When the the son of Climategate letters appeared, I wondered how much press they would get. I know it would be covered on blogs. But I wondered how much I’d read in the dead tree journals. I subscribe to Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Tribune.
Today, I noticed the Wall Street Journal published Michael Mann’s letter in response to Delingpole’s article on Climate 2.0 which had been published Wed. Nov 28 (a.k.a. Pre-Thanksgiving cleaning frenzy Wednesday.)
I noticed Mann’s letter regurgitated many familiar talking points and included terms like “fossil-fuel interests and their allies “, “tobacco companies” found in so many defenses. I also noticed he wrote
But British police have not determined who stole the emails. Recent reports of police expenditures suggest they may be devoting far fewer resources to it than other similar investigations.
I can’t help thinking that I can’t know whether the level of expenditures is high or low relative “similar investigations”. The reason is I don’t know what class of investigations one might consider similar to the one related to the unauthorized disclosure of climategate emails. For all I know, the police have reason to believe there is a possibility the emails weren’t stolen. If so, then in “similar” cases, expenditures into the case tend to be low. Or, maybe the police think things were stolen and really are failing to expend resources for some other reason. Maybe the found UEA staff weren’t eager or able to help them prowl through all the UEA systems? In which case, maybe police expenditures may be perfectly in line with cases where the victim isn’t very helpful.
I could speculate until the cows come home, but I still wouldn’t know whether police are expending less than in other “similar” cases.
I wonder if Micheal Mann got any police to investigate the alleged hacking into Real Climate? Does anyone know if that separate incident was formally investigated?
The faint whiff of politics, embarassment, inconvenience, ‘not in the public interest’, may correlate with the nosedived expenditure. Just speculating, but I know my country well.
Presumably the Police read the Email? If so they probably concluded it was was a leak.
When in a hole, stop digging Dr.Mann.
.
Or as we say here: you need to sit still when getting a shave.
“Recent reports of police expenditures suggest they may be devoting far fewer resources to it than other similar investigations.”
Wonder if Mike will release his data set supporting that suggestion?
Occam’s Razor…
Mann is drawing conclusions on the Police investigation with the same rigor he applies to his climate science.
good questions, Lucia…my take , also confirmed by Roger tallbloke, is that the police investigated and came to the conclusion that it was academic in-fighting. They had to investigate because of the high media profile. But if you are a police force how much effort would you put into into a case of emails getting published versus murders, or robberies of things of real value, or cases of physical violence? They spent money for a few months getting forensic IT guys to investigate. Who suffered harm as a result of these emails? Would you as a tax-payer want them to pursue this enquiry?
the online comments on Mann’s article show just how much credence the readership give him! He should read and be shocked at how little credibility he has.
The psychological question should be why does Mann continue to so vigorously defend a methodology which any objective person would consider indefensible.
He is actually a very intelligent, talented individual so why didn’t he just move on long ago to some other aspect of the science.
Do we just keep “pulling him back in” to quote Michael Corleone or is there more to it.
Now that the police are, belatedly, investigating the hacking of the mobile phones of murder victims by journalists I see little point in them diverting resources to a leak that has embarrassed a few taxpayer funded scientists.
Is Mann suggesting that the CRU leak be given equal priority?
RobWansbeck….agreed
Mann is a spoiled little brat. The bobbies investigated and obviously did not find a promising trail to follow. Anybody who has been in the game knows that the trail doesn’t get hotter as time passes. Maybe Mikey would be willing to give up some of his grant booty to pay for an investigation. Whining about the emails being STOLEN!! is just a diversionary tactic.
Lucia,
I could be doing something wrong, but I can’t find a letter by Mann in the link you provided.
The hacker should identify himself if he believes he’s done nothing unethical or illegal. Since he hasn’t identified himself, I suspect he fears damage to his reputation and a prison sentence.
diogenes said in Comment #86642,
December 5th, 2011 at 6:07 pm
“the online comments on Mann’s article show just how much credence the readership give him! He should read and be shocked at how little credibility he has.”
______
There’s nothing shocking about Mann’s maligners bashing Mann.
Lucia,
I think I found Mann’s letter to the WSJ. Hopefully, this links to it:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204449804577068211662483248.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLEThirdBucket#articleTabs%3Darticle
Maxie,
Why don’t you go over to the WSJ comments section and help that boy? He is getting his ass whupped. And the ass whuppers comments are much more coherent and relevant than mikey’s lame emotional op-ed. What was he thinking? You people are increasingly becoming laughingstocks. Punching bag clowns.
Monfort,
Someone a bit cranky tonight?
Lucia said:
‘I noticed Mann’s letter regurgitated many familiar talking points and included terms like “fossil-fuel interests and their allies “, “tobacco companies†found in so many defenses.’
__________
Lucia, you must be referring to the following sentence, the only reference to fossil-fuel interest I can find in Mann’s letter to the WSJ.
“Shortly after that, the American Tradition Institute, a group with ties to fossil-fuel interests, asked for the same emails under the state’s open records laws. “
Indeed, the American Tradition Institute does have ties to fossil fuel interests. In 2010 about three-fourths of it’s funding came from Doug Lair, former owner of Lair Petroleum, and his Lair Family Foundation, according to Form 990 filed with IRS.
http://www.southernstudies.org/sites/default/files/ATI_990_2010_final.pdf
Max_OK:
Try to be honest here. This was like shooting fish in a barrel.
Thanks for the link to Mann’s hyperbole by the way.
Your guys can’t help lying even when they know they’re being watched can they?
“Stolen emails” eh? Bankrupt intellectual thinking has a way of “leaking.”
Max_OK:
So does Standard’s Center for Climatic Research. So does CRU. Only the numbers are much, much bigger.
Max_OK:
Or the ruining of his reputation at CRU.
curious:
Sounds like he’s been reading Bishop Hill
I see one of the little goons of the Occupy Climate Etc. brigade has reared his ugly head here. Is little josh the activist punching bag clown on duty over there this evening, bobbie?
Carrick said in (Comment #86655)
December 5th, 2011 at 11:35 pm
Max_OK:
Indeed, the American Tradition Institute does have ties to fossil fuel interests
So does Standard’s Center for Climatic Research. So does CRU. Only the numbers are much, much bigger.
________
Bigger that 3/4 of their funding?
Re Carrick Comment #86656
Or the ruining of his reputation at CRU.
_______
If he’s with CRU, it certainly would ruin his reputation there, as well as anyplace else he might want to work. Even a right-wing think tank, while applauding the hacker, wouldn’t trust him to not double-cross them.
But I doubt the hacker is a CRU employee. An investigation of CRU staff should have come up with something by now.
Maxie,
How much filthy lucre did ATI get from Big Oil? I bet it’s in the $BILLION$. You must know the exact amount. Right, Maxie?
Would CRU want it to be known if the emails were leaked by an insider? What would that trial do the team, maxie?
LOL, percentages now? Let’s be blunt about it. If you aren’t on the team or helping the “cause” you aren’t going to get competitive research funding. So 0% competitively funded is to be expected here.
The Lair Foundation grant that you felt so necessary to vilify was a mere $135 thousand. What are you going to really accomplish with that amount of money? Not much.
Stanford’s CCR believe on the order of $20 million per year, and I believe close to 100% fossil fuel funded.
Phil Jones received several million from Shell and BP.
Where’s your green-oriented propaganda sources on these grants? Remarkably silent, heh?
As I said the numbers are much much bigger, and the main complaint you have seems to be that “opposition research” is given any funding by any source.
Max_OK:
You’re assuming it’s in CRU’s interests to expose the “hacker”. (Again love the loaded language. It’s OK to use loaded words, when used in defense of the team no doubt.)
Carrick,
That’s not fair. I wanted maxie to answer.
Max_ok-
Sorry. The letter was at the top of the letters page when I wrote the storry. Maybe it rolled down? I fixed the link.
Why do you think an investigation of CRU staff would have come up with something? If the leaker was on the CRU staff tracing them might be particularly difficult. They’d have permissions and time.
I agree with Carrick that it might not be in the interest of everyone at CRU to expose the hacker/leaker.
Don Monfort:
Careful with the name contractions there, bud.
He should still answer. And since honesty seems to be on his mind, he should do so with impeccable intellectual honesty, carefully delineating personal speculation from what he knows and how he knows it.
Carrick,
I see you want to compare my apple with your orange. If we are going to do that, I have a question for you.
Are major oil companies funding investigations of organizations such as the Heartland Institute and individuals such as Inhofe and Morano for the purpose of discrediting them?
Now that’s why I call him maxie. Disingenuous little twit.
Re lucia (Comment #86665)
No problem. I was able to find Mann’s WSJ letter quickly anyway.
I believe the CRU staff consisted of about 30 people, including some student assistants. I don’t think investigating that number of people would be beyond police capability.
I see no reason why it would not be in the interest of EAU and CRU for the hacker/hackers to be identified. The EA police haven’t reported a lack of cooperation.
Max_OK:
If you need help designing a tin-foil hat, I can help you.
Seriously, science is about challenging accepted beliefs not just paying to confirm them. Politics is about protecting accepted beliefs from challenge.
Guess which side you line up on.
Tell it to the Judge, Mikey
.
Next week isn’t it?, we’re watching
And the difference between “scientists” who mostly serve as advocates for a cause (and hence deserve the scare quotes) and the “evil” corporations, is the corporations have money riding on the outcome.
Unlike the tin foil Michael E Mann theorists, energy companies have as much or more money to make selling a more scarce commodity than they do a less scarce commodity. I suppose it hasn’t penetrated the brains of the AGW alarmists that there is a lot of money to be made if AGW is as dangerous as some might have us believe.
The corporations are right to distrust “scientists” who are second rate advocates first, and third rate scientists second. They do know what research looks like, they depend on “good” research for their day to day operation.
And they are right to look for “second opinions” because if there is a chance these political shills are actually wrong about the danger presented by AGW, then the corporations need to hedge against the possibility, even probability, that AGW risk is over stated by people who have a lot to lose if the risk is not as grave as they make out to their funding agencies.
Who has more to lose if the threat of AGW warming is less than some people have been saying (the “scientists” turned advocates)? Who has the most to gain if these “scientists” turn out to be right (not because they practiced good science, I would write it off as dumb luck)? The evil energy corporations, that’s who.
Backing the wrong horse means you lose if you’re a company…
And the outcome of AGW research for them …. is just business. They could care less if Michael Mann ends up as a janitor if his work is discredited (that won’t happen anyway, he’ll just transition to an author, speaker and lecturer and make a lot more money than he does in research).
Carrick
A good point regarding Big OIl. Of course there is the second parallel issue that oil is a finite resource and is becomnig (in very general terms) harder to find and recover – while this means prices go up (and Big Oil profits grow), it also means that the major oil companies will be looking for the next technology that will produce viable vehicles. If the hydrogen fuel cell keeps developing, who do you thnk is going to control the supply and distribution of hydrogen gas stations? Yes, it will be Exxon, Shell etc. This will come about in spite of the truth or otherwise of damaging AGW, although the timescale may be slightly affected (high carbon taxes will probably lead to faster development of alternatives).
Does this help?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/06/who-gets-the-most-access-to-network-data-like-emails-at-uea/
I especially liked Anthony’s letter of 24th Nov to Phil Jones.
I’ve left enough hints
You’re all heart, Mosh
😉
steven mosher (Comment #86675)
I think your secret is safe here, on a public internet blog. No one will suspect anything, no one who shouldn’t be reading this won’t read it.
Max_ok
I think investigating “people” is not precisely how police would discover what happened. You don’t just look or talk to a person to figure out who did what. The police need to trace through the evidence trail and I suspect that the evidence trail would be especially murky if someone at CRU leaked or hacked.
But like you, I am speculating utterly.
I see lots of possible reasons– especially if one or two of the CRU staff did leak. They would have lots of reason not to identify– and some other members at CRU would have reason. But I see even more reasons. The emails are already out. Discussing how things were solved would only bring more attention to the slipshod security systems (and possible more) at CRU. A trial could bring up lots of CRU business some might not want brought to light.
But of course, like you, I am utterly speculating.
I think a lack of any report doesn’t mean lack of cooperation has not occurred. I don’t think the police would report lack of cooperation unless it was stupendously overt.
Have the police filed any report on CRU’s level of cooperation? Did they give then an A,B,C,D or F? I bet they’ve said very little one way or the other. The police usually don’t say, and may be legally bound to say nothing. Taking their silence on a subject as evidence seems foolish to me.
The “Big Oil funding” meme is so hilarious. Big Oil, like all smart investors, allocates their money in a very diverse manner – some to WWF, some to Heartland, some to Pat Michaels, some to Phil Jones. All with the very transparent motivation of profit.
I’d think it would be a little more concerning to consider who misanthropic, “non-profit” organizations like GreenPeace are backing.
Well, on this thread the only evidence presented by the local RC functionary of a Big Oil funded conspiracy amounts to $135K given to a “denier” organization by someone who used to be in the oil business. I wonder if he has any more apples for us to consider. Just how much money has Big Oil contributed to the vast conspiracy against our beloved so-called climate scientists?
Carrick, re your comment #86655
I did no more than point out to Lucia what Michael Mann says in his WSJ letter about ATI having “ties to fossil-fuel interests†is true and provided a link to the organization’s Form 990 as evidence.
You responded “So does Standard’s Center for Climatic Research. So does CRU. Only the numbers are much, much bigger.â€
Apparently, you took my response to Lucia to mean I believe fossil-fuel interests in general are intent on discrediting climate science, and you wanted me to know that’s wrong because fossil-fuel interests fund a lot of climate research.
Carrick, I do not believe fossil-fuel interests in general want to discredit climate science, and I am aware of climate science funding by big oil. But I know ATI’s 2010 IRS Form 990 shows at least one fossil fuel interest is funding an effort to discredit Michael Mann. Whether the motivation is to protect an oil interest or a ideological interest, or both, I do not know.
Don–
Well that and then expressing it as a fraction of total funding. (As if that’s really the important criteria.)
Max_OK-
I didn’t say they didn’t have connections. Only that he regurgitated this bit, which he did. Your collection of motives is incomplete. It could be motivated by a wealthy set of people disliking bullies or scientific distortion or people feeding off the public trough. You don’t know the motivation.
Re Carrick (Comment #86670)
Perhaps Carrick misinterpreted my comment because I didn’t make myself clear.
I know of no fossil fuel interests that are funding investigations of AGW contrarians such as Inhofe and Morano, but as I indicated in my comment #86653, I know of a least one that’s funding an investigation of Michael Mann, and it wouldn’t surprise me if there are more.
If there are any fossil fuel interests that are funding investigations of AGW contrarians, I would like to hear about it, and if there are more than one fossil fuel interests funding investigations of climate scientists, I would like to hear about that too.
Max_OK–
There is a large element of apples to oranges here.
Mann is a person who received public funds to do work. Inhofe is a senator. Morano is a private individual who used to work for a senator and now works for a private entity. With respect to the latter, what’s to investigate? And how? The only reason we are aware of investigations of Mann is that they are using courts specifically to investigate the use of public funds.
At least, what legal arms could possible be used to investigate Inhofe? And for what? I’m sure if there was evidence he was mis-using public funds we’d hear about it at some point. People are always investigating Senators for that sort of thing— it doesn’t have to be an oil interest or an anti-oil interest. We don’t hear about the investigations unless something comes of them.
FOI doesn’t apply to senators or private individuals. Senators don’t receive grants. So, the sort of investigation ATI is doing wouldn’t apply period.
It doesn’t make sense to compare the non-or-indetectable investigation of Inhofe and Morano by fossil fuel interest with an investigation of Mann which were triggered by suspicions raised in the emails that were released.
From Max:
“Carrick, I do not believe fossil-fuel interests in general want to discredit climate science, and I am aware of climate science funding by big oil. But I know ATI’s 2010 IRS Form 990 shows at least one fossil fuel interest is funding an effort to discredit Michael Mann.”
From Mann:
“Phil,
I would not respond to this. They will misrepresent and take out of context anything you give them. This is a set up. They will certainly publish this, and will ignore any evidence to the contrary that you provide. They are going after Wei-Chyung because he’s U.S. and there is a higher threshold for establishing libel. Nonetheless, he should consider filing a defamation lawsuit, perhaps you too.
I have been talking w/ folks in the states about finding an investigative journalist to investigate and expose McIntyre, and his thusfar unexplored connections with fossil fuel interests. Perhaps the same needs to be done w/ this Keenan guy.
I believe that the only way to stop these people is by exposing them and discrediting them.
Do you mind if I send this on to Gavin Schmidt (w/ a request to respect the confidentiality with which you have provided it) for his additional advice/thoughts? He usually has thoughtful insights wiith respect to such matters,
mike”
I would agree that some have made Mann a bogey man that he in turn attempts to make of the Fossil Fuel interests or those he supposes have Fossil Fuel interests. I would much rather discuss Mann’s science work and the reaction of the climate science to it rather than Mann’s obvious advocacy interests.
Re lucia’s Comment #86678
Lucia, Steve McIntyre said he was questioned by a UK Counter-Terrorism Officer and a Royal Canadian Mounted Police Officer regarding the CRU hacking. See his July 15, 2011, 7:47 AM comment in the following link.
http://climateaudit.org/2011/07/14/covert-operations-by-east-anglias-cru/
If the authorities went so far as to question McIntyre, I presume they also questioned the CRU staff and anyone else at EAU who might have a motive for the hacking. If the hacker or leaker was an insider, and was questioned, he didn’t admit guilt. So that suggests the guilty party is (a) an insider who lied to the authorities, or (b) not an insider.
Kenneth Fritsch:
In Mike’s case, his advocacy informs his science, rather than the other way around. Mike only writes about “what helps the cause.”
And so if you understand his advocacy positions, you could write a credible first draft of the conclusion section of his papers for him, without even knowing the title.
Re Kenneth Fritsch’s Comment #86686
Yes, Kenneth, some have tried to make Mann a bogey man, and they continue to try, but their efforts expose their lack of decency, having recently sunk to conflating Mann with an accused child molester.
I’m glad you ” would much rather discuss Mann’s science work and the reaction of the climate science to it rather than Mann’s obvious advocacy interests.”
Lucia:
Agreed.
Part of the wretchedness of this whole movement is revealed by this consideration of facts:
1) These people are behaving as advocates for a political movement.
2) They as a group, within the US, have sided with one political party (the DNC), while attacking the other (the RNC).
3) This is a highly divisive strategy, very much in the best short-term interests of the DNC, very much against the long term interests of the movement.
4) The remediation strategies that are trumpeted by these people very much are intended to “redistribute wealth” in the name of “social justice”.
5) Without debating whether wealth redistribution is good or bad, it is clear the developing countries will like it and the industrialized countries won’t.
I think 1,2 and 4 are accurate summaries of the principle strategies of the movement and 3 and 5 are explanatory of why the movement has, for all intents and purposes, failed.
You immediately limit your demographics to 40% or so of the US voting population by tying it so closely to the DNC interests, and you also guarantee that ratification of any serious treaty is impossible.
But to tie this back to Lucia’s comment, Michael Mann cannot act as a partisan political activist, then sensibly try to hide behind the cloak of nonpartisan scientist when he is attacked.
It is especially problematic in his case—and this is the part that one really needs to understand—because there is clear evidence that the way he practices his science does not “play down the middle”, and the emails have done more to undermine his credibility as an impartial scientist more than anything any one person (Morano or Inhofe) could ever have done.
The same comments apply to James Hansen, mutatis mutandis.
Max_OK:
Or chose not to respond. Or weren’t questioned. There are probably other alternatives too.
I also don’t see any possible logic that leads from McIntyre being questioned (runs one of the blogs where the emails were first announced on, as well as seen as an enemy by CRU) as a demonstration that all CRU insiders (or very many at all) were questioned.
Re lucia’s Comment #86685
Yes, Inhofe as a Senator is exempt from FOI law, as are his staff (which at one time included Morano), despite the fact tax payers pick up the tab for their salaries and expenses. Of course, private citizens are also exempt.
So climate science contrarians who are exempt from FOI law can use the law to pick away at government funded climate scientists through FOI requests, looking for anything these scientists ever said or wrote, no matter how small or inconsequential, that may be used to discredit their work. That doesn’t seem like a level playing field.
Re Carrick Comment #86691
Carrick, suspects are those who had
1. Motive
2. Opportunity
Max_OK, this leaves about 10% of the of CRU/UEA staff.
Max_OK:
In the US, as part of the conditions for receiving federal funding at universities, it is becoming the norm to be required to take courses on responsible conduct of research.
Marano probably can’t kill anybody with his opinion.
A researcher faking data on the efficacy of a particular chemo-therapy regiment can.
If the science informs economic policies, and the science was misguided, that could in this case mean not only lost world GDP, but unnecessary deaths through starvation world wide—so it’s not like there aren’t real world consequences if the alarmists are wrong.
[Yes it’s also true that pseudo-scientists pushing their pet theories could derail a movement that could save millions of lives, and more importantly high-value real estate on the East coast of the US, but I don’t think they have very much traction. IMO the main problems facing the movement are the strategies they’ve adopted and the people they are in bed with.]
In any case, science is not a level playing field. We do have more demands placed on how we do science. Advocates don’t have the same requirements of them that scientists do. Which is the problem with being a scientist-advocate, especially if your advocacy informs your science, rather than the other way around (the way it is supposed to work).
Carrick, please explain what you mean by “this leaves about 10% of the of CRU/UEA staff.”
Carrick said:
Well, if climate scientists are third rate, then what level are the scientists who take oil company money for that “second opinion”? Pat Michaels is pretty mediocre (and is probably more of an advocate than Mann.). Richard Lindzen is a touch better. And then you really get into the dregs with Soon , Baliunas and Chilingar. Is this the “good research” those oil companies know so much about?
You are being disingenuous again, maxie. Who conflated Mann with an accused child molester? Are you talking about those who have correctly pointed out that the Penn State administration’s MO has been to turn a blind eye to transgressions of their boys, who are earners?
And maxie, the so-called climate scientists could level the playing field by not taking any more government money. Nobody would care about their freaking stupid emails. Or they could advocate giving government money to McIntyre et al that equals the money that has been spent on politicized climate research.
diogenes
The comments I read were basically conspiracy theorists–but then we get a lot of that here too. (e.g. those six investigations that cleared Mann were all whitewashes.)
lucia said in Comment #86685
“It doesn’t make sense to compare the non-or-indetectable investigation of Inhofe and Morano by fossil fuel interest with an investigation of Mann which were triggered by suspicions raised in the emails that were released.”
_____
Why not? Haven’t Inhofe and Morano used taxpayers’ dollars to misled them by taking quotes out of context at
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=d6d95751-802a-23ad-4496-7ec7e1641f2f&Region_id=&Issue_id=
Nah–those people are just using the tragedy at Penn State to further their attacks on Mann–you know, the attacks unsupported by any evidence?
Max_OK, I highly encourage you to go through the (free) CITI course, then use what you’ve learned to inform you on appropriate conduct in research.
If you still feel the same after that and having read the leaked emails, that is your prerogative. The leaks were especially poorly timed in the US, because many of us had just gotten our institute-required CITI, then we saw these emails and said “holy cow!” or something to that effect.
I have friends who are scientists (physicists) who are life-time Democrats who I am now having to talk down from very skeptical positions. (If you can’t trust the scientist, you can’t trust the science.)
Lenin understood that the intelligentsia drives change, and so rounded them up and stuck them on pig farms. In the US, it is very much the scientist giving input to congressional staffers which in turn informs on the policies of the congressman (at least if the waters haven’t been too poisoned already due to politicization of the science by the advocates), that drives future US funding. [It’s a mistake to judge how lay people react in deciding what impact climategate has had.]
Unlike the lay population, we do hold ourselves to higher standards than political pundits or politicians (both of whom practice the time-honored art of rhetorical deception, something that should play no place in scientific discourse, but sometimes does anyway).
Leave no doubt about it, climate science got a black eye over these people’s behaviors. Getting angry at the motives of the “Linda Tripp of Climategate” isn’t going to repair any damage. Continuing to stonewall and withhold data and information that belongs to the public that paid for it isn’t going to repair anything either.
Boris:
Third rate. Thanks for asking.
(Corrigendum: Phil Jones isn’t third rate even if he did accept massive amounts of funding from the petroleum industry.)
Boris:
Not all of them were targeted at Mann (so “cleared Mann” is obvious hyperbole), but I think it’s fair to label them as whitewashes and political hackery.
Boris, I’m curious. Which of the investigations of the conduct of research in the wake of CG1 do you think couldn’t credibly be characterized as “a whitewash”?
Carrick said in Comment #86695
“Marano probably can’t kill anybody with his opinion.
A researcher faking data on the efficacy of a particular chemo-therapy regiment can.”
______
GOOD GOD, Carrick, now you have me worried about how many people I have killed by reducing my consumption of fossil fuels.
I need to leave the house now to do some errands, so I won’t be responding to any more of your comments any time soon. But as a life saving measure, I will turn every light in the house on and push the furnace thermostat up to 80 before I leave.
Boris,
You are doing about as well as maxie. Who trains you guys?
“In Mike’s case, his advocacy informs his science, rather than the other way around. Mike only writes about “what helps the cause.â€
And so if you understand his advocacy positions, you could write a credible first draft of the conclusion section of his papers for him, without even knowing the title.”
Carrick, I agree that in Mann’s papers the conclusions do not necessarily fit the evidence presented. My point is that we waste bandwidth on comparing how a Max, a Boris, a Nick Stokes, etc. views all this against what others might. Who cares except to make debating points.
Max_OK
A politician and/or someone who worked for him might have misled people by taking quotes out of context! Holy cow! Stop the presses!
Headline: “Justice department to undertake massive investigation of all political figures!” – “Congress shutdown!” – “‘Honest Abe’ Not so honest?”
Max_OK:
Straw man, much?
All of them. EPA is the best, though.
But please present evidence to the contrary. And could someone please write an engineering-quality explanation of Mann’s alleged research misconduct?
These little RealClimate activist goons really take a beating, when they stray from their home turf. Kenneth is correct. It’s not worth the time it takes to slap them upside their little pointy heads.
Kenneth:
Well, some bandwidth is warranted, if for no other reason, it reveals our perspective, which I do think is valuable to know, even if the discussion is supposed to be dispassionate. And it is also useful to occasionally put up counter arguments, when the usual set of regurgitated talking points appears on a given blog.
Anyway, sometimes when I butt heads with people, I’m as much interested in challenging the boundaries of my own beliefs as I am in trying to challenge other people’s views.
Boris:
Another straw man.
Whether Mann’s done anything wrong says nothing about the quality of the investigations.
Anytime you’d care to add content, feel free. Or you can continue the sideline douchbaggery. I’m all for that too. Basically, play like you want, player.
Boris,
You agenda driven robots are impervious to content. I have been mostly watching this debate for a few years and have yet to see any of you disingenuous dogmatic dimwits budge a fraction of an inch towards rational consideration of content. I just slap you around for my amusement.
Aww, be nice you two.
McIntyre’s main complaint is that they didn’t consult HIM for the investigations (even though the NSF did) and that they didn’t investigate the right papers or the right things. It would be nice if the people who are accusing Mann of scientific malpractice would give me something specific, so i can show that it’s bogus.
McIntyre again, Boris? Good grief.
Nice example of conclusion-driven research. Thanks, Boris.
This is an exemplar of how not to conduct an investigation.
Need I add? ROTFLMAO.
I am not a robo–
PROCESSING ERROR—
Well, come on, Carrick, if you guys had something real against Mann, we would have already seen it. I guess the NSF is in on the conspiracy too?
Seriously, can one imagine a more ill-timed brash statement than one that conflates so easily with objective of whitewashes?
Boris:
So … if it’s a whitewash, it can only be because it’s a conspiracy and not just due to underlying bias?
Court cases would be very short, if they just called your mom when you got accused of something.
Somebody needs to ship boris back to RC for a little R&R (repair and re-programming).
For there to be a whitewash, then something must have been whitewashed. Show me that something.
“Him, a tradesman! It’s pure slander, he never was one. All that he did was to be very obliging, very ready to help; and, since he was a connoisseur in cloth, he went all over to choose them, had them brought to his house, and gave them to his friends for money.” – Moliere
Boris:
Very selective and clever definition of whitewash now Boris.
How about we use it in the sense that I meant it, “to exonerate by means of a perfunctory investigation”.
I doubt you could call the NSF report on Mann a whitewash by that definition. But, of course, critics of exonerated people ALWAYS claim there has been a whitewash. Do you guys have no obligation to show WHY something was a whitewash? What should have been investigated that wasn’t? How should the investigation have been less perfunctory? Anyone can whine about whitewashes. Back it up.
Boris, all I can say is the criticism is out there already if you are actually interested in reading it. Start with McIntyre’s web site, let’s see how you can do with something behind ad hominem attacks directed at him.
In any case, it would be a colossal waste of time “backing it up” with you, since you’ve made it very clear from the “so i can show that it’s bogus” comment, that your mind is made up and you don’t want to be confused by facts.
Show me the ability to reason, and I might take the time, till then, it’s a case of “I can bring you to the data, but I can’t make you think.”
First: whether or not someone lied depends on what he was asked. I have no idea what rights people have when talking to police in England. Maybe they can refuse to answer.
Even if they can’t they may be able to be evasive. So, they could be (c) an insider who did not lie to the police. But in any case, I don’t see anything to suggest (a) is unlikely.
Max_OK–
Uhhmmm… weren’t you trying to use the investigation/ noninvestigation distinction to make some point about fossil fuel interests?
But, fwiw, I don’t see the playing field as unfair to the scientists.
Re: Boris (Dec 6 14:36),
> Do you guys have no obligation to show WHY something was a whitewash?
OK. So I took a page from Carrick, and started reading McIntyre’s Climate Audit, backward from the present, stopping at the first likely item.
From a link in CA’s 11/15/11 “New Information on the Penn State Inquiry Committee”, I clicked onto the 3/10/11 What did Penn State Know? There, McI quotes from Penn State’s RA-10 Inquiry Report (PDF):
Was Finding 2 the result of due diligence? Or was it closer to a whitewash?
“Careful consideration of all the evidence and relevant materials” included the Inquiry Committee’s examination of “a full archive of [Prof. Mann’s] emails in and around the time of the preparation of AR4.”
Which of the obvious forensic approaches did the Committee take to insure the completeness of this material? “[Dr. Mann] was asked to produce all emails related to [AR4]… On January 18, 2010, Dr. Mann provided a zip-archive of these emails and an explanation of their content.”
A year after the report was issued, Eugene Wahl was asked by a different party whether he had deleted AR4-related emails. Yes, he had, as the result of a request from Phil Jones that was forwarded to him by Prof. Mann.
Here, again, is Allegation 2.
If I’m reading Boris correctly, he thinks that this investigation was adequately diligent, and not somewhere in between “whitewash” and “incompetent.”
Which I find pretty amazing.
Lucia – in the statement here no mention is made of stolen. They also indicate that the lack of charges does not mean no investigations.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/11/23/waking-policemen.html
Re alleged hacking of RC – I did make the suggestion to a blogger elsewhere that given a UK Police investigation then instigating a second police investigation may not have been considered necessary. At this point we dont know what actions Gavin took other than requesting the site be taken down and notifying UEA. You asked him a question last year where he gave you a more detailed description of what the “hacker” actually did.
There are indications both at RC and at other blogs that RC was offline for several hours immediatly following the miracle post at CA and that RC was then suffering from a number of server and file issues when it came back up later on the 17th Nov 09
Wow, what a hostile exchange!
Boris: Mike Mann devalues his own credibility by adopting policy advocacy, and even more by working behind the scenes to ‘punish’ anyone (other scientists, journal editors, publishers, reporters) who do not 100% support his desired policy outcomes. His carrying on about funding by fossil fuel interests as responsible for skepticism about climate science is conspiratorial rubbish. (IMO, it is somewhere between delusional and outright crazy.) I do hope you can understand that many practicing scientists do not expect to see such behavior in other scientists. Many found Mike Mann’s behavior appalling…. or worse; I certainly did.
Carrick: Not worth getting angry about. Yes, Mike Mann (and others) have benefited from very ‘accommodating’ investigators. But anyone who does not appreciate that fact as plainly evident is never going to be convinced otherwise.
I don’t think you all get this. The police managed to get access to all the backup’s stored on tape.
They will have examined everything.
You must have heard what happens when people report a burglary, and the police come round and find 200 cannabis plants?.
You know what the police are supposed to do when they discover a crime, whilst investigating another?
ok…if I were at UEA or CRU…if I really wanted to know about these emails, I would employ a forensic IT expert. I would not call in the police force. I worked for a company that supplied a telecomms network to some Uk forces and we offered them a choice of handsets…a slinky one or one with the dynamics of a brick. they all chose the brick because they wanted to be able to hit people with them. In all my dealings with the UK police, one of which involved a possible fraud case, I would not judge them capable of dealing with IT crime. The Norfolk police called in specialist support from the anti-terrorist unit …why?. They impounded the server. Over at WUWT, an IT expert has shown very clearly how a leak/hack could happen. Top choice is obviously a support guy copying a tape that backed up the mail server. No wonder the police are still at sea. There was no hack. Nothing to detect. And did Gavin call in the FBI at RealClimate?
Yeah, I forgot to add a frowny-face about the tone of this thread.
🙁
We could all be inspired in this regard by good old Nick, who keeps things cheerful. Irrespective of content (I’ll leave it at that).
Relatively few of the people who post here, do so because they are open to changing their minds. (Readers — perhaps; posters, not so much.) So expecting that outcome may be a recipe for frustration.
Amac, IMO, the big problem here is Boris isn’t starting with the right questions:
The first question one should ask is “What are the necessary criteria to insure an objective, independent and thorough investigation, conducted with due diligence, of allegations of wrong doing is carried out?”
The second question was “In any of these investigations, how closely were these criteria matched?”
The third question is “To the extent that the investigations did not match the criteria for an ‘objective, independent and thorough investigation, conducted with due diligence’, to what degree did the design and implementation of these investigations skirt (either through negligence, incompetence or premeditation) necessary preconditions for an appropriately conducted investigation?”
So there are three overarching questions that would have to be answered, not just simple “evidence”, because you first have to stipulate to the conditions manifested by all three of these before you can even possibly have a real discussion of evidence pertaining to whether the investigations qualified as whitewashes or not.
AMac said in Comment #86733
“A year after the report was issued, Eugene Wahl was asked by a different party whether he had deleted AR4-related emails. Yes, he had, as the result of a request from Phil Jones that was forwarded to him by Prof. Mann.”
To source the above statement, AMac provided a link to
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/03/exclusive-climatologist-says-he-.html
AMac failed to point out the link also presents a letter from Eugene Wahl who says
“For the record, while I received the email from CRU as forwarded by Dr. Mann, the forwarded message came without any additional comment from Dr. Mann; there was no request from him to delete emails.”
Wahl also says the deleted emails “have been in the public domain since the CRU hack in November 2009” and “this correspondence has been extensively examined and no misconduct found.”
Does anyone know whether Wahl had a legal obligation to not delete the e-mails?
just wondering if anyone knows when the 4 BEST papers will be published?
Oh, so because Mann supplied emails on a zip drive, you think there is no way the investigation could have known if he had deleted emails? Here’s what the NSF report says, emphasis added:
So, apparently the university did check to see if emails had been deleted.
What was the punishment that Wahl received for deleting these emails? Let me answer that for you: He got no punishment. Why? It was not against the rules for him to do so.
So you want Mann to be punished for something that Wahl did, something that was not against any rules and which Wahl was never punished for? Step back from the McIntyre Kool-Aid and just think about this for a second. The investigation was into research misconduct and no misconduct took place. It is utterly bizarre for you guys to take this tiny example and act like rules were broken when–Jesus, how many times can I say this until it sinks in–no rules were broken.
SteveF:
Bah, all in good fun, I’m sure.
Boris:
And the amazing thing is you know this without having to look at any evidence.
Carnac the Amazing!
Max_OK:
Depends on the institution, and I don’t know the particulars in this case. (It would be a contractual breach, which could result in liability issues. Unless the intent of the deleted emails was to conspire to hide evidence of illegal wrong-doing, I do not think it would be a statutory breach, at least in the US.)
There are two separate issues being conflated here though. One is did anything illegal transpire, while the second relates to ethical conduct. I’ll note that there’s a web-site I pointed you to that will give you a run-through what is “state of the art” in responsible conduct in research.
diogenes–
Ask the authors.
just a speculation…quatloos wise…..will any of the BEST papers getpublished in m”peer-reviewed literature”.
diogenes:
Same here. Calling in the police just gives your organization cover for what was a very embarrassing moment in IT security history.
Re: Carrick (Dec 6 17:33),
Your three questions make a lot of sense.
If he wants, Boris can use the example I gave in #86733 to discuss them in specific terms. (Mind you, that may not be the clearest example of a failure of diligence — it’s just the first one I came upon.)
It seems there’s a bit of Keystone Kops in deciding “let’s examine the complete set of emails for exculpatory and/or incriminating material,” and then to ask the subject — rather than a third party — to retrieve that set. And even more so to accept whatever the subject chose to write to a Zip drive as being the complete archive. Pretty close to Henry Stimson’s memorable “Gentlemen do not read other gentlemen’s mail.”
And it should be a bit embarrassing for them to have missed the email from Mann to Wahl, conveying Jones’ request to delete. The committee’s claim was that they looked diligently for such communications in the complete [sic] archive, and that not finding them was evidence of their non-existence.
But I suspect this risks turning into another Tiljanderesque conversation.
“You talk in generalities and hand-wave. Be specific!”
[upside-down, uncalibratable Tiljander03]
“Is so not upside down! And you’re being way too detailed! Doesn’t matter anyway!”
By and large, people believe what they want to believe.
Amac:
Which is why it’s important to not put too much energy into convincing the unconvincible.
Boris seems to think that behavior that could get you fired if caught is acceptable behavior for scientists.
Hi Boris
I think it is helpful to be clear about what we are saying about Michael Mann.
For me, at least:
1. I do not believe he engaged in research misconduct.
2. I believe his conduct following the research defending his findings does rise to the level of misconduct.
3. I believe his research was incorrect and not rigorously done.
4. I do not believe he was dishonest in his research–I believe he believed it stood up just fine, primarily because of a mistaken belief in his ability to employ statistical analyses.
It doesn’t take a clairvoyant to see that the climate blogs are riddled with bogus attacks on Michael Mann. Look at the dumb stuff the WSJ commenter’s believe.
Boris
just how much time does Mighty Mann spend on dealing with arguments….and how much time does he spend on dishing out fatuous ad homs..?
I don’t give a shit about bad behavior. I care about the science. It’s you so called skeptics who want to win the scientific argument on technicalities. (See AMaC Tiljander obsession.) It’s just bizarre that you think the Penn State inquiry and the NSF inquiry and the EPA inquiry are all elaborate Machiavellian plans to keep Michael Mann’s reputation intact so that….something, something.
Max_OK’s question brings up an interesting point:
This isn’t really news, but University contracts with faculty (both academic and research) have some form of restriction on behavior.
It’s become spelled out a lot more clearly since the recent spat of medical science farces (I linked one above), but it’s always been there. Nowadays, we have courses we’re required to take. I think this is more of a CYA for the University lawyers, because it makes it easier to dismiss somebody if they can’t plead innocence to knowledge that what they were doing was unethical or irresponsible.
The technical term is academic or research misconduct and if you engage in a pattern of it, you can and often will lose your job (many times via “back door” dismissals where you “leave early” which is a bit more gentle way of doing it that doesn’t make the university look as bad).
You can also be liable for damages you caused your employer by engaging in these behaviors. If people were harmed or killed (thinking again of medical sciences), of course, you also can end up criminally responsible.
Boris:
Put that on your resume, under “My personal attitudes.”
See how easy it is to get a job with that.
While I was writing #86750, Max_OK contributed #86740 and Boris penned #86742.
So I’ll claim the Carnac the Magnificent title for my Tiljanderesque prediction.
Max_OK:
Max_OK, you can assume that when I give a link, it’s because I think it supports what I write. I want readers to check.
Re-read the story, including the part in italics, and you should realize that it supports what I wrote in #86733. If you still don’t think so, quote me rather than using paraphrasing (most people aren’t very good at that).
Wahl’s innocence or guilt wasn’t the focus of #86733. That comment was a response to Boris, relating to the Penn State Inquiry on Prof. Mann’s conduct. Wahl’s wordsmithery is irrelevant to that.
.
Boris:
What I said above to Max_OK applies to you as well. About Wahl cf. Mann, and about paraphrasing.
You also wrote:
Yes, the NSF reported two things: (1) that the Penn State Inquiry had been provided a set of emails by Prof. Mann, and that (2) the Penn State Inquiry then determined that emails had not been deleted.
You missed my point, which wasn’t about what the Penn State Inquiry concluded, but on whether they exercised appropriate diligence in conducting their inquiry.
Boris,
The primary goal of any “internal” investigation is to protect the enterprise. This is well-recognized in virtually every field.
Whether it’s UEA/CRU or Penn State investigating themselves (the latter is particularly newsworthy these days) or the NSF investigating someone who’ve they’ve given oodles of funding to (think DOE and Solyndar), there is no doubt that there are compromised interests involved.
Why in the world would you or anyone else believe that somehow the “climate science enterprise” is any different than any other enterprise?
But more to the point, where in the Penn State “investigation” report do they actually say that they read all the e-mails?
Here’s an example of criminal wrong doing.
I doubt not centering your PCAs or including inverted non-proxy “proxies” descends to that level. 😉
Deleting your emails is problematic, it certainly is unethical. Even forwarding an email to another person that urges them to delete their emails is unethical.
Boris:
Tsk. What complete silliness from Boris….
One need not have Machiavellian plans before a pattern of institutionalized behavior can appear.
It is a little strange to see people defending Mann.
If you are, you haven’t followed ClimateAudit enough, or read the emails or read about Mann’s efforts to suppress other scientific views or Mann’s efforts to get people fired for simply publishing (or editing) research or read about what Mann’s colleagues say about him behind his back.
The fact that fossil fuel companies gave $22,302 to some organization versus $1.0 billion to pro-AGW institutions does not make a fake hockey stick real. Most of us are not dumb. That might work on environmental website but most of us know the difference between $22,000 and $1,000,000,000.
AMac said:
I quoted your sort of snarky question:
–a question about how the PSU committee determined that no emails had been deleted. I think it’s pretty obvious that they didn’t just take Mann’s word that the zip file was all the emails. That they didn’t explain how they did this in a report is not particularly noteworthy since I think we would know how a university would determine if emails had been deleted or not. Wasn’t your question an attempt to argue that PSU had not done due diligence because they had just accepted Mann’s zip file without question? Sure seemed that way to me. Sorry if I was wrong on that.
Boris, you left out this part:
BF mine of course.
The correct answer to that question is “yes”.
Re: Boris (Dec 6 18:11),
For all that we’ve strained Lucia’s hospitality by jousting on this topic, I think you still don’t get why Tiljander matters.
1. The key paleo recons in Mann08 fall apart without Tiljander. In other words, they tell us nothing about history of the Earth’s climate over the past two millenia.
2. Scientists who have made mistakes and can’t recognize them, probably have a pattern of making similar mistakes.
3. When scientific specialists cannot seem to grasp errors which scientific generalists see right away, that’s a sign of weakness in said specialty. In this case, it seems that confirmation bias and a low level of numeracy are the main factors. The CG emails suggest that advocacy plays a role as well.
4. Mainstream scientists and scientifically-literate advocates cannot address the key problems with Mann08’s use of Tiljander, but they have great difficulty in adjusting their views of the subject. This poor quality of analytical performance is worrisome, to the extent that it informs issues that have important policy implications.
I’ll stop here, rather than risking complaints of thread-jacking. Comment on my blog, if you want to continue the discussion. (And the offer of a guest post on the subject is still open.)
Damn. How can I argue against “institutionalized behavior”? It’s a killer phrase. Obviously the EPA, PSU and the NSF have all been institutionally brainwashed to…something, something. I don’t know what it is, but it involves excusing behavior that everyone else on the planet would automatically conclude was research misconduct and people who work at Goldman Sachs or Pizza Hut would be immediately fired for.
Categorically untrue. You’re better than this. Mann showed the results without Tiljander.
Yes, Mann should immediately present results without Tiljander. OH, WAIT HE DID THAT ALREADY.
I’ll stop here.
Re: Boris (Dec 6 18:42),
That’s an interesting point. Firstly, no attempt at snarkiness here. Secondly, it seemed evident to me that the Inquiry Committee’s narrative was meant to be a fairly complete account of what they did. Thus, I do interpret their report to mean that they accepted a Zip drive from Prof. Mann, and took his word that it contained a complete archive of the relevant emails. Going further, I think this indicates that the Inquiry Committee did not take further steps, such as hiring a disinterested and qualified third party to independently compile a complete archive, and to perform forensics to determine if any unreported deletions had taken place.
If such steps had been taken, I believe that the Committee’s narrative would have described them.
Can you point to a link where this issue is discussed by people in the know? I’m prepared to revise my views and admit error, if the evidence points that way.
There’s also the subsidiary issue that the Committee did not mention the email (originally from Jones) that Mann forwarded to Wahl. Either it wasn’t present in the Zip drive (why not?), or the methods employed by the Committee didn’t locate it (why not?), or they read it and didn’t think it was relevant to Allegation 2 (why not?).
AMac, never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.
Boris (Comment #86767) —
Likely the last time I mention T*******r on this thread.
> Mann showed the results without Tiljander.
Yes, but that does not mean what you think it means. Discussed here. Inspect the third figure, focusing on the green tracing. Note the vertical line at 1500 AD.
Comments there are still open, if you want to continue (or, write that guest post).
.
S. Basinger: heh. Anyway, time to leave the screen and attend to other things.
The fact that Mann could mistake the recent Tiljander data for a temperature proxy suggests not only a weakness in the methodology but also a total lack of knowledge of the properties of the data series.
It is this sort of behaviour that prompted a fellow climate scientist to write:
“He is just as capable of regressing these data again any other “target†series , such as the increasing trend of self-opinionated verbage he has produced over the last few years , and … (better say no more) Keithâ€
(though that was referring to the feat of creating a NH reconstruction from some trees in Western USA)
boris
“I don’t give a shit about bad behavior.”
I note that you are at least consistent in this and have never complained about the behavior the some skeptics engage in that
others find objectionable. I also note for the record that you have never complained about Mcintyres snarkiness. ahem.
Since you don’t give a shit about bad behavior and think that it doesnt matter, you could easily then just embrace the truth that
Jones behaved badly, Mann behaved badly, Wigley you name it.
Why fight so valiently to defend behavior that doesnt matter?
seems odd. If you did that you would be more like me.
What those guys did was wrong. It didnt change the core science. We should just admit that suggest some improvements and move on. But no, instead we get people defending the bad behavior, denying the bad behavior and then saying that they dont give a shit about best practices.
Rather odd. Like people had a knee jerk defensive reaction, before they engaged their brains. and having had that kneee jerk defensive reaction they now have to find a way to walk back from it.
The bad behavior does matter. If Jones, Mann, Briffa, Wigley, and all the other bad actors are the best climate scientists in the World, then there is good reason to believe that the core science, as it is being sold by those punks, is substandard. Remove the high stakes consequences, the ego tripping messiah complexes, the institutionalized confirmation bias, the vindictive stifling of competing research, the compulsive political advocacy and the good ole boys of atmospheric physics would probably have come up with a significantly different version of the core climate science.
Paleoclimatologists estimate temperature, upto about 1950, from the ‘density’ of tree rings.
They get tree ring data from X-ray absorbance readings of tree ring cores.
Trees cannot move and so have a ‘trick’ to get rid of toxic heavy metals; they chelate them in their bark.
Heavy metals, like those found in the unscrubbed smoke from coal fired power stations, absorb X-rays.
Although many biologists have used tree rings to identify the date and index of heavy metal pollution, paleoclimatologists have not.
Paleoclimatologists have not examined the levels of heavy metals in the per/post-decline in tree ring densities.
If I know who trees deal with heavy metals and I know about the ability of these metals to absorb X-rays, and I know about the clean air acts; why don’t they ?
Boris:
Actually you can’t. You made the claim that it can only be explained by Machiavellian behavior…and it’s wrong for well known reasons.
I thought you had a college degree. Did they not teach you any sociology? This is pretty basic stuff.
Steven Mosher (Comment #86772)
December 6th, 2011 at 7:40 pm
So you have no problem with snark, only if scientists do it? Is that what you are saying.
The so called ‘bad behavior’ was largely just a lot of selective quotes taken out of context that are completely innocent, or, are just the usual bitching that happens in every job. The only thing that was not advisable was a request to delete emails to avoid FOI, but even then that was not because they had anything to hide, but because they know how everything they say is mispresented and used to attack the science. Don’t believe me, just look at how many completely innocent remarks are taken as evidence of bad behavior. If the case against the scientists is so watertight, why does dishonesty on the part of ‘skeptics’ have to figure in the attacks so often.
The fact is that the science has not been touched because of Climategate 1 & 2. More research is tracking the ‘missing heat’ that Trenberth was complaining about.
http://theconversation.edu.au/climate-change-and-the-acidifying-freshening-warming-southern-ocean-4489
Acidification is also becoming alarming, it will do serious damage earlier than expected.
The oceans are cooling, bugs; for how long even kim doesn’t know.
====================
I guess you didn’t read the link then, Kim. That sort of behavior would explain the things you don’t know.
Bugs.
read up thread so you dont mistake Boris for me.
Heh, bugs, check out Pielke Pere on Tibetan tree rings. Well, I don’t know about tree rings, so what to think? What to do?
===================
I just posted some December NAO/AO/PNA comparisons for the last several Decembers along with the changing SSTs this December vs last December.
http://sabolscience.blogspot.com
Off topic, but I thought some people here might find this interesting: I just got served with a FOIA request!
Basically, somebody wants a copy of a research proposal which I authored and got funded by the National Science Foundation earlier this year. Now, I understand why this is fair game under the FOIA–taxpayers should be allowed to see what the federal government is spending their money on. However, the person asking for the proposal happens to be a young (just hired, it seems) assistant professor at another research institution. I can think of no reason for him to want to see my proposal (which naturally contains all my research ideas, as well as a 3-year research plan) other than, let us say, for him to “get” some ideas for himself?
If so, this is a funny way to set out to make a career in science.
P.S.: Of course my University will send him a copy of my proposal; it cannot do otherwise. What I’m pondering is whether I should send him a personal letter myself, as well.
“Boris (Comment #86729)
December 6th, 2011 at 2:36 pm
I doubt you could call the NSF report on Mann a whitewash by that definition. But, of course, critics of exonerated people ALWAYS claim there has been a whitewash. Do you guys have no obligation to show WHY something was a whitewash? What should have been investigated that wasn’t? How should the investigation have been less perfunctory? Anyone can whine about whitewashes. Back it up.”
Ross McKitrick does a great job of documenting the inadequacies of the climategate investigations in his publication “Understanding the Climategate Investigations” found here: http://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/rmck_climategate.pdf
It is a well-documented resource for anyone interested in understanding the issues.
Carrick (Comment #86713)
“Anyway, sometimes when I butt heads with people, I’m as much interested in challenging the boundaries of my own beliefs as I am in trying to challenge other people’s views.”
Carrick, you and others here, might want to consider upping your game by more consistently choosing the more challenging aspects and people’s views of the climate science debate.
Julio: I would at the very least send him an email, just to ask him what exactly he’s up to. At any rate, you have the guy’s name and department, right? I he starts publishing eerily “familiar” experiments, you can make a fuss.
OTOH, maybe the guy just wanted some examples of successful grants, as a guidance for writing his own. Considering the current levels of competition, I guess every little helps.
toto: that’s, of course, a possibility I hadn’t thought of, although if he’s who I think he is (his first name was not spelled out in the publications I have in mind), he already has spent time working with people who are (typically) more successful at getting funding than I am, so he could just as easily get pointers from them. (OTOH, there may be reasons not to do it that way…)
It still feels weird. I’m going to need a little time to process this.
Julio–
You might want to consider letting others know he made the FOI request too. “Gossip” isn’t always a bad thing.
lucia, I hope things don’t come to that. I will certainly keep a close watch on his research output for the next couple of years.
The thing is, I have been in this business for a long, long time, and, of course, I realize it is competitive, but it would *never*, ever have occurred to me that one could use the FOIA to get a peek at another group’s research plans. I mean, we do publish our ideas in scientific journals, and before that we air them out in preprints and conference presentations, and everything “out there” is, of course, considered fair game (provided you reference it appropriately, and give credit where credit is due)–but this approach strikes me as incredibly sneaky. If (when) I write to him I’m going to have to restrain myself not to say so in as many words.
Oh well, live and learn, live and learn…
Julio —
Often these days, the abstracts/summaries of research proposals can be found online at the granting institution’s website. At least, for successful (funded) proposals.
I take it that your FOIA requestor is asking for a copy of the entire proposal, including Background, Methods, and Preliminary Results. Likely 5 to 20 pages of dense text and a few figures.
Is this proposal funded, under review, or unfunded?
Back a few years ago, most submissions were considered confidential. I take it that is not the situation here — as, if it was, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Re: AMac (Comment #86790)
Yes, he wants the whole thing. Presumably he learned of its existence because, as you say, the abstracts of funded proposals are publicly available. And it is funny because, also as you say, proposals under review are considered strictly confidential. I never realized that once they are funded, anybody can get them under FOIA!
The NSF tells us that “Records are available to the public on request except for material that is personal, privileged or confidential, or otherwise exempt from disclosure under law. NSF will remove, before disclosure to the requester, personal information (SSN, date/place of birth, individual salaries, bios, pending and non-Federal grants) in the file about yourself or other individuals under Exemption 6 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to protect personal privacy.”
So he’ll get everything except for my SSN. (Thank goodness for small favors!) 🙂
I said above that this seems really sneaky, except that, of course, it also does not seem very clever, since his name is now known to me, and I’m, of course, going to watch him like a hawk. So what does he expect to gain? Presumably something intangible. Maybe to see which lines of research or methodology I have *not* considered yet, to see if there is an opening for him there? If so, in the end science will advance, of course, so I suppose it’s all good.
But it still feels sneaky.
Husband who hacked into wife’s email faces felony charge. Could get up to 5 years.
p://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-12-07/email-hacking-cheating/51698546/1?loc=interstitialskip
He suspected she was having an affair, and her email showed she was.
“Walker and his attorneys, Leon Weiss and Matthew Klakulak, said the law was never intended for domestic matters, but was designed to prevent identity theft and the theft of trade secrets.”
This is a good example of how writing laws solely to protect corporate interests may have unintended consequences for the public at large. Thankfully most countries other than the US don’t defer so meekly to their corporate masters.
Many countries have protections for whistleblowers.
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/ResolvingWorkplaceDisputes/Whistleblowingintheworkplace/DG_10026552
julio,
He should have contacted you first, if he had an innocent intention. You should not feel shy about contacting him and asking him wtf is up.
Julio: Could it be possible he was considering a similar line of research to yours and realised you’d already submitted something along those lines? Maybe he doesn’t want to duplicate what you’re already doing or maybe he believes you stole his research ideas and wants to check whether the details are similar!
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From his perspective, maybe you are the sneaky one!
Don: OK 🙂
DaveJR: I don’t think so. The research on which the proposal is based has been posted at the preprint archive for a year now, the first paper has been out for months, and I gave one public presentation on this in June, at a conference where (checks list of presenters)… apparently he wasn’t there. But anyway, if this was one of the usual gripes (you didn’t quote my work, etc.) he should have contacted me (or the journal) long ago through the usual channels.
The idea that he may not want to duplicate what I’m *planning* to do makes more sense, but what a way to go about it!
Julio: Definitely contact him, then see what you think of his answer.
Well well well! While we are debating various conspiracies, it looks like some regulars of this forum have been busy doing real science!
Re: toto (Dec 7 14:24),
Thanks for the link, toto. Beautiful graphics. Congrats to Zeke Hausfather, Steven Mosher, and Nick Stokes (and coauthors Matthew Menne and Claude Williams).
Nice to see Steven and Nick together on this. Perhaps a bit surprising, considering their rather public differences of opinion, but all the more positive for that reason. This kind of cooperation, setting aside one’s egos (and prejudices) for a good cause, is, of course, what science should really be about.
Congratulations to all!
Lucia,
OT, and it looks like I’m a day late on this, but apparently Tamino DID succeed in getting his paper published:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/12/global-temperature-news/
While I’m glad to see a blogger get a paper published, I’m nonetheless surprised to see it made it through peer review, particularly with the issues raised a while back with respect to his “how fast is it warming” post (mainly the unphysical nature of having vastly different sensitivies to different forcings, and why would you necessarily fit an underlying line that’s linear with time rather than a response to forcings?). The fact that Dr. Rahmstorf attached his name to it, along with the positive reception at RealClimate, is also disconcerting. This seems to be an exercise in curve fitting, which, if present in “skeptical” papers, would (rightfully) be skewered. But I’ll have to give it a more in-depth look before writing anything up. Any thoughts?
Re: toto (Comment #86786)
Just to close this particular OT, I e-mailed the guy and you called it right–he says he just wanted to see an example of a successfully funded proposal by someone in his field. I tried to point out that he sure went about it in a strange way (he’s done three postdoc stints; couldn’t he have asked one of his postdoctoral advisors??), but in the end it seems another instance of the old adage–do not attribute to a conspiracy what can be successfully explained by cluelessness. 🙂
Julio,
I was at a trade show last year, and we got a sudden and unexpected flux (dozens!) of international distributors visiting our booth and asking lots of questions… And all those reps worked for one of our competitors. We immediately suspected/feared that the competitor was planing to launch some new product to match our products.
Turned out that the distributors had been sent to visit ALL competitor booths. Someone got the idea that the distributors were losing sales because they didn’t know enough about the competition, and required that each distributor try to learn more by visiting all competitor’s booths….. very poor form for trade shows, where the objective is to inform potential customers about your products, not the competition. The temptation is to always suspect the worst instead of just odd behavior.
toto:
Yep. I went by to see it this afternoon and had a very interesting and long chat with Zeke and Steven.
Great job guys!
julio:
Speaking out of turn slightly. Steven Mosher’s temperature reconstruction uses Nick’s code, so even with some differences of opinion, there has been a collaboration of sorts going on for a while.
The sharing of code and methods has created a new dynamic in climate science… One of the things we were talking about today.
I think it started with GISTEMP releasing their code after receiving vigorous criticism from Steve McIntyre, and maybe got some more impetus when the CRU data set were released after the emails were leaked.
There’s a morality message in there somewhere.
Kenneth Fritsch:
Not even sure what point you even trying to say here, other than I guess we are supposed to ignore Max_OK and Boris?
If we only discoursed with people who were “like minded”, or only with a carefully selected series of K.F. approved topics, this would quickly become a boring echo chamber.
Julio
“Nice to see Steven and Nick together on this. Perhaps a bit surprising, considering their rather public differences of opinion, but all the more positive for that reason. This kind of cooperation, setting aside one’s egos (and prejudices) for a good cause, is, of course, what science should really be about.”
It’s pretty simple. Nick and I do not disagree about the science. we disagree about other stuff and those two streams never cross.
gavin dropped by today. Heck I’d work with Gavin at the drop of a hat, and I’d never say word one about the things we disagree
about. That just doesn’t get in the way of the job. It cant. Learned that long ago. compartmentalized, I am.
In the end when you are sharing ideas and code and work with somebody else you had better be able to let go of differences
in unrelated areas. Plus when you meet Nick in person you realize that he is a genuine man. plus he writes wicked fast code.
Menne and Williams were also nice to work with. They didnt once raise the issue that I had FOIAd NOAA. not on the agenda.
I should add that I really appreciated working with Steve and Zeke on this project. Disagreements aren’t a problem when there’s science to be done. And it was Steve’s focus and thoroughness that carried us through.
@Mosher
So they have to behave like perfect gentlemen, you, on the other hand, can continue to act like a prat. Compartmentalized. (9_9)
Bugs So they have to behave like perfect gentlemen, you, on the other hand, can continue to act like a prat.
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If we’re going to resort to the language of the playground may I respond with “it takes one to know one”
Steve Mosher – any chance of a visit?
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/12/6/worse-than-we-thought.html
Re: bugs (Comment #86811)
…and then, there is bugs. *sigh*
bugs.. who is always the prat.
Ya shoulda takin’ that left turn at Albuquerque, Bugsy…
I’m also interested in the Tamino paper, so I’ll join Troy in reckless OT’ing.
Well, IIUC, his “forcing” data are not expressed in common units (and certainly not in anything resembling W/m2). Why should we assume that they should all have the same weighting in the final result?
There’s no necessity. It’s a starting hypothesis made plausible by the fact that warming since 1975 look pretty linear. This hypothesis is then validated by the final result after you linearly remove the transient forcings – a bunch of near-straight lines fluctuating in near-perfect agreement.
Unless you assume that sensitivity to some forcings has increased/decreased significantly over time (in which case, subtracting them with a constant coefficient could be masking an underlying non-linear trend), I’m not sure there is a problem there. And AFAIK nobody is assuming that.
As Tamino himself points out in the comments, if you want to extend the analysis to longer timescales (when the trend is obviously non-linear), then you can’t use that method, and you need to use all the actual forcings as you suggest. He says that this is precisely what is done in a paper by Lean & Rind (I haven’t looked).
toto:
Well, the solar forcing is indeed given in TSI (which is W/m^2), and we’d merely need to adjust for the geometry and albedo to get to the actual forcing (~ *.7 * .25). Similarly, we have a ballpark figure on the relationship between stratospheric aerosol optical thickness (which Tamino uses for volcanic) and the forcing (~ 25 W/m^2 per tau).
As I previously discussed with respect to his first post:
I think the removal of the ENSO weather variations may be okay in principle (although each phase results in an underlying heat/loss gain that will affect later temperatures), but when you start removing forcings (e.g. solar and volcanic), using separate variables to represent their sensitivities, while leaving in others (i.e. GHG and anthro aerosols) to consider as a linear increase…I think you begin to move towards “curve fitting”.
Troy_CA 86822,
The response to forcing (the apparent climate sensitivity) changes at all time scales because the response of the ocean surface temperature to changes in forcing is a very non-linear temporal function. The basic problem is that a relatively brief ‘impulse’ (like volcanic aerosols) can reasonably be expected to yield a surface temperature response that is substantially different from (smaller) the response to a slower cyclical change like the solar cycle. A much longer term aperiodic forcing (like increasing GHG’s) will have yet another expected (larger) response. The only way to make sense of the response to various forcings (and maybe learn something about the true equilibrium climate sensitivity) is to have a reasonably accurate model of how the ocean/atmosphere system responds to forcing at all temporal scales…. and that means a reasonably accurate model of ocean heat diffusion. Simple ‘slab’ type ocean models are very poor for identifying the true climate sensitivity from the response to different kinds of forcing.
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The fact that current climate models almost all rather grossly overestimate total ocean heat accumulation over the past 55 years strongly suggests that they are overstating climate sensitivity. If modeled ocean uptake is too fast, then the response to volcanic forcing is damped in the model relative to reality, and only higher sensitivity can make the model response reasonably match the data. Stated another way: if modeled climate sensitivity is too high, then only an exaggerated ocean heat uptake rate can make the modeled response to volcanic and solar forcing match the data; the models do have an exaggerated ocean heat uptake rate.
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By the way, if you have a reasonably modeled diffusive ocean, then I think there should be no problem with considering each type of forcing separately, since all models assume a linear response to modest size changes in forcing.
In Comment #86825, SteveF writes —
This is one of the most interesting assertions concerning how laypeople should be thinking about GCMs.
I don’t recall any of the modeling whizzes at Mainstream science/advocacy blogs hosting a discussion of this point that sketches out a clear-cut position, and is accessible to a scientifically-literate generalist audience.
Anyone have a link to such a post, or the abstract of a suitable article?
A question for the subset of Blackboard readers who are qualified to present an informed opinion: how do you evaluate SteveF’s claim about GCMs’ treatments of ocean heat accumulation over a time-scale of decades?
Bugs, what do you think? (Please, only answer if you can refrain from discussing S**** McI***** in your comment.)
AMac –
I believe there are two standard responses:
1) Ocean Heat measurements are uncertain, particularly below 750m (where more ocean heat may have accumulated)
2) If the models have overestimated the OH accumulation, it is because they underestimated the aerosol forcing, which would reduce the energy imbalance at the TOA.
So there definitely “outs”, I think, for those defending the models on these points.
SteveF-
You raise good points related to the different transient responses, and I find it hard to disagree. Still, as I recall, PaulK found the best fit against the GISS-ER model reduced the transient response to about 70% for volcanic forcings (for which Tamino himself jumped on him in the “Mathturbation” post for adjusting the efficacy of this forcing)…but a 4:1 ratio seems rather extreme for differences in transient forcing responses, particularly when it’s determined without a physics-based model. One thing worth testing — I’ll probably try this when I get a chance — is seeing how this statistical model performs when it is tuned against the 1979-1999 period, and then extrapolated to the most recent decade.
Troy_CA (Comment #86836),
For your point #1: Yes, to some extent. However, I think the key is that a defensible model of ocean heat uptake (one that is not in conflict with the 0-750 meter data) still constrains the range of credible sensitivities. IIRC, even (the great) Tamino expressed some surprise that his regression of temperature history against solar forcing gave a larger response than expected, based on climate models….. suggestive of decadal ocean uptake rates in the models that are higher than correct. I mean, a ~1-decade cyclical forcing like the solar cycle has very little long term (deep ocean) influence; only the top few hundred meters can be much influenced.
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WRT your point 2: Of course a heat balance requires this, but it strikes me as just a fig leave, not a credible argument, since it means the ocean part of the models is still wrong, because the ocean heat uptake is a response to changes in ocean surface temperature, not aerosols. An overstated (or understated) aerosol effect in the model does not mean the measured ocean surface temperature history is less accurate. Accuracy of the ocean part of the models would seem to be independent of accuracy of aerosol effects.
Carrick said in Comment #86702
December 6th, 2011 at 1:17 pm
“Max_OK, I highly encourage you to go through the (free) CITI course, then use what you’ve learned to inform you on appropriate conduct in research.”
_________
Carrick, thank you for bringing the CITI course to my attention. Now that I have some time for the course, I find it is not available to me because I’m not affiliated with an institution.
Please let me know if I am misinterpreting the instructions on registering for the CITI course, or if you can suggest a way I might take the course without being affiliated with an institution.
Re: SteveF (Comment #86838) 
December 8th, 2011 at 12:25 pm
The ocean heat uptake is probably not just a function of SST but of also of shortwave penetration. Likely you may also need to consider wind field, local precip. and hydrological changes. So it’s actually seems plausible that getting the aerosols seriously wrong will throw off your heat uptake (even assuming the model physics were anything close to correct in the first place).
Oliver,
Near infrared (about 60% of total surface energy? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_Spectrum.png) is absorbed in the first few meters or less. The shorter wavelength fraction (about 40% of the energy) is mostly absorbed in the top 100 meters (maybe ~36% of the total energy), and almost all of the rest (~4%) is absorbed between between 100 and 200 meters. Any direct influence of aerosols is essentially limited to more or less warming of the upper 200 meters, and the vast majority of direct aerosol influence is in the top 100 meters. So yes, aerosols are not strictly limited to influencing the surface temperature, but they should not have much effect more than 100 meters below the surface. Certainly diffusion is the dominant process for heat transport below 200 meters, and probably dominant below 100 meters.
.
You would only have to consider wind field/wave influence if an incorrect aerosol forcing value were to significantly change these. Surface waves/turbulence appear to have virtually no influence on mixing below the ‘well mixed layer’… maybe 60 meters on average.
SteveF (Comment #86849) 
December 8th, 2011 at 1:57 pm
My comment was mainly just to point out that the surface the and top-100-meters-or-so temperatures are not quite the same thing.
It may be called “diffusion” in common (climate?) usage but I am pretty sure that it is not actually diffusion that you’re thinking of!


However, there does seem to be a fairly widespread belief in the field that wind forced motions are important for what goes on (mixing, etc.) at the bottom of the mixed layer. This is quite aside from wind-forced surface waves (although these are probably quite important to resonant forcing of the mixed layer in the first place).
Thanks all.
Max_OK, if you are really interested, contact them and explain your reason for wanting to be involved.
Much of it is based on publicly available documents. If you have problems, I can dig up the original sites they mined from for the on–line courses.
Re Carrick Comment #86857
Carrick, thanks. I will contact them.
Oliver (Comment #86850),
As far as I have been able to figure out, “diffusion” is usually taken to include ‘eddy down-mixing’, which is certainly the dominant downward transport mechanism. Molecular diffusion/thermal conduction are insignificant contributors over the depths (hundreds of meters) in question.
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Significant motion below the surface due to surface waves is (IIRC) limited to less than twice the wave peak-to-peak distance. (That is, if the wave peaks are 30 meter apart, the motion from the waves is limited to under 60 meters.) This really does restrict the contribution of wave motion to well under 100 meters depth, and to under 60 meters most everywhere.
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The “well mixed layer” is not ‘well mixed’ due to physical motion at the surface, but rather due to heating of water below the surface from absorption of solar energy in the visible wavelength range, which leads to convective overturning. The base of the well mixed layer (the transition to the thermocline) is the depth at which the heat needed to warm upwelling abyssal water (about 1 cm per day on average) just balances the residual solar flux at that depth.
Re: SteveF (Comment #86873) 
December 8th, 2011 at 6:29 pm
Eddy mixing is often modeled as diffusion and even spoken of as if it behaves like diffusion, but the reality is that diffusion is probably not a very good model for turbulent mixing. That was the reason for my original comment.
As I alluded to in my post, there are wind-forced motions which are indeed waves but which exist quite apart from surface gravity waves.


The conventional wisdom is that solar heating tends to re-stratify while wind events tend to re-mix. The reasoning is that solar heating is strongest at the surface and decays rapidly with depth; this heating profile tends to increase (convective) stability. By contrast, cooling at night by long wave emission does tend to lead to convection and overturning.
Meanwhile, wind “excitation” can overcome the existing stability and deepen the mix layer. All of these effects are seen in the daily and seasonal cycles in many in situ measurements.
Again, to relate this back to the previous posts, it might be reasonable to suggest that changes in insolation and clear sky fraction (among other effects) due to aerosols may change the heating profile and therefore the mixing. Changes in wind patterns, decrease in daily variability, increase in surface salinity/stability due to increased rainfall, etc., would also be plausible factors often omitted from the discussion.
Oliver,
I’m not wild about the conventional wisdom on this subject. 😉
I don’t think we are really saying anything very different here, but I think the magnitude of the effects needs to be considered. The daily solar flux does indeed warm the surface layers slightly (and surface wave action mixes this warmth downward by some meters). But the magnitude of the daily cycle is modest. 6 KW hours/M^2 each day (excluding surface heat loss) can warm 30 meters of water by only ~0.17C. Since there is more surface heat loss during the day than at night on average (~60% of solar energy is absorbed in the top meter, and so warms the water very near the surface considerably), the daily variation in the average temperature of the top 30 meters has to be considerably less than ~0.17C, and (I suspect) less than 0.1C. The convective overturning at night due to surface cooling does for sure maintain the temperature uniformity of the well mixed layer, but the depth of that layer has (I believe) much more to do with the local rate of upwelling than the effects of wind (either surface waves or larger scale motions).
If you look at the Argo profiles across the tropical pacific, you see that in the east the well mixed layer is thin (<20-30 meters in some places) but as much as 200 meters in the 'Western Pacific Warm Pool". The rate of local upwelling is high in the East and very low in the west. Solar energy is accumulating as the water flows from east to west across the Pacific. Wind shear does push the surface water toward the west, so that warm water "piles up", but that wind driven motion is not what is directly causing the change in mixed layer depth. It is the balance between the rate of upwelling of cold water and visible wavelength solar flux (especially <500 nm wavelengths) absorbed at depth which controls the depth of the well mixed layer.
Outside the tropics the situation is more complicated, since high summer solar flux tends to create a thin seasonal warm layer on top of a deeper (and colder) well mixed layer, which is maintained by deeper winter-time convective cooling.
SteveF (Comment #86917) 
December 9th, 2011 at 10:53 am
We do have “observations” to back it up. It was just easier to appeal to conventional wisdom. 😉
Well, given some of the comments made here in the past, I think I’m going to pass on any “back of the envelope” calculations of my own. 😉 Let me just offer two sort of random comments. First, surface wave action only really mixes anything when the waves break, which is usually only when there are strong winds. Second, 0.17 °C is a huge magnitude when you consider that customary definitions of the mixed layer specify a maximum difference of 0.02–0.1°C from bulk temperature.
It has a lot to do with upwelling in the localized regions where big upwelling is happening. But then again, these places are probably not the best places to model the upper ocean as a well-defined mixed layer with diffusive mixing going on below it.
Oliver,
Just one more comment on this: If we imagine an ocean where water is not (almost) transparent to wavelengths below 500 nm (say, all sunlight absorbed within a meter), then there could never exist very much of a ‘well mixed layer’ with uniform temperature. Instead, there would be a continuous decrease in temperature with depth below the surface, just as there is along the thermocline, due to the balance between upwelling cold water and eddy down-mixing of surface warmth. It is absorption of significant solar energy well below the surface which creates the well mixed layer.
Oliver:
Hm… Back of the envelope at least provides a quantitative basis for demonstrating that why you are claiming could plausibly be true.
My own personal gripe is when people offer a rhetorical argument that has no quantitative substantiation. As long as it’s just words, you can make the world dance anyway you want it too, just like a puppet. Put numbers in, and suddenly the arguments get anchored by e.g. the order of magnitudes involved, it’s testable, and doesn’t depend on how well one can stream rhetorical argument together.
Carrick,
In this case I think it’s sufficient to point out that 0.17°C may sound small, but it’s actually a large relative change when we’re talking about an oceanic mixed layer which deviates by less than 0.1 or 0.02°C (with some appropriate binning) over tens to hundreds of meters.
Also this is really well-established stuff, kind of like claiming Hadley Cells exist without showing calculations to prove it. It isn’t hand waving or dancing or anything like that.
Re: SteveF (Comment #86925)
December 9th, 2011 at 11:42 am
If I take a stable two layer system and heat the top layer a bunch and the bottom layer less, then how will that lead to convective mixing?
Is the result any different if I say the top layer is 1 meter thick instead of 50?
Oliver (Comment #86931),
I’m not sure I follow your questions. Of course, increased warming at the surface, and less at depth, will lead to increased stratification, not increased convection.
Don’t understand this question. The point of my comment about the depth over which solar energy is absorbed is that an opaque ocean would have very little ‘well mixed layer’. An opaque ocean would warm (by up to several degrees!) during the day, but only very near the surface, with all down mixing due to surface wave driven turbulence, and then nighttime cooling would lead to convective mixing only in the top few meters… because the underlying water would always be cooler than the surface water. In other words, the thermocline would start just below the surface, not somewhere near 60 meters (on average). The uniform temperature of the well mixed layer is a direct result of convective overturning, and the depth of that convection is mainly controlled by solar heat absorbed well below the surface and the heat “used” to warm upwelling abyssal water.
Oliver,
What I said earlier was “the daily variation in the average temperature of the top 30 meters has to be considerably less than ~0.17C, and (I suspect) less than 0.1C.” I’m not sure why you think that statement is inconsistent with “less than 0.1C”.
Re: SteveF (Comment #86935)
Let me try and clarify some of them without belaboring the issue too much.
We agree on this point.
As I mentioned earlier, there are multiple processes which act to create a “well-mixed layer.” Nighttime convection is one, but wind driven mixing (not synonymous with by surface wave mixing) is another. It depends which process dominates locally.
Re: SteveF (Comment #86936)
If you imagine a mixed layer which varies by less than 0.1 °C (or whatever other number one chooses) over tens of meters with a thermocline below, and now you apply a depth-dependent temperature modulation of amplitude 0.1 °C, then it can easily be seen how this might have a big influence on the dynamics in that layer. Hence my point that the diel cycle is not really that “modest” as far as the mixed layer is concerned, even if the numbers look small.
Oliver,
I do not want to belabor the issue either. I understand now what you were asking. However, I have thought about this subject quite a lot, and I can see no physically reasonable mechanism other than convective overturning which can create a uniform (warmer) surface layer with a fairly sharp transition (<5-10 meters) to the thermocline. In the (somewhat limited) reading I have done on the subject, I have several times read general comments similar to what you are saying offered as an explanation for the existence of the well mixed layer. But I have never seen an explanation which seems physically plausible. That is why I doubt the 'conventional wisdom' on this subject.
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If you can point to an explanation which is physically reasonable, I would be happy to reconsider my position.
SteveF,
The conventional explanation is wind-stress (shear) driven mixing. More specialized phenomena include Langmuir cells and internal gravity wave coupling. We have measurements which tend to support these explanations — why you find them physically implausible?
Oliver,
I will do some more reading on Langmuir cells. I have seen the characteristic lines of floating seaweed/debris on the open ocean many times, especially in modest wind conditions. Smaller pelargic fish just love to hide under the lines. The uncertain contribution to deepening of the mixed layer seems pretty well summarized in the abstract to
Contribution of coherent vortices such as Langmuir cells to wind-driven surface layer mixing
J. B. Flór et al, JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 115, C10031, 7 PP., 2010
Which begins:
“The wind blowing over the water surface causes, even for low wind speeds, Langmuir circulation in addition to shear-generated turbulence. Both of these mechanisms mix the upper layer of oceans and lakes, but since the mixing efficiency of Langmuir cells is unknown, their relevance to mixed layer deepening is still an open question.”