Contempt they cannot conceal

Scientists working with the orthodox alarmist view of climate science often receive questions from citizen scientists who ask them to explain aspects of climate science, especially how dangerous anthropogenic global warming (DAGW) works.

They are frequently advised to read the latest gigantic report from the IPCC, the Fifth Assessment Report, or AR5. Do you know what is being expected of these inquirers? It is disgraceful.

For I have surveyed the size of the AR5. It contains over 5,000 pages and more than 3,500,000 words (omitting indexes, annexes, author lists, etc.). Throwing it at an inquirer is odious—akin to hurling a bus; if it happens to you, it quickly becomes obvious that the scientist must hate you.

At a low-average reading speed of 250 words per minute it would take six weeks of reading at eight hours a day, five days a week, to finish the report. Stopping to check or understand the 9200 references (and honestly, who would take them on trust—this is climate science we’re talking about!) would take longer—conservatively (at 5 pages per paper, 300 words per page), they constitute at least another 14,000,000 words, so that’s a further 24 weeks just to read them. You can take coffee breaks, but you shouldn’t stop for lunch and don’t think for too long.

Scientists who do this are unhelpful and unkind, their outward courtesy skin-deep, wrapped around a contempt they cannot conceal. The bloggers who do the same thing largely lack even a veneer of courtesy to soften their scorn or blunt their ridicule.

On the other hand, scientists who write articles that explain carefully how climate processes work in terms that are easily understood reveal an honourable care for fellow citizens that transcends political differences or policy disagreement.

It makes me angry but all I can offer is yet another post on a humble grumbling blog—and not even name names.

Visits: 73

40 Thoughts on “Contempt they cannot conceal

  1. Mike Jowsey on 04/02/2017 at 2:18 pm said:

    “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” – Albert Einstein

  2. Richard Treadgold on 04/02/2017 at 2:33 pm said:

    Exactly!

  3. Mike Jowsey on 04/02/2017 at 3:11 pm said:

    Precisely!

  4. Alexander K on 05/02/2017 at 9:25 am said:

    +1

  5. Alexander K on 05/02/2017 at 9:27 pm said:

    Richard T
    Check out the expose of the ‘Pausebuster’ paper – Those that call us Denialists will suffer exploding heads.
    Judy Curry has an excellent (as usual) column on her blog about this.
    Wow!!

  6. Magoo on 06/02/2017 at 9:07 am said:

    Trouble, trouble, trouble for the NOAA. Looks like the Committee on Science, Space, & Technology is on the warpath & heads will roll:

    https://science.house.gov/news/press-releases/former-noaa-scientist-confirms-colleagues-manipulated-climate-records

    Powers of the committee:

    https://science.house.gov/about/jurisdiction

    Climategate 2 indeed. Now everyone knows why the NOAA refused to turn over the emails subpoenaed by Congress.

  7. Gary Kerkin on 07/02/2017 at 12:44 pm said:

    And the Washington Times published an article which could be considered sympathetic to Karl. For example it cites Hausfather in support of Karl.

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/5/climate-change-whistleblower-alleges-noaa-manipula/

  8. Magoo on 07/02/2017 at 1:58 pm said:

    Andy,

    I notice that in the Guardian article you link to they try to paint it as an unfounded accusation by a rabid climate denying journalist alone, & fail to mention once that the person who raised the issue is a climate scientist actually from the NOAA. The ‘scientists’ they then get to argue against the accusations (i.e. Mann, Schmidt, & Hausyafather) don’t even work for NOAA and have no idea of the debate that ensued amongst it’s staff.

    The Guardian’s defense of the indefensible are about as specious as it gets.

  9. Alexander K on 07/02/2017 at 2:12 pm said:

    Go long on popcorn futures!

  10. Maggy Wassilieff on 07/02/2017 at 3:13 pm said:

    As I’ve posted elsewhere:
    Climate adjusters’ work coming under scrutiny
    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/6/noaa-agrees-review-claim-data-manipulation-climate/

    Yet another bunch of scientists who have adjusted the data, published a rushed paper, then lost the adjustments, crashed the computer and picked up a big cheque as the boss exits the party.

  11. Gary Kerkin on 07/02/2017 at 10:50 pm said:

    And didn’t I read somewhere that Science is reconsidering the paper?

  12. Dennis N Horne on 07/02/2017 at 11:30 pm said:

    Bates never worked on the science, Peter Thorne did.
    http://icarus-maynooth.blogspot.co.nz/2017/02/on-mail-on-sunday-article-on-karl-et-al.html?spref=tw

    The graph in the Daily Mail was a lie.
    https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2017/02/05/expose-david-rose-does-not-understand-baselines/

    http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/news/more-fake-news-in-the-mail-on-sunday/

    https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-mail-sundays-astonishing-evidence-global-temperature-rise

    http://variable-variability.blogspot.co.nz/2017/02/david-roses-alternative-reality-noaa-Karl.html

    https://fromtheprow.agu.org/climate-science-data-management/

    https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02/article-names-whistleblower-who-told-congress-that-noaa-manipulated-data/

    http://climatenexus.org/messaging-communication/current-events/climate-change-science-noaa-falsely-maligned-tabloid-spin

    Wouldn’t put much faith in balderdash from a disgruntled employee, folks. His main complain seems to be book-keeping. Shredded by mathematician Nick Stokes on Judith Curry’s bog.
    https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/04/climate-scientists-versus-climate-data/
    Poor Judy. Made a career out of being wrong.

    Your desperate clutching to a supposed “hiatus” is as lunatic as thinking, when you wake up in the morning, you might have been dead briefly during the night.

    Temperature up. Ice down. Predicted. Observed. Measured.

    Almost unanimous agreement by the global community of scientists as represented by the RS, NAS, AAAS, APS, ACS … and every scientific society and institution on the planet.

    Consensus. Reality. Take it or leave it.

  13. Maggy Wassilieff on 08/02/2017 at 8:27 am said:

    John Bates’ complaints about the Pausebuster paper concerns NOAA’s failure to follow basic procedures to establish the validity of their data.

    Paul Matthews, Professor of Maths, Nottingham Uni has a posting about the instability of the algorithm that is used for adjusting the GHCN data set.
    https://cliscep.com/2017/02/06/instability-of-ghcn-adjustment-algorithm/#comments

    Also discussed here
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/07/more-on-the-bombshell-david-rose-article-instability-in-the-global-historical-climate-network/

  14. Dennis N Horne on 08/02/2017 at 9:25 am said:

    “John Bates’ complaints about the Pausebuster paper concerns NOAA’s failure to follow basic procedures to establish the validity of their data.”

    Bullshit.

    You are as mad as a hatter.

  15. Andy on 08/02/2017 at 9:57 am said:

    Climate scientists don’t need procedures, quality assurance or review, obviously

    This was clear from Climategate. It’s a shame that they drag everyone down to their level, since there are decent scientists out there.

  16. Maggy Wassilieff on 08/02/2017 at 9:58 am said:

    @Dennis Horne

    It matters not a whit if I am as mad as a hatter or am a clear-thinking, scientifically trained old bird who can see that the threads are unravelling.

  17. Andy on 08/02/2017 at 10:27 am said:

    The Paul Matthews article is interesting. This is precisely the kind of scrutiny that science of any kind needs.

    Maybe if for once the guys at the other end would take note and correct their algorithms, rather than screaming “denier”, we might actually get somewhere

  18. Magoo on 08/02/2017 at 10:34 am said:

    Dennis dear boy,

    John Bates’ complaint was almost entirely about ‘NOAA’s failure to follow basic procedures to establish the validity of their data’. Here is the article explaining his complaint that he wrote for Judith Curry’s website:

    https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/04/climate-scientists-versus-climate-data/

    Really dear boy, your foul mouth is only outweighed by your astonishing ignorance.

  19. Maggy Wassilieff on 08/02/2017 at 11:01 am said:

    @Magoo

    Dennis Horne is well aware of Bates’ article on Judith Curry’s website.

    He has been leaving his bon mots on its comment thread.

  20. Magoo on 08/02/2017 at 11:18 am said:

    @Maggy

    Ah right. In that case he’s obviously just having another dishonest, frothy tantrum because it’s all about to come crashing down. Check out Delingpole’s article on how Trump now has the perfect excuse the take the axe to the alarmists:

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/02/06/delingpole-noaa-scandal-gives-trump-the-perfect-excuse-to-drain-the-climate-swamp/

  21. Dennis N Horne on 08/02/2017 at 2:07 pm said:

    http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060049630/
    Bates accused former colleagues of rushing their research to publication, in defiance of agency protocol. He specified that he did not believe that they manipulated the data upon which the research relied in any way.
    “The issue here is not an issue of tampering with data, but rather really of timing of a release of a paper that had not properly disclosed everything it was,” he said.
    =========================================================================

    There it is from Bates himself. No skulduggery. What is the matter with you people? Why do you keep telling lies?

    The “hiatus” was not statistically valid. Never was. Besides, what would such a putative “hiatus” in temperature prove? The trend in temperatures is up. It’s 1C higher now than when we started burning fossil fuels. That’s the evidence.

    The effect of the CO2 we have added to the atmosphere will continue even if we stop right now. That’s the science. Science that started with Fourier in 1824.

    You really think the global community of scientists is wrong and you are right? Show your evidence. Embracing a disgruntled employee having a go at someone who gave him the boot isn’t evidence. It’s bullshit.

    Gullible fools totally incapacitated and rendered useless by confirmation bias.

  22. Richard Treadgold on 08/02/2017 at 2:46 pm said:

    Fascinating discussion. Sorry I can’t contribute just now, too much on, but maybe tomorrow. Though I’d say this, Dennis: what the hiatus proves is the lack of skill of the computer models. Nobody is saying global warming is over or not over, for how can we know the future? But we can and do observe the lack of predictive skill.

  23. Andy on 08/02/2017 at 3:06 pm said:

    As I said upthread, climate science doesn’t require any QC/QA or review as long as it produces “correct” results.

    if this is the case, and climate science is a foregone conclusion, as Dennis claims, and we are all going to die anyway, then why bother?

    Sack all the scientists. They can retrain as nail beauticians or pet crematoria technicians and still lead interesting and exciting lives

  24. Magoo on 08/02/2017 at 5:19 pm said:

    Dennis dear boy,

    Bates is not saying Karl fiddled the numbers, just that the numbers were so unreliable that they would never have passed through the checks and balances they had. In short, Karl et al. uses redundant & unreliable data that is prone to significant errors, and he did so by avoiding the process that was designed to stop that sort of thing happening.

    ‘All software has errors and it is not surprising there were some, but the magnitude of the problem was significant and a rigorous process of software improvement like the one proposed was needed. However, this effort was just beginning when the K15 paper was submitted, and so K15 must have used data with some experimental processing that combined aspects of V3 and V4 with known flaws.’

    source: https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/04/climate-scientists-versus-climate-data/

    The Karl et al paper is a load of tripe in other words, and Karl tried to minimise the documentation in an attempt to hide what a load of tripe it was. No wonder NOAA refused to cooperate with the subpoena issued by Congress regarding the data and the emails associated with it.

    ‘So, in every aspect of the preparation and release of the datasets leading into K15, we find Tom Karl’s thumb on the scale pushing for, and often insisting on, decisions that maximize warming and minimize documentation.’

    Faulty & error ridden data which was then hidden by a dishonest ‘scientist’.

  25. Magoo on 09/02/2017 at 12:28 am said:

    Dennis,

    Sorry dear boy I forgot about this part, Karl did in fact dishonestly fiddle the data:

    Dr Bates said: ‘They had good data from buoys. And they threw it out and “corrected” it by using the bad data from ships. You never change good data to agree with bad, but that’s what they did – so as to make it look as if the sea was warmer.’

    Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4192182/World-leaders-duped-manipulated-global-warming-data.html

    BTW dear boy, Bates wasn’t ‘a disgruntled employee having a go at someone who gave him the boot’, he retired a year ago whilst still employed at the NOAA.

  26. Alexander K on 09/02/2017 at 10:37 am said:

    It seems DNH has company.
    I was incensed yesterday evening when an off-camera newsreader on TVNZ described some unfortunate as a ‘denier’ almost immediately following a gratuitous and irrelevant swipe at the current US President.
    I know our media are left-leaning, but do they have to be so blatant?

  27. Simon on 09/02/2017 at 10:48 am said:

    Karl15 actually reduces the NOAA global warming trend.
    The change in the 1998-2012 trend is now more in line with GISS, krigged HadCRUT4 and BEST. Trends over such short periods are not particularly robust.
    Annual changes made were so small they are barely visible on a chart, with the exception of the period when the US had lots of warships collecting sea temperature data during WWII.

  28. Dennis N Horne on 12/02/2017 at 7:33 pm said:

    Magoof

    “Global warming,” Bates said, “is a scientific fact.”
    https://www.insidescience.org/news/retired-noaa-scientist-doubles-down-climate-data-controversy

  29. Magoo on 12/02/2017 at 10:57 pm said:

    Dennis dear boy,

    And I agree with Bates, along with Dr. Judith Curry, Dr. Roy Spencer, and all the other ‘sceptical’ scientists that also consider themselves part of the ‘97% consensus’ on climate change. 🙂

    Do you know what ‘climate sensitivity’ means dear boy? I’ll give you a clue (WV):

    http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/figures/WGI_AR5_FigTS-14.jpg

  30. Andy on 13/02/2017 at 3:17 pm said:

    O/T there is a bit of a major situation developing at the Oroville Dam, near Sacramento

    Evacuations of nearby towns are underway
    http://www.kcra.com/article/evacuation-orders-issued-for-low-levels-of-oroville/8735215

  31. Andy on 13/02/2017 at 4:29 pm said:

    Anthony Watts is covering the Oroville Dam situation

    He lives in Chico, not far from the dam but on higher ground. 10s of thousands of people are being evacuated

  32. Magoo on 16/02/2017 at 10:28 am said:

    A good article that summarises the dubious alterations to the temperature records over the years:

    https://realclimatescience.com/2017/02/100-predictable-fraud-from-government-climate-scientists/

    And they wonder why nobody believes them anymore.

  33. Maggy Wassilieff on 16/02/2017 at 6:15 pm said:

    Some interesting comments from New Zealanders attached to this posting on Westland’s Glaciers
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/15/study-advancing-glaciers-in-new-zealand-are-a-sign-of-regional-cooling/

    Interesting that at least three of the commenters get different results when looking at NZ’s temperature trend based on NIWA data.

  34. Gary Kerkin on 17/02/2017 at 2:08 pm said:

    Maggy, one commenter cited (without reference) Met Service data. I must admit that I have not looked at any of it’s data but the commenter claimed a negative trend over 80 years which, frankly, I do not believe. None of the raw data NIWA has stored in its CliFlo database show such a trend. I have concentrated on the 7 Station Series, raw and adjusted, mainly because it has de facto status as a NZ record. Whereas the adjusted series shows a warming trend of around 0.9ºC per century, the unadjusted data shows a slight warming trend only, unsurprisingly. (Note to self: find out about Met Service data!). People on both sides of the climate change divide need to be careful about looking at data and how they interpret it.

  35. Gary Kerkin on 17/02/2017 at 2:29 pm said:

    Just checked Met Service and can see no historical records. Seems these are in the province of the CliFlo database (NIWA). Makes sense to hold it in a single repository. The records are raw data as far as I know. It is the 7 station and 11 station series that have been adjusted, but fortunately they also include the raw data.

  36. Magoo on 05/09/2017 at 9:36 am said:

    I stumbled across this page showing the ‘adjustments’ NASA has been making to their temperature records:

    https://realclimatescience.com/alterations-to-climate-data/

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