Climategate: "Hide the Decline"

ke5frf said:

You do realize that you have yet to offer a reference or a link to augment your position and have only demonstrated LACK of information. OTOH, I have made countless references to bolster my argument.

Again, I'm not here to debate the evidence based belief that climate change is occurring and that man has a role that needs to be held in check. It is the degree to which this is certain vs the misrepresentation that EMAIL EVIDENCE points to that I am concerned with.

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Uh-huh. And? Are you saying if it's not ont the internet, then it's not true? Why haven't you demnaded links from those who agree? Why are their uninformed opions sufficient and the informaion I've accumulated and offered insufficient? You're links have been from hacked sources and/or not supported your assertions. And BTW, the link that was supposed to disprove a link between GW and hurricanes did no such thing. Your attempts to show one thing and tell us it means something else falls flat. And as are as the outlier, as other's have pointd out, tree ring growth is affected by other factors, and it's not irresponsible to leave something like that out of the analysis if other data correlates. I've offered links in past discissions, and I've paid attention to the debate since the 1970's, so I think I have enough information to discuss this.

Well, I'm off for the weekend, so since I won't be posting till I get back, don't go thinking my lack of responses means I agree or refuse to answer any questions asked.

Brownout, why on Earth would I demand links or references from the people I agree with? I'M NOT DEBATING THEM!!! That would be like an attorney cross-examining his para-legal LOL!!!

Besides, they are big boys, it is up to them to debate you how they see fit without my intervention.

You keep making absolutely defenseless points about my evidence. Like the "possibility" that the e-mails may be from hacked sources. Well, that isn't proven yet, it could very well be an insider. Nobody knows for sure. And besides, WHO CARES??? This isn't a criminal court where evidence is to be dismissed if it doesn't meet XYZ standard. This is the court of public opinion where voters and taxpayers will have the final word if there is any justice. Being hacked does not make the e-mails any less true or damning.

And my assertions are fully supported by my links, as was the hurricane comment, (in general terms that recent hurricane activity hasn't been proven to have an AGW link, that Katrina's choice of landfall made a convenient event for alarmists to misrepresent, that future activity will have marginal AGW causes that need further research to understand...and mostly predicated on PREDICTIONS of sea-ice melting and not fact-based observable, falsifiable data. The hurricane experts had negative reactions to AGW fearmongerers abusing and using the hurricane disasters without factual evidence. So much so that they resigned.

My links are pointing out the heavy politics of AGW that dominate and skew the science.

And I don't know if you realize it, I am NOT here to debate the degree or existence of human influence in climate change. That isn't important to me. The important thing is that scientists actually DO SCIENCE according to good practice and not try to pull the wool over our eyes in order to scare us.

And as are as the outlier, as other's have pointd out, tree ring growth is affected by other factors, and it's not irresponsible to leave something like that out of the analysis if other data correlates.

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Brownout, do you actually have any idea what an outlier is???

An outlier is a point of data...A POINT OF DATA, that falls out of upper or lower control limits in a controlled test.

An ENTIRE DATA SET that spans MULTIDECADES is not an "outlier", it is a DIVERGENCE. A DIVERGENCE. One more time, A DIVERGENCE. Divergences are discovered when "outliers" are no longer "outliers" and become TRENDS or BIASES in data.

When my laboratory (I work in a lab) performs spectroscopic testing on XYZ chemical, we document the results. We establish a mean and control limits based on multiple points of data. Over years, we have a strong historical data set to refer to and prove the reliability of our method. When am outlier occurs, we retest. If the subsequent tests fall back into control, we note the outlier and calculate the rate of occurrence. If multiple outliers occur and we see a trend or bias, ALL TESTING MUST STOP until the cause is found. I perform the troubleshooting and repairs, sometimes electronic, that ensue.

I have described the difference between an outlier, which is something to note but not be concerned with, and a TREND or BIAS or DIVERGENCE. My lab can't consider our data reliable if our test results diverge without explanation.

Now, the difference here is that our test equipment isn't in the business of proxying something that supposedly occurred 1000 years ago. Our data is real time event observed. The bristecone data is meant to proxy or correlate events that occurred in history.

When a divergence in a control specimen occurs as happened here, it must be explained and not ignored. It is fine and all that research to explain it is probably occurring. It should be. But the problem is that they are STILL USING HISTORICAL PROXY DATA. I will repeat STILL USING HISTORICAL PROXY DATA. They are using data that MAY OR MAY NOT have diverged multiple times in the historic record. In other words, it is documented that a divergent condition can occur with bristlecones. We have no explanation. We also do not have enough CALIBRATED data over a long enough period to reduce the magnitude of the divergence. The divergence is 1/3 of historic data and makes all he data close to the "noise" level.

So if bristlecones can diverge from 1960-2009....why couldn't they from 1250-1302? Or from 1709-1830? Or AD 85 to AD 200? Who is to say that multiple divergences haven't occurred over dozens of proxies throughout the record?

We can't, because our data has no documented, reliable calibration before 1850 or so.

Therefore ALL tree ring proxies become suspect. They aren't outliers, they are divergences. Another name for bias.

Nothing in his letter supports your claim that the strom activity is in a low for the last 25 years. It's just the opposite, and again, in many places, the rising sea levels have cause the damage from the storms to be more severe.

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Unfortunately the sea level issue is not an accurate choice of reference data and that also common knowledge among the scientific community. The Eco fanatics and the uninformed love to toss it around as evidence but here is a clip from the actual USGS website that relates the long term historic ocean levels to what they are today.USGS FS 002-00: Sea Level and Climate

And here is the condensed version of the information as well taken from the above site. I put the more relevant information in bold in case some people dont know what to look for.

Global sea level and the Earth's climate are closely linked. The Earth's climate has warmed about 1°C (1.8°F) during the last 100 years. As the climate has warmed following the end of a recent cold period known as the "Little Ice Age" in the 19th century, sea level has been rising about 1 to 2 millimeters per year due to the reduction in volume of ice caps, ice fields, and mountain glaciers in addition to the thermal expansion of ocean water.

Climate-related sea-level changes of the last century are very minor compared with the large changes in sea level that occur as climate oscillates between the cold and warm intervals that are part of the Earth's natural cycle of long-term climate change. During cold-climate intervals, known as glacial epochs or ice ages, sea level falls because of a shift in the global hydrologic cycle: water is evaporated from the oceans and stored on the continents as large ice sheets and expanded ice caps, ice fields, and mountain glaciers. Global sea level was about 125 meters below today's sea level at the last glacial maximum about 20,000 years ago (Fairbanks, 1989). As the climate warmed, sea level rose because the melting North American, Eurasian, South American, Greenland, and Antarctic ice sheets returned their stored water to the world's oceans. During the warmest intervals, called interglacial epochs, sea level is at its highest. Today we are living in the most recent interglacial, an interval that started about 10,000 years ago and is called the Holocene Epoch by geologists.
Sea levels during several previous interglacials were about 3 to as much as 20 meters higher than current sea level. The evidence comes from two different but complementary types of studies. One line of evidence is provided by old shoreline features (fig. 2). Wave-cut terraces and beach deposits from regions as separate as the Caribbean and the North Slope of Alaska suggest higher sea levels during past interglacial times. A second line of evidence comes from sediments cored from below the existing Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. The fossils and chemical signals in the sediment cores indicate that both major ice sheets were greatly reduced from their current size or even completely melted one or more times in the recent geologic past. The precise timing and details of past sea-level history are still being debated, but there is clear evidence for past sea levels significantly higher than current sea level.

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If you were to take the total minimum to maximum levels and divide that distance by the approximate time periods associated with them you will find the measurable oceanic level changes that are occurring now are completely normal and have been happening for far longer than we have been here.


Similar information as this with countless other examples can be found on every reliable geological, ecological, and environmental agency's website as well regardless of what country or government it is associated with or under.

I hope this proves some what educational to the lesser informed environmental experts.

BrownOut said:

Uh-huh. And? Are you saying if it's not ont the internet, then it's not true? Why haven't you demnaded links from those who agree? Why are their uninformed opions sufficient and the informaion I've accumulated and offered insufficient? You're links have been from hacked sources and/or not supported your assertions. And BTW, the link that was supposed to disprove a link between GW and hurricanes did no such thing. Your attempts to show one thing and tell us it means something else falls flat. And as are as the outlier, as other's have pointd out, tree ring growth is affected by other factors, and it's not irresponsible to leave something like that out of the analysis if other data correlates. I've offered links in past discissions, and I've paid attention to the debate since the 1970's, so I think I have enough information to discuss this.

Well, I'm off for the weekend, so since I won't be posting till I get back, don't go thinking my lack of responses means I agree or refuse to answer any questions asked.

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In the 70's, I was pretty young, not much interested in news or politics, but do remember the ozone layer, and an approaching 'ice age'. Good thing banning all those aerosol saved us from freezing to death. Guess we went a little overboard, now we don't worry about getting too cold, but burning in hell. Bring back the hairspray, and the warming problem will be solved...

East Anglia Confirmed Emails from the Climate Research Unit - Searchable

It is imperative that these emails be circulated by the public. It would be a mistake if the media allows this to go along without calling the guilty parties out.

The above quoted e-mail exachange is a discussion between IPCC climatologists where suspicions about "good ole boy" system amongst their peers is biasing the data. These are colleagues in "private" discussing the very issues that skeptics discuss in public. They already knew that the data was being manipulated and that tree ring proxies shouldn't be used.

Discussions concerning grant monies influencing the direction of the science, the whole nine yards are right there in the e-mails.

Wake up America, we have been scammed. Again, I have no doubt that the concerns are genuine, that AGW reports has supported data that is compelling. That we should act. This isn't the core issue. The issue is that we have been intentionally scammed with unreliable data that makes the issue more alarming than it really is.

I just can't understand how this doesn't offend EVERYONE's sensibilities.

That is absolutely incredible. If I'm reading that correctly the recent rise in global temperatures is a complete fraud perpetrated by the scientists themselves.

Mike.

Pommie said:

That is absolutely incredible. If I'm reading that correctly the recent rise in global temperatures is a complete fraud perpetrated by the scientists themselves.

Mike.

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Yes, particularly this quote:
"1) Tree ring-based temperature reconstructions are fraught with
so much uncertainty, they have no value whatever. It is
impossible to tease out the relative contributions of rainfall,
nutrients, temperature and access to sunlight. Indeed a single
tree can, and apparently has, skewed the entire 20th century
temperature reconstruction."

context? LOL

I never believed that mankind had a whole lot of influence on climate conditions, nor is there must chance that we can effect them. The fraud doesn't surprise me as much as these geniuses saving all of these E-mails on their computers. How arrogant are these guys? I can understand the compulsive documenting, but they should have kept them on removable media. They were working to get the best impact they could from the data they could collect, seems they would have been aware of the impact of someone else reading their mail, and hid or deleted them immediately. Kind of strange and convenient that this damaging information was so easily obtained. Perhaps some scientist do have a conscience, and figure this was a good way to sink the boat.

With CO2 having a specific gravity of 1.6 ( heavier then air ) how does it get to the upper atmosphere ? I have lots of questions but no one to ask for the answers.

With CO2 having a specific gravity of 1.6 ( heavier then air ) how does it get to the upper atmosphere ? I have lots of questions but no one to ask for the answers.

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Thats sort of on the line with how they say the old types of freons where damaging to the ozone layer.
Yes most CFC bases freons do have the ability to react with ozone BUT, to do so at any great level does require some heat and or pressure to react.

The last time I checked the planets ozone layer is in the upper most regions of the atmosphere which is a very cold and very low pressure location that does not have much overall interaction with the lower parts of the atmosphere where the denser than air CFC based freons tend to settle at.
To me that just says its at the wrong end of the reaction conditions for it to work to any great degree.

Ross Craney said:

With CO2 having a specific gravity of 1.6 ( heavier then air ) how does it get to the upper atmosphere ? I have lots of questions but no one to ask for the answers.

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Because this whole thing was start over ice core samples from the polar regions. They tried to analyize the layers, determining that thinner layers and higher CO2, meant the the world was getting warmer. They ignored that CO2 is heavier than the surrounding gases, there may be other reason why ice was deposited that particular year, or how many layers might have just melted away during some particularly hot years. About the same rationality of reading global temperature from tree rings. These people have a core sample fixation, where are they going to bore next?

I think the politicians and rich guys decided this was good way to get people excited, and started hiring scientist to gather data to support it. From what I've gathered, water vapor has always been the major greenhouse gas, to a much larger extent then anything else. There is of course no way to control water evaporation on a global scale, since most of the planet surface is covered with water. We also need to trap a certain amount of heat daily, otherwise we would have some very cold nights.

This whole thing has been a hoax from the start. The climate extremes have changed back and forth much longer than we've been around, and we should leave it alone , seems to have been supporting life for quite a while now, and we haven't any other planets to move to, if we mess it up.

I do believe we should clean up our mess, and making more efficient use of our resources, is a good start. Less waste, less garbage. Stop dumping sewage and industrial waste in the rivers and lakes, most people don't drink out of the toilet, so why turn the planet into one?

Comes down things are always going to change, we should be focused on living under the condition that come around. So, it might get 3-5 degrees warmer over the next 100 or so, it just not that big a deal to begin with, we've had worse. We've had flooding, droughts, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, tidal waves, and wild fires, and we survive just fine. We can't prevent these things, but we can get an early warning, and minimize the damage and death.

HarveyH42 said:

I think the politicians and rich guys decided this was good way to get people excited, and started hiring scientist to gather data to support it.

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There is WAY more money to be made by ignoring the effects of burning fossil fuels than through global warming scare tactics! The oil and automobile industries are worth trillions. Just think of how fickle the economy and stock market are. The careers of a few scientists? Chump change!

From what I've gathered, water vapor has always been the major greenhouse gas, to a much larger extent then anything else.

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That is true. And if the Earth warms by a few degrees due to CO2 what do you think will happen to the rate of water evaporation from land and sea?

Comes down things are always going to change, we should be focused on living under the condition that come around. So, it might get 3-5 degrees warmer over the next 100 or so, it just not that big a deal to begin with, we've had worse.

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Can you GW denier guys post your full addresses and a map that we can print out? Gotta be able to direct the angry crowds with their plowshares and pitch forks in the proper direction when the time comes.

kchriste said:

There is WAY more money to be made by ignoring the effects of burning fossil fuels than through global warming scare tactics! The oil and automobile industries are worth trillions. Just think of how fickle the economy and stock market are. The careers of a few scientists? Chump change!
That is true. And if the Earth warms by a few degrees due to CO2 what do you think will happen to the rate of water evaporation from land and sea?
Can you GW denier guys post your full addresses and a map that we can print out? Gotta be able to direct the angry crowds with their plowshares and pitch forks in the proper direction when the time comes.

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I have never denied that the climate is changing, makes no difference if it's warmer or colder, it swings back and forth. Greenhouse gases trap in the heat, but don't they also tend to block about the same amount from coming in? It's not going to just keep getting hotter, and hotter, until we all melt. The system is self correcting, and will eventually cool back down.

There was once a huge scare about nuclear power, and chain-reactions. The ozone layer, and an ice age. Now, we have CO2 and Global Warming. Do you not see the pattern?

When people panic, they move their money around. If you own coal power plants, and it looks likely that they will be costly to operate, and eventually phased out, wouldn't you be inclined to sell, and get into something more profitable and stable. Depends on how much you buy into the hype. Some people don't need much of a scare, to be convince to sell their stocks and interest, and invest the money into new technology. When you have more people dumping paper, the few people buying can set the price.

I don't agree, that reducing CO2 emissions will stop or slow down the climate change. It's just not going to make any perceptible difference. Fighting it is futile, a waste of time, money, and resources, which is kind of funny, considering that conservation is also part of this plan.

We should be planning and working toward ways of living with the environmental changes. There will some flooding, although probably only of fraction of the Gore projections. We will have to relocate a few cities, so why not build them greener. We could recycle materials, build around energy efficiency, and power them with a renewable source. Once you get a few examples set up, it will be easier for people to see the benefits. The technology and production will grow, and be a more economical choice for people to upgrade to later. Trashing the old, and buying shiny new is expensive and wasteful, like Cash-For-Clunkers. Most of those trade-ins were much nicer than anything I ever owned, or currently drive. How much coal was burned to melt all those vehicles? Don't they generally burn off the paint, plastic, rubber, and fabric in the process? Wonder how that equates with the emissions of these gas hogs...

Greenhouse gases trap in the heat, but don't they also tend to block about the same amount from coming in?

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No. No more than the glass on your greenhouse keeps the sun out while letting the hot air out.

HarveyH42 said:

The system is self correcting, and will eventually cool back down

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To a point this is true, as it is of any feedback system. Do we really want to find out where the tipping point is? Though the stakes are high, the time span exceeds my/your generation, and this is why no one gives a crap. I don't, especially since I don't have any kids and will be dead when the consequences are paid. But to deny that emitting millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere will have no effect is just dishonest and naive.

There was once a huge scare about nuclear power, and chain-reactions.

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Nuclear power still has it's issues such as how to safely store the waste and keep it out of the hands of terrorists.

The ozone layer

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The ozone layer is now less of an issue due to the ban on the release of CFCs into the atmosphere. When I was a kid, no one worried about sun screen and all that wussy suff about UV indexs. The ozone layer has managed to correct itself a bit once the rate of CFC release was reduced to a manageable level.

Now, we have CO2 and Global Warming. Do you not see the pattern?

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Pattern? They used to think that sleeping with uranium under your pillow was healthy. I still follow my doctor's advice today because that is the safest route. Medicine may have been wrong in the past, but that doesn't mean it is all BS today. Same goes for climatology.

Fighting it is futile, a waste of time, money, and resources, which is kind of funny, considering that conservation is also part of this plan.

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If the human race had taken this attitude we'd still be living in caves.

We should be planning and working toward ways of living with the environmental changes.

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Yes, get working on that wall between Canada and the USA will ya?

Trashing the old, and buying shiny new is expensive and wasteful, like Cash-For-Clunkers. Most of those trade-ins were much nicer than anything I ever owned, or currently drive. How much coal was burned to melt all those vehicles? Don't they generally burn off the paint, plastic, rubber, and fabric in the process? Wonder how that equates with the emissions of these gas hogs..

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I have to agree with you here. The clunkers plan was more about helping the domestic automakers than helping the environment. The energy to manufacture and dispose of a vehicle is huge.

The problem with the CO2 argument is that going by the actual fact based data that is easily proven and is factually confirmed is that it represents just under 1% of the total green house gas effects in our planets atmospheric cycle operations. Water vapor (clouds, humidity, etc) and the other gasses that make up our atmosphere carries the other 99%.

Of the approximately 1% of the annual gross mass of CO2 produced on the planet us humans and all our dirty little efforts only contribute around 3% of that total gross mass of atmospheric CO2.
That means we are directly and confirmed responsible for around 3% of 1% of the total green house gasses. Or .03% of the annual volume produced which about a 30 PPM equivalent of the total mass of the estimated volume of the earths atmosphere. Or about the equivalent CO2 that you release into your house in one average breath in one years time period.

Thats far below the accepted statistical noise floor in valid scientific data analysis as I understand it. Mathematically calculable but when used in actual testing its just too small of value. Its like saying your cat riding along with you in your car affects the gas mileage. Mathematically yes but in all practicality you can never prove it. 100 cats maybe but not one.

Current known and proven CO2 cycles show that the oceans and plant life easily compensate for that by their natural absorbing and reclaiming processes. (Natural carbon sequestering and lock up.)

CO2 is not the greenhouse gas thats responsible for our weather and natural climatic cycles of heat dissipation and retention. Water vapor is!
Thats why when it cloudy you feel less radiant heat energy coming from the sun during the day (its being partially blocked and absorbed) but also when it is cloudy at night we have far less heat loss from the atmosphere being radiated back out into space. (the nights dont cool of as much as when its clear.) Anyone over 10 years old can understand and confirm this effect as well.

A good honest search of any of the reputable ecological data collection centers or agencies like the USGS (one of my personal favorites) have the same basic information and Numbers as well. Its rather common knowledge among the scientific community that does the actual data collection and number crunching.
You know, those guys no one listens to because they dont seem to ever find any conclusive data to back up the global warming scare mongering despite being the actual people who do the research, data collecting and real facts and figures publishing! Those same 17000+ scientists who made up a world wide petition a few years ago to say they cant prove or disprove global warming but could prove that nothing out of the normal is happening!

tcm, as far as I know the ozone bit is actually a problem because of all the ionizing radiation available at high altitudes.

tcmtech said:

The problem with the CO2 argument is that going by the actual fact based data that is easily proven and is factually confirmed is that it represents just under 1% of the total green house gas effects in our planets atmospheric cycle operations. Water vapor (clouds, humidity, etc) and the other gasses that make up our atmosphere carries the other 99%.

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Your argument here ignores the fact that CO2 is a much more efficient green house gas than water vapor. CO2 accounts for apx 10% to 30% of the green house effect. Another issue is that water vapor is basically self regulating for a given temperature. ie: H2O in the troposphere is a feedback effect linked to temperature which is linked to the level of H2O, CO2, CH4, and O3 in the atmosphere.

Current known and proven CO2 cycles show that the oceans and plant life easily compensate for that by their natural absorbing and reclaiming processes. (Natural carbon sequestering and lock up.)

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You should change that smilely face to a .
Yes, the oceans are a huge CO2 sink. In fact, the CO2 absorption by the oceans is turning them acidic. If the oceans get too acidic, then the corral reefs will die, shellfish will be unable to make shells and the ocean food chain starts to unravel. Yes, the CO2 concentrations in the oceans has been higher in the past as have atmospheric CO2 levels. The key here, and the GW deniers always forget to mention this, is that the CO2 and associated temperature changes in the past took place over long periods of time giving organic life forms time to adapt and evolve. ie: The key here is the RATE of change and life's ability to adapt in time.

Thats why when it cloudy you feel less radiant heat energy coming from the sun during the day (its being partially blocked and absorbed) but also when it is cloudy at night we have far less heat loss from the atmosphere being radiated back out into space. (the nights dont cool of as much as when its clear.) Anyone over 10 years old can understand and confirm this effect as well.

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Now you are getting it! You can see that water vapor both deflects AND keeps the solar heat in on the Earth. CO2 works in the same manner but the ratio of the Earth's solar heat absorption vs radiation is much higher with CO2. It allows much more heat in than it lets out. This is why CO2 is a much more significant green house gas than it's meager % of atmospheric composition lets on.

Ross Craney said:

With CO2 having a specific gravity of 1.6 ( heavier then air ) how does it get to the upper atmosphere ? I have lots of questions but no one to ask for the answers.

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Air is a mixture of many gasses CO² being one of them.

The E-mails show how all this GW scientist juggled the numbers, to better serve their objective. How can you believe any of their facts, figures, and projections? I wasn't buying it when Al Gore was selling it, and he won the Nobel Prize. You can shoot out all the numbers you want, but they lack integrity, kind of like the most recent recipient of the Nobel Prize. I'll go with what I've learned, from sources with no political association. Might not be up-to-date, might even be a little inaccurate, but it makes a whole lot more sense. This whole issue comes down to faith. I don't have the funding, the background, or resources to either validate the facts and figures myself, or prove otherwise. Don't even have enough interest to even try, much like most people. It smelled of a hoax from the beginning, the E-mails don't help the GW cause one bit. Got a hunch, more will come out very soon. This fad is sinking fast, too bad, we really need Obama to create some kind of work for the unemployed Americans. Guess, since they are so many sitting at home (or under an overpass), they are reducing carbon emissions, by not commuting to work daily.