NSF: It is reasonable to suspect Mann of falsifying data

An investigation by the National Science Foundation into the Climategate scandal has come to the conclusion that there are strong grounds for suspicions against Michael "Hide the decline" Mann and his accomplices. The report concludes:

"As noted above, no specific allegation or evidence of data fabrication or falsification was made to the University; rather, the University developed its allegation of data falsification based on a reading of publicly released emails, many of which contained language that reasonably caused individuals, not party to the communications, to suspect some impropriety on the part of the authors."

We were right all along. Finally, we have been vindicated! Now please can we get back all the countless billions of our tax-payers dollars and euros spent on this fraud?

Obviously, the Warmistas will desperately try to spin this in any ways they can! It's time to jump off the AGW bandwagon now, boys!

Update: As can be observed below, the forces of misdirection and desinformation are already gathering. There are some statements in the report that unfortunately are somewhat ambiguous when taken out of context, and it is those statements the trolls predictably are trying to spin. They include:

"Although the Subject's data is still available and still the focus of significant critical examination, no direct evidence has been presented that indicates the Subject fabricated the raw data he used for his research or falsified his results."

"Such scientific debate is ongoing, but does not, in itself, constitute evidence of research misconduct."

 "Concerning False Claims, 18 USC #287 and 31 USC ##3729-33 and False Statement, 18 USC #1001, we examined the elements of each suggested offense and have concluded that there is insufficient evidence of violation of any of these statutes to warrant investigation."

"We reviewed the emails and concluded that nothing contained in them evidenced research misconduct withing the definition of the NSF Research Misconduct Regulation. ... We found no basis to conclude that the emails were evidence of research misconduct or that they pointed to such evidence."

While some unscrupulous individuals will claim that this means that Mann is innocent like a little lamb with a shiny white fleece that has just been white washed, we know that what it really says is that Mann and his Team have hidden all the evidence, just like they did "hide the decline of global temperatures the last decades." Indeed, we know and have always known that the Team-tribe is up to no good. Why are they trying to hide that Arabs colonized Greenland during the very very hot medieval period? We are very skeptical about the whole AGW thing, and nothing you say is ever going to change our mind! We stand up for the truth, against enviro-tyranny.

Update 2: Marc Morano at Climate Depot agrees with my analysis:

"It doesn't conclude there is 'nothing wrong' with Mann's conclusions, all it concludes is there is no basis to conclude he did anything improper WITH NSF FUNDING"

Precisely! Maybe Mann did his falsifications with money he stole from orphans, or earned by trafficking, or counterfeited, or got as bribes from the rising Soviet Union. Until that has been disproved, we have no choice but to consider him guilty as charged!

Anthony Bright-Paul winner of 2011 von Monckhofen Award for Pedagogical Excellence

The prestigous von Monckhofen Award for Pedagogical Excellence goes this year, that is AD 2011, to Anthony Bright-Paul for his most pedagogical refutation of the greenhouse effect and hence also of the entire global warming climate change fraud. It is a demonstration of the most impeccable logic and brilliant clarity. Indeed, it is so clear and simple that even Al'Gore might be able to understand it provided he can get his big fat butt out of his jet plane for once. I'm especially impressed by the way Mr Bright-Paul uses beer as a vehicle of explanation and identification. Congratulations, Mr Bright-Paul! You are a most deserving winner.

As further motivation, I will simply let Mr Bright-Paul's text speak for itself:

The History of Science is the history of wrong conclusions, being eventually overturned by more evidence, or more correctly by logic. Even today, the data that science uncovers is more often than not misunderstood.
...
These questions concern the properties of gases. The question here is whether gases are active or passive?

Can Carbon Dioxide be frozen?
Can Carbon Dioxide be liquefied?
Can Carbon Dioxide be cooled?
Can Carbon Dioxide be warmed?
In this case I will suggest that the answer in every case must be, Yes. Carbon Dioxide can be made into Dry Ice, which is even colder than Water Ice, and can even cause frostbite. Carbon Dioxide can be liquefied and is often so done for ease of transportation. Carbon Dioxide can be cooled, as in Ice-Cold lager from a fridge. Carbon Dioxide can be warmed as in warm beer. So the question is this: Is Carbon Dioxide active or passive? Please note above the use of the passive tense.

Let us do the same with Water Vapour?
...
I hope so – in all cases it is clear that gases are passive. They re-act. In no way can a Gas jump out of a Gasholder or a can, like a Genie, and say ‘Tickety-Boo!’ ( I am willing to be corrected!)
...
What conclusion, what logical conclusions must follow from that? If gases are passive, if gases can be warmed or can be cooled, if gases have no inherent temperature of their own, then there is no way that they can cause warming. They are either warmed or cooled.

If we put a potato a microwave oven and switch on the power, the potato can be baked within 10 minutes. But put the same potato in a freezer, how long will it take to bake? Is there a hot spot in the freezer? And yet our noble scientists have been searching for a Hot Spot at 10 Kilometres high in the Troposphere, that is some 33,000 feet! It is not a question of Science it is a question for Logic; it is a question of Philosophy.

The crux of the argument is philosophical and the nub of it is logic. To suggest that Man is somehow creating radical changes in Climate is an inadmissible conclusion. And as to Man warming the Globe, it is a complete impossibility.

Underground volcanoes, not humans, are causing rising CO2

Our friends at WUWT recently had a post about underwater volcanoes. In this post, I would like to discuss another kind of volcanoes that have been sadly (or deliberately) overlooked in the climate debate: underground volcanoes.

Underground volcano (courtesy USA Today) 

We know very little about what can be found deep in the Earth's crust. NASA is sending rockets to penetrate Uranus, but very little is done to probe the depths of the bowels of our own home planet, mother Earth. This is a sad state of affairs. Hence, we don't know how many underground volcanoes there are. There might be billions, hidden from our eyes by miles of Earth's crust. There might be huge underground volcanoes, the size of Alaska, and we have no idea about them. And they are all emitting carbon dioxide on a scale that dwarfs our puny human emissions. The so-called "climate scientists" simply haven't taken this into account in their "models" of the so-called "carbon cycle". The IPCC has, not surprisingly, been silent about the topic. Image the arrogance of climate modelers who assume that they know all the major natural processes. Let alone their impact. Just tweak the right parameters and viola the model fits the data, even though it is incomplete. “With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.”

Temperature and CO2 the last centuries according to E. Beck

The graph above shows how carbon dioxide has fluctuated the last centuries. It obviously has no relation to human activities. The only explanation is underground volcanoes: we can notice that they are both emitting CO2 and causing warming. Of course, the eruption of a single Alaska-sized underground volcano under the Arctic sea would be sufficient to explain the melting of the Artic sea ice (which is now by the way recovering). And yet, we would never be able to detect that volcano. We should learn to be humble about how little we really know about Earth and its climate, and the secrets it hides in its interior.

Mole drill for exploring Earth's interior

Indeed, until we know what secrets lie below Earths surface, before we have sent expeditions into the depths of the planet, it would be futile and a pointless waste to try to reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere by burning less fossil fuels. Futile! Pointless!

Joe Bastardi repeats my argument

In a guest post at WUWT, meteorologist Joe Bastardi repeats the argument I made recently about how the recent changes in temperature and CO2 don't correlate and this shows that CO2 doesn't drive temperature, and hence temperature drives CO2. I showed this graph as evidence:

Bastardi shows this one, which is very similar:

Note that Bastardi has added a big blue arrow to show that temperatures have been going down the last 15 years.

Great minds think alike! (Though I wish Bastardi would have given me due credit).

Bastardi's excellent guest post is a follow up of an interview on Fox News. It is compulsory watching!

Monckton in NZ TV

Here is great interview in New Zealand television with the Lord Monckton. He expresses his lack of confidence about the peer review process (in science, not in economics where it is reliable). He also explains that professor John Abraham is about to face a libel charge due to the lies he has been spreading about the good Lord. The Climate Scum supports the good Lord in his effort to go to court. Such measures are sadly necessary to ensure an open and civil debate about the climate fraud. John Abraham, in his puerile efforts to discredit Monckton, is clearly out to intimidate all independent thinkers and lovers of free markets.

We also support the efforts of John Coleman and 30,000 scientist to sue Al Gore.

As a bonus, here is philosopher of science and radio host Glenn Beck revealing Al'Gore's plans to become a dictator and explaining how science funding works.

Salby demolishes AGW theory

From that excellent blog Climate Etc, I have learned about a new paradigm-shifting scientific article by climate professor Murry Salby from Macquarie University. Well, strictly speaking it is a pod cast from a talk Salby gave at a policy forum of the Sydney Institute, so we cannot see Salby's graphs and other data, but nevertheless, it is important enough to warrant a discussion. Heck, the less data the more to discuss!

The Earth’s carbon cycle is not a topic on which I have any expertise. Therefore, I instead give you carbon cycle expert Andrew Bolt's summary of Salby's results:

Salby’s argument is that the usual evidence given for the rise in CO2 being man-made is mistaken. It’s usually taken to be the fact that as carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere increase, the 1 per cent of CO2 that’s the heavier carbon isotope ratio c13 declines in proportion. Plants, which produced our coal and oil, prefer the lighter c12 isotope. Hence, it must be our gasses that caused this relative decline.
But that conclusion holds true only if there are no other sources of c12 increases which are not human caused. Salby says there are – the huge increases in carbon dioxide concentrations caused by such things as spells of warming and El Ninos, which cause concentration levels to increase independently of human emissions. He suggests that its warmth which tends to produce more CO2, rather than vice versa – which, incidentally is the story of the past recoveries from ice ages.

Wow.

Wohohow!

Yippiyayayayay!

Wobedobedoboo!

If Salby’s analysis holds up, this could revolutionize AGW science. And I see no reason why it shouldn't hold up. It is sufficiently important that we should start talking about these issues. We can certainly do that without any graphs and other data. That just makes the discussion so much more open-minded and skeptical!

In the unlikely event that Salby turns out to be wrong, I can always write a post about that. If I can find the time.

Here are a couple of points we can discuss:

• Is it temperature that is driving CO2, and not the other way around?
• Does this mean that human CO2 emissions are insignificant? That they neither influence the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere (or elsewhere) nor the temperature?
• Will the Team ever admit that they faked the hockey stick? Will there ever be reconciliation between skeptics and fraudsters? How long time should Michael Mann from Penn State serve in the State Pen?
• Why is Al Gore buying seaside real estate?

Here is some of my favorite data. As can be seen from this graph, CO2 and temperature are uncorrelated, and hence CO2 cannot drive temperature. This is an argument we skeptics always have made, and now we have been vindicated.

This graph on the other hand shows how well temperature and CO2 correlate. This is evidence that temperature is driving CO2.

Of course, the alarmists will try everything to wreck Salby's argument. For your benefit, this is how they can be countered. Think of the atmosphere as a bank account, and carbon dioxide as money.

The alarmist says: we know that human activities emit carbon dioxide. Yes, even more carbon dioxide than the increase in the atmosphere.

We answer: There are many people who deposit and withdraw money from the account. If the balance of the account goes up, how could be possibly tell that is was because a certain person made a deposit? Especially if we don't know how much each person deposits and withdraws? It is completely impossible. Same thing about carbon dioxide. There are many processes that add to or remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

But, says the alarmist, where does the human carbon dioxide go? Does it just disappear?

We reply: Haven't you heard about taxes? Money disappearing nobody knows whereto? It is the same thing with carbon dioxide.

But, argues the alarmist: Where does the added carbon in the atmosphere come from then? It is also increasing in the oceans and the biosphere.

We reply: Economic growth. Capitalism and free markets generate more money. Same thing with carbon dioxide.

But, grovels the alarmist, if a temperature increase of less than one degree C increases CO2 from 280 to 380 ppm, then the CO2 concentration during ice ages (around 6 degrees colder than now) must have been negative. That is impossible!

We reply: there is noting strange about negative numbers. Have you ever heard about debts? The kind of thing that your reckless liberal over-spending policies are causing all the time? Same thing with carbon dioxide. During the ice ages, there was a carbon dioxide debt. That's why there were not trees growing on the ice. Trees need carbon dioxide.

That should make the alarmists shut up, one can hope. Unfortunately, they don't really understand economy, so they may not get it after all.

Arctic Sea Ice Recovery

The Arctic sea ice extent is now above what it was in the corresponding period in 2007 according to NSIDC. This means 4 years of a steady Arctic sea ice increase! The doomsayers are proven wrong as always. No need to worry about the polar bears!

The blue line shows the Arctic sea ice extent for 2011 (May-August) and the dashed line for 2007. By comparing 2011 to the year with the lowest extent (2007), NSIDC tries to give the impression that this year is very low as well. The black line is the average for 19971979-2000, and the grey area is two standard deviations. They have been included to give the impression that there is some kind of "normal" Arctic sea ice extent, and that 2011 and 2007 is well below that extent. What NSIDC is doing is called cherry picking: they pick the data that support their thesis and discard the rest. Being an experienced data analysician, I can easily see through such ruses. 

NSIDC get their money from federal agencies, and of course they want to keep the cash flowing even when the ice is not melting.

Wood mashes Mashey

In Chronicle of Higher Education, NAS president Peter Wood (picture) delivers a devastating critique of the warmistas in two articles: Bottling Up Global Warming Skepticism and Climate Thuggery. NAS, you may think, National Academy of Sciences, isn't that those people who white washed the hockey stick? Do not fear, this is a different NAS with far more credibility: National Association of Scholars.

In the first piece, NAS president Wood writes about the american showman P T Barnum, who got rich from freak shows and a museum with mermaids and other fake curiosities. That constitutes a truly devastating critique of the state of climate science; a merciless blow that the peddlers of climate apocalypse never will recover from. Once you get compared to P T Barnum (or Hitler) it is game over!

One alarmist who has much in common with P T Barnum is John Mashey. I wrote about Mashey's shameless attacks against Edward Wegman, the worlds best statistician, last autumn. In his piece, Woods writes:

But let’s put aside these vacant thoughts and turn to some serious news. Science reports that retired computer scientist Dr. John Mashey is attempting to patch the tattered reputation of “hide the decline” Michael Mann, the climate scientist whose famous “hockey stick” chart shows exponentially increasing global temperatures in the near term. Mashey has been, as he puts it, “trying to take the offense” against global warming skeptics by flyspecking their publications. “You hope they make a mistake,” he says, and when they do, he pounces with demands that journals retract whole articles. Some journals indeed have. As Science puts it, “His critics say Mashey is more interested in destroying his foes than in debating the issues.” Professor Mann is extolling his efforts at “exploring the underbelly of climate denial.”

Trying to find errors is your opponents' publication: what kind of low life would sink so low? Mashey has shown his true colors (green, red, brown), and the innocent Wegman is now under investigation for plagiarism. We skeptics would never do anything so mean. We are honorable people! Remember Climategate!

In the second piece, NAS president Wood documents how the warmists try to silence dissenting voices and cover up scientific facts that undermine their position:

Mann himself has deployed nuisance lawsuits in a similar fashion. He has sued Tim Ball—a Canadian global-warming skeptic, an environmentalist, and former professor of geography—for libel for writing that Mann “should be in the State Pen, not Penn State,” for his role in Climategate. Mann also threatened a lawsuit against Minnesotans for Global Warming for a satiric YouTube video titled “Hide the Decline.”

Indeed. Instead of engaging in a scientific debate with Ball and Minnesotans for Global Warming, Mann just goes ahead and sues them. But that is because he cannot counter their rock-solid arguments. By thus attacking his strongest critics, Mann tries to make everybody else afraid and thereby he prevents an open and informed scientific debate. "Makin' up data the old hard way. Fudgin' the numbers day by day. Hiding the snow and the cold and a downward line. Hide the decline (hide the decline)." That video was so funny! And scientific! "Oh Climategate I think you have sealed your fate. I hope you do a lot of time, cuz what you did was such a crime."


Mashey and co-thug Coleman try to retaliate in a piece of their own in CHI:

Although we see this elsewhere and ignore it, we were surprised to find articles and comments by Wood in CHE that could be considered libelous. We value the academy for open discussion and seeking truth. We both take academic misconduct seriously and have filed formal, detailed misconduct complaints. Wood’s use of phrases like “tattered reputation,” “statistical trickery and suppression of discrepant data,” “Barnum-esque hokum,” and “academic dishonesty” are not things that credible people publish without showing expertise and evidence. As Christopher Hitchens has so accurately stated: “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” Much of what Wood writes falls under the category of assertion without evidence, counter to the principles of scholarly discourse.

This is utterly ridiculous and without any merit what-so-ever! Why would NAS president Wood want to libel anybody? He is not taking sides in the climate debate. He describes his honorable intentions as follows:

Is anthropogenic global warming (AGW) a valid scientific theory? Is it well supported by the empirical data or is it mostly an artifact of computer modeling? I don’t have answers to these questions. I stand, rather, on the side of those who favor rigorous scientific inquiry, transparency, and openness. I am not a climate scientist, but neither do I cede the whole matter of answering such questions to the designated experts. Good science doesn’t limit itself to the views of narrow-cast specialists. Valid observations, corrective criticism, competing hypotheses, and rigorous testing can and often do arise from other sources.