An Inconvenient Truth... for Al Gore.

[Blind_Io]

I'm posting this in here instead of in the Political Section because "global warming" has been the driving force behind most automotive emissions legislation recently.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Cont...site=15&page=0

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.






The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious "hockey stick" graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new "hotspot" in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.

A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen's institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.

If there is one scientist more responsible than any other for the alarm over global warming it is Dr Hansen, who set the whole scare in train back in 1988 with his testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore. Again and again, Dr Hansen has been to the fore in making extreme claims over the dangers of climate change. (He was recently in the news here for supporting the Greenpeace activists acquitted of criminally damaging a coal-fired power station in Kent, on the grounds that the harm done to the planet by a new power station would far outweigh any damage they had done themselves.)

Yet last week's latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen's methodology has been called in question. In 2007 he was forced by Mr Watts and Mr McIntyre to revise his published figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as he had claimed, but the 1930s.

Another of his close allies is Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, who recently startled a university audience in Australia by claiming that global temperatures have recently been rising "very much faster" than ever, in front of a graph showing them rising sharply in the past decade. In fact, as many of his audience were aware, they have not been rising in recent years and since 2007 have dropped.

Dr Pachauri, a former railway engineer with no qualifications in climate science, may believe what Dr Hansen tells him. But whether, on the basis of such evidence, it is wise for the world's governments to embark on some of the most costly economic measures ever proposed, to remedy a problem which may actually not exist, is a question which should give us all pause for thought.

So they are just making up the data at this point.

[No Boss]

As amazing as the finding, blunder, and back pedaling are... you just know that it will be all swept under the rug and we'll continue to go on thinking the earth is hotter than ever.

[Pepto]

So they made a simple mistake and now all other data scientists have on the climate change is wrong?

[pepitko]

well, TBH, if there's is an agency, which sole existence relies on proving that the earth is warming up faster than ever before, than it is inevitable that they start cooking the books somewhere down the line..

It is amazing to think of so many superexpensive projects in the world that depend on this sort of "data."

[jayhawk]

Proof again that environmentalism is a biased political movement founded by very angry, guilty, bitter people who will not be happy until all humans are wiped off the Earth and all technology will predate James Watt.

A conservationist such as myself knows that the Earth is and will always be a more powerful force than anything humans could do to it, and if it wanted, could easily wipe us out and make it look like we never existed in 1,000 years time.

For example, ever seen grass grow through a crack in the sidewalk?

[ahpadt]

Summary: Some boffins claim that the global tempratures go up, but the don't really move that much?

[Cobol74]

"Ooooh look we got the same data two months running from. .... errrr, oh Russia that will be accurate then."

What a bunch of wankers.

[BerserkerCatSplat]

Originally Posted by Pepto

So they made a simple mistake and now all other data scientists have on the climate change is wrong?

I'm not sure what part of gross mismanagement of data constitutes a "simple mistake."

[Necx0]

"Global Warming" is a very misleading term. Climate Change is far more accurate, as these freak weather patterns will supposedly become more and more frequent.

However the thing that really annoys me is this inference that if humans weren't here that planet would be in a state of constant. Climate change is a perfectly normal state of affairs for every planet. We could all go completely "green" tomorrow and the planet would still probably continue on its merry way.

[Scott]

I for one will be a very happy man when the word green simply means a color again.... but I might not ever see that day.

[blazer]

To be quite honest, i can't agree with a lot of you that the earth is getting 'warmer' i agree with someone up there who said the correct term is 'climate change' but here in California, its bloody november and we've got brushfires. and temperatures in the 30s centigrade. absolutely horrendous in my opinion. i'd die for some rain right now, but humidity is down to <5%

[jeffy777]

I'm no environmentalist, nor a proponent for "Global Warming", but regardless of whether we have an effect on climate change, I do think you would have to be a bit naive to deny that human induced pollution is not getting to be more of a problem, though obviously it's not all the auto industries fault. Again, I'm not a hippie or anything, but lately I've been thinking about this stuff and it is getting kind of bad. For instance, you aren't even supposed to eat the fish out of Lake Michigan anymore (and many other places) because of the high levels of pollution. Just one example of many. I think just a few changes here and there with our technology could help a lot, such as cleaner electricity production.

[Vette Boss]

I can solve global warming here and now; everyone stop eating beef. Honestly, the cow farts and does poo, which contains methane and other noxious gasses, then humans do even more damage by polluting a second time.

That is, if we believe what Al Gore and his crack team of bureaucrats cum scientists tell us. But if we listen to him, we all eat only vegetables, which will make our bottoms explode even more.

[Ottobon]

Originally Posted by jeffy777

I'm no environmentalist, nor a proponent for "Global Warming", but regardless of whether we have an effect on climate change, I do think you would have to be a bit naive to deny that human induced pollution is not getting to be more of a problem, though obviously it's not all the auto industries fault. Again, I'm not a hippie or anything, but lately I've been thinking about this stuff and it is getting kind of bad. For instance, you aren't even supposed to eat the fish out of Lake Michigan anymore (and many other places) because of the high levels of pollution. Just one example of many. I think just a few changes here and there with our technology could help a lot, such as cleaner electricity production.

I'm pretty sure with all the spanking new regulations that came on in the 70s its not getting worse. Think about how much cleaner cars, powerplants, even waste disposal plants are. I mean behind a fully warmed up car and breathe much much much much cleaner air then anybody in the whole of Mexico city, whereas a uncatted car with crap ventilation can kill you in a matter of minutes. I think the "problem" is that people are starting to become hyper aware of anything that may impact the enviroment. What I'm saying is, looking at the human condition and all the weakness inherent of it, its more or less enviromental hypochondria.



SUPER #2

How can you look at this graph and come to the conclusion that if CO2 skyrocketed we'd all die.



The earth has undergone times where it had approximately 1700% more CO2 then it currently does, and in many cases their was a more rapid explosoin of life on the planet then there is now. And here we are freaking out about a possible increase of 3% in carbon emissions. If thats not paranoia then what is?

[jeffy777]

Originally Posted by Ottobon

Actually from what i understand (and i live around Lake Michigan, thank you very much) much of it is getting better. The problem isn't really worse then before, so much as people are just starting to notice it, and like someone who just realized they sat their hand down on a burning stove, their going ecstatic.

Yeah, I've lived right on the shore of Lake Michigan for about half my life. I hadn't heard of it getting any better. In some bay areas, you aren't even supposed to stick your head under water (such as Sister Bay, which was proclaimed as one of the Top 10 most polluted beaches in the US). I know the water levels have been way down just in the past decade too. In many places the shoreline has receded quite a bit.

But anyway, Lake Michigan was just one example, and a mild example compared to pollution in other cities/areas.

[Ottobon]

yeah i wasn't so sure about that statement so i did retract it, but bleh, you got me. Still i dont feel its all getting worse, and at the very least i DO NOT believe the average consumer is to blame. The people regulating where to dumb the massive quantities of toxic waste, sure, but not the layman.

[jeffy777]

Originally Posted by Ottobon

yeah i wasn't so sure about that statement so i did retract it, but bleh, you got me. Still i dont feel its all getting worse, and at the very least i DO NOT believe the average consumer is to blame. The people regulating where to dumb the massive quantities of toxic waste, sure, but not the layman.

Yes, I agree: It's not all getting worse. My original statement about pollution getting to be a worse problem was a bit of an over-statement, as air quality is actually getting better in some areas. And you're right about it not being the common layman's fault. It does kind of piss me off when nice places like Lake Michigan get trashed. I don't say this because I'm an "environmentalist", but because I like to hang out and enjoy the lake, but it's shame it's so nasty because of all the factories, mercury levels, etc.

But anyway, that has more to do with common pollution rather than Global Warming (or lack thereof) as the two aren't related. Sorry for going off topic

[Pepto]

Originally Posted by Ottobon

How can you look at this graph and come to the conclusion that if CO2 skyrocketed we'd all die.

Do you really think that the what 99% of the scientist that are saying that we are causing the climate change have come to that conclusion by looking at that chart?

Yes someone fucked up the data, but there still is overwhelming amount of proof that humans are the cause of this climate change and that the scientific community backs that up. I'm willing to bet that even with the new data in place the model show that the earth is warming up...

[wooflepoof]

Originally Posted by Pepto

Yes someone fucked up the data, but there still is overwhelming amount of proof that humans are the cause of this climate change and that the scientific community backs that up.

No there isn't.

[Hidden_Hunter]

Originally Posted by Pepto

Do you really think that the what 99% of the scientist that are saying that we are causing the climate change have come to that conclusion by looking at that chart?

No, but what I do think is that alot of them are simply chasing funding like any other group in business.