Climate Science: Garbage In, Garbage Out, contra Nobel Prize-winners

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Re: "Climate Change and the Integrity of Science Science. Signed by 255 members of the National Academy of Sciences," published in Science magazine, May 7. Read entire editorial HERE.

This piece is basically an appeal to authority, with the august signatories. They assert, "There is compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend."

And yet their model predictions do not match what has actually occurred. From the Climategate emails: Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, writes in October 2009, "The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can’t." And then he blames the data because it did not conform to the model. That is bass ackwards to how science is supposed to operate.

I too question the data, but I don't have a model to defend. Instead, I see that raw temperature readings of rural US weather stations have been massively massaged upward for the last 40 years. The raw data show virtually no net warming outside of urban heat islands. (LINK) Furthermore, documentation of these temperature reporting stations on surfacestations.org show that the vast majority of them do not meet NOAA specifications for siting. Either they are too near artificial heating sources, or they are situated on the tops of roofs, or near large expanses of concrete, which will drive the temperature data points artificially upward. In the town where I live, the temperature sensor is near a massive air conditioning unit at the water treatment plant. This kind of sloppy data gathering, because it is so prevalent -- and you can see the evidence with your own eyes for site after site at the website noted -- calls the whole of climate science into question. The research apparatus can't even get the most basic things right!

The scientists who signed this statement have apparently not drilled down to the raw data on which the alarmist conclusions have been built. Even if their climate models were correct, the GIGO rule applies. The inputs to the models are unsound. But they are unsound in the sense that the temperature data points they are using appear to be already artificially inflated.

We can't account for the lack of warming. That is a true statement. There is a lack of warming in spite of temperature data that is massaged upward or data from sites that are in local hot spots. Whatever comes out of a process using uncertain models and faulty data, it cannot be construed as solid science.

It is self-evidently true that mortals cannot know the future climate with complete certainty. That is reserved for the Creator, and even He may choose not to know. However, what has been trumpeted thus far in the name of climate science, namely that we are heating our world to catastrophe or oblivion, does not meet even modest standards of certainty. If prominent scientists or Nobel Prize winners claim otherwise, it does not change the evidence of poor data collection and manipulation of data.

Our All-American terrorist: Pity him, pity him!

CNN reported on the SUV-bomber's financial situation.

1. He bought a home with 20% down for $273,000.

2. He had a good job as a financial analyst. The value of the home dropped, but he had his job, he got married, and continued to pay the mortgage.

3. Then, in Jan 2009 he applied for and received a $65,000 home equity loan to raise cash.

4. He "left" his job (not fired), quit paying his mortgage, and took his family to Pakistan as he pursued terrorist training.

5. Naturally, the home was foreclosed on. This is almost an irrelevant footnote to the story.

After laying out this case of logical step-by-step premeditation, the story ends with this ABSURD paragraph:

"And so on Monday, when Shahzad's case is scheduled to appear before a judge in Connecticut Superior Court, he will be just one more of the millions of American homeowners who hasn't paid his mortgage in more than a year and is sitting on a debt -- in this case, $37,870.38 -- that outstrips the value of the home buried beneath it."

Oh wow! He's just like one of us. One more victim of the unfair American system that has let so many fall through the cracks into foreclosure. Is this liberal bias? What kind of warped thinking process would come up with something like that?

Headline should have been "Fanatical Muslim Terrorist Games Home Loan System To Raise Cash For Pakistani Training In Bomb Making."

Taxpayers bailed out German and French banks

Old news, but here it is:

We officially moved into the next stage of the crisis today. AIG, likely under pressure from the administration, decided to come clean about where most of the bailout money was going. In a press release with several attachments, the struggling insurer detailed which counterparties had gotten about $100 billion of the bailout funds...

But as I expected, the majority of the funds—$58 billion—went to banks headquartered outside the U.S. The big winners were French and German banks, which pulled in $19 billion and $17 billion respectively.

Backing away from climate legislation

Merkel Abandons Aim Of Binding Climate Agreement

"The collapse of the Copenhagen summit has permanently shaken up Merkel. She offered to organize the meeting in Bonn to avoid totally losing momentum in the talks. Then she left Denmark feeling frustrated. She had rarely experienced such a humiliation. She won't let that happen to her again, she has told herself ever since. Irregularities committed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also annoyed the chancellor. Although these errors have not altered the urgent and key messages, she has angrily said among her close advisers that the IPCC's poor communication has made it more difficult to promote climate protection.

"The general mood among climate protectors has soured even further in the months since Copenhagen. 'The process has come to a standstill, everything is very difficult,' says Röttgen."

More evidence:

Australian Government Shelves Climate Legislation

Around the world, people are apparently discovering that they would rather not have the government taking more of their money. (Or mandating that they pay higher prices for goods, in order to meet strict carbon limits, based on skewed science.)

Obamacare: designed to fail, part 3

"When major companies declared that a provision of the new health care law would hurt earnings, Democrats were skeptical. But after investigating, House Democrats have concluded that the companies were right to tell investors and the government about the expected adverse effects of the law on their financial results.

"At issue is a section of the law that eliminates a tax break available to companies that provide drug benefits to retirees as part of their insurance coverage.

"...Representative Joe L. Barton of Texas, the senior Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said, 'From a financial standpoint, from a purely economic standpoint, many companies would be better off discontinuing health care as a fringe benefit, paying the penalty and pocketing the savings.' "

NYTimes

Obama official will profit enormously from "green tech"

Conflict of interest:

"...Assistant Secretary of Energy Cathy Zoi has a huge financial stake in companies likely to profit from the Obama administration’s “green” policies.

"Zoi, who left her position as CEO of the Alliance for Climate Protection — founded by Al Gore — to serve as assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, now manages billions in 'green jobs' funding. But the disclosure documents show that Zoi not only is in a position to affect the fortunes of her previous employer, ex-Vice President Al Gore, but that she herself has large holdings in two firms that could directly profit from policies proposed by the Department of Energy."

Reader Terry Gain at Pajamas Media commented truculently, "Another good article which does what the MSM won’t do:their job. I do think however, that notwithstanding the MSM’s embrace of incompetence in all things related to Obama and his dreadful administration, that the transparency promise has been kept. The Obama administration is transparently corrupt, transparently incompetent, transparently cynical, transparently dangerous to our economic health and national security and transparently in need of being voted out of office."

The wealthy, educated Tea Party

"Tea party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public, tend to be Republican, white, male, and married, and their strong opposition to the Obama administration is more rooted in political ideology than anxiety about their personal economic well-being, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll."

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