ClimateGate: Oh, the Animals!

Heh!

ClimateGate: How They All Squirmed...

By James Delingpole at the London Telegraph:

Among the many great amusements of the Climategate scandal are the myriad imaginative excuses being offered by the implicated scientists and their friends in the MSM as to why this isn’t a significant story. Here are some of the best:

Just go read it.  You know you want to...

ClimateGate: More Source Code Analysis...

Bloggers and scientists all over the world are digging into the IDL and Fortran programs that are part of the ClimateGate trove.  Here's a nice summary of the current findings from American Thinker.  A taste:

One can only imagine the angst suffered daily by the co-conspirators, who knew full well that the "Documents" sub-folder of the CRU FOI2009 file contained more than enough probative program source code to unmask CRU's phantom methodology. 

In fact, there are hundreds of IDL and FORTRAN source files buried in dozens of subordinate sub-folders. And many do properly analyze and chart maximum latewood density (MXD), the growth parameter commonly utilized by CRU scientists as a temperature proxy, from raw or legitimately normalized data. Ah, but many do so much more. 

Skimming through the often spaghetti-like code, the number of programs which subject the data to a mixed-bag of transformative and filtering routines is simply staggering. Granted, many of these "alterations" run from benign smoothing algorithms (e.g., omitting rogue outliers) to moderate infilling mechanisms (e.g., estimating missing station data from that of those closely surrounding). But many others fall into the precarious range between highly questionable (removing MXD data which demonstrate poor correlations with local temperature) to downright fraudulent (replacing MXD data entirely with measured data to reverse a disorderly trend-line).

In fact, workarounds for the post-1960 "divergence problem," as described by both RealClimate and Climate Audit, can be found throughout the source code. So much so that perhaps the most ubiquitous programmer's comment (REM) I ran across warns that the particular module "Uses 'corrected' MXD - but shouldn't usually plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures."

What exactly is meant by "corrected” MXD," you ask? Outstanding question -- and the answer appears amorphous from program to program. Indeed, while some employ one or two of the aforementioned "corrections," others throw everything but the kitchen sink at the raw data prior to output.

The more I discover or read about these “scientists”, the madder I get at them...

A Different Twist on ClimateGate...

Some commentators – predominantly political commentators – who are skeptical of AGW are not so much skeptical of the science as they are skeptical of the motivation for the science.  In particular, they believe that the environmental movement is largely controlled by socialists (or those even further to the left) who see the environmental issues as an excellent source of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) that can be used as levers to get the electorate in democracies to choose to give government control over many areas of their lives.  These commentators think that the pro-AGW scientists are “useful idiots”, perfect for exploitation by the socialist activists in control of the environmental movement. 

This all reeks of conspiricism to me, and it's in my general nature to be skeptical of such claims.  Stupidity and avarice, it seems to me, are perfectly sufficient to explain everything I've seen so far in ClimateGate.

But here's an observation that I must admit lends a little weight to the contentions of these commentators.  I'm going to start watching this a little more credulously than I have been...

Video Primer on the AGW “Settled Science”

Thanksgiving in Jamul...

Today is the first day Debbie and I have had together in about two weeks – first I was off on a combined personal and business trip, then she was up in Murietta, cooking for a fancy-schmancy dog training seminar (trainers and trainees).  She got back home late last night.

Our Thanksgiving Day feast this year will be with our friends and neighbors, Jim and Michelle Barnick (who live just up the hill from us).  They're having a few dozen friends and relatives over.  Our contribution is the pumpkin pie, which Debbie and I just finished making. 

We had some help from the dogs.  I made the pie crusts (a simple crust made of ginger snap crumbs and butter).  I accidentally brushed a few crumbs off onto the floor, where Race (our border collie yearling) found them.  You could see him immediately take on a wondering look, as if to say “Where the hell has this been my whole life?” 

Then a little while later I had the job of mixing the filling.  After pouring the filling into the pies (and a couple of extra custard cups), I had a nice, big mixing bowl coated with the filling mixture.  Basically that's eggs, evaporated milk, and pumpkin, with some spices and sugar.  If you're a dog, I don't think it gets any better than that.  Suffice it to say that the mixing bowl was shortly extremely clean, at a molecular level.  I could have just let it dry and thrown it back in the cabinet, but for form's sake I actually did wash it off...

Now the pies are in the oven, the dishes are all washed, and we're just relaxing for a bit.  In a few hours we'll wander up the hill to start our feast.  A few hours after that, we'll be painfully full of excellent food and drink, and we'll be smiling from the good company of our friends...

Happy Thanksgiving to you all, on this beautiful day in the chaparral of Lawson Valley, just east of Jamul...

ClimateGate Editorial...

By Lorrie Goldstein in the Toronto Sun.  The lede:

If you're wondering how the robot-like march of the world's politicians towards Copenhagen can possibly continue in the face of the scientific scandal dubbed "climategate," it's because Big Government, Big Business and Big Green don't give a s*** about "the science."

They never have. 

Go read the whole thing.

Can citizens win against the warmenists?  I think that maybe, just maybe, the answer is “yes!”

The Proclamation...

We have much to be thankful for, even as there is much to be worried about.  I've never heard it said better than this:

By the President of the United States of America.


A Proclamation.


The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.


In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.


Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.


By the President: Abraham Lincoln

It Begins...

Skeptical scientists are starting to tear into the raw data recently revealed by hackers who posted thousands of documents from East Anglia's CRU (see earlier posts).  Some New Zealanders have found that the raw data from their country was heavily – and arbitrarily – manipulated to show a hockey stick where none exists in the raw data.

Expect much, much more of this sort of disclosure...