Comment on Open thread weekend by willard (@nevaudit)

March 17, 2013, 7:37 am

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Auditors around the world might be glad to know that Eli, just before his 2000nd post (way to go, Mr. Hockey!), that they now can audit Christy’s and Spencer’s code:

Well, it turns out that a recent poke at this by Eli, brought a pointer to a place where this was mentioned three years ago,

Dr. Christy and Dr. Spencer of UAH asking about the public availability of the source code used to process UAH data. Dr. Christy replied:

We are in a program with NOAA to transfer the code to a certified system that will be mounted on a government site and where almost anyone should be able to run it. We actually tried this several years ago, but our code was so complicated that the transfer was eventually given up after six months.

and in turn mentioned a name of someone who might have some information

So UAH source code isn’t currently available, but they’re in the process of working with a NOAA program to make it available. I followed up asking if there was a general ETA for this availability. He replied:

I talked with John Bates of NOAA two weeks ago and indicated I wanted to be early (I said the “first guinea pig”) in the program. He didn’t have a firm date on when his IT/programming team would be ready to start the transition, so I don’t know.

So Eli googled John Bates and got a reply

you can find details on code and download the code itself for Christy and for RSS MSU from this web page:

http://rabett.blogspot.ca/2013/03/an-apology-from-eli.html

Hopefully I have all the blockquotes right.

This is the web page:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdr/operationalcdrs.html

AUDIT ALL THE CODES!

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Comment on Obesity (?) of the U.S. scientific research enterprise by kim

March 17, 2013, 7:53 am

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Historically, obesity’s been the sign of health, or prosperity, or both.
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Comment on Open thread weekend by WebHubTelescope

March 17, 2013, 8:00 am

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Bart, Nice trap you set for the clueless Girma Gobbles.

Girma models an upward trend for the derivative of the temperature data.

But what is an upward trend on a derivative but a positive acceleration of the temperature? Girma is an alarmist, showing upward acceleration in global temperatures !!!

These actually aren’t arguments. Girma could link to anything and all the fake skeptics would just sit there, realizing that Girma is an important cog WRT shoving FUD and foo in our general direction.

The uncertainty is not in the climate predictions, it is in the explanation for the existence of commenters such as Girma. Is it a political agenda? Is it pranking? Is it general incompetence? Is it retaliation against science? Is the retaliation against science borne of some personal vendetta?

Comment on Open thread weekend by willard (@nevaudit)

March 17, 2013, 8:14 am

≫ Next: Comment on Obesity (?) of the U.S. scientific research enterprise by Jim Cripwell

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Albatross looked at John Christy’s code and after a few hours realized it was mostly in FORTRAN. Before that, he thought the spirit of the matrix was speaking to his soul.

Then he stumbled upon this comment:

> special treatment for hightest latitudes [see tlt_3_5.4 2011.07.01.f]

http://rabett.blogspot.ca/2013/03/an-apology-from-eli.html?showComment=1363223632510

Now some, not Albatross nor me, might suggest something nefarious is going on when Christy talks about special treatment.

AUDIT ALL THE CODES!

Comment on Obesity (?) of the U.S. scientific research enterprise by Jim Cripwell

March 17, 2013, 8:14 am

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The problem as I see it, is a question of who decides what the priorities should be. I am not a US citizen, but we have the same problem in Canada. As long as politicians believe the myth that CAGW is real, then those scientists who support CAGW will have an inside track to obtain the necessary funds to promote the scientificly unsupported hypothesis of CAGW.

This situation will continue to exist in Western democracies as long as the leading scientific learned societies continue to promote CAGW. Until learned societies, led by the Royal Society, the American Physical Society, and the World Meteorological Organization, change their uncompromising support for CAGW, research funding into trying to prove the unproveable, that CAGW is a real and dangerous threat, will continue to be obese.

Comment on Obesity (?) of the U.S. scientific research enterprise by Wagathon

March 17, 2013, 8:16 am

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I was fortunate to become a scientist at a time when the U.S. system of research was flourishing, thanks to visionary national leadership

Sort of says it all… the founders were not visionaries. It is a tax, borrow and spend government too big to fail that is visionary.

Comment on Open thread weekend by Bart R

March 17, 2013, 8:18 am

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Girma | March 17, 2013 at 7:36 am |

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:59/mean:61/derivative/to:1964/trend/plot/gistemp/mean:59/mean:61/derivative/from:1964/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:59/mean:61/derivative/plot/rss/mean:59/mean:61/derivative/plot/uah/mean:59/mean:61/derivative/plot/wti/mean:59/mean:61/derivative/plot/esrl-co2/mean:59/mean:61/derivative/scale:0.03

How do you expect to get any information about the GSMT trend by taking a linear trend of that trend, thereby removing the trend levels?

You can get information about the acceleration of the trend of trends; this is true. You can even, if you can identify a period of interest (for instance, the past 5 decades), show whether that period has a distinct trend of acceleration of warming overall from another trend (all records prior to the start of the 5 decade acceleration of acceleration of warming).

But when you look at just the derivative of the secular trend, you can observe whether there is any true cyclic pattern on any particular period. The derivative of a fixed period has the same length of period:

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sine:10/plot/sine:10/derivative/plot/square:10/plot/square:10/derivative/plot/sawtooth:10/plot/sawtooth:10/derivative/plot/triangle:10/plot/triangle:10/derivative

On a pure decadal trend we observe nothing in the derivatives that indicates the 30-year (or multiple thereof) periodicity you claim. We see oscillation, but that oscillation is an artefact of the filters, not a signal of any cycle.

What the trend of trends of global temperatures shows is that up to today the past five decades have generally moved toward a higher acceleration toward higher temperatures. If the IPCC prediction that by 2020 decadal temperature rise will be 0.2C/decade is in much doubt, that doubt does not come from empirical data or their trends.

Comment on Obesity (?) of the U.S. scientific research enterprise by miker613

March 17, 2013, 8:20 am

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Just speaking from my own experience: Thirty years ago, I got a PhD in Math from one of the best programs in the country. I had a top GPA as an undergraduate from another of the best schools. And by the time I got my PhD, I knew I didn’t want to do math any more. I wasn’t needed. I did a pretty good piece of work for my doctorate, other people liked it and quoted it – but I knew I wasn’t _needed_. Most people I knew weren’t needed. We were filling in gaps, looking for things to work on that no one else had done yet, but I knew that if someone really good would take notice of my problem, he could solve it better in a short time. There were lots of mediocre people like me in my program, and one or two really really good ones, and we all knew the difference. David Hilbert said it once: There are two kinds of mathematicians – those who tackle and solve hard problems, and those who don’t.

I guess I don’t have the right to speak to any field but math, but I wonder if it’s the same: The really important work gets done by a few really good people, and everyone else makes a living.

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Comment on Open thread weekend by willard (@nevaudit)

March 17, 2013, 8:24 am

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Speaking of semantics, to speak of “semi-valid point” has no semantical merit. One could speak of “semi-decidable” point, though.

Chewbacca should know that emulation is not replication. He might even have studied this in more formal settings. We could also talk of simulation, which in one sense Chewbacca brings to the ClimateBall game, a sense by which computer theorists do not usually construct bi-simulations.

Comment on Obesity (?) of the U.S. scientific research enterprise by John Plodinec

March 17, 2013, 8:26 am

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Personally, I find Kelly’s comments on point. Lost in the political posturings of the reactionary left (don’t touch entitlements) and the reactionary right (don’t tax or spend) is the fact that the US has about $2 T to invest each year (once we take out entitlements) – even assuming a balanced budget. Some of it will go to roads and infrastructure; some of it to defense; and the rest? That’s what we pay politicians to do – make those tough choices.

Up until ~2005, their choice was to heavily invest in the health sciences. This resulted in an ocean of intellectual capital, forming the nucleus of what is quietly supplanting IT as the growth engine for our country’s economy – biotech.

Then the decision was made to shift the investment emphasis to the physical sciences (at least until the Great Recession hit). Of most importance to readers of this blog are the huge sums expended on “climate change” and on “renewable energy.” There is a tremendous case to be made that both of these were poorer investments than many others that could have been chosen. In the renewables field, we have wasted billions on ill-considered attempts to instantiate a solar industry, which has been proven to be non-competitive compared to other countries (not even considering the crony capitalism involved). Investing in development of more efficient solar cells is silly when the real problems that have to be solved relate to siting and land use, and solar’s intermittent availability (shared by many renewables).

If we look at climate science, I am appalled by how many use model predictions of a future climate (based on linear projections of the past) to predict dire consequences for homo futurus. I am appalled at how many make excuses for those scientists who have tried to prevent others from publishing findings that contradict theirs. I am appalled at the funding going to those scientists who refuse to let others look at their data.

While I find the NSF’s “we’ll have to cut 1000 grants” somewhat amusing (how can a 3% cut in the growth of the budget really have that impact???), a part of me really hopes it is true. It may force us all to go back to basics, and do what we should have been doing all along – making the best investments we can with the imperfect knowledge we have. If we do, Science most likely will benefit.

Comment on Open thread weekend by WebHubTelescope

March 17, 2013, 8:27 am

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Only need to look at Andrew Lacis comments on this blog

“One reason to separate the global climate change problem into the two components of (1) global warming, and (2) natural variability is to recognize that the model analysis of these two components has different modeling requirements. For global warming, the GHG forcing is globally uniform, and the modeling goal emphasis is on global energy balance and global temperature change. For this purpose, coarser model resolution is adequate since the advective transports of energy (latent and sensible heat, geopotential energy), which are an order of magnitude larger than the radiative terms, must by definition globally add to zero. Since the global energy balance and the greenhouse effect are all radiative quantities, the emphasis then is on assuring the accuracy of the radiation modeling.

The natural variability component, which includes the unforced local, regional, and interannual climate changes is a more difficult problem to address, and requires higher model spatial resolution and greater care in dealing with horizontal enrgy transports and conversions.”

But he does say that GCM models and simulations have benefits

“All submodels have their own problems, and we have the problems of discretization, but even with all these problems the use of GCM type models brings improvements to what can be learned from overall constraints alone.”

Comment on Open thread weekend by blueice2hotsea

March 17, 2013, 8:31 am

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If I can take this one step further without going a bridge too far.

It may be that healthy people who have a knack for honest self-assessment risk becoming depressed – unless of course they maintain some awareness that most others lack similar ability.

Comment on Obesity (?) of the U.S. scientific research enterprise by RiHo08

March 17, 2013, 8:35 am

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Models: too many. Pick one

Taxonomy: too much time spent opining on what will be vs how things work

Government Labs: too many sucking dollars from other core missions: consolidate. NASA is best at shooting rockets. NOAA studies weather when they can get around to it.

Basic research: too much focus on models: see #1

IPCC: too much politics and lobbying for resources. Abandon is the hope.

Field observations: too much of researchers’ investment in outcomes when gathering data. Separate acquisition from analysis. Fund analysis when there is enough data.

Applied research: too much coveting the data; need more open access and transparency. Academia and researchers side companies are a slippery slope.

Young investigator’s awards: too few.

The old and dodgy: too many, too comfortable, too powerful in directing resources: the current state of Pal Review; Consensus; clogging up the ladder (science advances one funeral at a time).

Comment on Open thread weekend by Wagathon

March 17, 2013, 8:37 am

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OR DATA COLLECTION METHODOLOGY that requires ‘special handling’ befoe modeling is even possible. The problem of GIGO comes before unexplained adjustments and adjustments to adjustments by nameless functionaries without the slightest explanation..

Comment on Obesity (?) of the U.S. scientific research enterprise by Camburn

March 17, 2013, 8:37 am

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Marcott etal 2013 is a poster child for obesity of Climate Science. The quality of the paper is so poor that one questions any peer reviewed published paper.

Journals need money to continue to publish. By this very need, the race to the bottom seems to be in place, rather than the race to excellence.

I look forward to proper use of dollars, the publishing of verifiable results based on observation.

If a little bit of belt tightening produces this result, it will be a diet well worth the effort.

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Comment on Open thread weekend by JCH

March 17, 2013, 8:38 am

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People throw out meaningless trends all the time. The “standstill” of 10 years is not very meaningful.

If your candidate were more significant than the shorties, the 10-year trend would be flat or negative. It’s back to positive.

Comment on Open thread weekend by climatereason

March 18, 2013, 7:07 am

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Fan

So the earnestness and airiness Of berry takes precedence over quality, accuracy and construction?
Quite how you manage to turn this into a statement on climate change beats me though
Tonyb

Comment on Obesity (?) of the U.S. scientific research enterprise by michael hart

March 18, 2013, 7:11 am

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I’m in agreement with funding “use inspired” science research.

By that I mean funding research into finding solutions for problems, not inventing new problems, as most ‘climate’ research appears to do.

Comment on Obesity (?) of the U.S. scientific research enterprise by curryja

March 18, 2013, 7:28 am

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Frank, thank you very much for your post. If you would like to do a guest post on this general topic, pls send me an email

Comment on Obesity (?) of the U.S. scientific research enterprise by curryja

March 18, 2013, 7:32 am

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Thank you for raising this point. I have a draft post in my pile of unfinished posts ‘Tyranny of the H-index’, which dominates the research awards given to scientists (and is very important in the promotion process). Papers that get cited alot tend to be of the taxonomy type (yawn). Also, if you describe a data set or a model that is publicly available, that will generate a lot of citations. It is the deep physics-based papers that generally do not receive very many citations, and these are arguably of the most lasting importance (in addition to the data sets).