This thread is about the Phil Jones scandal and the validity of his research. Have deniers cherry picked information from the Phil Jones scandal to try and disprove global warming?

I just watched this (rather bias) video on Youtube, it starts off by talking about the Phil Jones scandal, a pivotal point for climate change denial. It dissects the BBC interview and attempts to show that deniers have been cherry picking evidence. It then discusses further examples and accuses deniers of wilful ignorance, faceless accusations and cherry picking.

I'm sure there is more to this than the video shows you (for example the accusation that climate deniers throw out as many faceless accusations as possible, which I know is often not the case. an unfair accusation), so I would like to hear some of your rebuttals to this video.

I got about 30 seconds in to "People who disagree with science change look into adds."

That's about as far as I could get with that voice of his... sorry.

I would point out though that scientific jounrals and trade magazines do infact have articles that challenge climate change as it's currently suggested.

Geological enginering, chemical engineering and general other scientific journals that are a lot more pure numbers based. So, of the first 30-45 seconds or so.... he was wrong.

Oh, additionally... when you think someone is outright lying... and not actually just has a wrong opinion... "cherry picking" is what you'd use. It's called finding inconsistances.

If your a cop and your interviewing someone and he says he didn't kill her 19 times, and one time when he talks about her being annoying he says "man I killed her... I mean could of killed her."

That would technically be cherry picking wouldn't it? 95% of the time he said one thing... and 5% of the time another.

@Kasz. If you watched a bit further you would find they weren't cherry picking data, they were cherry picking quotes.

Basically the guy was asked 'Has there been statistically significant warming from 1995 to 2009' and he said 'Warming from 1995 to 2009 (a rise of 0.12 degrees) falls just outside of the level of statistical significance (95%) as a short period reduces the likelihood of it being statistically significant.'

This was changed into 'Phil Jones says no warming since 1995'

That's not cherry picking though. It's cutting out the second half of a statement that he should of been embarresed to make as a scientsit. Right after it he says "I'm 100% sure it's happenng.

If something isn't statistically significant it IS NOT happening. There is no qualifier. Additionally since his theory calls for warming rates to increase near lineraly... the fact that their is no statistical warming in such a time infact is VERY damning to his entire claim. 

Additionally 1995 to 2009 is about half of the accurate sattelite data we have.

It's like I said... he's admittied to killing his wife, but is trying to explain why he said it.  He may as well say "I said I killed my wife.... but i meant in boggle!  Boggle!"

To put it another way... If I say... "Every day I put coins in this box, my plant grows at an expontial rate. I've been doing it for years... and have been measuring it with a ruler for the last 2 years.

"so the last year year your plant has grown for an exponetial rate?"

"Well no, not the last year. It hasn't grown at all. It's such a short period of time though." 

According to his theory it shouldn't be insignificant... but more significant then it's ever been.

I think you'll find this term is pretty offensive given the implications associated to it from the holocaust.  I think you'll find most prefer climate skeptics/sceptics (spelling based on where you live apparently).

It's sort of like if a pro-life person were to refer to somone who is pro-choice as "pro-child murder". Not exactly a flattering term and certainly not the way to start up meaningful discourse between the two people.

The naming pre-supposes the conclusion of the argument and attempts to make the position sound absurd just by how it is referred to.

@topic,

The Phil Jones stuff, while damning in its own right, isn't exactly the pillar upon which skepticism for AGW is based. 

With that said, parsing words about how damning what he said is or isn't seems somewhat ridiculous. The fact is we are unable to detect a warming signal, much less an anthropogenic signal, in the last 15 years and that fact does serve to undermine the notion of some absolute confidence in the various warming scenarios, particularly those of a catastrophic nature.  I would go further and say the work that could ultimately be truly damaging to AGW is going on behind the scenes rather quietly by researchers that have already identified various warm biases throughout the instrumental record and are now attempting to quantify and then formally prove those biases, all of which is infinitely more compelling than a quote (because it's actual science and not just a comment). 

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your view) it has been the case for some time now that satellite measurements of atmospheric temperature, particularly those of the troposphere where warming is expected to be seen first and strongest, are in violent disagreement (phrasing not chosen lightly) with the models of how warming is neccessarily supposed to play out.  I say neccessarily because I have yet to see a model that both supports the notion of AGW and fails to have this particular atmospheric hallmark (and not for a failure to search for such a model).  Additional hypotheses have been posited by some to account for the lack of atmospheric warming with the notion of an ocean heat reservior "buffering" the buildup of heat as a secondary mechanism to explain the observations.  Unfortunately that too is unsubstantiated at best, and is arguably invalidated by data from the ABS, especially data from remote sensors in the network that actually dive into the deep ocean to produce a cross-section of deep ocean heat in addition to the commonly cited SST. This data has indicated that the ocean has actually been, if anything, cooling slightly. 

All of this taken together is more than just "well the warming isn't statistically significant because of the breif period being evaluated"...its the neccessary hallmark of the prescribed mechanism failing to appear, the warmth it's supposed to produce failing to appear, and the subsequently invented mechanism to explain the discrepency failing to be verified and in fact being contradicted.  All of that in concert paints a particularly clear picture of what has been going on - namely that there hasn't been any meaningful warming in the past 15 years.

And that doesn't even start into some of the blatant abuses of statistical significance and statistical inference in general that is being used to argue to the contrary.  But that is a topic all by itself, and one I'm admittedly still in the process of researching myself.

My main reply to all of this is that I can think of a number of reasons to raise serious questions and doubts about AGW outside of the recent scandals that have drawn headlines.   And in most cases those reasons are, imo at least, far more compelling, albeit a bit more involved (thus why they aren't headlines) than admissions by Phil Jones (most of which those following climate science have been aware of for quite a while now).  So be careful not to take the headline skeptic position as any sort of gospel.  Not everyone who agrees with any particular conclusion has built a foundation of knowledge for it to rest upon, this much is true in all of science and debate in general.

One of the most damaging elements of the Climategate scandal which seems to get the least attention paid to it is the evidence that suggests that a handful of scientists are able to manipulate the peer review and publishing process. While the data manipulation should bring into doubt all of the work of these scientists and those that based their research off of their findings, the manipulation of the peer-review and publishing process should bring into question the science of the entire field.

Edit: Just to add to Sqrl's point on calling people "Climate Change Deniers" ...

The term is also entirely inaccurate of the position of climate change sceptics. The vast majority of sceptics actually believe that the climate is constantly changing, and the only thing they uniformly doubt is the unproven hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming which needs to be prevented rather than adapted to. The reasons people doubt the hypothesis are varied, and range from the science being questionable to looking at how the medieval warm period was once called the medieval optimum and doubting that warming would be detrimental; and there are even sceptics that fully believe that global warming exists, is man made, and is detrimental but believe that attempting to avert global warming would be far worse than adapting to it.

I imagine that's why pretty much all the skeptiscism comes out in other scientific journals that's on the peripherary of climate change.  Like chemical engineering trade magazines and the like.