Monday, February 15, 2010

No Global Warming Since 1995

Hey Al Gore, how about this inconvenient truth?

The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.
Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers. 

2 comments:

The Dude said...

Dave,

As someone who likes to read your gear reviews, etc. let me note that for you to say essentially " everything looks cold outside to me!" is such a simplistic view of a complex dynamical system (i.e. the earth's climate) as to be almost embarrassing. Transcend the short-sighted right-wingnut / left-wingnut stuff by reading, for example, John Michael Greer's excellent weekly blog on energy, physical economics, and de-industrialization / collapse over at http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com

Best Regards,
Jay Marchetti

Dave Markowitz said...

Jay, you're missing my point.

I am very much aware that the Earth's climate is an exceedingly complex system. My criticism of the AGW advocates is that they are making blanket statements (e.g., the Earth is getting warmer) without having evidence to back them up.

The idea that "the science is settled" is itself unscientific. If they were applying the scientific method, they'd be following these steps:

1. Ask a question.
2. Do background research (and don't keep the results secret or fudge data to meet a preconception).
3. Test your hypothesis by performing an experiment (which is hard to do with climate).
4. Analyze the data and draw a conclusion.
5. Share your results.

Key in this process is reexamining your hypothesis in light of the results observed. Instead, the AGW proponents have obtained data, failing to take into account many environmental influence such as urban heat islands, then when the data fails to support their hypo, fudge it or conceal it and proclaim instead that the science is settled in support of their claim.

Is there global warming? Possibly. But current the data does not support the case for its existence.