Climate Jousters & Jesters
Judith Curry is at it again. This time she’s mixing it up with the denizens of Climate Audit, including its host. She’s been active in some of the recent CA threads, jousting with McIntyre, but this duel on climate data is notable.
I will say this: she’s treated more politely over there by folks who disagree with her, than she has been at my site. Still, it appears that CA readers and McIntyre cut Judith no less slack than those on the other side of the climate spectrum, who have gotten into it with her on my blog.
(This kinda makes me wonder about the entrenched mindsets of both sides, given that neither seems particularly open to persuasion by Judith.)
That said, the bloggy climate skeptic universe is not the monochromatic echo chamber that the Romms and Deltoids would have you believe. For example, here’s Lucia teeing off on Monckton in delightfully sardonic fashion.
If we are to render justice to CA, we must admit that it is a unique place. This place does not belong to any affiliation except Steve’s. I humbly submit that Steve is most of the times on his own side of things.
If what I am saying right now is right, we are left to believe that we should evaluate sites based on their inherent quality, and not infer anything about the sides around them.
All in all, it will always be a matter of taste.
PS: I can’t say anything about Lucia because I hate the way I can’t follow the comments in a reader. Bloggers should beware that some people are using feed readers. Being able to suscribe to an RSS feed of a whole blog (an not only specific threads) is a good idea. Take note, Keith 😉
we should evaluate sites based on their inherent quality, and not infer anything about the sides around them.
I agree with that, Willard.
Also, there is an RSS feed for my blog comments. It’s a box on the left-hand side, when you click on the post url. But I should make it easier for people.
Oh, I just realized what you were saying. There’s also an RSS feed on the right side of the blog. Isn’t that what you mean?
It seems that I’ve achieved equal status to the Great Satan. Awesome.
I should also note that Keith is making stuff up about me.
So if I’m wrong, Tim, I promise I will apologize. But meanwhile, tell me of a climate skeptic blogger that you’ve admired over at Deltoid, someone who has shown you that there is not one one monolothic climate skeptic world.
Willard–
I never really think about RSS. The blog should be readable in a feed. Can you be specific about the issue and I’ll look into fixing it.
Willard–
I think I figured out what you mean. The full comments feed is this: http://rankexploits.com/musings/comments/feed/ . Ending with /comments/feed/ appears to be the default for any wordpress blog. I’ve edited my theme to permit users to find the link more easily.
I will say this: she’s treated more politely over there there by folks who disagree with her, than she has been at my site.
No wonder. Bloom & dhogaza are not blogging there.
Willard, that’s rather like saying that a point should be considered on its own without reference to the lines, planes and spaces to which it relates. It’s true that something can be said about it, but there are sharp limits.
OTOH if you’re up for a po-mo deconstruction of McI’s blog taken solely on its own terms, I’ll happily read it.
Well I went ahead and looked over that CA thread and now I feel all icky.
You’re right, Keith, they were very polite in telling her that she ‘s completely full of shit. No doubt the CA gentlemen still make a practice of opening doors for ladies.
Anyway, Keith, it is so very typical of you to elevate form over substance.
Re #5: Keith, the problem is that those “skeptic” bloggers are pretty much all denialists, although some (including McI and Lucia) pretend otherwise to varying extents. Properly stated, of course, RC and the like are skeptical blogs. So there’s your answer, right?
Just to note that the brighter denialists realize that in the long run the likes of Monckton do more harm than good to the “skeptic” cause. Actually taking Monckton in any way seriously is a good way to identify overt denialism.
OK, OK, it’s not *just* the Cro-Magnon social attitudes, there’s also an element of sucking up to Judy in the hopes that she can be persuaded to join the Dark Side.
Steve,
You’re on quite a roll.
Yes, I get grief from both sides, maybe I’m whistling in the wind, we’ll see. If I can provoke people into thinking outside their little box, i guess i will count that as some modicum of success. I have to say that of all the places I’ve blogged, I still like climateaudit the best. Yes its definitely Steve Mc’s show, but the commenters are highly educated and for the most part thoughtful, and occasionally good points are made. And I think that people that peruse climateaudit are open to arguments: I receive many emails from lurkers, any impact that I might be making is more evident to me in the emails i receive, rather than the actual blog threads. In any event, posting at climateaudit keeps me on my toes, more so than at any other site. In terms of civility, I find the Blackboard gets top marks, and this is accomplished without apparent moderation.
I have some spare time this week, so I’m doing some “drive bys” to see if any interesting conversations are sparked. We’ll see.
And Keith gets top marks for hosting a blog that has the best editing features and also stirs up the most trouble by bringing people together from across the spectrum 🙂
Lucia,
Found the appropriate link at the bottow of your main page. Thanks.
***
Steve,
No, what I say is not rather like saying nonsense. We can even build a general formula:
– Look at X !
– Don’t you see that X is like Y ?
– We all know how _p_ is Y.
– So X is _p_.
– Look at Z ; Z is like Y is like X.
Et cetera. As Baron von Monkhofen might conclude, Non nove, sed nove. If you wish to criticize CA, or C-A-S, or Rank’s Exploit, or whatever site you’d wish to criticize, an easy way to shoot yourself in the foot is to try to associate them to other sites, instead of analyzing each one of them specifically.
If we really wish to analyze climate blogs in general, we should use an ecological framework anyway. Look at social functions, allocation of resources, predator-prey relationship, etc.
PS: That said, I personnaly like Deltoid. It might not be a neutral place for high-league multi-tribal debates, but it’s still provide quite a good read, with interesting references.
Dear Keith, I do not want people to believe that “the bloggy climate skeptic universe is not the monochromatic echo chamber”. Is that clear enough for you?
Judy-–
I moderate very, very lightly. I get eruptions sometimes but I seem to be able to get things reigned in.
Willard— Thanks for letting me know about the RSS issue. I wouldn’t have thought to fix it otherwise. It was easy enough to add the link to the footer so people can find the feed.
So if I’m wrong, Tim, I promise I will apologize. But meanwhile, tell me of a climate skeptic blogger that you’ve admired over at Deltoid, someone who has shown you that there is not one one monolothic climate skeptic world.
Part of the problem is that the ‘skeptics’ are all over the place. The underlying AGW message hasn’t changed in 20 years now. You never know what the next ‘final nail in the coffin’ of AGW is going to be, nor how nonsensical it will be.
http://denialdepot.blogspot.com/2010/06/apollo-mission-giant-leap-contradicting.html Dr Inferno has a way of spotting them.
As for McIntyre, there isn’t an individual he can’t get enough of questioning their motives and honesty. That is completely at odds with the scientific method, and only serves to make people dislike him intensely.
Having said that strip bark bristlecones should be "avoided" in temperature reconstructions, the spaghetti graph of North's NAS panel incorporated reconstructions using strip bark bristlecones.
I asked North in an online colloquy whether they had done any due diligence on the point and he said that they hadn't. Later in a Texas A&M seminar, Gerald North said that his NAS panel just "winged it", that that's what expert panels do.
It's a disgraceful admission, one that North deserves to be shamed for. And not just by me. Climate scientists should have been the ones up in arms – saying that, no, that's not an acceptable form of conduct for an expert panel, saying that that wasn't good enough. You tell me if any climate scientists spoke out against North "winging" it.
More recently, North acted as an expert witness in the Penn State inquiry about the Climategate emails and once again "winged" it. "Out of professional courtesy" he refused to read the emails (a point that he admitted to Robert Bradley) but nonetheless was one of two "expert" witnesses that Penn State relied on in their assessment of the emails. You tell me if any climate scientists spoke out against North purporting to act as an expert witness on the emails while not reading them "out of professional courtesy".
If North does not wish to be reproached for "winging" it, then he should stop "winging it" and conduct proper due diligence on the topic at hand before purporting to express an expert opinion.
I find CA annoying. Going to the post you ref, it starts “Gerald “winged it” North”. Presumably that is there to irritate people? GN doesn’t deserve that.
> the entrenched mindsets of both sides, given that neither seems particularly open to persuasion by Judith.
Weeeeelll… one possibility is that she is wrong, of course (though she’s right about the data archiving that she can’t convince the CA folk about). What do you think is the number 1 thing that she has provided convincing arguments for that “the other side” – e.g. me – haven’t accepted?
I find CA annoying. Going to the post you ref, it starts “Gerald “winged it” North”. Presumably that is there to irritate people? GN doesn’t deserve that.
Why is it there? Why is that sort of attitude always there? Not to win friends and build bridges. The http://code.google.com/p/ccc-gistemp/ ccc project is revising computer code, doing so with no snark, and getting along fine with the scientists.
The reason why someone might find CA annoying is the same why others find it entertaining. Same style, different tastes.
Even if saying so much makes perfect sense, speaking in that manner presumes that one can describe and analyze sites’ overall styles. That might be tougher than expected. A site evolves. Topics change. A post gets more felicitous than another. The tone gets more serious, then more caustic, then more sarcastic. The crowd also participates in the whole experience. Sometimes, I get the feeling that threads becomes sabotaged on purpose. What I say can be studied by more commonsensical methods than some po-mo litterary theory. (I dare challenge po-mo critics to read Foucault once in a while, or at least Ian Hacking.)
Steve Bloom is not far from truth about the extent by which CA’s politeness is oftentimes used to go beyond what one can say simply by being rude. That’s one asset of staying polite: one can say more and louder by stating calm. If that annoys and enrages, so much the worse for the annoyed and enraged.
Conservative rhetorics would be far less effective if liberals could stand down from their higher ground and hide their contempt to adress issues and speak to human beings, like human beings.
“If I can provoke people into thinking outside their little box”
Now maybe it’s just me, but I find the attitude conveyed therein to be irritating in the extreme. It is presumptious, condescending and arrogant.
What qualities do you have Judy that allows you to think outside of little black boxes that you seem to think others fall into so easily?
I realize this is probably coming across a little harshly, but I’d suggest that much of the animosity that is directed at you can be traced to this question…
Marlowe (24),
Judith’s statement is merely a variation on her “tribalism” critique. But many have found that rather annoying too, right?
I also don’t believe for a second that much of the animosity directed at her from your side of the spectrum has anything to do with this. Rather, it’s because she’s been critical of climate scientists in the aftermath of “climategate” and the IPCC/glacier stuff. She’s become heretical, because she has gone off the tribal reservation, to stretch the metaphor.
She might even be heading into the wilderness, for all I know…
Keith,
You’re right I don’t find the tribalism critique very useful as it presumes objective superiority and neutrality on the part of the one leveling the charge of tribalism.
To take it further….unlike the sheep in each of the tribes who are incapable of being objective/rational/independent thinkers, she is…
just because it’s equally insulting to all ‘tribes’ doesn’t make it correct.
William Connolley (21):
Stoat has asked me for “the 1 thing that she [Curry] has provided convincing arguments for that “the other side” ““ e.g. me ““ haven’t accepted?”
That’s an easy one: the tribalism. Which he promised me long ago he would address in a post at his place, but never has. As I said in the headline for my first Q & A with Judith, she’s “An Inconvenient Provocateur.”
So inconvenient that the RC gang would rather take on the media than Curry. Can William point me to one post that has appeared at RC that has responded to criticisms? There isn’t one. So I would say her tribalism charge is the one that hits home the most.
Hm, OK, I did promise you a post. Tonight!
As to that being the prime charge: well, I suppose I'll try to dismiss it in my post, but my immeadiate response is that it is rather meta. It isn't a specific charge about any piece of science, just a general I-don't-like-how-you-behave.
Which comes around to your "point me to one post that has appeared at RC that has responded to criticisms?" If you mean, to substantive science criticisms, then there aren't many, because there isn't much substantive crit. There are misc posts up about responses to the HS, doesn't that count for you?
Larch (20)
If your idea of the scientific method is that cherry-picking data is fine and dandy then maybe you should learn a couple of things about the scientific method.
William (21)
Of course you find it annoying. It’s because you cannot delete the content the same way you do at RC. In fact, you would pobably delete the whole blog if you could.
You guys will probably be the last to recognize it but IMHO it was RC that helped fertilize the critical part of the blogoshpere. Personally, I blog a lot more than I would have otherwise because your “moderation” policies pissed me off too much.
Marlowe (26)
Could you provide an example of useful crique whereby the critic doesn’t presume anything?
To my mind, the very nature of criticism is to recognize a fault and explain it to the reader. It is the reader’s task to recognize whether the critic is truly objective or just trying to put a fast one on you.
I'm not sure one needs "objective superiority and neutrality" to identify tribalism, just the capacity on occasion to put yourself in a (mostly) neutral posture. Being part of a tribe doesn't (or at least shouldn't) make people "incapable of being objective/rational/independent thinkers," but being able to recognize tribalism may also make people capable of seeking and forming diplomatic relations with other tribes. For some, this may be difficult. I find it interesting that there seems to be one large and might AGW tribe that brooks little dissent or competition, but there is a spectrum of skeptical tribes, some just as intolerant.
I sense that KK intended to say "responded to _her_ criticisms." Be that as it may, my sense from RC is that they tend to be tautological in response to criticism; "you're wrong because you're wrong."
Is this some of that "tribalism" I've been hearing so much about?
Re the tribalism and thinking outside our own little boxes. My perspective is as someone that is an insider, but outside the inner circle of the central IPCC and related group. I arguably entered into this inner circle in 2005-2007, so i've been there and been seduced by the whole thing: a sense of doing something important, being very concerned about spurious "attacks" from the politically motivated, advising important decision makers, etc. I became uneasy by the portrayal of too much confidence in the IPCC findings, and wanted to disassociate myself from alarmism, which i define as undue focus on the plausible worst case scenarios. I thought there might be better way to deal with skeptics, than say the RC approach. I've spent a big chunk of my time the past 5 years pondering and researching a broad range of issues related to the integrity of climate science. So I have a relatively unique perspective, and one that has been developed over a period of years. I am actively thinking about and researching these kinds of issues. So that activity differentiates myself from some of my peers.
Groupthink is a form of intellectual laziness, whereby we do not continually challenge the science in a fundamental way. Tribalism is more detrimental to the science than group think, when people who have different opinions and viewpoints are excluded. The difficulty in arranging debates between key climate researchers and skeptics, moderation at RC, disinvitation of Steve McIntyre from the recent dendro conference, playing games with journal peer review process as evident from the CRU emails, I would characterize this as tribalism, not groupthink. Part of the tribalism seems motivated by an apparent political "siege", whether or not this is justified is another story, but tribalism it remains.
I was recently reminded of Socrates' statements on knowledge, related to knowledge of our ignorance being the source of our wisdom. In modern parlance, this is acknowledging the unknown unknowns.
So I am talking about this kind of stuff, while most of my colleagues are saying that the findings of the IPCC are robust, the science hasn't changed. No the science hasn't changed, but I'm challenging the overall way we have put together the IPCC narrative. Not surprised that many of my colleagues associated with and supportive of the IPCC don't like it. But i suspect that it is less popular in the blogosphere than it is among the broader climate research community.
willard
>>Sometimes, I get the feeling that threads becomes sabotaged on purpose.
Some visitors do comment with the express purpose of sabotaging thread. This happens at any blog that is even remotely political.
More often, there are visitors who are just extremely repetitive. They don't actually intend to sabotage, but they may. Some also have very irritating commenting habits.
>> Steve Bloom is not far from truth about the extent by which CA's politeness is oftentimes used to go beyond what one can say simply by being rude.
Of course one can say more by being polite. Moreover, those who have reason on their side generally benefit by remaining fairly polite. In contrast, those who have few facts on their side often try to divert listeners and readers from reasoned arguments by name calling (i.e Monckton's "snake-like"), impugning motives of others, discussing how evil the "other side is" and suggesting that people who say they accept the truth of the AGW are crypto-denialists (i.e. Steve Bloom).
Those confused souls who thought the most effective way to make their points was to resort to rude snark may be stunned to discover their method actually doesn't work. But the fault for their failure does not lie at the feet of those who scored points by being polite and taking the time to post actual arguments in favor of their position.
>> Judy–
One of the interesting things about tribalism is that once a tribe is formed, quite a few tribe members who would never let person "X" into a tribe would nevertheless want person "X" to behave as if gaining the good opinion of of the tribe. Even more bizarrely, some people who form a tribe actually think outsiders are dying to be admitted–sort of like they have formed the most desirable country club earth.
Meanwhile, people outside the tribe will get on with their lives talking to each other, possibly forming their own tribe or joining other tries or not as they prefer.
Forming or joining a tribe is not always counter productive, neither is joining a college Fraternity. But convincing yourself that your tribal (or fraternity) view is the only right and true one and telling outsiders that it's the only view that counts tends to be counter productive.
(I suspect what I am saying is not an utter surprise to you! 🙂 )
Judith have you (ior planning to) published anything on your research into the 'integrity of climate science' or is this strictly an amateur hobby of yours?
"Groupthink is a form of intellectual laziness, whereby we do not continually challenge the science in a fundamental way."
This has a nice rhetorical ring to it, but I'm finding it difficult to visualize what this means in practice. Can you elaborate (e.g. what sort of challenges are fundamental, what would constitute continual, etc.)?
On the issue of gaming the peer review process I suspect you'll find lots of support from across the spectrum (e.g. James Annan). This problem is not particular to climate science though nor is the push for open-access peer review.
Sashka, if you don't like William's approach to climate blog moderation I suggest you try disseminating your stuff in some other venue, e.g. Wikipedia. Godd luck!
I don't think Judith Curry's tribalism critique is what supporters of the scientific consensus take most issue with; I think she raises a somewhat valid point there (http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/judith-curry-on-climate-science-introspection-or-circling-the-wagons/).
What I think is less helpful is to use words like corruption to describe the IPCC process. And she seems to overlook the negative influence of some contrarian bloggers such as McIntyre and Watts. That and the overly negative and a-specific criticism of the IPCC are I think what AGW adherents most object to.
Marlowe, are you familiar with any examples of academic group think? There's plenty of evidence for it both the humanities and sciences. For instance, until recent decades, many ecologists were beholden to the balance of nature meme. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/31/science/new-eye-on-nat...
Here's a new book on this enduring myth, which is still embraced by many environmentalists: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8853.html
So why do you find it so hard to believe that climate scientists are immune to such group think?
our host wrote:
"I will say this: she’s treated more politely over there by folks who disagree with her, than she has been at my site."
Yes, of course you will say that. I've never seen evidence that you've *read* the invective JC received in the past on CA or WUWT, so to you the narrative of 'JC's treatment on the blogs' must seem very lopsided. And JC herself, for whatever reason, seems not to be mind getting called a dupe on CA or WUWT, as much as she minds being bored by agreement with the scientific consensus at RC.
And too, for some months now JC has been giving the CA/WUWT tribe less and less to disagree with — like this, on that very thread: "For example, if I need to use a surface temperature data set to advance my research problem, i grab one of them and move forward. I trusted those datasets. Now we can’t trust those data sets (depending on how bad they turn out to be, this issue may or many not be a significant setback.)"
Marlowe, re groupthink, here is an example from climate modelling. The IPCC provides "likely" ranges (>66% confidence level) for uncertainty ranges surrounding a "best estimate" for 21st century temperature increase in response to a specified emissions scenario. This uncertainty analysis assumes that the true uncertainty is reflected by the range of simulations from an ensemble of different models. The "likely" implies substantial confidence in the climate models. Research is continuously underway to improve known deficiencies in the climate models, mostly by increasing the horizontal resolution and attempting to improve parameterizations for clouds, ice sheets, aerosols, etc. So the climate modelling groups are thinking in this mode.
Here are examples of two fundamental ways in which climate models should be challenged:
• assess the atmospheric dynamical core of the models against the requirements of climate modelling, rather than simply adopting the dynamical core used in weather prediction models. Why should we think that the model simplifications that work for simulating the evolution of midlatitude baroclinic waves will work for climate change, where things like water vapor feedback become paramount, and we don't care about the evolution of individual baroclinic waves?
• evaluate each of the climate models against a series of global satellite data sets (say for a few decades) to test the model fidelity to satellites in meaningful ways and get away from the IPCC weighting of the ensemble of models as if each model is as good as the others. Simply evaluating the models in terms of the time series of global surface temperature deviations (not even the actual temperatures) is very inadequate. Yes, a few climate models do a more comprehensive evaluation against observations, but still inadequate, and many of the models have little observational verification. If you are only verifying using a few variables, it is very easy to tune the model to get the "right" answer; it is impossible to tune a model to a large number of variables that are varying in both space and time. Climate modelers don't do this since they can't agree on the "metrics" to use, and no one wants their model to look bad.
Marlowe, I have published one paper on this topic to date: http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/currydoc/Curry_BAMS87…
I have also made several presentation at professional meetings.
I have other projects in the works, it remains to be seen what might eventually get published.
Steven, when i first started posting at CA Aug 2006, it was very rough sport, but i quickly figured out who the main "players" were, and I filtered out the rest and responded to the main players who were pretty interesting characters. My first (and last) foray at WUWT on my recent "building trust" essay was also very rough sport, and I frankly didn't discern much signal in all that noise. I don't regret the WUWT exchange, since i got a very large number of emails from interesting lurkers. So the reason I feel comfortable at CA is because I've taken the time to get to "know" the posters, I know which ones not to bother with (but at this point there are relatively few that I would put in that category). And its even gotten to the point over at CA when some of the regulars will step in and defend me if someone makes a personal or otherwise inappropriate criticism. Steve McIntyre when at his best is a good writer; i don't consider the Jerry North "wing it" stuff to be his best writing, he sometimes overdoes the sarcasm, more points are scored with the dry arguments, IMO.
Bart, with regards to my critiques of the IPCC, there are many many people criticizing the IPCC, including climate scientists. The IAC in its investigation is welcoming critical comments and constructive suggestions (I've submitted mine, after the IAC requested me to). My use of the phrase "corruption of the IPCC process" was pretty thoroughly parsed in the blogosphere, but I haven't yet come up with a better way to phrase what I meant.
I'm recalling that what seems to have lit a fire under Judy (and Mike Hulme, and a few others) last fall were poll results that were purported to show some sort of collapse in support for belief in AGW and action on it. Various observers pointed out that these results weren't terribly surpising in light of the confluence of events (the media fabrication of the CRU email scandal, the media over-inflation of IPCC errors, the predictable failure to get a substantial result out of Copenhagen, and last but not least a cold and snowy Northern Hemisphere winter), but as a wise Stoat said at the time, "This too shall pass." And so it has, at least in the U.S.
(continued in next comment by demand of the new software)
I'd be the first to agree that warmer weather and the recent coal and oil disasters probably had something to do with the new results, but that's just the point: All of these polls are affected by short-term factors, so one must analyze them from a long-term perspective. Certainly there's no evidence in them of a significant blow to the credibility of climate science or climate scientists. There is evidence that building the necessary support for sufficient climate policies is and likely will continue to be a long, slow slog, but that shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.
Speaking of groupthink, lets take a look at this statement:
"For example, if I need to use a surface temperature data set to advance my research problem, i grab one of them and move forward. I trusted those datasets. Now we can’t trust those data sets (depending on how bad they turn out to be, this issue may or many not be a significant setback.)"
Not to be questioning the surface temperature data sets, particularly in light of the CRU emails, seems to be more tribalism than groupthink: we must support a tribal member no matter what. Even apart from the CRU emails, we should be questioning the surface temperature data, the analysis methods, and the assigned uncertainties. Almost exactly a year ago, my colleague Peter Webster identified some discrepancies in the tropical surface temperature datasets, and began investigating these. This is how science is supposed to work, and demonstrates the hazards of groupthink and particularly tribalism.
As promised: http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2010/06/on_tribalis…
Steve Bloom for the record I think those poll numbers are irrelevant, and they certainly didn't light any of my fires. The loss of credibility among other scientists and engineers has been my greatest concern.
Judith,
You say there are "many people criticizing the IPCC, including climate scientists."
Any of these climate scientists going as far as you have (and who would they be) in their criticism, esp with regards to the "corruption" charge?
Google search:
"climate tribalism" 2170 hits
"agw tribes" 296 hits
"agw tribe" 227 hits
Seems to be a concept that a significant number of people found to be worth using or writing about.
Keith, several IPCC "insiders" have related examples to me, but they have not apparently spoken publicly on this. I have heard other scientists voice concerns. Other than Von Storch and Tol, I am not aware of any mainstream climate researchers making public statements of major criticisms of the IPCC.
"The loss of credibility among other scientists and engineers…
Evidence for some trend in that?
Sorry, Judy, that's poor methodology, for reasons I suspect are obvious to you.
(Keith, the new software can't seem to remember who I am. Also, as implied above, the max comment length seems short.)
Steve,
Everybody is on a short lease for the next few days, until I figure out all the ins and outs of the new software. Meanwhile, it allows me to more closely monitor comments, as I'm serious about instituting a civility clause.
Judith,
Far from describing failures in climate science research, you actually demonstrate your ignorance when you come out with this sort of thing. If you want to understand how and why climate scientists address these sort of issues (which are not simply ignored) you've got a lot of reading in front of you.
It does remain an active area of research and the answers are not clear, I actually consider much of what has been written to be misguided and inadequate, and I'm trying to fix that. But it is simply incorrect of you to presume that the entirety of climate science research is quite as incompetent and narrow-minded as you seem to believe.
Another jaw-dropping comment from Curry. Are you unaware of the many ways in which the surface station record has been sliced and diced looking for possibly significant biases in adjustments, UHI, etc etc by scientists who work with this data?
What causes a denialist to scream the loudest? "the data's been adjusted!!!!" Why is station data adjusted? Because of the work researchers put into trying to improve the dataset. They wouldn't be doing such work if they didn't "question the datasets".
And what, specifically, in the ClimateGate e-mails leads you to believe a different sort of questioning, as opposed to the ongoing scientific questioning (and answering) that's been going on all along, should begin?
Dr. Curry,
You define alarmism as undue focus on the plausible worst case scenarios. IMO, this implies the knowledge of the probabilities that we don't really have. I would say "possible", not "plausible".
JC , that CA thread's shot through with, shall we say, 'overdone sarcasm' about how untrustworthy climate scientists are. For you to weigh in with 'now we can't trust those datasets' in light of the CRU emails can't help but serve as red meat to that tribe.
You apparently believe it self-evident that a set of CRU emails hacked and filtered by…well, we still don't know, really … undermine the trustworthiness of the datasets — and thus anyone who thinks otherwise is hopelessly lost in tribalism. Perhaps if you spent less time with the 'auditors' and more time on places like boring old Real Climate, where discussion of the email contents tended less towards the paranoiac, you might think otherwise.
You misunderstood, Keith. It wasn't "remembering" me in the sense that it was failing to automatically fill in my name and email. It's OK again now, though.
And the comment max length really does seem too short.
Judy, if you go back and check that "climate tribalism" result you'll find that their are only 108 unique results, nearly all of them references to you. You may want to reconsider your conclusions.
BTW, I'm no Google search expert, but the way I know to get it to tell you how many unique results there are is to click on the last available page shown two or three times until you get to the end of the results. It's very common for there to be much less there than meets the eye.
@JC: "Steve McIntyre when at his best is a good writer; i don't consider the Jerry North "wing it" stuff to be his best writing" – this looks distinctly tribal to me. You're presented with an example of McI deliberately insulting people, and all you can say is "its not his best writing". Come on, be honest. Can you break far enough from McI to condemn his insults? Or have you been sucked into his tribe?
Steven, my point re the temperature data set is that ALL data sets should be challenged and questioned, particularly important ones (important for science and important for policy). The CRU emails clarified for me that this particular data set hadn't been adequately documented in a sufficiently transparent way. What makes a data set "trustworthy"? Careful documentation and independent verification. The CRU group did not score high points in this regard. Yes, there were many publications, but this is not the same as "trustworthy."
Tribalism on the pro-AGW side is to automatically reject criticism of a tribe member's paper or data set. Tribalism on the other side is to automatically assume that climate researchers have scurrilous motives. Science involves continually challenging scientific results. If you want to relegate such activities to the other tribe, well I would say that I can rest my case.
William, here is the dictionary definition of "insult"
"To treat with gross insensitivity, insolence, or contemptuous rudeness. To affront or demean."
A statements in McIntyre's "Losing Glacier Data" regarding Jerry North qualifies as an here:
"If he wanted me to not mention him, a good starting point would be to stop saying stupid things. Unfortunately, since Climategate, he’s done exactly the opposite."
Now for some insulting words used about me in your latest post http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2010/06/on_tribalis…
"substanceless", "harping," "pathetic weaseling."
Insults in the blogosphere, what a surprise. We have the pot calling the kettle black. The bottom line is that using such words is not effective writing, on McIntyre's part and on your part
My posts have spawned some threads over at Stoat and Rabett Run and James Empty Blog. One of these is remarkable, by James Annan http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2010/05/assessi… on assessing the consistency between observations and model projections for the past decade, which picked up discussion on one of the Heartland Conference papers I mentioned. A remarkable discussion also that included James, Lucia, Chip Knappenberger, Nick Stokes, Hank Roberts, and Steve Bloom.
The particularly notable points in context of "tribalism" are that James Annan is a coauthor on a paper that includes Chip Knappenberger, John Christy, Lucia and Pat Michaels (gasp!). The post includes the following statements, which I excerpt:
"A shopping list of possible reasons for the results include:
•Natural variability – the obs aren't really that unlikely anyway, they are still within the model range
•Incorrect forcing – eg some of the models don't include solar effects, but some of them do (according to Gavin on that post – I haven't actually looked this up). I don't think the other major forcings can be wrong enough to matter, though missing mechanisms such as stratospheric water vapour certainly could be a factor, let alone "unknown unknowns"
•Models (collectively) over-estimating the forced response
•Models (collectively) under-estimating the natural variability
•Problems with the obs
I don't think the results are very conclusive regarding these reasons. I do think that the analysis is worth keeping an eye on. Anyone who thinks that even mainstream climate scientists are not wondering about the apparent/possible slowdown in the warming rate is kidding themself. "
The post also includes a quote from Susan Solomon’s paper http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/32…
“However, the trend in global surface temperatures has been nearly flat since the late 1990s despite continuing increases in the forcing due to the sum of the well-mixed greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, halocarbons, and N2O), raising questions regarding the understanding of forced climate change, its drivers, the parameters that define natural internal variability (2), and how fully these terms are represented in climate models.”
Well, bravo! More of this please! But if you want me to reject my tribalism hypothesis, it will require much more of this type of thing, to counterbalance things like the Copenhagen Diagnosis http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.com/
Judith,
What do you consider tribalist in the Copenhagen Diagnosis?
Steven Sullivan, I am not the only person concerned about these data sets, see here http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/news_members…
The World Meteorological Organization is undertaking a major recompilation and reanalysis.
I'm starting to love 'tribal'. It explains everything!
Judy, there's no connection between the nascent WMO project and the recent "scandal." Indeed, the article endorses the three existing surface temp data sets. The point of the project is to organize data at a much greater level of detail, with the primary goal of supporting analyses of regional climate. As you know, there's a prior related project to collect data in much greater detail (as with the new CRN in the U.S.).
Judith, it's not that datasets shouldn't be vetted and reconciled and upgraded — of course they should be, as needed. Scientists in my field would LOVE to correct and update sequence annotations in the big databases, they KNOW these data — which have been accumulating for decades — could be greatly improved. Convincing funding agencies to pay for this is a challenge.
I don't imagine it's much different in climate science, which also collects massive amounts of data from disparate research groups over long periods of time during which standards, if they ever existed, can vary greatly. The Nature opinion piece bears me out on this. They hit upon the many ways that the data could be improved, and why we need this to make better predictions.
In the course of this, the authors use the word 'trust' just once in their article, not in the body, but in the precis box ('Records need to be corrected and cross-referenced transparently, to be sound and trustworthy.' It's the third of three priorities) And they certainly aren't using the word in the context of dark conspiracy talk of nefarious scientists. They don't cast scientists as untrustworthy, even though the data can be 'untrustworthy' for current needs and standards, for reasons alternately mundane, unfortunate, or complex.
Contrast that to the CONTEXT in which you bring 'data trustworthiness' : a CA thread about supposed bad behaviour on North's part. THAT is what I'm referring to when I talk about 'red meat'. Do you seriously believe the folks in that CA thread are thinking about the things the Nature authors write of, when you start talking about 'not trusting the data'?
(Let me give you all credit, though for at least trying to convince the CA tribe that failure by individual scientists to keep all the 'raw' records from two decades ago is not necessarily a sign that they're 'hiding' something. Perhaps instead of red meat about not trusting the data, you might want to propose to them that they write their political representatives , urging more funding for dataset storage and curation in the sciences.)
Steven, yes I am using the word in the scientific context "trust nothing, challenge everything." Not trust in a conspiracy sense or whatever. One of the challenges of posting on diverse tribal websites is not always getting the jargon right in terms of not triggering an an undesired reaction. My worst experience in this regard was in using the word "denier" in my building trust essay at WUWT. The term "warmist" doesn't go over well with the other side. "Corruption", "trust", these can be loaded words, carrying baggage that the person using the words didn't intend. So like insults, writing is more effective if these words are avoided, but it is difficult to know beforehand what words will trigger such a reaction. I guess corruption was predictable in hind sight, but the trust one surprises me.
@JC: "We have the pot calling the kettle black. " – err no; more evasiness from you. I wasn't calling out McI. I was calling out you for failing to call out McI. Nor can I parse what you wrote there – is there a typo somewhere? The key sentence isn't.
@KK: You asked "Can William point me to one post that has appeared at RC that has responded to [JC's] criticisms? There isn't one." But you're wrong. There are many. You don't say what JC's crits are – apparently this is obvious – so using http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/climate/policy.htm, specifically http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/climate/towards_rebui… I find:
1. Climategate – nah; done that in my recent posting
2. Recent disclosures about the IPCC – ha, RC has done that – http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/201…
– so you lose; I'm sure you'll update you blog comment 🙂
3. "Steve McIntyre started the blog climateaudit.org so…" this is
tripe feed her by McI, but more importantly there are plenty of
McI-is-wrong posts at RC, so you lose again.
4. "So what motivated their FOIA requests of the CRU at the University
of East Anglia?" – that bit is all bollocks. No way is RC going to
waste time taking that to peices – even I wouldn't bother.
5. "Climate research and its institutions have not yet adapted to its
high policy relevance" – this, finally, is something that could be
debated. Removed from the sea of fetid tripe which surrounds it,
someone might bother.
As a science journalist I would also like to know how Judith sees this as tribalist? The 'climate science tribe' claims in the Diagnosis:
"The science contained in the report is based on the most credible and significant peer-reviewed literature available at the time of publication."
Do tell me how I am being misled by these tribal misanthropes?
William, you continue to remind me of why I prefer climateaudit. The commenters there actually ask questions or present arguments, rather than trying to play silly "gotcha" games and alternatingly accusing people of being "tone trolls" or expecting them to be tone trolls
Re the Copenhagen Diagnosis http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.com/default.html. The objectives of the report are:
“First, this report serves as an interim evaluation of the evolving science midway through an IPCC cycle – IPCC AR5 is not due for completion until 2013.
Second, and most important, the report serves as a handbook of science updates that supplements the IPCC AR4 in time for Copenhagen in December 2009, and any national or international climate change policy negotiations that follow.”
The document provides a very clear policy prescription:
“Authors of the landmark 2009 climate report "The Copenhagen Diagnosis" estimate that by 2020 industrial nations must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by around 40% below 1990 levels to secure a decent chance of avoiding dangerous human interference with the climate system.”
This was written by a self selected group of 26 authors, from the U.S., Europe and Australia, all of whom has served positions as IPCC lead authors. None of those pesky third world scientists that the IPCC insists on, and I also recall this being billed something like “the straight story provided to you by leading IPCC scientists, unfettered and unfiltered by the policy makers.” Apparently the policy makers insisted on lower confidence levels (which in my opinion were inflated already) than some of these scientists wanted. And there is no evidence of any kind of peer review.
The document has an obvious political purpose, to spin the science for Copenhagen and to step up the “alarm” beyond what the IPCC AR4 provided. Apart from the Summary documents, the IPCC AR4 provided a reasonably balanced assessment of the science; the Copenhagen Diagnosis does not. Papers that support a more “alarming view” than AR4, AR3 are cherry picked at the expense of others that paint a more complex picture. Skeptical papers are not included other than Soon and Baliunas and McIntyre and McKittrick, and it is stated that “these criticisms have been rejected.” Conclusions regarding trends or changes are often made with respect to the AR3 findings rather than AR4 findings, apparently to make things seem much worse than we thought. Attribution of the recent sea ice decrease to CO2 is not supported by many recent papers, and the report doesn’t see fit to mention the increase in Antarctic sea ice. Etc. Etc. All this is particularly interesting in view of the low level of warming over the past decade.
This document is advocacy, it is not a scientific assessment. Does it reflect tribalism? You bet. Symptoms of AGW tribalism include the self-selected group, appeals to its own authority, dismissal of the few token skeptical papers as “rejected,” and advocacy of the UNFCCC policies.
Judith, I suspect in your sub-field you are not faced with the problem of "mission posters" writing complete crap and managing to occasionally get it published in proper journals due to inadequate and/or biased peer review, at which point it gets amplified several-fold in the media. This is not directly a problem for climate science, because anyone remotely competent can see it for what it is and so these papers sink without trace in the literature, but it's a problem for public perceptions of climate science.
Of course climate scientists are damned if they ignore these papers when writing their assessments, and apparently damned (by you at least) when they evaluate them correctly…how would *you* recommend that papers are discussed when they contain elementary errors?
(for examples of what I'm talking about, see the three recent "Comment on" papers that I've co-authored)
Speaking of elementary errors, James, I assume you've seen Eli's recent post working over the Heartland papers that Judy recommended receive a serious examination. I'm not sure every single one is going to get looked at, but so far no pony has turned up. (My modest contribution was to expose Craig Idso as a world-class liar, although I suppose we already knew that from his prior work.)
It's interesting that while she nails Lindzen for making an elementary mistake in his presentation on sea ice, elsewhere she continues to insist that he be taken seriously notwithstanding that he must qualify for some sort of award for boneheaded persistence in the face of two decades of debunking. Based on these and other of her views I'm beginning to detect a certain pattern of willing credulousness that seems hard to justify from any scientific perspective.
James, I was definitely exposed to this in 2006/2007 re the hurricane and global warming stuff, everybody and their uncle was writing on this topic, the media resurrected the hurricane wars every time a new paper came out, which was at least every month. In hindsight, what was garbage and what wasn't isn't all that easy to discern, with at least some valid points in (nearly) all of the papers. So what is garbage and what isn't is not always clear cut, and it takes time to make this assessment, and the assessment is best done by people with different perspectives. If obvious methodological errors are found, then these should be pointed out. And then the authors take another stab at it, and science progresses. My point is that when a subfield is still in a great deal of flux (and the paleoclimate one certainly is, as is the hurricane one), making far reaching conclusions with a high level of confidence is inappropriate.
Judith Curry,
Thanks for explaining your views re the Copenhagen Diagnosis. I am a bit baffled though by the seemingly large jump from your description of the report to claiming that its purpose is "to spin the science for Copenhagen and to step up the “alarm”". I don't see any evidence for this, and doesn't imho follow from either your description or the report itself.
You claim that "the report doesn’t see fit to mention the increase in Antarctic sea ice." Yet the chapter on sea ice starts with
"Satellite observations show a small increase of Antarctic sea-ice extent and changes to seasonality, although there is considerable regional variability. This is most likely due to changes in Southern Ocean winds associated with stratospheric ozone-depletion."
It serves as an update of the science beyond AR4, and yes, it hasn't been vetted to the same extent as IPCC reports have been of course.
Judith (cont'd):
The quote you describe as a "very clear policy prescription" is indeed a little in the grey area. The way I read it though is: *if* we are to avoid warming by more than 2 degrees, we should reduce our emissions by such and such. Which is a scientific statement, and policy descriptive rather than prescriptive. Admittedly, the "if statement" is a blurred in the way it was phrased, which indeed gives rise to it being open to multiple interpretations.
James Annan's point is very pertinent as well.
The paleoclimate field isn't nearly so in flux as you seem to think, Judy. You should get up to date on recent results, particularly those relating to mid-Pliocene and -Miocene climate.
Nice try, but no cigar. You had real researchers disagreeing, not the likes of McLean making up nonsense. Unless you can cite some papers that you think sink to that sort of level.
You haven't said what you would do if, say, someone got a paper in JGR arguing by means of a nonsense correlation that hurricanes are caused by pirates. This gets puffed-up by the sceptic media, even though you and your colleagues immediately see that it is nonsense. Then you get asked to participate in a literature review on the topic. How do you treat this paper?
In case it isn't obvious, I'm looking for concrete suggestions rather than apple-pie and let's-all-get-along homilies.
@JC: "substanceless", "harping," "pathetic weaseling." – you're being careless. "Harping" is directed and James Annan – which is wy I used the initials JA – I'd have used JC if I meant you. You didn't even bother click the link, did you?
If a paper has been published in a reputable journal like JGR, and it is incorrect, then you have three choices (at least): write a comment to the journal; post something on a blog, or ignore it. If everyone else ignores it, then an assessment is arguably safe in ignoring it. If people aren't ignoring it then it needs to be dealt with. If it was published in JGR, it is safe to assume that it won't be ignored.
If asked to participate in a literature review on a topic, I would include the if it was published in a reputable journal and had received any attention at all, with an assessment of methodological errors or whatever. If there is controversy, the controversy should be described. In a literature review on a topic, the reviewer should also step back and discuss the uncertainties and the unknown unknowns, that may not have been addressed in any of the papers.
Based on "with an assessment of methodological errors or whatever" you seem to agree is quite appropriate to refer to the papers as being wrong if that is the judgement of the panel (and their interpretation of the literature). Which seems to have been basically what happened in the case you criticise above…I therefore don't understand what you are grumbling about.
And deeply hurt I was too 🙂
Obvious methodological errors are not all that common in published papers, but rather "methodological disagreements." These are not straightforward to assess and dismiss.
For an interesting list of "inconvenient" papers published in leading journals, which could have been included in AR4 or the Copenhagen Diagnosis, see this paper http://www.probeinternational.org/UPennCross.pdf
Some blunders in analysis, but he definitely scores some hits. Overall a better "team B" effort than the Heartlanders.
Ok, I looked, and the first thing I found was the "Pielkes all the way down" debacle. Yes, I think it is right and proper that these obviously wrong papers are ignored, and I know that my opinion is shared by experts in that particular area. Please feel free to disagree.
Well if this is your idea of assessment, no wonder there are such problems.
You are saying that the following papers are all obviously wrong: Stephens (2005), Pielke Sr et al (2007), VonStorch et a. (2004, 2006), Bengtsson and Hodges (2009), Roe and Baker (2007), Baker and Roe (2009), Schwartz et al. (2007), Knutti (2008), Wentz et al. (2007), Wang et al. (2008), Mansbach and Norris (2007), Tanaka et al (2005), Caballero (2008), papers by Giese, Tsonis et al. (2007), Keller (2004), Foukal et al., Service (2008), Flanner et al. (2007), Chameides and Bergin (2002), Ramanathan and Carmichael (2008), Wunsch et al (2007),
No, I didn't say that, and I'm disappointed that you choose to misrepresent what I did say in such a blatant manner.
Many of the papers you list above were published long after AR4 and therefore could hardly have been included. The CC was a much briefer document that obviously could not be so comprehensive.
My apologies for misinterpreting your statement "Yes, I think it is right and proper that these obviously wrong papers are ignored, and I know that my opinion is shared by experts in that particular area. " Exactly what papers are you referring to?
Dr. Curry, when JA writes:
>> … the “Pielkes all the way down” debacle. Yes, I think it is
>> … proper that these obviously wrong papers are ignored
and you reply
> Exactly what papers are you referring to?
He’s referring to the papers previously — and exhaustively — discussed as “Pielkes all the way down” (Google will find that quoted string).
Summary: an exercise in reading footnotes and checking cites turned up a series of papers
” …. basing an argument on this Eastman result. Yet, in the same paragraph 17 in M&P, we have
…. a chain, Klotzbach Pielke Pielke Christy & McNider 2009 to Matsui & Pielke 2005 to Eastman Coghenour & Pielke 2001 to Mahrer & Pielke 1977…. It’s Pielke’s all the way down.”
That’s from http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2009/08/pielkes-all-way-down.html — you used to be able to find a discussion at Lucia’s site but that’s gone 404 apparently. But you can if you look at the Google result find this string of papers has been pretty thoroughly worked over.
Those papers, I think it’s safe to say, are what JA means by “obviously wrong” — check the math in the first one yourself.
Thanks Hank, yes of course that is exactly what I meant.
Say What?
James Annan doesn’t like Pielke so thus his papers must be wrong? I just Googled Mahrer and Pielke 1977 and it has 262 citations for goodness sake. Somehow I doubt that the sum total of citations to all of Annan’s work totals 262. The blogger Tobis says he doesn’t even understand the Pielke arguments. And climate scientist Annan appeals to that as authority? Holy nonsense, batman! Curry is right to call you jesters out.