[Vision2020] Please Cite From Peer Reviewed Science Journal Re: The Great Thermometer Die Off
Paul Rumelhart
godshatter at yahoo.com
Sun Jan 17 12:16:32 PST 2010
You have a higher opinion of the climate science peer review process
than I do. I think this kind of grassroots science is necessary until
changes are made to make the peer review process in this area more
transparent.
This guy is not publishing papers in peer reviewed climate science
journals. That I know about, anyway. What he is doing is working with
publicly available data sets and is using publicly available temperature
modeling software and is blogging about what he finds. You can download
the data sets, the gistemp software, and in some cases software that he
has written to make data conversions easier. With access to a linux box
or virtual machine and some knowledge of programming, you can replicate
what he is doing yourself. I believe he even has instructions on his
website to help you get the gistemp software installed.
If you wish to blow this off as science unworthy of critical attention,
that's your prerogative.
Paul
Ted Moffett wrote:
> Apparently I failed to be specific enough in my request for
> verification of certain statements you wrote regarding research you
> referenced from E. M. Smith, aka "Chiefio," on climate science.
>
> You made a specific implication regarding */climate scientists errors
> in temperature data/* */gathering,/* /*based on Smith's research.*/
> In quoting you below my statements in this post, I will in bold
> italics highlight the essential statement involved.
>
> I requested support for this statement you wrote, support sourced from
> a */credible peer reviewed science journal./*
>
> Based on what you stated was research conducted by a so called "E. M.
> Smith" */(you did not verify this is a "real" name, which I
> requested),/* temperature data has been gathered (regardless of the
> number of temperature stations),/* in a way to slant the results
> toward warmer temperatures,*/ which could imply the climate scientists
> involved in this effort are incompetent and/or corrupt.
>
> Unless I misread or misunderstood, you did not offer any peer reviewed
> source from a credible science journal to support this implication
> /*specifically*/ /*addressing E. M. Smith's research,*/ /*nor did you
> reference any peer reviewed science publications by the Smith in
> question.*/
>
> /*Instead, you sourced a peer reviewed science journal article
> regarding temperature data errors, that did not specifically address
> E. M. Smith's work, as far as I determined. The*/
> *//*
> Unless you can offer a reference from a credible peer reviewed science
> journal regarding "E. M. Smith's" climate science research, I do
> not regard Smith's analysis of climate science as worthy of study.
> */-------------------------------/*
> Paul Rumelhart wrote:
>
> http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2010-January/068125.html
>
> A programmer named E. M. Smith has done some work with the GISS
> dataset (I've been using the NCDC one). He has found that many of the
> measuring stations which are used for temperature reconstructions
> across the globe have been removed from the global temperature data
> sets for recent years. In fact, the data drops off quickly starting
> in the 80's (at least in the dataset I've been working with).
>
> */He has done some research into which stations have been removed, and
> has apparently found that lots of higher altitude stations have been
> removed, which would have shown cooler temperatures - leading to a
> corresponding rise in the average temperatures over the years./* He
> has a blog which covers this (he goes by the alias "chiefio"). Here
> is an entry in the blog giving an overview of this topic:
> http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/gistemp-a-human-view/
> ------------------------------------------
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>
>
> On 1/16/10, *Paul Rumelhart* <godshatter at yahoo.com
> <mailto:godshatter at yahoo.com>> wrote:
>
> He's just a guy with a blog. He's looking at public data and is
> interpreting the results himself.
>
> I would bring up the possible "gaming" of the peer review system
> as implied by some of the Climategate emails, but since I can't
> find any peer reviewed references making this claim I guess it
> can't be true.
>
> I know the numbers of temperature stations drop off precipitously,
> I've verified that personally.
> Here are some links I've found to the temperature station drop off
> phenomenon:
>
> An interesting mpeg of station counts by month from the University
> of Delaware (pay close attention to 1990 - present):
> http://climate.geog.udel.edu/~climate/html_pages/air_ts2.html
> <http://climate.geog.udel.edu/%7Eclimate/html_pages/air_ts2.html>
>
> A graphic showing station record length, station counts, and
> coverage:
> http://climate.geog.udel.edu/~climate/html_pages/air_ts2.html
> <http://climate.geog.udel.edu/%7Eclimate/html_pages/air_ts2.html>
> Note that by "coverage", they mean "is within 1200km of a
> temperature station", which is about the distance from here to
> Provo, Utah.
>
> Here is a link to a paper published in Climate Research that calls
> into question the claim that non-climatic effects such as economic
> activity and socio-political concerns have been removed from the
> gridded surface temperature data. The authors find a warming bias
> in the data based on such things as the lack of surface station
> data because of political unrest in countries such as the old
> Soviet Union and China, as well as other concerns such as the
> ability for countries with economic troubles to purchase and keep
> up temperature recording equipment.
>
> http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/gdptemp.html
> <http://www.uoguelph.ca/%7Ermckitri/research/gdptemp.html>
>
> I'm sure there are others out there.
>
> Paul
>
> Ted Moffett wrote:
>
> Please cite a credible peer reviewed science journal
> publication where the E. M. Smith (or is this name false?) in
> question has published this work on temperature data that you
> reference.
> If the information on temperature data you provide is not
> sourced from a peer reviewed credible science journal, I'm not
> going to spend time contemplating it in detail.
> Junk science on climate issues on the Internet is so rampant,
> someone could spend all their waking hours separating the
> wheat from the chaff. The peer review process in science
> publishing greatly reduces the garbage science that a person
> would otherwise have to sort through.
> Can you offer information on the professional qualifications
> of E. M. Smith that render his climate science work credible?
> I found information on E. M Smith's qualifications on the
> "Musings from the Chiefio" blog, but they offer no reason to
> take his work on climate science seriously (
> http://chiefio.wordpress.com/about/ ). With admitted limited
> effort, I found no references to */any/* "E. M. Smith" peer
> reviewed climate science publications. He misspells
> "Bachelors" when he informs he has a "Bachlors in Economics."
> Of course, sometimes peer reviewed science journals make
> mistakes, and junk science slips past the peer review process.
> And there are no doubt worthwhile ideas that are not published
> in peer reviewed journals.
> But I don't find credible the allegation that there is a vast
> international conspiracy among scientists (or widespread
> incompetence) to fabricate a hoax or manufacture faulty
> science that is deceiving the world about human impacts on
> climate. Given the consensus on this issue, this is what
> would need to be occurring for the professional science from
> nations around the world to be in error while also in such
> compelling agreement that human impacts on climate are profound.
> E. M. Smith's (or whoever he or she is) professional
> background, from his blog:
> http://chiefio.wordpress.com/about/
>
>
> Paper Trails
>
> I have an Bachlors in Economics from the U.C. system. I also
> have a pot load of credits from some various Community
> Colleges in everything from “Transistor and Semiconductor
> Theory” to “American Sign Language”. Oh, and a load of
> graduate level Education Theory units needed to get a teaching
> credential from the California State University system. And
> dozens and dozens of “industrial” classes that various
> employers sent me off to over the years. Everything from the
> RAMIS II database system on IBM mainframes (All of it. Every
> class for the 13 or 14 volumes of the manual set. I was a
> consultant on it for the maker and they had us “do it all”.)
> to “online automated” certification “classes” in Sun’s flavor
> of Unix so that a vendor I worked for could keep their sales
> certificate. And about 9 units toward an MBA (but that’s
> another long story…) that I may finish some day, or maybe not.
>
> I did pick up a Lifetime Teaching Credential at the Community
> College Level from the State of California (they don’t make
> those any more, but I’m “grandfathered”) in Data Processing
> and Related Technologies and have taught for a few years at a
> local community college. Fun gig.
>
> Wouldn’t mind doing it again. But lots of places now want a
> Microsoft Certification and, well, I’m just not interested in
> that, and never will be. (I can “do” MS stuff, and have; but
> see no reason to send MS even more money. Gates has enough.)
> The idea that a manufacturers certificate (for which you must
> pay a bundle every couple of years) would trump a formal
> Credential (and all the mandated training including graduate
> level education theory) is, IMHO, broken; but such is life.
> Why one needs Microsoft (or Red Hat) to tell you (for a large
> fee) “what you know”; is beyond me. That’s what the C.V. and
> Credential are for…
>
> Oh, and the Institute For The Certification of Computing
> Professionals (ICCP) has what they called their “capstone”
> certification, the CDP, that I also hold. Why? Don’t ask why…
> it seemed like a good idea at the time…
>
> ------------------------------------------
>
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
> On 1/16/10, *Paul Rumelhart* <godshatter at yahoo.com
> <mailto:godshatter at yahoo.com> <mailto:godshatter at yahoo.com
> <mailto:godshatter at yahoo.com>>> wrote:
>
>
> I'm replying to myself because I got to wondering if Windows
> and/or most people's email clients natively handle png files,
> since it is an open source format. So I'm attaching the same
> files after converting them to ..jpgs.
>
> Paul
>
> Paul Rumelhart wrote:
>
> Some of you know that I was at one time playing around with
> graphing global temperature data in order to satisfy my
> curiosity on a number of points related to global
> warming. I
> wish I'd stuck with it. It turns out that someone else
> (probably many others) has been doing the same thing. A
> programmer named E. M. Smith has done some work with
> the GISS
> dataset (I've been using the NCDC one). He has found that
> many of the measuring stations which are used for
> temperature
> reconstructions across the globe have been removed from the
> global temperature data sets for recent years. In
> fact, the
> data drops off quickly starting in the 80's (at least
> in the
> dataset I've been working with).
>
> He has done some research into which stations have been
> removed, and has apparently found that lots of higher
> altitude
> stations have been removed, which would have shown cooler
> temperatures - leading to a corresponding rise in the
> average
> temperatures over the years. He has a blog which
> covers this
> (he goes by the alias "chiefio"). Here is an entry in the
> blog giving an overview of this topic:
>
> http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/gistemp-a-human-view/
>
> I have not tried to analyze the stations that drop off
> of the
> NCDC data set yet, perhaps I can get a little work done on
> that soon.
>
> I'm also attaching a couple of graphs that I created
> from the
> NCDC data which graph the station counts by years.
> These are
> from the global minimums data sets, both normal and
> adjusted.
> I hadn't yet gotten to graphing station counts for the
> global
> means and global maximums data sets. All uniques
> stations and
> sub-stations are counted, which will mean that some
> sub-stations are counted twice if the thermometer is
> moved or
> something in that year. I was at one point trying to
> find out
> why these counts dropped off so quickly. It makes
> sense that
> the number of stations would increase over the years,
> but why
> the dramatic decrease in station counts? I had originally
> thought that perhaps there are delays in collecting data
> together, but 20-30 year delays? That doesn't seem
> plausible.
>
> By the way, I learned of this work that E. M. Smith has
> been
> doing by watching John Coleman's hour long news special
> titled
> "Global Warming - The Other Side". You can find links
> to the
> various parts of this here:
>
> http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/14/john-colemans-hourlong-news-special-global-warming-the-other-side-now-online-all-five-parts-here/
>
>
> Even I thought this video was a bit high in the
> sensationalist
> and propagandist categories, but it did cover many of the
> standard skeptical viewpoints that I've run into. It
> might be
> worth watching, even if you're completely convinced we're
> cooking ourselves with carbon dioxide.
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
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