Climate Change Chief Scientist 'loses' All Data!

[Avon]

The use of the words "denier", "denialism" etc is a deliberate linguistic echo to Holocaust denial. While I accept you may not use the word with this gross insult towards people who disagree with you with that intention, it would be naive to say that the word has not been chosen intentionally because of its emotive connotations.

The fact that, like me, the vast majority of sceptics may know almost nothing about the physical process behind climate change nor the modelling that comes to that conclusion, is a valid criticism and is noted.

However, those backing MMGW as a theory have not helped themselves with the great unwashed by outrageous scaremongering and the fact that the confidence levels in the models (and the theories) don't seem to be that high amongst the scientific community. That doesn't mean that they are wrong, but to change the entire world system because of something that may or may not be true and trample on the lifestyles and feelings of those who don't buy into everything published is asking a lot.

I am all for science - we'd be screwed without it and MMGW may indeed be correct. I'd rather play safe than sorry by more efficient fuel use and better resource management.

However, please don't linguistically compare me or people who share some of my views with deniers of the Holocaust. It is an awful slur and I am sure you are better than that, sir.

I wouldn't, and I don't. Denial has a much wider meaning than one tragic event in history; and psychologists and philosophers use it freely to refer to many contexts where people simultaneous believe in all the conditions that make P true but deny the truth of P anyway. Psychoanalysts and loads of movies talk about being 'in denial' as well. Stanley Cohen wrote a brilliant book on all the possibilities without even mentioning the Holocaust (States of Denial). So I think you are being a bit sensitive here. On the other hand, as I said, I also think you credit yourself a bit too much by using the self-label 'sceptic.' This means someone who has good, or very good, reasons for doubting a proposition or description of a process. So what are the reasons? I also deny you claims about scaremongering. Both the premise and implication. Even if it were true, it would not affect the truth or falsity of the proposition: perhaps we are living in scary times. But the reality is that it's not (generally) the scientists who are doing the scaring, it's the media who are looking for things to shock people about in an age of media saturation and unshockability and this requires soundbites and pictures of ice sheets melting (and polar bears drowning) in real time. "50 cm sea level rise, must sell the beach hut!" Never mind that it will take another 50-100 years minimum. Or that there are huge lags in the conversion of additional GHGs into additional radiative forcing, and then additional radiative forcing into climate damages, due to intertia in the climate system and the long lifespans of greenhouse gases. In reality, scientists are generally quite cagey and if anything have, certainly until recently, underplayed the possible costs of MMGW in media-friendly documents.

[Kurt Barlow]

No one knows the true World Oil reserves because no country will release any information!

Stock market speculation - is exactly that!

If peak oil now - it will take decades++ to deplete till too expensive(depending on how the elites have it FIXED!)

Climate Change is/has been proven a complete falsehood

So quit yer scare mongering!

So all the ice melting 12,000 years ago wasn't climate change?

Don't tell me - the World is only 5500 years old!

[DabHand]

Finally, for those who believe peak oil is the main problem, sleep easy there's more than enough oil and other fossil fuel goodies (3-5 trillion tonnes of carbon equivalent) for us to toast ourselves and future generations. So, denialists, you've won but don't expect to take the moral high ground as well FFS.

That's quite interesting - a pro MMGW but a peak oil denialist. You are a rare beast indeed.

I am an Env Sciences grad from UEA and frankly if that report is true then l am quite disgusted. Rather than you all descend into ad hominem attacks on eachother, would it not be rather important to find out how much of this report is "true".

Academic science seems to be a lot about publishing more papers than the next guy, and shagging American undergrads, truth be damned, so its not a major surprise to me that Jones wouldn't let anyone but his select "colleagues" view the raw data. Established scientists literally have their careers staked on their published view and have a violently dim view of upstarts with conflicting positions. However this does rather cut the legs out from under one of the primary tenets of scientific proveability and that is independent recreation of the results.

I mean, is that comment about him initially refusing to disclose data to people who might try to find something wrong with it even remotely true?? The world's gone upside down! The BEST way of proving something is to allow your detractors to examine the data and let them undermine their own objections. What kind of science relies on a priori belief before access to the "proof". Sounds like religion to me.

If you are unable to check the validity of the underlying data the rest may as well be BOE CPI and GDP projections.

Losing data is shoddy and extremely unlikely, thus deciding to delete data with no archived copy, and basing any further work on "processed" meta data is simply incompetent and worse, smacks of wilful manipulation. This sort of behaviour should ring alarm bells with anyone who believes in proper science and not churches of dogma.

Does anyone have any further information on this particular CRU stuff, l am very interested to know what the fook is going on?

[mfp123]

ive always wondered why people often ignore the fact that as a planet we also simply generate more heat.

there are nearly 7 billion of us on this planet. we all give off heat.

we have more industry, more transport, more cities, more burning of fuels.

we may burn fossil fuels which creates more co2 but burning fossil fuels also just creates more heat.

think about your house and car. how much heat do we produce compared to if nothing was there. now multiply that by every day of every year for the past 100 years. now multiply that figure by 6 billion.

surely its just natural that we create more heat on the planet just from our very existence.

is it inconceivable that 3 billion extra people and the industrialisation of the planet will result in a 1 degree rise in temperature over 100 years through natural heat.

after all, we are all just walking heaters.

[Snow Birds]

Anyone who equates a person having serious doubts over theoretical climate predictions which seem to change every month with another person who doubts that millions of people died in the Holocaust despite the documented historical proof by the use of the words "denier" or "denialist" has lost rational perspective of the issue. It is nothing more than an intellectually dishonest dirty trick to shut down debate.

I am an envirosceptic but I believe that peak oil is a problem.

I believe in recycling, cleaner energy and so on but it doesn't mean I have to believe every doomladen climate change model or even believe that man may be causing it. I have as much trust in the vested interests of the climate change movement as I do the vested interests of "every major corporation, oil company and Western government".

Well said, actually very well said.

[Avon]

That's quite interesting - a pro MMGW but a peak oil denialist. You are a rare beast indeed.

I am an Env Sciences grad from UEA and frankly if that report is true then l am quite disgusted. Rather than you all descend into ad hominem attacks on eachother, would it not be rather important to find out how much of this report is "true".

Academic science seems to be a lot about publishing more papers than the next guy, and shagging American undergrads, truth be damned, so its not a major surprise to me that Jones wouldn't let anyone but his select "colleagues" view the raw data. Established scientists literally have their careers staked on their published view and have a violently dim view of upstarts with conflicting positions. However this does rather cut the legs out from under one of the primary tenets of scientific proveability and that is independent recreation of the results.

I mean, is that comment about him initially refusing to disclose data to people who might try to find something wrong with it even remotely true?? The world's gone upside down! The BEST way of proving something is to allow your detractors to examine the data and let them undermine their own objections. What kind of science relies on a priori belief before access to the "proof". Sounds like religion to me.

If you are unable to check the validity of the underlying data the rest may as well be BOE CPI and GDP projections.

Losing data is shoddy and extremely unlikely, thus deciding to delete data with no archived copy, and basing any further work on "processed" meta data is simply incompetent and worse, smacks of wilful manipulation. This sort of behaviour should ring alarm bells with anyone who believes in proper science and not churches of dogma.

Does anyone have any further information on this particular CRU stuff, l am very interested to know what the fook is going on?

Didn't say I reject peak oil as such. Oil extraction may or may not have peaked. Only that peak, or no peak, together with other fossil fuels and other GHGs we have more than enough to send us into climate armageddon by 2100. In fact, at current rates it will only take us 40 years to rack up another 500 billion tonnes of carbon equivalent in the atmosphere. Yes, the story is worrying. But it smells of hype to me. Although we'll probably never find out the true story before the sceptic argument moves to another issue. A constant theme of denial - whether of evolution or climate change - are the shifting arguments and supposed rejections. They did the same replication crusade against Michael Mann whose hockey stick, surprise surprise, more or less stands up today. But, yes, if enough of these cases of lost (or stashed) data came to light, it would be a seriously concern. On the other hand, given the 10,000s of active scientists in climate-relevant disciplines, I stand by my point that isolated instances of sculduggery are predictable and do not refute the theories the miscreants themselves endorse.

[Guest DissipatedYouthIsValuable]

Didn't we have malaria in Kent 300 years ago?

[CrashConnoisseur]

I mean, is that comment about him initially refusing to disclose data to people who might try to find something wrong with it even remotely true??

[...snip...]

Does anyone have any further information on this particular CRU stuff, l am very interested to know what the fook is going on?

For some background to the Nature article...

'McIntyre versus Jones: climate data row escalates':

http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/20..._climate_1.html

The heading in your breakdown "Why won't Jones give McIntyre the data?" concentrates, rightly, on McIntyre but others have had refusals from Jones to similar requests too. Here's one that is rather illuminating.

Jones's response of 21/02/2005 to Warwick Hughes's request for Jones's raw climate data:

"Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it."

[Guest DissipatedYouthIsValuable]

For some background to the Nature article...

'McIntyre versus Jones: climate data row escalates':

http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/20..._climate_1.html

Haha.

Is everyone in Kent taking antimalarials against the ague and are there more vineyards there than 300 years ago?

[erranta]

Haha.

Is everyone in Kent taking antimalarials against the ague and are there more vineyards there than 300 years ago?

Top Marks DOC!

Courtesy CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1997

& DR MARY DOBSON

http://malaria.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTD023991.html

The designation 'malaria' – literally, 'bad air' – was first used in the early 19th century. Before that, terms such as 'ague', 'marsh fever' or 'intermittent fever' were used to describe malaria-like illnesses.

From the 15th century onwards, malaria was endemic along the coasts and estuaries of south-east England, the Fenlands, and estuarine and marshland coastal areas of Northern England

It was so frigging WARM

> 1400's onwards >

that "Malarial Mosquitoes" were "living up NORTH"!

Cue the Fascist, "Holocaust denial", obfuscation, hit-squad

(Bzzzz Bzzzz Bzzzz)

You haven't changed any tactics since the 'other' site - you boring farts

[Minos]

I just spotted the Xtra 'flawed' lies in Prof Jones statement about "loosing ALL the Data"

If he has previously given the data out to his 'chosen ones' - it must still exist!

Are the data wedged in someones beard alongside yesterday's lunch?

[Minos]

Peak oil = end of civilisation

Climate change = end of human race

Solution = Do something now

Please explain how climate change = end of human race. Are you being just an itsy bitsy bit OTT here sweetie?

[Minos]

Yes, and there are fairies down the bottom of my garden.

I can believe that.

[Minos]

So all the ice melting 12,000 years ago wasn't climate change?

Don't tell me - the World is only 5500 years old!

Were we burning fossil fuels 12,000 years ago? No, you surprise me.

[Avon]

For some background to the Nature article...

'McIntyre versus Jones: climate data row escalates':

http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/20..._climate_1.html

That's how real science works. A peer review journal (and its bloggy bits) are debating the ethics of withholding data from agents with a track record of data manipulation. This guy has obviously lost his sense of perspective and will pay for it in terms of his reputation, so his next article will have to be even tighter and error-free than the last. The climate 'sceptics', on the other hand, publish books published by sceptic-linked think tanks and presses with minimal external (or even self) quality control.

Haha.

Is everyone in Kent taking antimalarials against the ague and are there more vineyards there than 300 years ago?

Not that old chestnut. It's obviously a wind-up (from a climate troll) but for those who might be undecided: it makes no odds at all that people had malaria back then. Or didn't. Or that some proxies indicate there were warm periods. MMGW is about global temperature and these anecdotal reports of warm periods in UK not only exagerate the local historical record but are also irrelevant in terms of temp increases all over the world in the last 100 years. The science behind MMGW is so simple and schoolboy physics that I still struggle to see how any person with half a brain can deny its existence, if not its magnitude and ultimate impacts.

[jackalope]

Climate change = end of human race

Why? How hot is it going to get? Peer reviewed link please.

[Captain Cavey]

I’ve just come across some important (potentially rediscovered) data that confirms climate change, or not.

Linky

Whilst it is a little out of date, the correlation is undeniably clear – the recent resurgence of Indian Ocean (and even Baltic Sea) piracy clearly indicates global cooling.

Should I add this to the “important chart†pinned topic?

[Guest happy?]

So says 'theregister.co.uk' that centre of peer-reviewed scientific papers. Do you even know what data has been lost? Or any reason to think it is significant? You sad climate denialists make me laugh. You actually think you're contrarians despite the fact that your crusade it is precisely in the interests of every major corporation, oil company and Western government that we continue to do nothing about the problem.

+1

Almost certainly the same sort of contrarians who buy 'customised' cars from a main dealer.

[Stop The Ride]

Good to see the nutjobs out again. Remember guys, global warming is a NWO plot to take your tax moneys. Watch out for the mirrors in space. They'll pretend it's to reflect sunlight but they will 'mysteriously' be made of tin foil to deny you your hat materials. Then it will be chemtrail mind control time.

[Pindar]

Well we obviously have the top scientists onto global warming which is reassuring. Secure data storage is obviously an afterthought to the guardians of our future.

[OnlyMe]

I’ve just come across some important (potentially rediscovered) data that confirms climate change, or not.

Linky

Whilst it is a little out of date, the correlation is undeniably clear – the recent resurgence of Indian Ocean (and even Baltic Sea) piracy clearly indicates global cooling.

Should I add this to the “important chart†pinned topic?

Excellent.

Might be over a few peoples' heads though.

Correlation does not always infer causality.

[Gigantic Purple Slug]

Since the met office can't even forecast correctly that there is going to be a "barbeque summer" 4 weeks' down the line, excuse me if I remain somewhat sceptical about their ability to forecast what's going to happen in 50 years' time.

[Rare Bear]

Didn't we have malaria in Kent 300 years ago?

Early 20th century, possibly Norfolk. Some talk aof malaria makeing a comeback now, global warming getting the blame but more probably because of DDT no longer being used.

[Rare Bear]

I’ve just come across some important (potentially rediscovered) data that confirms climate change, or not.

Linky

Whilst it is a little out of date, the correlation is undeniably clear – the recent resurgence of Indian Ocean (and even Baltic Sea) piracy clearly indicates global cooling.

Should I add this to the “important chart†pinned topic?

And as we know most peopel who get breast cancer wear skirts, therefore wearing must be a cause of breast cancer.

[ken_ichikawa]

So says 'theregister.co.uk' that centre of peer-reviewed scientific papers. Do you even know what data has been lost? Or any reason to think it is significant? You sad climate denialists make me laugh. You actually think you're contrarians despite the fact that your crusade it is precisely in the interests of every major corporation, oil company and Western government that we continue to do nothing about the problem.

And their interests aren't slightly connected to YOUR interests? ....

In that I remember an old craigs list article that said don't join the army , unless you want your balls shot off for somebody elses interests...

Hold on I use oil , oil is used in the production and transport of food, hence THE OIL COMPANY interests are implicitly tied to your own, I want to eat I want to travel and have energy , hence while they may profit from your interests they are still your interests.. So you want to starve , be cold and not have any appliances work in your home....

Please dont tell me you are one of those romantic times were better then types..... Siberia and Mongolia (countryside) are similar to the 'romantic' visions many lets go back to how we used to live.

Come ride through Mongolia and Siberia , even Steppe nomads have sky TV and such like , life expectancy is low , hunger is wide spread , Russians seldom live loner than 45 , how romantic is that?. Buryat republic is constantly losing its people as they move west.