Climategate-gate

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I don't even see Muller's name mentioned in the articles I posted so what the heck does Muller have to do with this anyways?

did you not even read the OP?

Muller spoke twice with ScienceInsider after testifying on 31 March before the science committee. Here are excerpts from those conversations.

Q: You testified that the scientists maintaining the three climate temperature sets—maintained by NASA, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.K. Met Office—have done "excellent" work. So how did you feel when the e-mails from the University of East Anglia emerged?

R.M.: I felt like a woman who's just learned her husband was cheating on her. It doesn't mean he's a bad husband in all ways, but that trust is lost. ... The e-mails didn't relate at all to the temperature work. … It was all the [paleotemperature] proxy data. [But] that disillusioned me.

Q: What does your initial examination of 2% of world temperature stations find in terms of world climate?

R.M.: Some [readings] are going down—but more are going up. The average is going up.

Q: You compared U.S. climate trends from some 300 stations deemed well or moderately-well located with 800 stations that are poorly sited. What did you find?

R.M.: There was no statistical difference [in the data] between the good groups and the bad groups.

Q: Why was that surprising?

R.M.: Because the stations were so bad. … You see stations right up against buildings, next to heat sources.

Q: How is your technique different than the methods used by the teams analyzing the three major datasets?

R.M.: [Their goal is] to generate long continuous methods. … If there was a change, [like] a station moved, they would adjust the data to try to eliminate that. [But] it makes me very uncomfortable when you adjust the data. … [So] we just cut the data at that point [and create two shorter records]. It means we wind up in our analysis with [not very many] continuous records.

Q: Did you have any trouble getting access to data? Access was central to the fight that led to the East Anglia e-mail flap.

R.M.: We believe we have 95% of the data that the U.K. [Met Office] is not releasing. ... Merging the data—from 16 sources—we found there is a great deal of overlap.

Q: You say that "openness and transparency" are central to your project. So why present your findings to Congress before describing your methods in a publication that everybody can read?

R.M.: We were originally planning to submit a paper at the same time as the testimony, to a journal which would allow simultaneous publication of the draft online. ... This is a problem that causes us great concern. What do you do when you are working on [something] and Congress asks you to testify? It's a difficult issue.

Q: Did photos on [skeptic] Anthony Watts' Web site showing official temperature gauges in flawed locations like parking lots inspire you to get involved in the debate over the accuracy of the weather stations ?

R.M.: I realized that Watts was doing something that was of importance. The issues he raised needed to be addressed. It made me seriously wonder whether the reported global warming may be biased by poor station quality. Watts is a hero for what he's done. So is [prominent skeptic blogger] Steve McIntyre.

Q: What are you hoping to accomplish with Berkeley Earth?

R.M.: There's a huge penumbra of scientists who have … heard from prominent scientists that the debate is over, it's all been settled and so on. … [So] when they stumble across things like the Watts pictures they're disturbed. ...They feel that many of these questions haven't been answered. What I'm hoping to do is calm the debate.

Q: What's next for your project?

R.M.: Very soon we hope to have both the data and the programs online. And if you don't like our results, my [advice] is to change the program, but be open and transparent about it. Let us know what you changed. If there's some assumption we make that you think is invalid than change the assumption and run the programs and see what answer you get. I'm hoping that if we make it that open and that accessible that the people who are interested in the answer … will be won over.

Q: Are there any other lines of research that you want to pursue?

R.M.: We're applying for funding to study the ocean temperature data. That will allow us to get a true global picture of temperature trends.

For the clueless or cynical diehards who deny global warming, it’s getting awfully cold out there.

Try basic common sense.

Try basic common sense.

The Earth's geological history is riddled with warm periods and ice ages...

Furthermore climategate involved tampering with numbers on the part of scientists, the very people being accused of pulling the shannigans were the investigators, so of course they would say they did nothing wrong.

Yeah, common sense carries a lot of weight on a topic that isn't cut and dried at all . Common sense tells us Earth is flat, science tells us something a little more counter-intuitive. Why wouldn't the same thing apply to global warming?

I don't know sh** about global warming, but I've only seen straw grasping arguments against it so I'll take the word of 93% of scientists over the word of the skeptics.

I will add to this the key facts

1. Many climate scientists are paid to support one side of the argument or the other
2. Al Gore's movie ended up getting trounced in a British Court for several key fallacies.
3. The Earth has a history of the climate changing from rather warm to ice age and back again, we had a mini ice age not to long ago from a geological sense.
4. Many of the thermometers used to record the data are on locations where the readings would be affected by the location (AC exhausts (an AC in reverse is a heating unit), exhausts for cooking stoves, on blacktop, etc), some originally weren't at those locations.

1. Absolutely false. Having been in the field myself, I can say that the scientists, many of whom work with or for universities, get paid the exact same regardless of findings. If anything, it would be strategically beneficial to go against the grain of consensus for pure publicity reasons and book sales (See Muller).

2. Al Gore's not a scientist.

3. It's not simply the change, it's the rate of change which is unprecedented.

4. You can remove all those stations from the data set and get the same results. Please reread (assuming you bothered to read it in the first place) the Q&A above. Another way scientists have verified the trend is through remote sensing (satellite) data. Your pals at NASA have a wealth of information on the warming trend.

If your goal is to gain knowledge on the subject, you're doing an awful job. If your goal is to blindly fight for the deniers, then keep up the good work.

The global warming is as real as rain. The BIG QUESTION is to what extent human activity is driving it. If human activity is the main driver, then we will have to change our ways. If not, if it is due to natural forces, then changing our ways will not make much of a difference.

ruveyn

Personally, I think most efforts towards green technology and lifestyles make sense for countless reasons. Our resources are limited and our environment has become quite toxic in a very short amount of time. When I was a kid, we didn't have smog alerts and swimming in the lakes and beaches was a summertime ritual. Now, there are hot days where "don't leave the house" is the best advice and most natural water sources are polluted and downright dangerous. Even if you think human contribution is negligible (and very few in the field do), then for human health and energy independence reasons alone, changing our ways makes sense.

Pollution is a different issue from global warming. Pollution is the responsibility of the polluter. The way to cure pollution is two fold.

1. Stop dirtying up the place.

2. Clean up what has already been done.

ruveyn