Det er ganske bekymrende at se, hvorledes offentligt ansatte videnskabsmænd skalter og valter med deres fag for at fremme en eller anden dagsorden der sikkert i alt væsenligt bunder i egen forfængelighed. Steven McIntyre, manden der første gang demaskerede Hockey-stok grafen er på sin blog Climate Audit godt i gang med at finde hoved og hale i den mailkorrespondence, der blev hacket og lækket fra East Anglia Climate Research Unit
The Climategate Letters contain a flurry of correspondence between Mann, Briffa, Jones and Folland (copy to Tom Karl of NOAA) on Sep 22-23, 1999, shedding light on how the authors responded to the stone in IPCC’s shoe. By this time, it appears that each of the three authors (Jones, Mann and Briffa) had experimented with different approaches to the “problem” of the decline.
Jones appears to have floated the idea of using two different diagrams - one without the inconvenient Briffa reconstruction (presumably in the Summary for Policy-makers) and one with the Briffa reconstruction (presumably in the relevant chapter). Jones said that this might make it “somewhat awkward for the reader trying to put them into context”, with it being unclear whether Jones viewed this as an advantage or disadvantage:
If we go as is suggested then there would be two diagrams - one simpler one with just Mann et al and Jones et al and in another section Briffa et al. This might make it somewhat awkward for the reader trying to put them into context. (Jones, Sep 22, 1999 Jones 093801949)
Another approach is perhaps evidenced in programming changes a week earlier (Sep 13-14, 1999), in which programs in the osborn-tree6/mann/oldprog directory appear to show efforts to “correct” the calibration of the Briffa reconstruction, which may or may not be relevant to the eventual methodology to “hide the decline”.
The correspondence implies (though this is at present not proven) that IPCC section author Mann’s first reaction to the “problem” was to totally delete the Briffa reconstruction from the proxy diagram, as the correspondence of September 22 seems to have been precipitated by Briffa being unhappy at an (unseen) version of the proxy diagram in which his reconstruction had been deleted.
Og for dem med matematiske og statistiske evner gennemgår han så the “trick”, der skulle “hide the decline”, hvilket er noget af en gyser. Daily Mail gennemgår perspektiverne bl.a. på baggrund af Steven McIntyres arbejde
In fact, there is a large body of highly-respected academic experts who fiercely contest this [IPCC's forudsigelser; Drokles] thesis: people such as Richard Lindzen, Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a disillusioned former IPCC member, and Dr Tom Segalstad, head of geology at Oslo University, who has stated that ‘most leading geologists throughout the world know that the IPCC’s view of Earth processes are implausible if not impossible’.
These dissenters focus their criticisms on the IPCC’s analysis of the way the atmosphere works and the models it uses to predict the future.
However, Warmergate strikes at something more fundamental - the science that justifies the basic assumption that the present warming really is unprecedented, at least in the past few thousand years.
(…)
Last week, an article posted on a popular climate sceptic website analysed the data from the past 130 years in Darwin, Australia.
This suggested that average temperatures had risen there by about two degrees Celsius. However, the raw data had been ‘adjusted’ in a series of abrupt upward steps by exactly the same amount: without the adjustment, the Darwin temperature record would have stayed level.
In 2007, McIntyre examined records across America. He found that between 1999 and 2007, the US equivalent of the Met Office had changed the way it adjusted old data.
The result was to make the Thirties seem cooler, and the years since 1990 much warmer. Previously, the warmest year since records began in America had been 1934.
Now, in line with CRU and IPCC orthodoxy, it was 1998.
At the CRU, said Davies, some stations’ readings were adjusted by unit and in such cases, raw and adjusted data could be compared.
But in about 90 per cent of cases, the adjustment was carried out in the countries that collected the data, and the CRU would not know exactly how this had been done.
Davies said: ‘All I can say is that the process is careful and considered. To get the details, the best way would be to go the various national meteorological services.’
The consequences of that, Stott said, may be explosive. ‘If you take Darwin, the gap between the two just looks too big.
‘If that applies elsewhere, it’s going to get really interesting. It’s no longer going to be good enough for the Met Office and CRU to put the data out there.
‘To know we can trust it, we’ve got to know what adjustments have been made, and why.’
Last week, at the Copenhagen climate summit, the Met Office said that the Noughties have been the warmest decade in history. Depending on how the data has been adjusted, Stott said, that statement may not be true.
Pielke agreed. ‘After Climategate, the surface temperature record is being called into question.’ To experts such as McIntyre and Pielke, perhaps the most baffling thing has been the near-unanimity over global warming in the world’s mainstream media - a unanimity much greater than that found among scientists.
In part, this is the result of strongarm tactics.
For example, last year the BBC environment reporter Roger Harrabin made substantial changes to an article on the corporation website that asked why global warming seemed to have stalled since 1998 - caving in to direct pressure from a climate change activist, Jo Abbess.
‘Personally, I think it is highly irresponsible to play into the hands of the sceptics who continually promote the idea that “global warming finished in 1998” when that is so patently not true,’ she told him in an email.
After a brief exchange, he complied and sent a final note: ‘Have a look in ten minutes and tell me you are happier. We have changed headline and more.’
Afterwards, Abbess boasted on her website: ‘Climate Changers, Remember to challenge any piece of media that seems like it’s been subject to spin or scepticism. Here’s my go for today. The BBC actually changed an article I requested a correction for.’
Og Washington Times skrev fredag i deres leder
Contrary to the whitewash job conducted by propagandists, there are 450 academic peer-reviewed journal articles questioning the importance of man-made global warming. The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine has collected more than 30,000 American scientists urging the U.S. government to reject the Kyoto Treaty, which pushes draconian measures to reduce carbon emissions. Much hay is made of 2,500 United Nations scientists who back Kyoto, but there are many more scientists with Ph.D.s among the 30,000 skeptics than there are among the oft-cited 2,500, most of whom are government bureaucrats without advanced degrees.
That’s hardly meant to be a blanket endorsement of the work done by all those holding doctorates in the field. There are significant problems with the three most-relied-on data series used by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment report. The report was derived from research at the University of East Anglia, NASA and the British Met Office, which is responsible for weather forecasts in the United Kingdom. All three organizations have refused to release all or part of their raw data. The public only has access to “value added” data that have been corrected and massaged.
Hvordan kan alt dette lade sig gøre? Hvorledes kan få videnskabsfolk forføre deres kollegaer og en hel verden så længe? Fænomenet er desværre alt for almindeligt og det ligger i dets natur at det rammer, hvor vi ikke venter det (ellers ville vi jo se det). Hvem skulle tro at videnskaben ville lyve, når den netop søger sandheden? Vi er alle afhængige af det fællesskab, der danner rammen og referencen for vores liv og perception. Som fugle i flok skifter vi ubesværet retning med de andre, selvstændighed findes for de flestes vedkommende inden for disse præmisser.
På det helt konspiratoriske plan forventede man vel ikke at New York Police Department var gennem korrumperet i 60′erne indtil Al Pacino under store personlige omkostninger ordnede den sag. Ingen betjente, ej heller dem, der ikke tog imod bestikkelse ville fortælle om de faktiske forhold i jernindustrien, ej heller politiledelsen eller borgmesteren eller de næringsdrivende eller nogen, som helst. Den enkeltes frygt eller interesser tyngede simpelthen almindelig anstændighed, tyranniet fra fællesskabet var overvældende.
Så voldsomt behøver det jo ikke at være og vi kan tænke på et nyere eksempel på et massebedrag i Stein Bagger. Uden at fremvise noget som helst lykkedes det ham at overbevise sine professionelle kollegaer om sin egen succes og mens aktierne og indtægterne steg hurtigere end man vidste kunne være realistisk kårede ekspertisen ham til årets helt og medierne ville høre ham om, hvorledes man kunne skabe en sådan succes. Ingen greb ind og ingen sagde noget om diskrepanser mellem Stein Baggers præsentation og virkeligheden - heller ikke de mennesker, der arbejde for ham og som på første parket kunne se at der ikke eksisterede de revolutionerende produkter han lovede fremtiden eller den bestyrelse, der i sidste ende skulle hæfte for det, som skulle gå galt. Ja finanskrisen kunne jo også nævnes, hvor det var blevet kutyme at tjene penge på dårlige betalere. Bare man bundtede gæld, der ikke kunne indfries sammen kunne man sælge dem i skiver om og om igen til stigende priser. Alle kunne vel se at det ikke kan lade sig gøre? Chokerende nok nej!
Jeg kom til at tænke på et afsnit fra Naser Khaders “selvbiografi” Khader.dk, hvor det hedder på side 27
Under Golfkrigen sad min far og hans venner ofte sammen og heppede på Saddam Hussein, som de dengang stadig troede på i forhold til den palæstinensiske sag, og de hørte som regel Iraks Radio. Pludselig blev det så en dag bekendtgjort dernedefra, at “nu havde Guds vrede og forbandelse ramt Golf-landene”, for nu var den sorte regn begyndt at falde over dem.
Min far og hans venner blev helt vilde, og de råbte “Gud, du den store barmhjertige, nu har du forbandet dem,” og så videre og så videre. Og jeg bare sad der og holdt min mund. Jeg kunne godt have skabt en konflikt ved at sige “hør nu, venner, det er bare oliekilder, der brænder, og derfor er regnen blevet sort,” men jeg lod være. Jeg tænkte, Herregud, hvorfor skulle jeg dog gå ind og pille ved det og irettesætte dem og få dem til at tabe ansigt?
Det var der ingen grund til, og da regnen så blev klar igen, snakkede vi i øvrigt ikke mere om den sag.
Den psykologiske mekanisme hæver ingen kultur sig over. Det religiøse vanvid er vi alle underlagt uanset om vi erkender det eller ej, som tilfældet er i Europa. I aften viser TV2 Zulu Al Gores An Incovenient Truth.