back to article 'CRU cherrypicked Russian climate data', says Russian

A prominent Russian climate sceptic and free-market economist says that the British HadCRUT global temperature database - much of which has now been released to the public following the "climategate" email scandal - has been manipulated to show greater warming in Russia than is actually the case. Andrei Illarionov, a former …

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  1. MacRat
    Joke

    It's All Fake!

    Let's get back to polluting!!!

  2. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    Russia also source of CRU emails?

    ISTR that the hacked emails were apparently hacked from or at least initally hosted on a Russian server - I wonder what they're up to? Worried that there'll be no market for their oil & gas?

  3. Anton Ivanov
    WTF?

    Ouch

    The report makes a very damning reading indeed (to put it most politely).

    However, the report _DOES_ _NOT_ make the "hockey stick" observation in the last 30 years invalid - it is mostly correct (graphs towards the end). The differences are predominantly up to the 1940-es. The data from that period as per the russian analysis shows that there was no significant warming outside major population centers.

    However, the data makes an even more interesting interpretation from the perspective of global "soot warming"/"dimming" vs "greenhouse warming". There is one big spike besides the recent years and it is guess when - during those 5 years when most of the earth was being set on fire. There are a few other bits in there that fit that fairly well as well.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    What a hypocrite

    "he has travelled to the UK for the purpose of joining protests against new power plants"

    By canoe, one assumes, otherwise he would be responsible for releasing large amounts of hot air. Well, more than usual anyway.

    1. Richard 102

      What?!

      Hypocrisy?! Amongs the alleged intelligentsia living off taxpayer money?!?! I am shocked, *SHOCKED*, I say, to hear this! Why, you'll be claiming the ocean is damp, next!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        more stupidity from The Register and Richard 102

        Seems reality is what the TheRegister is sorely lacking. The reality is that the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis said nothing of the sort. Delingpole claims that CRU only 121 of the 476 stations possible. Not only is that false but if you overlay on the same graph the 121 stations Delingpole claims and the total 476 stations there is no difference in the graphs. SImply put Delingpole is trying to grab his 15 minutes of fame by stretching the facts so far out of shape they no longer have any connection with reality

  5. robert cooke

    not long now...

    before some takes this sick pony out back and shoots it. Maybe then we can get some sensible debate and proper open access to all the data. no more of these cosy little clubs guarding data that rightly belongs to all of us.

  6. Scott 19

    Derren Brown

    I'm a fence sitter but these guys at CRU really aren't helping the credibility of the UK science community. I hear that the IPCC is going to be employing Derren Brown soon to help with persauding gouberments that there friends with millions of pounds of grants on the line (although the recent summit has proven that they still believe) deserve there money.

    Might be better to all sit around and discuss it like adults such things as yes climate change due to civilisation (The human population), population growth, resources ie chopping down all the trees to make bio fuel and meat and energy resources such as distribution around the world, trust me people in cold countrys generally need more energy than people that live in hot countries.

    But i believe that some god type creation is going to come down and intevene and that we're here all on our own and the human race has to deal with these issues.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Flame

      It is "Not another old university in Cambridge"

      One that can supply 4 graduates that are so incompetent that they cannot even assemble a f*** improvised incendiary device.

      Nuff said...

  7. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Headmaster

    "climate sceptic and free-market economist"

    It's funny how these two types are correlated. Guess it's something to do with "what must not be true cannot be true". If the edge of the free-market playground comes into sight, how are we gonna play "I buy, you buy, we all buy together - and resources are free and plentiful"

    Not that I have anything against freemarketeers, on the contrary.

    1. Anton Ivanov
      Boffin

      His credentials are non-issue here

      Frankly, his credentials are a non-issue here.

      Just read the report. It makes a very interesting reading.

      1. Marvin the Martian
        Stop

        What? No, you need to check credentials.

        If you ignore credentials, then the Reg article title is 100% true: a [random] russian claims CRU data are false.

      2. Baying Lynch Mob

        Show us the data

        ``Just read the report. It makes a very interesting reading''

        Could you provide a translation for the non-Russian speakers? Or cut to the important bit - where's the link to the data that's apparently been excluded from all the publically available sets listed on http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/ ?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Emails and software

    I've read elsewhere about the various dodgy fiddle factors being found in the leaked model code. While I can't comment one way or the other (I've not looked into it that deeply), it does annoy me that the apparent skewing of the model data is being COMPLETELY ignored by the mainstream press.

    The mainstream press have only ever mentioned the emails which seems to be only a small part of the whole story and inevitable leads into a totally irrelevant argument about privacy.

    I can only imagine that this is down to the irritating dumbing-down of our news; talking about the actual model data wouldn't mean much and would confuse most people. Email? Everyone knows what email is! The annoying outcome of this is that most people have no idea that the model data was even leaked, never mind that it seems to contain questionable data.

    1. Neil Stansbury
      FAIL

      On the contary

      It just goes to show why the general media shouldn't be reporting it, passing at best ill-informed, at worst woefully inaccurate judgements on highly complex, widely disputed, cutting edge research, when most people will never be able to distil the complexities into a usefully relevant or informed opinion.

      For all the fhe facts as complex as they are, the consequences are simple - adjust our behaviour and learn to live more in balance with the world around us, or suffer the ( in many cases unknown ) consequences.

      You don't have unqualified people passing judgements on the validity of data as to whether super symmetry exists in the latest string theory models, why should you on climate change?

      Science is not about what you think or what you believe, it's about what you can prove, and until the majority of (qualified) scientists tell me otherwise, I am a polluter, an energy waster and am risking the stability of future human habitation on this planet as a consequence of my behaviour.

      Climate it science it maybe - but rocket science it ain't.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      I'd heard that too

      from a man in the pub.

      Apparently his girlfriend's brother knows someone who walks one of the East Anglia University reasearcher's wife's cousin's dog, and she said it's all crap.

      So it must be true.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    No, no, no

    Cherrypicked? The greenies? Never! All they did was "normalise" and "calibrate" the data (as claimed by a commentard a few days ago). This is a SCIENCE dammit! You don't just pick the results you like and massage until you get the answer you want in science!

    Unless, of course, it's just greenies forcing their unsupportable dogma down our throats again.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      err...

      Don't let not understanding large datasets collected over extended periods prevent you from commenting on how to process them, eh?

      I suppose if the evidence produced supported your unsupportable dogma it would be ok though?

      1. B 9

        What?

        Maybe you had a point in there, I can't tell. Perhaps you should learn to command the English language before you go on a rant about how stupid someone else is?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        FFS

        cherrypicking == (normalising || calibrating) FALSE

        cherrypicking == lying TRUE

        I hope this simple guide helps

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is that it?

    So they used data from stations covering 74% of the weather stations, and some of them weren't spread out enough if he lays a set of even spaced cells over them, some of those cells contain 8 stations and some none at all (see page 7 of the pdf, the blue dots are poor coverage areas). And Russian is 12.5% of the worlds land mass, i.e. 3,75% of the worlds surface.

    Keep tight hold of those straws boys.

  11. Duncan Jeffery
    Alien

    greenies just won't listen

    ... and why would they? they accuse any sceptic opinion as coming from oil-funded vested interests, but what bigger vested interest than to be an IPCC 'scientis' or an NGO or any other of the myriad of wasteful eaters gathered at Copenhagen. We are all 'deniers', 'morins' or even - as I heard quoted today - 'neanderthals'. Some chance of reasoned debate.

    BTW, a new expression in the ever changing lexicon of the greenies - after global warming then climate change, and heard today by the BBC correspondent 'climate risk' - you heard it here first.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Pirate

      "reasoned debate"

      "Reasoned debate"?

      In this argument, there is one group producing peer-reviewed evidence and making both the data and their conclusions public. The opposing view has it's fingers in it's ears saying "la la la can't hear you' but occasionally pulls them out to say "but you put petrol in your car - you're a hypocrite".

      That side IS NOT denying the evidence & conclusions but are trying to manipulate public opinion using groups such as the 'Advancement of Sound Science Coalition'.

      Amongst the scientific community there is wide consensus. Unfortunately reputable news media attempt to be 'fair' rather than truthful, if someone says the earth is round they have to have someone on to say it's flat.

      That the overwhelming evidence has been widely ignored and Faux News et al reports problems with minutae (someone said in 1997 that you can't measure sea level rises of 1.8 mm/p.a.) rather than the big picture (sea levels are rising - and can be accurately measured, at a faster rate than predicted) guess who the drones believe?

      1. Snert Lee

        Science by Consensus

        Once upon a time, there was a vast consensus of opinion that said the Earth is the center of the universe and shaped like a pancake. There was considerably more debate on whether the flat earth was held up in space by resting on the backs of giant turtles, elephants, or on elephants who were in turn standing upon giant turtles. This third opinion being, of course, the compromise consensus.

    2. Chris Fox

      Its the deniers' terminology

      "BTW, a new expression in the ever changing lexicon of the greenies - after global warming then climate change, and heard today by the BBC correspondent 'climate risk' - you heard it here first."

      Sorry to pop your bubble, but this change in terminology was due to the cynical activities of the deniers' lobby. The expression "global warming" was thought to be too alarming, so interfering deniers pushed for a change in terminology to "climate change" in official reports. It would not surprise me in the least if the term "climate risk" is again attempt by the well-funded deniers lobby to water-down terminology even further, with the nu-speak removing any suggestion that the climate is actually changing at all, let alone warming.

      By the way, you might want to check how many US politicians receive funding from climate scientists, and compare it with the number receiving six-figure sums from the fossil fuel lobby and others. A clue, one of these numbers is 0, the other is most definitely not. It is worth also trying to find the figures invested in lobbying journalists. Essentially, it seems to be a replay of the dispute between scientists and the tobacco lobby, but over something even more critical, with no second chances.

  12. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Coat

    It's not really one question.

    Does global warming exist?

    Do humans cause it?

    Can humans stop it happening?

    If we can (or cannot) *what* can we do about mitigating the effects?

    If the first is untrue the rest are redundant.

    But if it *is* true it's cause helps the blame game and indirectly who *should* pick up the bill but question 4 is the big one.

    But if it's true anyway we'd better start damage limitation regardless of who did what. NB The Nile delta is starting to get a bit seawater logged and The netherlands is 2/3 reclaimed North Sea.

    For people who don't think much can be done remember the Netherlands. 2/3 of the country created out of nothing by a system of dams, canals and wind driven pumps. No CAD tools for the layout, no gas or electric pumps. Just wind and 300 years of work.

    Not quite as pretty as the Pyramids of Egypt or as long lived but a hell of a site more useful. The Incan farming methods (using ditches between small fields to act as solar stores during the night) might also be worth a look.

    BTW I;m still doubtful on the hacker angle. My gut feeling (just on the developer notes) is that someone decided they had had enough of this amateur grade software and data management BS. It'll will probably be like the identity of the Watergate source, Deep Throat.

    I'm off to lunch. See you.

    1. 1of10

      WW2 --> Cold-war --> Al-qaeda --> Global Warming/Climate Change --> Next!!!

      Does global warming exist?

      Yes, but nothing to be alarmed with, it is absolutely normal… and even the Evangelicals of the Climate Change acknowledged that existed far worst temperatures during large periods in the past history of Earth… Beside there are a lot of far worst things to worry humanity from which there are no escape/solutions (Meteors for example)

      Do humans cause it?

      NOT at all! There are in world far worst natural polluters (if they can be seen as polluting something) such as volcanoes which releases to atmosphere large quantities of gases including CO2. However this is not accounted into the Climate change Evangelicals meddled raw data.

      Can humans stop it happening?

      Stop volcanoes from erupting? Definitly YES! If we throw all greenies into volcano’s throat it would stop expel the gases such as CO2. The other advantage is that Earth and rest of humanity would definitely benefit by simply stopping the CO2 nonsense.

      That would also put a stop on wasted fuel and CO2 production from travel to nonsense UN conferences and stop wasting transforming oxygen in carbon dioxide on pointless scary words that we are all doomed just to get the billions to secure jobs of just a few false prophets.

      Lets recap the last 60 years...

      Pos WW2 was (cold-war thanks to Russians)

      Pos cold-war was (al-qaeda thanks to Yankees)

      Pos al-qaeda is (Global warming and climate change, thanks to Yankees and Brits)

      Pos Global Warming it will be something else invented by some political nutter just to make the population to live in fear and to blindly sight whatever new measures they dictate.

      Humanity has endured allot of “climate changes” in the past and we survived, we are resilient specie to survive in any environment (exception nukes aftermath but even so not everyone would be killed if WW3 happened) and it wont be just 1 or 3 degrees temperature that will kill all… just adapt is what we all have been doing since the times that we all didn’t run to the trees.

      Now, if one day you look at sky and you see a large flaming object approaching… then don’t even bother running… we will be doomed simply as that… so far worst that a pity global warming/climate change scam.

      Beside - it won't be bad a couple more degrees in the summer for sure ;)

    2. IvyKing

      A couple of more questions

      I would subsitute "climate change" in place of "global warming", as this would include changes in precipitation, winds, storms, etc. Changes in the other aspects of climate could be even more disruptive locally than changes in temperature.

      I would also add as the third question, "If humans do cause climate change, what activities are responsible and how are those activities causing the change?" The AGW crowd is starting to acknowledge the roles of soot and other particulates.

      Mitigating the effects of climate change presupposes that the causes are well known.

  13. ejoftheweb

    A case for transparency, not against the ACCH

    The various errors are stronger evidence yet of the case for full transparency in scholarship. No reputable journal should ever publish a paper without linking to the full raw data, in every discipline not just climate science.

    But do they amount to evidence against the ACCH (anthropogenic climate change hypothesis)? no, not one bit. They may weaken the evidence for the hypothesis, but that's a long way from being evidence against it.

    From what I've seen, the most convincing evidence is in the Greenland icecore series, which show a strong, lagging correlation between atmospheric CO2 and global temperatures (the latter inferred in the icecore from markers such as the species mix in pollen). On that timescale (0.5mya), vulcanism was the main contributor to CO2. But we now have rising CO2 concentrations, similar to those shown in the Greenland data, and it's clear that these rises are anthropogenic, with deforestation the largest contributor. What's much less clear is whether these rising CO2 concentrations have yet had a significant impact on climate. Hansen's latest view is that the current indicators, such as the retreat of Himalayan glaciers, may well be due more to other pollutants, in particular soot - again, mostly coming from deforestation.

  14. Tim Schomer
    Alien

    Isn't it strange...

    That as this Climate conference in Denmark is drawing to a close,and agreements are starting to be signed, that there are more and more doubts being cast upon the 'solid scientific data' they claim to be using for their figures.

    As Benjamin Disraeli (and later attributed to Mark Twain) commented 'There are Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics' - never a truer word spoken.

    Unfortunately by the time the real figures are released and published, all the governments will have agreed deals between themselves and locked us into paying a fortune to reduce CO2 with no way of getting out of it. Half of them know they aren't going to get re-elected anyway so they don't care anymore.

    {Alien icon 'cos I want off this rock. The climate's OK, just the other inhabitants that bother me.}

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Alien

      Let's go to the off world colonies!

      I'm with ya brother. The locals are getting strange around here.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      No, neither strrange nor true.

      Not more, just the same old same old being repeated.

    3. Gweilo

      strange if they weren't

      @Tim Schomer

      Have you been paying attention to the news?

      If any treaty is signed at all, at the moment there is doubt of that, it will be entirely toothless platitudes. And even if it weren't, nations are NEVER "locked in" to treaties. They just ignore them if they become inconvenient, as most countries did with Kyoto. As Bush f***ed the Geneva Convention, if you want another example.

      And of course it isn't "strange" that "doubt is being cast" now. Climate change is in the news, so the deniers are making the most of it.

  15. JHD

    Ah, Science

    The CRU apparently (and in my opinion, stupidly) wanted to keep data out of the hands of the idiot denier industry to avoid more of the fake controversies that are ginned up out of anything these folks either don’t understand (a lot of it, it seems) or are willing to misrepresent (all the rest).

    Remember the kerfluffle that temperatures are decreasing because if you pick the (rather recent) warmest year and then the subsequent few the “trend” is down? Demonstrates a rather childish confusion between weather and climate, but it gets headlines--and confuses folks, halting action of any kind.

    Which datasets are included in any analysis is a matter of judgment. There are many legitimate reasons to decide not to include data--suspect collection or incompatible metrics, for a start. A free market economist from Cato, or the Viscount of Fiddlesticks, are unlikely to be able to make informed judgments about this sort of thing, and certainly not without study.

    I fall on the warming is real, human caused, and a problem side of the question. One of the things I find curious is that many of the mitigating measures are desirable ithout considering warming but are opposed anyway--you’d think the US right wing would be all for decreasing their cash transfers to the non-christian middle east, but it seems the invisible hand outranks the god of the scriptures.

  16. Clive 3
    Thumb Down

    What do you expect!

    It seems to me that these climatologists are trying to protect their gravy train. If a research student put in for a grant to study squirrels in the New forest it would far more likely be accepted if it was reworded to 'The affects of climate change on squirrels in the new forest'. Then if no evidence is found are they likely to be given another grant in the future. So it is in their own interest to try to find a link either by fair means or foul.

    Why don't they openly provide their raw data? The obvious reason is that they are hiding something.

    As to computer models, I have played with computer models of chaos systems in the past, I found it surprising how a very small tweak here and there can make enormous difference to the final result

    Can anyone think of another reason why 'the climatologists were extremely keen to push that case and to suppress scientific dissent on the matter'

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Data

      Why dont' they provide their own data? There is another obvious answer: It doesn't belong to them.

      Ask the met office for their data, or the ESA for their data and you'll probably have to pay. However, all the NASA data are available online, for free.

  17. john 154
    Happy

    I for one..

    want to be warm

  18. Paul Shirley

    model data is being COMPLETELY ignored by the mainstream press

    That's because the loudest voices (the denialist's) are having trouble finding anything substantially wrong in the data to spin a story around. They also seem to be having trouble convincing the rest of the world their conspiracy theories have legs - it's a whacko red flag saying 'ignore me' to even Sun readers.

    All that's left is the denialist's own creation, years of abusing normal scientific process purely to delay and harass. When denialists are intent on playing the game but ignoring the rules its easy to see why the modellers don't want to play. Easy to paint that as something more sinister.

    And those 'dodgy fiddle factors': sadly that's because modelling isn't pure science, its experimental - trial and error looking for the most accurate approximation. And sadly that means the denialists can lie & distort to a public that doesn't understand. And boy have they gone to town on it...

    1. Snert Lee

      No, no, /you're/ in denial.

      I think if you'll look more carefully, you'll see the "denialists" have been steadily gaining momentum for the past four or five years, though they might never have been heard over the hue and cry of the "alarmists" had it not been for the leak of the CRU data and emails.

      Data and emails which has really thrown open the question of just who has "years of abusing normal scientific process purely to delay and harass."

      At this point in time, it seems like the science of Anthropogenic Global Warming has a lot in common with the Emperor's New Clothes. Can't you see the hockey stick? All the smart and worthy of funding scientists can see it, can't they?

  19. Dave Mundt
    WTF?

    when, exactly, did the scientific method die?

    Greetings and Salutations.

    My father was a Microbiologist, and, spent most of his professional life researching yeasts and molds. His method was to gather as much data as possible, and see what results stemmed from it. I believe he would be shocked and dismayed to see this widespread tendency to come up with a conclusion, then, find the data that supports it.

    Those so-called scientists who are doing this, either to push a personal agenda or to ensure the continuation of grant money should be ashamed of themselves, and, should either clean up their act, or get drummed out of the scientific community!

    This sort of activity not only wastes huge amounts of resources, but, what is worse, undercuts the credibility of the scientific community, making it far harder for the good scientists who are following good protocols and producing good results to be believed.

    I observed elsewhere that it appears that the entire world is falling into a pit of hair-trigger, paranoid madness. This example, sadly, supports that belief. I hope I am wrong, but, I fear I am not...

    Pleasant Dreams

    Dave Mundt

  20. Fred 24

    ..and nothing at all...

    ... to do with any governments 'stimulus' package? no - there's no global warming, nothing to see here, just carry on with your usual habit citizens, the economy and short term gain is much important than the survival of the species!

  21. AlistairJ
    Grenade

    I for one am a sceptic

    I do not believe there is a significant global warming because of man-made CO2.

    However, I do believe that overpopulation and deforestation are the two most serious problems we have to deal with. If there is climate change, it may or may not be anthropogenic. But we as a species must learn to cope with it, the same as we must learn to cope with our other challenges.

    And I am afraid that we in the developed world have no moral right to stop the rest of the world from developing the same way we did. Which seems to be our main objective in Copenhagen this week.

  22. why-can-i-not-just-use-my-real-name
    FAIL

    whoopy doo

    whoopy doo, some blogger / oil-industry nutter [delete as applicable] struggles to cope with data which is beyond their professional understanding. And "publishes" a "piece" about it.

    Wake me up when he gets it into a peer-reviewed climate journal.

    1. Mark McC

      RE: whoopy doo

      > Wake me up when he gets it into a peer-reviewed climate journal.

      You could be asleep for a long time.

      From: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

      To: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

      Subject: HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL

      Date: Thu Jul 8 16:30:16 2004

      ...

      I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep

      them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !

      ...

      From: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

      To: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>,rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, mhughes@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,srutherford@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,tcrowley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

      Subject: Re: Fwd: Soon & Baliunas

      Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 08:14:49 -0500

      ...

      This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the

      peer-reviewed literature. Obviously, they found a solution to that. I think we have to stop considering "Climate Research" as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.

      1. Chris Fox

        Who is censoring what?

        A rather large fly in this ointment is that although there may have been discussion about whether to exclude a couple articles--stemming, in part, from frustration of a well documented manipulation of the peer review process by deniers--in reality both papers alluded to in this email discussion are in fact cited in the IPCC evidence base: there was no censorship.

        There are however well documented cases of deniers managing to censor reports, and water down findings to undermine the reporting of evidence for man-made global warming and the severity of its impact. Funny that The Reg never mentions this detail, and would rather talk up allegations about climate scientists rather than report documented facts about the activities of deniers.

        There is also the small matter of the de facto self-censorship of the rather conservative IPCC process. This has lead to more recent, and worrying research on the dynamics of large-scale melting events, for example, being excluded from the IPCC reports, leading to a gross under-reporting of the severity of the impact of warming on sea-level rises and positive feedback mechanisms, and hence significant overestimation of the upper bound on safe levels of CO2 currently being used to set emissions targets.

  23. Ross 7

    Damned brain

    My (admittedly not terribly bright) brain read that opening line as "...free-market economist says that the British had CRUD global temperature database"

  24. dervheid

    Another nail...

    in the coffin lid of 'Global Warming'?

    Pass me the hammer, I'd dearly love to drive them in.

    (that'll be the huge, coal-fired, steam driven power hammer. best kind, of course)

  25. Bruce MacDonald
    Flame

    Cherry picking

    Newsflash: El Reg cherry-picks stories about cherry-picking. I've yet to see one about the dozens of examples of climate-change deniers cherry-picking results.

    Go on, El Reg. I challenge you: Be honest. Just once.

    1. Maty

      why wait?

      Don't wait for the Reg to do it.

      Give us the links. If its 'dozens' of examples, I'll settle for 24.

      Go on, I challenge you: Be honest.

      1. Al Jones

        You could start by reading the comments to this article...

        As was pointed out above, the deniers insist that the world is currently cooling, because the trend is downwards since 1998.

        But if you start your trend in 1997 or 1999, or any other year except 1998, you get a warming trend.

        That's cherrypicking by the Deniers.

        1. Maty

          Okay

          I'll accept that one. Even though the world is still no warmer than it was in 1942.

          Still waiting for the other 23 examples ...

  26. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Headmaster

    @ejoftheweb

    " lagging correlation between atmospheric CO2 and global temperatures (the latter inferred in the icecore from markers such as the species mix in pollen). "

    <grammar nazi>

    If you want to make a case you might like to express it in a less ambigious way. Which way one of those 2 items lags the other is a *critical* question in this. IIRC one of the key articles that has been published in a peer reviewed journal shows the CO2 level *lagging* the temp rise.

    </grammar nazi>

    1. B 9

      I thought the same thing

      I thought was unnecessarily vague too.

      On a side note, I'm going to toss an idea out there. Maybe the scientists could practice transparency? It seems that many of the skeptics (there are NO deniers, just skeptics) have asked for this for years and the pro AGW crowd still won't do it. Why is that? (Please don't quote CRU like excuses like "our contract says we can't do it, but I don't have a copy of the contract".

      1. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        My fat arse there are no deniers here!

        Quote: " ... there are NO deniers, just skeptics ... "

        Oh please! A skeptic is wary of accepting things at face value, but keeps an *open mind* about what they are being told. The so-called 'skeptics' here are completely in denial because they have not kept an open mind. Witness their willingness to accept at face value the proclamations* of someone with a clear, vested interest in denying that AGW exists. Not one instance of doubt about the legitimacy or validity of this so-called analysis.

        Fwiw, it is also a STRAW MAN proclamation - when doing a data analysis like this, the very last thing you should do is include *all* the data in your analysis. To ensure the validity of your results, you need to set aside (at random) some of the data to test afterwards, to see if it correlates with your results from the bulk dataset.

        * It isn't peer-reviewed, hasn't been submitted for peer review, and I would hazard that it never will be submitted for peer review. Ergo, nothing but the proclamation of someone with a highly dubious reason for publishing it.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Green tax refund

    I want a refund on the tax I have already being forced to pay out on this AGW con.

    Helecopter and AC for obvious reasons.

  28. Francis Offord
    Black Helicopters

    Governmemtal puff or what?

    There are lies,Damned lies,Statistics and Governmental figures, which would you rather believe? Somebody is making a good living out of the scaremongering, could it possibly be those seekers after truth,(we are told) scientists?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Money ?!

      Yes, because science is the career for people who are just in it for the money. Christ, you sir, along with the other ignoramuses posting here, are unbelievably thick.

  29. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Thumb Up

    Regarding stuff from Russia

    AFAIK The stuff is hosted on servers in Russia.

    However the CRU confirmed it is a genuine copy of their internal server files.

    Comments made by Russian based bloggers, think tanks, oligarches, lap dancers etc whose prosperity depends on Russia continuing to sell fossil fuels to the West should be treated with more scepticism.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: Regarding stuff from Russia

    Comments made by environmentalist bloggers, think tanks, oligarchs (soon: Al Gore), nerds etc whose prosperity (depends | will depend) on green subsidies or in the promotion of green fearmongering should be treated with skepticism.

    Ditto for folks conflating ideas such as: CO2 and soot/smoke pollution, weather changing and global climate change, any natural disaster (except earthquakes, maybe?) or any possible change in an environment with CO2 from burning of fossil fuels.

    News at 11: "Polar bear eats bear cub, therefore global warming"

    http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?articleId=USRTXRLWU

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Whither social involvement.

    Off topic - or not, it should be recalled that the movement in the U.S. and western Europe, for scientists to quit their ivory towers and "involve themselves" in social causes, is only about 35 years old.

    Previously, and still so to some scientists, social involvement was anathema, not for their love of isolation, but for the recognized pitfalls of intentional bias to further such causes, the recognized (by psychologists) unintentional biases that can and might intrude into even the best effort at completeness and objectivity, and the inability of an independent outside observer to tell the difference between the two. The latter inability only worsens with the complexity of the subject.

    An older, parallel hazard - well known, in the extreme, from the annals of Lysenkoism and arian supremacy, and, in only somewhat more subtle manifestations, in everyday advertising - is the use of selected scientific findings by the commercially- or politically-active, scientifically-ignorant individuals to justify their cause. This hazard only increases with the confidence of the activist - derived from any source - which, science also warns us, varies inversely with knowledge. That is, the converse of "the more you know, the more you know you don't know" is "the less you know, the more you can believe you do know" etc.

    Not only have many taken the leap of faith to scientist as savior but, modern political activism is viewed akin to medieval saintly behavior. Channeling the Captain of Prison Road 36 and Goethe... What we got here is a failure to communicate the fundamental difference between faith and sketicism.

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