Climategate unfolds - scientific fraud is exposed for all to see

The temptation to attain fame and grant money through fraud was too great to resist for a number of "climate scientists" who are now exposed to public scrutiny through examination of their emails. These so-called scientists have discredited climate science as a legitimate profession. Instead they have created a modern day example of cargo cult science that stands as a historical landmark for political corruption.

From Wikipedia: Cargo cult science is a term used by Richard Feynman during a commencement address in 1974 to describe work that has the semblance of being scientific, but is missing "a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty".

The supporters of "global warming" are already marshaling arguments to defend their cause against scrutiny. They claim that these emails are being taken out of context. Perhaps they should take the time to read some of these emails. I have been browsing through the emails and they are quite illuminating.

Here are a few links that will let you decide for yourselves:

Three Things You Absolutely Must Know About Climategate

Email exchange between Graham F Haughton and Phil Jones

Climategate: Violating the Social Contract of Science

ICECAP compilation of recent articles

Global WarmingGate: What Does It Mean?

Climategate Computer Codes Are the Real Story

I expect to see an outpouring of support for these beleaguered "climate scammers" from NPR and other organizations who are in on the take or who have drunk the global warming Kool-Aid. The support will not contain real data or links to verifiable sources.

Global temperatures have been falling for eight years and yet we are spending tax money and crippling industrial development  to stop "global warming" during an economic depression.

Your conclusions may differ but I think the cat is finally out of the bag.

Comments

[Zack]

So the email you linked didn't have much disturbing. Actually much of the fuss I have seen online is about data smoothing which is a normal statistical technique being misunderstood by critics. Or Mann's data which was being attacked by his peers as not being scientific.

I am sure there are some peoeple (like Mann) forging numbers or hiding bad data out of laziness but peer review and scientific analysis catch these things.

For example the email chain you linked was largely complaining that skeptics were not using peer reviewed science. Also note that despite Graham being pro climate he stood up for the skeptics he used to work with and let them exert their contrary opinion freely which is opposite what skeptics claim climatologists do.

"as with all academics, I'd want to protect
another academic's freedom to be contrary and critical, even if I personally believe she is probably wrong. I agree with you that it'd be better for these exchanges to be conducted through the peer review process but these forms of e-communication are now part of the public debate and its difficult to do much about it other than to defend your position in this and other fora, or just ignore it as being, in your words, malicious."

OMG cover-up! Frankly the email sounds like a good academic scientist wrote it. Skeptical but accepting of dissent.

From reading dozen of email threads it sounds like one researcher I could find (Mann) was fudging data / cherry-picking and getting attacked by members of his own dept for not being able to back his results with data. I felt this critic of his summed it up well.

"I think it's fair to say that to all of us in the field of climatology, the notion that
Kyoto is based on the Mann curve is utter nonsense. If a climatologist, or a policy
advisor charged with knowing the science well enough to make astute recommendations to his/her boss, relied solely on the Mann curve to prove definitively the existence of
anthropogenic warming, then we're in deeper trouble than anybody realizes."

[Zack]

Some of your meta links have good information on some data having been deleted rather than supplied due to FOI requests. But again it is CYA for groups who faked data and were being attacked already.

The bad scientists were outed and that is good, but I don't think that this discredits global warming by a long shot as this is one team of researchers at one institution.

What may be interesting is who ever did use this team as a reference on their own articles now have to go and check their data. (e.g. the normalization extrapolation routine that rounds up at the end of cycles.) Hard to know how that is used but I could see some teams using same data not seeing raw unprocessed results were inconsistent. Should see in a few months what is published.

[Gary]

I think the bag still has a number of cats in it...Just for the sake of balance how about a link to a "weather professional". Here is one I read regularly along with his take on your conspiracy...Weather Underground.

I followed your links and have to say I am unconvinced with the conclusion you and they are trying to push...But then, we knew that would happen.

David says: The scientists exchanging emails to cover up declining temperatures are weather professionals, aren't they?

[The Freeholder]

"Actually much of the fuss I have seen online is about data smoothing which is a normal statistical technique being misunderstood by critics."

Actually having worked in research in a former life (pharmacological rather than climate), I have seen first hand how that misunderstood statistical technique is often misused by researchers in order to make those graphs look just a skoosh better, make sure that the conclusions meet the grantor's expectations and so on. Some of the things I saw done in the data analysis violated precepts of analysis I was taught in my first stats class, for crying out loud.

It also doesn't help that far too many scientists get lazy. They take shortcuts, such as using the questionable data of others without checking it, which tends to reinforce the original bad science. When this starts, it doesn't take long for bad science to become a "settled issue".

Many of my friends wonder why I'm not a big fan of medications, outside of the well-proven ones with years of data to back their safety. Well, it's for the same reasons that I don't believe the climate changers. I've seen just how dirty big science is on the inside. I don't distrust it, but I don't automatically believe without reservation. I reserve the right to educate myself as best I can and make my own judgments.

One group of weather guys is called Weatherbrains. They too have a poor opinion of the science behind anthropogenic global warming.

[KingShamus]

Gary is correct. These e-mails are only just starting to get parsed out. I think there are far worse things in there to be found. The global warming alarmists are running scared now.

[Marti]

Hope you had a good Thanksgiving!