Climate Change Chief Scientist 'loses' All Data!

[King Stromba]

The whole game is rigged, the whole damn game.

[King Stromba]

This reminds me of the night on the euro elections I was watching the live BBC coverage. When the BNP got their first seat all that one of the panel and old Guardian Journo Boiler, real horrible specimen, had to say about it was that she was shocked that climate change deniers had won a seat.

Very amusing hearing this leftie spin pitched as political comment.

Nick Robinson was there too, desparately typing at his laptop trying to find something bad to say about the BNP.

******ing *****.

[Guest sillybear2]

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.

Hiding data doesn't help anyone and cuts against the scientific principle, they should publish and be damned and let the datasets be externally scrutinized by anyone, pro-people, anti-people, honest people, anyone. Doubly so if the research is publicly funded and is further used by government bodies to formulate public policy matters, in this case the IPCC.

This is like a re-run of the banks using bull$hit models and refusing to mark-to-market and come clean about their losses and the realities of their balance sheet, so they all just stuck their heads in the sand, clammed up and refused to lend to each other. This is an own goal, it gives the skeptics credence, they can quite rightly say researchers have something to hide and are scared of having their work externally verified or peer reviewed.

Also, you should either be an active scientist or an activist/politician, but not both at the same time, science is about dispassionately analyzing data, all the emotional humanist subjective bullsh1t should be left to your dreaming peers, the physical world is already complex enough.

[Pindar]

I wonder what would happen to a business if it just "lost" all its receipts, invoices and other accounts? Chances are they would be investigated for fraud. A scientist, who has allegedly been collating data to support a tenuous theory loses his data and without so much as a whimper. If so much is at stake, why wasn't the information backed up in several locations? I mean, we're talking about the future of the planet here...

[cells]

Peak oil = end of civilisation

Climate change = end of human race

Solution = Do something now

Superb

Marxism runs through your veins

At least I have learnt one thing from you, socialists are not misguided, they are just plain stupid.

[cells]

I wonder what would happen to a business if it just "lost" all its receipts, invoices and other accounts? Chances are they would be investigated for fraud. A scientist, who has allegedly been collating data to support a tenuous theory loses his data and without so much as a whimper. If so much is at stake, why wasn't the information backed up in several locations? I mean, we're talking about the future of the planet here...

First year science at A-Level tells you results without errors are meaningless.

All physical quantities have a value and the error. For example we do not know the exact speed of light but we know it to within an error. The error is so small that often it is not quoted.

Other quantities have larger errors.

With global warming the errors associated with the simulations would be so huge as to make the data worthless.

So the data, if done honestly might say. 1 degrees warming plus or minus 10 degrees. So it could be that the planet gets 9 degrees cooler or 11 degrees hotter which makes the prediction worthless.

[roadtoruin]

First year science at A-Level tells you results without errors are meaningless.

All physical quantities have a value and the error. For example we do not know the exact speed of light but we know it to within an error. The error is so small that often it is not quoted.

Other quantities have larger errors.

With global warming the errors associated with the simulations would be so huge as to make the data worthless.

So the data, if done honestly might say. 1 degrees warming plus or minus 10 degrees. So it could be that the planet gets 9 degrees cooler or 11 degrees hotter which makes the prediction worthless.

And you're seriously suggesting their models do not encapsulate errors - do me a favour !!

Every time I've seen predictions quoted for climate change or degrees of warming they have been presented as a range. In any case, the physical manifestation of increased temperature (melting ice, shifting marine populations) need no errors associated - the evidence is observable already.

[nixy]

A 'huddle' of these brain-washed sanctimonius tossers (from Uni. East Anglia Climatology) had me banned for showing them up on another web site!

Here we go

"We've LOST the Numbers"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/13/cru_missing/

It just stinks of fraud!

It's really important - coz we are being and going to be Massively taxed Xtra £££'s for years because of this fraud!

If they were serious about global warming, which they are not, they would cut the money supply not increase it.

QE is anti 'environment'.

http://www.oceanconserve.org/shared/reader...x?linkid=135054

Satellite measurements of the Pine Island glacier in West Antarctica have revealed that the surface of the ice is dropping at a rate of up to 16 metres a year and since 1994, has lowered by as much as 90 metres.

Fifteen years ago, it was estimated that the rate of ice melt would see the glacier disappear within 600 years. Now, the data suggests it could be gone in little more than 100.

If the Pine Island glacier collapses, it would have major implications for rising sea levels and could be followed by the rapid disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet.

[Guest sillybear2]

If they were serious about global warming, which they are not, they would cut the money supply not increase it.

Buy more cars, it's good for the environment!

That said, I'm never going to take anything produced by, or referencing, the IPCC seriously again until this data is in the open. It stinks, these people have no right to call themselves scientists whilst actively avoiding scrutiny or deliberately preventing their peers from replicating their results from the raw data.

[Rapid Descent]

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.

The malaria story is a great example of the pro-global warming crowd abandoning scientific reason and the evidence in favour of a good scare story.

Malaria does not require warm temperatures; as long as the local summer exceeds ~15 deg C, the vectors can typically breed quite happily. This doesn't exclude much land. Outbreaks in the UK are quite a long way south; there have been outbreaks in the past within the arctic circle (e.g. Archangel).

The reason malaria was eradicated in the UK is down to a number of factors, including pest control, but also industrialised farming converting the swampland where the vectors lay eggs with farmland, and rearing cattle; the vectors like to feed of cattle, but the malaria parasite only survives in humans.

Paul Reiter (a world expert on malaria) was asked by the IPCC to be involved in one of their assessment reports. However, his view was simply ignored and all accurate science was eliminated, and replaced with erroneous analysis suggesting global warming was the key factor to malaria spread. Reiter quit the IPCC, considered the process to be a joke, ignoring the evidence and scaremongering. The IPCC published anyway, with Reiter's name on the report. He had to sue them to get it removed.

A nice little presentation from Paul Reiter can be found here.

[erranta]

The malaria story is a great example of the pro-global warming crowd abandoning scientific reason and the evidence in favour of a good scare story.

Malaria does not require warm temperatures; as long as the local summer exceeds ~15 deg C, the vectors can typically breed quite happily. This doesn't exclude much land. Outbreaks in the UK are quite a long way south; there have been outbreaks in the past within the arctic circle (e.g. Archangel).

The reason malaria was eradicated in the UK is down to a number of factors, including pest control, but also industrialised farming converting the swampland where the vectors lay eggs with farmland, and rearing cattle; the vectors like to feed of cattle, but the malaria parasite only survives in humans.

Paul Reiter (a world expert on malaria) was asked by the IPCC to be involved in one of their assessment reports. However, his view was simply ignored and all accurate science was eliminated, and replaced with erroneous analysis suggesting global warming was the key factor to malaria spread. Reiter quit the IPCC, considered the process to be a joke, ignoring the evidence and scaremongering. The IPCC published anyway, with Reiter's name on the report. He had to sue them to get it removed.

A nice little presentation from Paul Reiter can be found here.

Malaria does not require warm temperatures; as long as the local summer exceeds ~15 deg C

If the above were 'true' - there would be constant outbreaks of Malaria/Malarial Mosquito infestation around the Globe in the Colder regions!

Obfuscated, misinformation 'Twist' of the highest quality!

Go back to sleep!

[Rapid Descent]

If the above were 'true' - there would be constant outbreaks of Malaria/Malarial Mosquito infestation around the Globe in the Colder regions!

Obfuscated, misinformation 'Twist' of the highest quality!

Go back to sleep!

Oh dear. The stupid, it burns, take it away.

Malaria and malarial infection always did happen around the globe. Through the UK, Europe, Scandanavia, Russia, Canada, right up until the 20th century. If you actually read the link I gave you'd realise this.

The temperature in Yakutsk, Russia reaches an impressive *minus* 42 degrees C in January - on average. By my books, that's pretty cold. Number of malaria cases in Yakutsk, by year:

1940: 5822

1941: 5101

1942: 3766

1943: 3475

1944: 2332

1945: 1930

1946: 2664

1947: 3361

1948: 2084

Apparently, -42 degrees is not "too cold" for constant malaria outbreaks. And what about Arkhangelsk? 30,000 cases and 10,000 deaths between 1923 and 1925, with an average year-round temperature of about 0 degrees C.

So why don't these happen today? Because wealth prevents it. Yes, malaria outbreaks don't follow temperature, they follow wealth (or, rather, a lack of it). Once a country becomes wealthy enough to combat it, it becomes eradicated. This model is quite consistent with all of the data. Your temperature model is inconsistent with the data.

People with less than one or two brain cells to rub together think this means it follows temperature. Yet, apparently, despite the temperature getting hotter in the 20th century, we have largely eradicated from large parts of the world.

Part of the challenge - in all aspects of science - is to determine the key drivers. From the evidence, it is obvious that temperature is not a big player in the spread of malaria. All but the true warmer acolytes can't see past the spin.

[cells]

And you're seriously suggesting their models do not encapsulate errors - do me a favour !!

Every time I've seen predictions quoted for climate change or degrees of warming they have been presented as a range. In any case, the physical manifestation of increased temperature (melting ice, shifting marine populations) need no errors associated - the evidence is observable already.

All perditions and observations have measurement and statistical errors associated with them.

If we thought the speed of light was increasing with time by a certain amount but our best devises to measure it where only accurate to 1 million times x then it would be impossible to tell if the speed was increasing or not.

The same is true for climate models. There will be an associated error. Before anything else is done we need to calculate this error to know if the results are meaningful or not.

So I don’t need to test if the speed of light is increasing or not if I have a ruler and a handheld stopwatch as it means the errors will be so huge the results are meaningless.

And I am saying the errors are unknown and likely huge so that the results are meaningless.

However all of this is irrelevant because even if we knew for 100% the world was getting hotter it is no cause for alarm as we do not know for 100% that a hotter world on net would be a bad thing. Climate change fanatics assume that we are at a perfect state today and that a move in either direction would be terrible.

[the_duke_of_hazzard]

This is quite convincing, has it been peer reviewed ?

if it has then I am a beleiver.

It would take more evidence for me - the peers would need to be in the pay of governments.

[the_duke_of_hazzard]

However all of this is irrelevant because even if we knew for 100% the world was getting hotter it is no cause for alarm as we do not know for 100% that a hotter world on net would be a bad thing. Climate change fanatics assume that we are at a perfect state today and that a move in either direction would be terrible.

This is a very important point discussed at some length in Nigel Lawson's "A Cool Look at Global Warming", which is a balanced attempt to address the problems of the science of - and practical consequences of - global warming.

[codeine]

It seems to me that the majority of the people who rant on "We must do something about global warming!" just so conveniently have the solution in the form of a business selling photovoltaics/other "green" technology, or shares in such a business.

[erranta]

Oh dear. The stupid, it burns, take it away.

Malaria and malarial infection always did happen around the globe. Through the UK, Europe, Scandanavia, Russia, Canada, right up until the 20th century. If you actually read the link I gave you'd realise this.

The temperature in Yakutsk, Russia reaches an impressive *minus* 42 degrees C in January - on average. By my books, that's pretty cold. Number of malaria cases in Yakutsk, by year:

1940: 5822

1941: 5101

1942: 3766

1943: 3475

1944: 2332

1945: 1930

1946: 2664

1947: 3361

1948: 2084

Apparently, -42 degrees is not "too cold" for constant malaria outbreaks. And what about Arkhangelsk? 30,000 cases and 10,000 deaths between 1923 and 1925, with an average year-round temperature of about 0 degrees C.

So why don't these happen today? Because wealth prevents it. Yes, malaria outbreaks don't follow temperature, they follow wealth (or, rather, a lack of it). Once a country becomes wealthy enough to combat it, it becomes eradicated. This model is quite consistent with all of the data. Your temperature model is inconsistent with the data.

People with less than one or two brain cells to rub together think this means it follows temperature. Yet, apparently, despite the temperature getting hotter in the 20th century, we have largely eradicated from large parts of the world.

Part of the challenge - in all aspects of science - is to determine the key drivers. From the evidence, it is obvious that temperature is not a big player in the spread of malaria. All but the true warmer acolytes can't see past the spin.

The Temperature/Humidity has everything to do with life cycle of Mozzies and parasite growth > infection!

There has to be a constant minimum or they get wiped out!

Maybe the Russkies release infected Mozzies to cull the ethnic population - you just don't know!

"The temperature in Yakutsk, Russia reaches an impressive *minus* 42 degrees C in January - on average. By my books, that's pretty cold. Number of malaria cases in Yakutsk"

"Russia's potential for temperature extremes is typified by the national record low of -94°C, recorded at Verkhoyansk in north-central Siberia and the record high of 38°C, recorded at several southern stations.

The Russian Far East, under the influence of the Pacific Ocean, has a monsoonal climate that reverses the direction of wind in summer and winter, sharply differentiating temperatures

- Chinese Mozzies sucked/blown in by trade winds?

Boat traffic / Trade from China brings in Mozzies? - they lay in the Hot Russian summer in the perfect malarial 'bog land' reproducing in the Hot climate!

I already know there were regular outbreaks in Southern Spain, France, Parts of Italy etc

Coz it's far warmer down there over the mean annual temp!

The minimum temperatures for parasite development are between 14-19°C.

The optimum temperature for mosquitoes is 25-27°C,

The maximum temperature for both vectors and parasites is 40°C

Meteorologically-created epidemics normally only last one season of transmission.

They can't survive/live in ANY cold conditions without artificial or a 'minimum'!

Picking at straws!

Arkhangelsk outbreak lasted ONLY TWO years coz someone brought in 'stowaways' which lived in the houses in THE ARTIFICIAL WARMTH.

Then they died out coz they couldn't complete the 'cycle'!

That was my original point!

[Pindar]

It seems to me that the majority of the people who rant on "We must do something about global warming!" just so conveniently have the solution in the form of a business selling photovoltaics/other "green" technology, or shares in such a business.

It's what the "smart money" is doing.

[Rapid Descent]

The Temperature/Humidity has everything to do with life cycle of Mozzies and parasite growth > infection!

Temperature/Humidity is a factor - I didn't say it wasn't - but it is a second order factor. Do you not grasp this? The effects of climate change (if it happens the way it is predicted, which is far from given) are swamped by other changes.

Maybe the Russkies release infected Mozzies to cull the ethnic population - you just don't know!

Oh right, you're a conspiracy theorist. Nice work.

The Russian Far East, under the influence of the Pacific Ocean, has a monsoonal climate that reverses the direction of wind in summer and winter, sharply differentiating temperatures

- Chinese Mozzies sucked/blown in by trade winds?

Boat traffic / Trade from China brings in Mozzies? - they lay in the Hot Russian summer in the perfect malarial 'bog land' reproducing in the Hot climate!

What has that got to do with, say, the Arkhangelsk outbreak? Or the frequent outbreaks in Finland in the 17th and 18th centuries? Or the continuous outbreaks in 19th century Canada after the parasite was imported from Europe? None of these fit your model.

I already know there were regular outbreaks in Southern Spain, France, Parts of Italy etc

Coz it's far warmer down there over the mean annual temp!

There were regular outbreaks in the UK during the Little Ice Age. Get that? The little ice age, when temperatures in the UK were colder than now. The disease was endemic. Why? Why is it not today? Because temperature is a secondary factor.

They can't survive/live in ANY cold conditions without artificial or a 'minimum'!

Picking at straws!

LOL, you hand wave about Russians deliberately causing malaria and you accuse me of grasping at straws?

Arkhangelsk outbreak lasted ONLY TWO years coz someone brought in 'stowaways' which lived in the houses in THE ARTIFICIAL WARMTH.

OF COURSE THEY STAY INDOORS. MALARIA WAS ALWAYS AN INDOOR DISEASE IN EUROPE. IT IS ONE OF THE REASONS OUTSIDE TEMPERATURE IS LESS IMPORTANT. HAVE WE FINISHED SHOUTING YET?

Then they died out coz they couldn't complete the 'cycle'!

That was my original point!

You think the arkhangelsk outbreak was an isolated incident? D'oh... malaria was endemic just south of these parts throughout the 17th and 18th century (perhaps before, but we don't have records...)

In the absence of any other effect, temperature IS a factor. But given 20th century ecological change (especially farming practices), temperature has become an irrelevance. Despite being warmer, malaria has become much much less prevalent, both at high latitudes and high altitudes, where an increase in temperature should be most visible.

From the Malaria Journal, correlating historic Finnish malaria cases with local temperature:

Annual mean temperatures were obviously not significant in the correlations. On the seasonal level the summer of the preceding year is highly significant (0.1% risk level). In all other seasons the risk level was more than 10%.

This confirms what I was saying. It doesn't matter how COLD the temperature gets, only the summer temperature matters, and in this example the summer temperature needs to get above 16 degrees C - very much what I said above, and absolutely consistent with malaria endemic throughout Europe and through much of Scandinavia in the 17th and 18th century.

There is next to no risk of malaria becoming endemic in the UK, even at the most dire climate change predictions, as long as we still have intensive farming. Indeed, the extent of malaria has massively reduced over the last 50 - 100 years, when the temperature has been increasing, because of these first order effects.

[erranta]

Apparently, -42 degrees is not "too cold" for constant malaria outbreaks.

You twisted your words!

I know you're baiting and I proved your other posts stupid - AS above quote!

Bye

[Rapid Descent]

You twisted your words!

Eh? I didn't twist my words at all! From my original post:

Malaria does not require warm temperatures; as long as the local summer exceeds ~15 deg C

That is entirely consistent with what I've said all along. My very first post, and my story hasn't changed since then. Throughout the 18th and 19th century malaria demonstrably met the conditions, it doesn't matter how cold it gets in winter, as long as summer temperatures are warm enough, which they are throughout Europe.

No change in story. Perhaps you've just started to realise what I've posted?

If malaria was spread up to the 15 deg summer isotherm everywhere, climate change would shift things. But it isn't, so it won't. And the best weapon we have against malaria is wealth and intensive farming. As I said from the start.

I know you're baiting and I proved your other posts stupid - AS above quote!

You haven't shown anything of the sort. You claimed that there were no outbreaks of malaria in cold regions, and I demonstrated this - with evidence - to be utterly wrong. Plenty of historical outbreaks in cold regions. I've provided two scientific references to support my views including a world expert in malaria. That doesn't make it right automatically, but you'd need some pretty solid evidence and reasoning to overturn that.

So how did you "prove my posts stupid"? Oh yes, a suggestion that perhaps the Russians were deliberately infecting their people Wonderful.

Bye

Yeah, I can see you have no evidence and no sound reasoning to counter my points. Perhaps running away is the best bet.

[fluffy666]

First year science at A-Level tells you results without errors are meaningless.

All physical quantities have a value and the error. For example we do not know the exact speed of light but we know it to within an error. The error is so small that often it is not quoted.

Other quantities have larger errors.

With global warming the errors associated with the simulations would be so huge as to make the data worthless.

So the data, if done honestly might say. 1 degrees warming plus or minus 10 degrees. So it could be that the planet gets 9 degrees cooler or 11 degrees hotter which makes the prediction worthless.

Utter, utter garbage. Seriously; you have no clue whatsoever what you are talking about. Perhaps you should actually try doing 1st year A level science?

[Guest X-QUORK]

The funny thing is, deniers have nobody to vote for because every mainstream political party accepts the IPCC consensus that man-made CO2 emissions are contributing to global warming.

Maybe they should start a counter political movement to the Greens?

[Rapid Descent]

The funny thing is, deniers have nobody to vote for because every mainstream political party accepts the IPCC consensus that man-made CO2 emissions are contributing to global warming.

Very true; every mainstream party does accept this. Now, how many of them do you think will actually do something about it? (Apart from making hand-waving statements about future emissions well after they have left government, of course).

Perhaps sceptics don't need to worry too much, just yet. And a week is a long time in politics, let alone 50 years.

That said, if people wanted to reduce CO2 emissions by replacing coal with nuclear, that would be fine with me. It is the single obvious way to reduce emissions without harming our standard of living. Coal is the most CO2-intensive form of power, Nuclear the least; and they are both baseload, so do the same role. It is always highly entertaining to watch the environmentalists reaction when this - shall we say - inconvenient truth sinks in.

[fluffy666]

I don't believe there's a scientific basis for significant climate change "now".

- The fact that humans are increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is proven beyond any scientific doubt.

- The fact the increasing CO2 in the atmosphere increases temperature is proven beyond any scientific doubt.

- The fact that temperatures have been increasing in recent decades when we would expect a slight decrease from natural factors alone is a solid observation.

- Therefore the theory that human emitted CO2 is warming the planet (and will continue to do so) is strongly supported.

Which of these statements do you consider false and why?

It is a narrow observation that I consider to be 'self evident' from a mathematical perspective.

Show us the maths, then.

From a sound philosophical basis, we know that science's only justification lies in empiric evidence - and herein lies two of the many significant problems with claims of any scientific arguments about the current environment.

Yes. We have lots and lots of empirical evidence.

The first problem is establishing cause and effect in a complex system -

It's a problem. Not an insoluable one, though.

one of the key principles behind scientific experiment is repeatability.

If you insist on a narrow definition of repeatability, then you essentially dismiss Astronomy, Geology, most Biology.. in fact pretty much all scientific disciplines apart from basic physics and chemistry.

.. based upon the assumption that the "rules of science" will be the same everywhere all the time.

Totally irrelevant statement, but if the rules of physics are not time and space invariant then AGW is the least of our problems.

Since we have only one world, we can't conduct well founded scientific experiments to establish cause and effect - because there can never be a control experiment, and no experiment is repeatable because the same initial starting conditions will never recur.

See above; it is perfectly possible to do science without this repeatability.

The starting point is of course that which can be established by repeatable experiment (which includes all of the physics behind the greenhouse effect); this can then be used to construct which models - the running of which is repeatable; which can in turn be tested against reality.

In a different subject, I may make a geological map of an area which is 98% covered by soil; in essence this is a model of the area based on the known properties of rocks with a small sampling of observation. Woulld you contend that it has no validity, not being based on repeatable experimentation?