A few emails vs global scientific consensus: guess who the winner is?
(Thanks to Nick Anderson for the use of his cartoon.)
Like a bad smell, the theft of emails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) hangs around the Copenhagen conference and threatens to distract people from what really needs to be discussed. Suddenly, everyone seems to be a scientific expert ready to denounce a global conspiracy but you don’t have to dig down far to see just how misinformed some people are willing to be. Many people have strong suspicions that it’s no coincidence these emails surfaced a couple of weeks before the UN climate summit, or that the few emails highlighted out of 13 years’ worth of data are part of a co-ordinated attempt to damage everyone’s trust in the science which is driving these negotiations.
In his speech during the opening of the conference (pdf), chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Dr Rajendra Pachauri noted that “the recent incident of stealing the emails of scientists at the University of East Anglia shows that some would go to the extent of carrying out illegal acts perhaps in an attempt to discredit the IPCC.”
And equally, many people have provided sound explanations for the suggestive words and out-of-context passages the increasingly-desperate climate deniers have pounced upon.
You’ll know the three or four emails which have been held up as proof of an ongoing conspiracy amongst scientists. In particular, there’s the one explaining how to use a “trick” to “hide the decline” in temperatures – John Cook explains on Skeptical Science how this relates to the divergence between temperature records derived from tree ring data and those from observed temperatures:
The “decline” refers to the “divergence problem”. This is where tree ring proxies diverge from modern instrumental temperature records after 1960. The divergence problem is discussed as early as 1998, suggesting a change in the sensitivity of tree growth to temperature in recent decades (Briffa 1998). It is also examined more recently in Wilmking 2008 which explores techniques in eliminating the divergence problem. So when you look at Phil Jones’s email in the context of the science discussed, it is not the schemings of a climate conspiracy but technical discussions of data handling techniques available in the peer reviewed literature.
If paleoclimatology isn’t your strong point, here’s an entertaining video summary of how the emails have been misinterpreted.
Think about how many emails you’d send in 13 years. Then consider that if these examples are the best material to run a smear campaign with, then whoever did this is really desperate. Unlike most other people, Canada’s Green party leader Elizabeth May read all the emails. Every single one. “How dare the world’s media fall into the trap set by contrarian propagandists without reading the whole set?” she says as she highlights how some without a scientific background have been only too eager to manipulate data they don’t really understand to get the result they want. Which is exactly what Dr Phil Jones and others at the CRU are being accused of.
And there’s been plenty of speculation about who did this, but maybe we’ll never know. Of course the timing may be coincidental, the emails may have been hacked by somebody with entirely different motivations, we just don’t know. But what we do know is that there have been other reports of break-in and hacking attempts at other climate research centres, making it seem suspiciously like a deliberate attempt to undermine the Copenhagen talks.
The science of climate change is not based on the work of scientists at the CRU, but draws on thousands of peer-reviewed studies from all over the world, including sea-ice cover, sea level rise, glacial retreat, and temperatures of ocean, land and air. The assessments of the IPCC which are driving international action are the result of one of the most rigorous and robust scientific endeavour ever devised. Anyone who has doubts should get hold of a school textbook and revise, because it all rests on some very elementary science.
And the planet is still getting warmer. Earlier this week, the Met Office revealed that this decade has been the warmest on record, and 2009 is on track to be the fifth warmest year. As a result, sea levels are rising, oceans are becoming more acidic, and the Arctic sea ice is melting.
Meanwhile, the American Association for the Advancement of Science has reiterated this, saying that “global climate change caused by human activities is now underway, and it is a growing threat to society.” And for a neat summary of what is happening out there, I’d recommend reading the Copenhagen Diagnosis report (pdf) produced by the Climate Change Research Centre at University of New South Wales to provide a summary of the research published since the last IPCC one. It’s not long and easy to follow, but if you can’t face it just go for the summary. It’s all there.
And we’re expected to reject worldwide scientific consensus based on peer-reviewed research because of a few out-of-context emails which haven’t even been through a spell check? Pull the other one.
Reposted from the Greenpeace International Blog
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The problem is not with the science. Science is only the understanding of the nature of things. Climate change in itself is not a problem as it will happen whether caused by man or not.
If climate change is going to cause us harm then that might be a problem but it might also be unavoidable.
To be civilized suggests we live in a 20`C medium humidity environment with lots of electronic gadgets and endlessly debate the pros and cons of civilization.
I wonder if we are living in a dream created by lazy simplistic attitudes brought about by our forebears, who brought us to safety but did not give us the skills to live within the limits of a safe place.
Are we doing the same to our next generations? It is obvious that future generations will have to undo some of the damage that living in such a free world has allowed to occur. Especially if the human race is to live in harmony with nature as we need to. For nature will behave as it must.
It is a shame that the planet become a victim for our struggle for civilization. And it will become a patient there is no doubt about that. We not only need the planet fit and healthy for the next generations, we need it for fit and healthy for now.
The reality is the problem is with us the humans not with the planet. What is happening to the planet is in the nature of things. We want, and only we can influence the change we want. First we need to work out what we want? For that we need to know what is available. For that Humans must start to be honest.
Like just about every other big, international conference, from world trade to human rights, it appears the Copenhagen climate summit has ended in a complete fiasco.
BBC:
{Negotiations at the UN climate summit have been suspended after the African group withdrew co-operation.
African delegations were angry at what they saw as moves by the Danish host government to sideline talks on more emission cuts under the Kyoto Protocol.
As news spread around the conference centre, about 200 activists responded with chants of “We stand with Africa – Kyoto targets now”}
Typical.
Between the “Climategate” leaks, and another set of leaks about how developed countries planned to screw over developing ones, the whole thing was doomed from the start. And even without those snags, it was all talk.
There’s no way all the countries in the world can come together and unilaterally slow down their economies for something as vague as climate change, potentially a century off. That’s the bottomline.
There seems to be a real defeatist attitude over this failure at Copenhagen. In fact it seemed to be there before it started. I suspect that is how many people feel at the moment, defeated, clubbed into submission by all the issues of recent times. This gave the ‘deniers’ and those vested interests who didn’t want this to progress very good leverage to work against any deal. The CRU email leak was just icing on the cake for those people, even though it was clear from reading them they weren’t conspiritorial in tone. So everyone has gone for what appears to be the path of least resistance…do nothing. The price may well be the ultimate one.
The fact is, no one wants to be held under strict controls that could very well undermine their nation’s economic interests!