20 ... 624772.jpg[/youtube]

[FBM]

Here's a rebuttal to the whole fiasco. Although I reckon it won't do anything to help against the denialists position.

[charlou]

PMing Ani to come back and edit his link ...

[devogue]

I would describe myself as naturally conservative (with a small "c") and I lean to the right on certain issues and at first I was quite skeptical about the whole climate change thing - however, after years of hearing winemakers from Chile to Australia to France to Canada talking about climate change as a matter of fact (not even as "I think") it is clear to see that temperatures are rising. In some cases these people have extremely detailed records of weather and climate going back centuries and they know something weird is happening.

If you are unsure yourself, consider this: 25 years ago it was extremely unusual to find a bottle of wine from Bordeaux with more than 12% alcohol by volume - now it is commonplace to see them at 13.5%, even 14%. The biggest worry the Bordelais have about the 2009 vintage is a potential alcohol level of 16%.

This is because of the high levels of fruit sugar, which is a result of fantastic ripeness, which is a result of ....hmmm, let me see...oh, yes....a warmer climate...

These people make a living from closely observing the climate and weather - if you check the "good" vintages from Bordeaux through the decades back to the 19th century, you will usually see two, at most three in a ten year period with, if you are lucky, one "great" vintage (the 1980's was an extraordinary exception with four "good" vintages and two "greats", but the alcohol level for Latour 1989 is 11.8%, which would be unheard of today) . As we near the end of this decade only 2002 and 2007 could be described as mediocre in Bordeaux - so that's eight "good" vintages with what looks like four "great" vintages - 2000, 2003, 2005 and 2009. This hasn't happened since records began - check Michael Broadbent's vintage notes which stretch back to 1784 to see what I mean.

Now, while the Bordelais are delighted at this run of good vintages they are also very concerned about the future - acidity is a vital part of Bordeaux's appeal but if it keeps getting hotter acidity will lessen and the wines will become more jammy and cloying.

Major Champagne houses like Louis Roederer have been checking out the Kent countryside because it is made from limestone like Champagne (White Cliffs of Dover and all that) and their doomsday scenario is having to move the appellation north because warming will decimate the vital acidity needed to produce top quality fizz. Of course people will say that wine was being made as far north as York in the Middle Ages, but it appears that the climate anomaly then was only a European phenomenon and not the worldwide event there is evidence for now.

[Azathoth]

It is still to be proven that the cause of the warming is anthropogenic as opposed to cyclical. Personally I think it is a combination of the two although I don't have the evidence to back that up.What can be seen from this leak is bad science in action. Scientists protecting their research grants by tweaking their results with statstical woo to gain the results they are getting paid for.

[Animavore]

Here's the link I wanted youse to see.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

One reason I know climate change is a reality.



As a bird watcher you can't help but notice these little clues.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I don't think anyone is disputing the veracity of climate change. The dispute is over how much, if at all, humanity is responsible for that change. The British Isles were covered in ice only a few thousand years ago. There have also been periods within similar timescales in which it has been several degrees warmer than it is now.

There is a big, yellow ball in the sky that has something to do with it all, I think.

[Drewish]

Now see, as an asshole who thinks that the world is overpopulated as is and seriously doubts the effectiveness of democracy, this guy just made me think that even if it is a lie, that global warming might not be such a bad horse to back either way.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

I don't think anyone is disputing the veracity of climate change. The dispute is over how much, if at all, humanity is responsible for that change. The British Isles were covered in ice only a few thousand years ago. There have also been periods within similar timescales in which it has been several degrees warmer than it is now...

That's just the British Isles, not the whole planet. The comparison fails.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I don't think anyone is disputing the veracity of climate change. The dispute is over how much, if at all, humanity is responsible for that change. The British Isles were covered in ice only a few thousand years ago. There have also been periods within similar timescales in which it has been several degrees warmer than it is now...

That's just the British Isles, not the whole planet. The comparison fails.

No it doesn't. I am not talking about millions of years ago when what is now the UK was at a different latitude. I am referring to the cycle of global warming and cooling that causes an ice-age every 40,000 - 100,000 years or so. The Arctic and Antarctic ice-caps have been both more and less extensive than they are now within the last 100,000 years - a negligible period geologically.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

I don't think anyone is disputing the veracity of climate change. The dispute is over how much, if at all, humanity is responsible for that change. The British Isles were covered in ice only a few thousand years ago. There have also been periods within similar timescales in which it has been several degrees warmer than it is now...

That's just the British Isles, not the whole planet. The comparison fails.

No it doesn't. I am not talking about millions of years ago when what is now the UK was at a different latitude. I am referring to the cycle of global warming and cooling that causes an ice-age every 40,000 - 100,000 years or so. The Arctic and Antarctic ice-caps have been both more and less extensive than they are now within the last 100,000 years - a negligible period geologically.

I was referring to your mention of "periods within similar timescales in which it has been several degrees warmer than it is now", not to ice-age cycles.

I didn't figure I had to say anything about the ice-age cycles, since they blatantly have damn-all to do with what's currently going on. The timescale is completely different.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I don't think anyone is disputing the veracity of climate change. The dispute is over how much, if at all, humanity is responsible for that change. The British Isles were covered in ice only a few thousand years ago. There have also been periods within similar timescales in which it has been several degrees warmer than it is now...

That's just the British Isles, not the whole planet. The comparison fails.

No it doesn't. I am not talking about millions of years ago when what is now the UK was at a different latitude. I am referring to the cycle of global warming and cooling that causes an ice-age every 40,000 - 100,000 years or so. The Arctic and Antarctic ice-caps have been both more and less extensive than they are now within the last 100,000 years - a negligible period geologically.

I was referring to your mention of "periods within similar timescales in which it has been several degrees warmer than it is now", not to ice-age cycles.

I didn't figure I had to say anything about the ice-age cycles, since they blatantly have damn-all to do with what's currently going on. The timescale is completely different.

Not so. The cycle is not a smooth sinusoidal curve at all - it merely approximates to one over time. Close up, the changes in global temperature are more fractal in nature with shorter term variations in temperature within the overall cycle. See here for example.

I am not denying that mankind has exacerbated climate change but I am denying that there is anything like enough evidence to prove it. If you like, the jury is still out. We simply do not understand enough about the mechanisms involved to say with certainty whether we are experiencing a natural, a man-made, or a combined phenomenon.

[FedUpWithFaith]

I am somewhat a skeptic of man-made climate change. On the whole, I believe the climate is changing and that man is at least significantly responsible. Beyond that, I see most of the projections as little more than conjecture. I'm a big fan of weaning Western Society off of oil for other reasons that far outstrip my concerns about global warming. To the extent that global warming activists hasten that day I'm glad. But I'm also very skeptical of many of the proposed means we seem to be considering and even undertaking like trading carbon futures. I can't help believing that this whole thing will turn into a fiasco whereby we exchange one set of greedy bastards (oil companies) for another (high finance). In the end we will be able to do what we're good at doing, saying we are solving a problem we really aren't while a few fatcats get richer by enabling us to delude ourselves into thinking we're "green".