Rather than start a new thread I'll add this here:
NYT Times story: - All text in this thread are my words - see link for article
This story from the NYT has been getting around a little bit over the last day in the discussion of climategate and I wanted to post here to clarify a few of the issues with the article. Specifically in regards to the portions quoted from Michael Schlesinger. Schlesinger (and many others) have been parading around these results of NOAA, NASA, HADCRU, and JMA saying essentially "One organization doesn't matter much, see this graph where all of these organizations agree on temperatures!?" (See graph below). This of course is a totally valid argument assuming these organizations reach these conclusions independently.
The problem? All of these organizations take their data samples for these temperature records from the same overall dataset and it is estimated that there is a 90-95% overlap in those samples (this is absurdly high overlap). Thus the 4 point argument made by Schlesinger in this article is fundamentally undermined by this dubious oversight because he has essentially graphed the same data several times in order to claim that there is robust agreement on the data....well I certainly hope a dataset agrees with itself...frankly the fact that it doesn't agree more than it does is somewhat odd to me.
Additionally earlier in the article it quotes "University Officials" from UEA as having said that 95% of the data that Pielke Sr. has requested (he was asking for data and information to reproduce the HADCRU record iirc) has been available for years in various locations online. While this is true the issue is, and always has been, that Pielke was requesting not just the data, but the sampling criteria and the actual cite list (ie samples) used to formulate the CRU data record. Having the overall dataset from which a sample was taken is insufficient for reproduceability, you need to know which instruments in the data set were included before the raw data is of any use. Furthermore, it is pretty sad that the University is continuing to hide behind this blatant excuse even after it was revealed in e-mails that this is precisely the same tactic that Dr Jones was using to avoid FoI requests on this exact same issue from Pielke Sr.
These two specious arguments are highly indicative of what has gone on in the climate debate up until now. Honestly, it really frustrates me that many AGW proponents believe they can continue to play the same games that created this scandal in the first place.
Finally, for those interested in an extremely fair/level-headed assessment of the climategate situation, see here. And for those interested in reading about the debate on how all of this effects peer review, i recommend this excellent article. While both are from WUWT (guest posts), neither are pushing skeptical views of their respective topics so much as truly trying to assess the reality of the situation. They are also both, superb articles for anyone even remotely interested in this topic (ie any of you still reading this thread). Please leave your thoughts on them if you do read them.
 |
| To Each Man, Responsibility |
