Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

Got a citation for that 'debate about measurement of data' within Bom at this moment?

Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

The Daily Telegraph starting to go really downhill when Bill Deedes died. I only read the The Independent or The Times these days if I can help it.

Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

Garry, I'm a lazy poster so even if I had one, I'd let someone else post it.
It was reported last year in the press and there were some editorials in the national press. A mate of mine works there at the Bom - might ask him about it. He spends alot of his time stuffing around with data within their models.

As far as I am concerned, measurement is key. If we start changing past data then it muddies the empirical data and doesn't help the debate.
I am not a scientist Garry and happily defer to you on this one.

first one out of google

http://theconversation.com/no-the-bu...her-data-31009

http://joannenova.com.au/2014/08/hid...nd-to-warming/

Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

A very timely BBC article on the subject.

BBC News - Who are the Barclay brothers?

Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

Badge: Here's just one explanation of (a) why and (b) how temperatures are adjusted in the records:

Kevin Cowtan Debunks Christopher Booker's Temperature Conspiracy Theory

Basically, historical measurements were never intended to be used for other than daily records. And also the instruments, times od day, procedures, were sometimes changed over the decades. It would be junk science to use the unaltered figures as a TREND since calibration might not be done for example when the method was changed.

The video is explicit on how the alterations are made and as importantly, verified against surrounding stations. Also how a bit of detective work discovers the "blips" correspond to instrumentation/ procedural changes.

Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

Ahh, thought it might be that one.

Worth noting the person kicking up the stink wasn't someone from BOM at all - it was a biologist. Her biog is.... illuminating.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Marohasy
Its also illuminating that that she was doing the typical pick-on-a-specific-weather-station attack of the climate deniers, rather than looking at the averaged climate. Local weather != global climate.

Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

>>Its also illuminating that that she was doing the typical pick-on-a-specific-weather-station attack of the climate deniers, rather than looking at the averaged climate. Local weather != global climate.<<

Yes, it always fits into the same mould.

Marohasy > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Public_Affairs. > Exxon, Shell, Mobil, Caltex, Esso.

It's a wonder that AGW deniers are not embarrassed by the quotes they pull up - the interweb only has to be perused for a couple of minutes for a myriad of examples of the sponsors of their sources to be exposed. Follow the money.

Naomi Oreske's book "Merchants of doubt" has page after page of (fully referenced - you can follow the authentication) examples of the same individuals, often initially highly regarded scientists, who were paid to promote cigarettes, acid rain polluters, AGW denial movements by the only way that was credible": sowing the illusion that science itself is shonky and that therefore any research is suspect. It's on Kindle, and a bloody interesting read!

Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

Ever heard of a 'Gish Gallop'?

Basically it's a continual stream of b*llsh*t, spread at such a rate that the time taken to show that each pat is complete cr*p is longer than the time till the next pat lands.

All the denier has to do is keep that stream up, repeating the discredited statements once people have forgotten them, and it appears they have the upper hand by the shear pace of disinformation.


Given the climate deniers have no actual science to fall back on, it's one of their chosen weapons - people just give up listening, saying "there's debate".

Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

>>Given the climate deniers have no actual science to fall back on, it's one of their chosen weapons - people just give up listening, saying "there's debate".<<

That's exactly the theme of Oreske's book, dating back to the tobacco industry's denial campaign from the 50s onwards. It funded all sorts of right wing "think tanks" and institutions who would push the "not settled" meme until the sheeple accepted it. With the internet, of course, it's dead easy.

It's also easy to follow the money online, and you can see in many cases how the fossil fuel industry funds so many of the same institutions and in many cases the same individuals to make a faux case against the science. Mind you, they are getting better at hiding the funding links, it can take as many as ten clicks to burrow down!

Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

Speaking of which, here's another paid shrill; taking money for paid 'deliverables' that are used by deniers - and getting caught out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/us...Soon.html?_r=0

Hopefully this aerospace engineer, masquerading as an astrophysicist and geologist, will get sacked, quickly.

Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

Yes, Soon has been outed many times in the past. But it never stops people quoting him, like so many others.

Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

Probably by the time that I'm 100+ the Maunder Minimum will be kicking in again, this is the thing that caused the Thames to freeze a few hundred years ago and seems to come around about every 350-400 years. There is not much clear information on this cycle but it has had a few mentions throughout history, next time it appears we might welcome a bit of global warming.

Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

In any case the MM was a relatively localised phenomenon:

How does the Medieval Warm Period compare to current global temperatures?

Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

But surely when you aggregate local stations, (to get an average) and to work out trends it is important what these local stations are?

There's another article in the paper over the weekend. Appears the row is over the fact that the Bureau have added some stations that were hotter, after a particular date. This has the effect of a warming trend in Australia, rather than a cooling one.

Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

You don't just aggregate local stations and get an average that way - over the decades (and remember, we are not talking weather, but trends over many years) stations are moved and added to and retired. If you merely averaged the whole set and took one or two away you completely alter to average either up or down.

There's no row over adding stations except that brewed up by the media and News Corp. Climatologists are not ignorant; they take all factors into account and make adjustments, which are fully audited.

Unless you subscribe to the denial argument that thousands of scientists have colluded in a fraud lasting some fifty years without anyone whistleblowing or even noticing, the science is as near settled as it's possible to be.

Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

Did you know people once thought the world was flat?

Discovery and science continues to move goalposts.

Which of today's beliefs are tomorrows denounced facts?

Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

???

'denounced facts' ???

People never seem to get their heads around how science works. The theory has to fit the facts. Any facts come along that don't match the theory, people start investigating - that's where you make your name. However the facts very rarely change, it's the understanding of the explanation that does, sometimes.

So, what generally happens is the new theory simplifies down to the old theory over the range where the old facts exist (cf relativity and newton). That's no surprise, the old theory matched the facts, so must the new.

We know CO2 is a greenhouse gas, we know the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has been steadily climbing, we know what the climate looks like when CO2 is much higher (it's much hotter), we know that that happens, and that the atmosphere tends to stabilise in new states (attractors).

There's no new theory that's going to come along that isn't going to have to hit those same facts - basically that means the discussion hasn't been "is it" for decades now; rather the only discussion is "how bad will it get, and how fast".

Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

>>There's no new theory that's going to come along that isn't going to have to hit those same facts - basically that means the discussion hasn't been "is it" for decades now; rather the only discussion is "how bad will it get, and how fast".<<

There IS genuine debate over the huge numbers of feedback mechanisms, both positive and negative. New ones are being investigated all the time.

Many are things that no-one really thought about until AGW reared its head. For example, melting icecaps raise sea level, and one would assume that level rise would be uniform all over the globe. But the icecap in Greenland, to take one, exerts a gravitic pull on the ocean on either side it's so massive. That means the sea level at present is slightly higher around Greenland than it otherwise would be. As the ice melts its gravity reduces, so the rise in sea level there is less than it might be - and that elsewhere is more. So the melting ice not only raises average sea level all over, but does so more in far away regions.

Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

And the impact on the ocean circulations not only have a direct impact on the UK, but also in other ways on the eastern seaboard of the US

Mysterious US east coast flooding caused by 'unprecedented' surge in sea level

Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

Good to hear. When you say "If you merely averaged the whole set and took one or two away you completely alter to average either up or down."

You adjust/allow, you mean?

Re: "Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever"
 

Very interesting to read Guys. I like to read new information about it all. :thumbup: