Comments on: Science(mag) Insider

By: Lina Inverse

Lina Inverse — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:45:44 +0000

I can't see the current governments in the US and U.K. prosecuting these "scientists", but a lawyer who wrote to James Taranto, author of "The Best of the Web Today" in the Wall Street Journal noted that there's one private cause of action available:

Tortious interference. For researchers and academicians, publication in peer-reviewed journals is important to advancement, raises, grant funding, etc. Wrongful interference with the ability to publish has monetary and reputational damages. If that interference is based not on editorial judgment of worthiness for publication, but rather on protecting reputations, scientific positions, political goals or "places in history" (as mentioned in one email), then it could give rise to liability in tort for the individual scientist and possibly for the university or organization for which he works.

By: Eyesapoppin'

Eyesapoppin' — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:52:12 +0000

According to an IPCC chart I exhumed, http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/fig2-4.htm it was an abrupt rise in SSTs, going forward in time that is, not a fall. Anyway, this all exemplifies what for me, a rank amateur in many disciplines, is the amazing thing about the climatological community. I mean look at the red line. There is a totally wild zag upwards. No one can authoritatively explain it, but everyone just goes merrily about “correcting” it, i.e., what a”correcting” really means, is smudging the disjuncture line so that it looks like the rise is more gradual than the data would allow. Just simply amazing to me. No concern that there isn’t any reason to smudge it that way. Do you think that anyone in a science like microbiology, which is fraught with its own data interpretation problems, would dare to even try to publish such crap? Maybe there really was a jump upward; how do you know? I know, I know, it’s impossible for the ocean to change overnight– well really over-year.. But what is so more “:possible,” or even plausible about the “Folland Parker method”– not an accepted method, I’ll wager, that the name would make it appear to be, but probably just a jerry-rigged kludge to obscure the underlying data for this one investigation. if even those data can be trusted, which according to the Trouble With Harry threads that I’ve been reading, I would be a fool to trust. My god.

By: PhilH

PhilH — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:44:18 +0000

Whether or not any of these guys actually erased any of the messages, they have nevertheless engaged in a conspiracy to do so; a felony in the States. When Jones contacted Mann with the request to erase and then Mann (whether he, himself, did or did not erase) contacted Wahl with the same request, all the elements of a conspiracy had been satisfied. Don’t know anything about Brit conspiracy law.

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:17:31 +0000

Peter,

After I get back from class I’ll have to research what you said.

Cheers

By: Julian Flood

Julian Flood — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:33:58 +0000

The 1945 problem is, I would suggest, the abrupt fall in SSTs at that time. The solution was not to try to find or research a reason, instead the data was adjusted by the Folland Parker method, which smoothed the rise in ’39 back to about ’37 and tailed off the drop from ’45 to nearly 1950. I have read somewhere that the models could not explain the blip but the newer smoothed version was manageable. Climate Audit found the adjustment questionable.

I watched the disappearance of the WWII SST blip — a feature on the graphs which I once described as standing out like a Rottweiller’s gonads but ended up like a Pekinese’s percy — with disappointment as I had created around it my own theory of warming. Maybe I should dust off the files. Dr Wigley, if you need a new line of research, give me a call.

By: Peter S

Peter S — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:51:13 +0000

“I need to meet a nice Brit girl like Hazel Moffatt. They use words like “naughty” and, in the case of Ms Moffatt, is easy on the eyes.”

Andy – if ever you’re over in Britain just look out for a toffet and you’ll surely find one (breakfast time is best). Just make sure there are no spiders around.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:17:50 +0000

This is a distraction and could easily be covered by a claim of filling a public education role. The bigger issue, IMHO, is Hansen’s role as an advocate. Gavin can always claim he was following orders from Hansen.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:12:56 +0000

Parsing Dr. Mann’s words carefully allows for his deleting of the emails of his own volition and not at the behest of Dr. Jones. Note that he did not say that he had not contacted Gene.

By: Mr Purple

Mr Purple — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:43:42 +0000

I think the ’1945 problem’ is in relation to a changeover from the type of sensor that was in place at the time prior to and after WWII (uninsulated bucket sensor vs insulated sensors or something).

Obviously all the sensors weren’t replaced overnight and some liberties were apparently taken with the data. I believe it would affect more years than just 1945.

By: John M

John M — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:03:39 +0000

“In an email, Mann, a climatologist and statistician at Pennsylvania State University, University Park…”

I thought he wasn’t a statistician.