August 20, 2010 
One of the main accusations made by skeptics is that the temperature record is unreliable. Besides their focus on destroying the hockey stick graph and paleoclimate reconstructions, skeptics/contrarians and denialists alike have insinuated and outright claimed that the record has been corrupted, biased outright or by default, via invalid adjustments, homogenizations, and by the drop out of stations over the years, the movement of stations, UHI effects, microsite effects, etc.
Here’s a selection of statements from the Watts and D’Aleo paper Surface Temperature Records: Policy-Driven Decepton that makes these accusations:
Instrumental temperature data for the pre-satellite era (1850-1980) have been so widely, systematically, and uni-directionally tampered with that it cannot be credibly asserted there has been any significant “global warming” in the 20th century.
and
Global terrestrial temperature data are compromised because more than three-quarters of the 6,000 stations that once reported are no longer being used in data trend analyses.
and
Due to recently increasing frequency of eschewing rural stations and favoring urban airports as the primary temperature data sources, global terrestrial temperature data bases are thus seriously flawed and can no longer be representative of both urban and rural environments. [my emphasis]
Recently, several of these claims have been put to the test, and guess what?
If you read over at WUWT very often, you will see these accusations launched repeatedly at anyone who happens to expresses support for AGW. It’s part and parcel of the repertoire of skeptics/deniers/contrarians to undermine the consensus by casting doubt over the temperature record — after all, if the temperature record isn’t reliable, either out of shoddy science or outright fraud, how can anyone claim the globe is warming?
Speaking of WUWT, there is a new essay posted by Steven Mosher, Zeke Hausfather, and Nick Stokes titled The Big Valley: Altitude Bias in GHCN that directly bears on this.
I am impressed by the efforts of these three to analyze the GHCN station drop outs in order to explore the claims made by Ross McKitrick in an earlier paper that due to a drop in altitude of stations, there was a warming of the record. Yet, at the same time, I can’t help but shake my head for all of this has been unnecessary and if the results of these and future investigations hold up, a waste of time that could have been spent on more productive projects. I directly lay the blame at the feet of the main skeptic/contrarians — McIntyre, McKitrick, Watts and their followers who have cast doubt on the temperature record through innuendo and outright claims of fraud and deceit.
Here is McKitrick’s claim that Mosher et. al. investigate:
The sample collapse in 1990 is clearly visible as a drop not only in numbers but also in altitude, implying the remote high-altitude sites tended to be lost in favour of sites in valley and coastal locations. This happened a second time in 2005. Since low-altitude sites tend to be more influenced by agriculture, urbanization and other land surface modification, the failure to maintain consistent altitude of the sample detracts from its statistical continuity. [my emphasis]
Here’s another quote from McKitrick’s paper:
The decline in sample has not been spatially uniform. GHCN has progressively lost more and more high latitude sites (e.g. towards the poles) in favour of lower-latitude sites. Other things being equal, this implies less and less data are drawn from remote, cold regions and more from inhabited, warmer regions. As shown in Figure 1-7, mean laititude declined as more stations were added during the 20th century. From Figure 1-2 we can see that this came about by the filling in of tropical regions after Europe and the US were already well-sampled. After 1980 there was a rise, a sudden, sharp drop, a sharp rise, and then a second, sharp drop in the mean latitude. This indicates that the drops in sampling were not spatially uniform, that the sample has been volatile, and in recent years it has been biased towards low latitudes. [my emphasis]
So two claims — there has been a drop off in the number of higher latitude stations used in the GHCN which has undermined the statistical continuity. Further, this means the record is biased towards warmer lower latitude stations influenced by agriculture and human activity. McKitrick argues, “Other things being equal, this implies less and less data are drawn from remote, cold regions and more from inhabited, warmer regions.”
Here are the conclusions of Mosher et. al.:
The distribution of altitude does change with time in GHCN v2.mean data. That change does not signal a march of thermometers to places with higher rates of warming. The decrease in altitude is not associated with a move toward or away from coasts. The decrease is not clearly associated with a move away mountainous regions and into valleys, but rather a movement out of mountain valley and flatland regions. Yet, mountain valleys do not warm or cool in any differential manner. Changing altitude does not bias the final trends in any appreciable way.
Regardless of the differential characteristics associated with higher elevation, changes in temperature trends is not clearly or demonstrably one of them. For now, we have no evidence whatsoever that marching thermometers up and down hills makes any contribution to a overestimation of the warming trend.
In fact, according to Mosher et. al.:
This test indicates that higher elevation stations tend to see higher rates of warming rather than lower rates of warming. Thus, dropping them, does not bias the temperature record upward. The concern lies in the other direction. If anything the evidence points to this: dropping higher altitude stations post 1990 has lead to a small underestimation of the warming trend.
So — in the end, the claims in McKitrick’s paper amount to much ado about nothing.
Roy Spencer, who appeared in The Great Global Warming Swindle” and is a member of the Heartland Institute, the George C Marshall Institute and the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance, surprised even himself when he did a “Jones style analysis of the Northern Hemisphere land area” in order to explore the claim that the drop out of stations has lead to a spurious warming trend.
He found that “…at face value, this plot seems to indicate that the rapid decrease in the number of stations included in the GHCN database in recent years has not caused a spurious warming trend in the Jones dataset — at least not since 1986″.
Surprise surprise surprise!
Tamino, over at Open Mind, has also done an analysis of the station drop out issue in response to Watts and D’Aleo’s paper Surface Temperature Records: Policy-Driven Deception and found, like Mosher et. al., and Spencer, that it makes no difference to the trend.
Here’s Watts and D’Aleo:
Perhaps one of the biggest issues with the global data is the disappearance of temperature monitoring stations from the networks after 1990. More than 6000 stations were in the NOAA data base for the mid- 1970s, but just 1500 or less are used today. NOAA claims the real-time network includes 1200 stations with 200-300 stations added after several months and included in the annual numbers. NOAA is said to be adding additional US stations now that USHCN v2 is available, which will inflate this number, but make it disproportionately U.S.
There was a major disappearance of recording stations in the late 1980s to the early 1990s. The following figure compares the number of global stations in 1900, the 1970s and 1997, showing the increase and then decrease (Peterson and Vose13).
Tamino writes:
The results will probably be no surprise, since several others have replicated my results already, with the same outcome. Here’s the temperature history (annual averages) for pre-cutoff stations only, compared to that for post-cutoff stations only:
As stated before, contrary to the claims of D’Aleo and Watts, station dropout did NOT introduce a warming trend. If anything, it introduced a cooling trend.
Three strikes, yer out.
The Policy Lass 
Tamino and Nick Stokes both did similar analysis several months ago and found the same thing. Big surprise. The only thing I find surprising is that McKitrick still insists on embarrassing himself with the low quality of papers like this one and his work on the UHI done with Michaels.
Does this mean Watts will apologise for his prior claim these stations were dropped (false claim 1) to introduce a warming bias (false claim 2) ?
As far as I know, that little piece of libelous nonsense on the SPPI was changed a bit, but still suggests the drop-out introduces a warming bias.
In addition, using the classic pincer attack mode, it’s also hunting season on the satellite record too. (The link is to climatechangefraud for those with weak stomachs who’d rather not).
“It is now perfectly clear that there are no reliable worldwide temperature records and that we have little more than anecdotal information on the temperature history of the Earth.” says some blogger with an unspecified PhD who pushes Ayn Rand books on his blog.
Blimey – who knew?
It’s materials physics. Not a particularly germain field to climate science or even remote sensing.
Not germane and not at all current either.
Still, as they say, never let the current status of NOAA-18 or NOAA-19 get in the way of the latest denialist smear on science.
Yeah, I caught that, but couldn’t remember the link to the through debunking on the claims of climatefraud.com. Apparently NOAA-16 isn’t used anymore, but it didn’t really matter as far as the original claim because it is not even based on the same data as the RSS and UAH records are. I especially liked the lawyer/conspiracy theory which resulted from NOAA referring a request to the Great Lakes folks who develop the series used to make the original claim. I wouldn’t expect NOAA to know exactly how the Great Lakes series is produced, so this redirect made perfect sense. This turns into a *huge coverup*. Yeah, right.
Susann is this even newsworthy? Anyone doing this competently and honestly will get the same result as the three (at least) groups whose job it is to get this right, as did Tamino who has the legitimate excuse of being an educator.
Already the implication of newsworthiness is libelous. Stop legitimizing conspiracy theories already!
…or was the newsworthiness in Mosher’s apparent honesty?
That’s part of it, but as someone interested in the war itself, as an object of study separate from the truth, I am interested in all the aspects of the debates, even if they frustrate the heck out of me. There’s reality, there is our scientific understanding of reality, and then there are the political/economic/ideological battles over what reality is and how we know what we know. Or don’t know. I am interested in all the above, and so the efforts on the part of Zeke and Mosher and others to debunk skeptic claims about the science are germane to my project.
In other words, you specialize in nonsense… , a legitimate object of study I suppose. But if so, you should do it right.
Mosher’s pretense to being able to debunk this, eh, bunk, more credibly than actual scientists, is deeply dishonest and an example of the kind of nonsense you should be studying. But you don’t even seem to see the game being played and the memes being planted.
Let’s be clear – I think the so-called skeptics have a variety of motives; personal, political and financial. Ultimately, they are nothing more than a big waste of precious time. As a social scientist and policy wonk, I am interested in all aspects of the war. I am aware of the positioning that is going on, which is why I am interested in watching the “skeptics” respond to Mosher, turning on him because he dares to come to a conclusion that in any way validates the other side. That illuminates their position very clearly.
As to Mosher’s motives in this, I think I’ll leave that to others to speculate. I have my suspicions, some of it to do with ideology and some just personal, but in the end, whatever the reasons, as said earlier, it’s all just a big time waster and I suspect that it will be revealed as such soon when they realize all that “adjustment” was legitimate and the temperature record is as sound as to be expected.
The lukewarmers will hedge their bets and claim that if the science was more open in the first place, there would have been no reason to be skeptical. And other BS… it’s important to name what they are doing and will do so sorry if I haven’t done that clearly enough.
As more of a policy analyst/historian instead of policy maker, it’s all fodder for me.
Sent from my iPhone
Mosher has always been open to arguments to the contrary, but tended to markedly favor those which performed computer calculations. He liked JohnV, because JohnV ran the code to show that McI’s initial assessment of surface stations had counfounded a regional effect. JohnV showed that with gridding to remove this confounder that McI’s assessment (of an impact from siting) was wrong.
But Moshpit has always been much less willing to accept logical statements or “points” in discussion that correct skepticism, unless accompanied with the calculations. He’s also more willing to accept McI-style points sans calculations. The good thing is that he is somehow reachable. And if you really care enought to want to convince him of something, you know the method to do it.
For instance, I could probably convince him of the logical point that I made to hime (and McIntyre) years ago about the stupidicty of complaining about counterintutiive rural mis-contstured as urban stations (the whole nightlights in Cali thing). I don’t really choose to spend the time to show him this mathematically. It’s a little sad that he can’t just follow the logic of it. Not sure if it is brains or bias or some combination. USed to think he was some super smart philosophy guy. But he’s definitely not self-aware, self-questionging enough. That said, he will definitely respond to the form of argument based on coding and doing a calculation. Still sad, that he persisted with the McI suspicion of airports (rather than a more open, neutral viewpoint). But he’s reachable. And at least will trumpet the correction when shown in this manner (in contrast, look at the passive aggressive behavior of McI…who specialized in leading (albiet caveated) concerns about airports, which now shown inconsequential, he has no interest in going back and updating the record of concerns.)
It’s sad (about me), but I am of late learning that people respond to different argument styles in different manners. Not purely based on new insights revealed. For instance, I went through a 300 comment thread with Jeff Id, just bludgeeoning the guy with why his statement against ‘negative thermometers being mathematically always wrong’ (i.e. patterned inverse correclation predictors) was incorrect. He even had some people on his “side” (e.g. Carrick) explaining to him for the same exact reasons I was showing him, that he was wrong. But he just could NOT grok it. (Maybe mix in a little hatred of admitting TCO was right and him wrong. ;)) I finally got a genuine Ph.D. expert (a specialist!) in PCA, to engage on the trhead and show Id, why his categoric statement was not mathematically correct. the expert gave an example that was mathematically equivalent to the examples that I and Carick and other had bludgeoned Id with already. But he finally got it (I guess was willing to let his blood cool and consider the points) when the expert explained it to him.
So now…I know that is another trick in the sleeve. That’s one reason to go to Annan for the hypothesis testing and standard deviation defining discussions with McIntyre. I mean, it’s dead on the same point. But it sure gets taken a lot more serious coming from Annan. It’s a lot more likely to set the MMH afflutter emailing each other to reconsider their paper). [The other reason of course, is that I’m really just a hoi polloi and recognize that I might not have it right, just based on “logic smell”, so getting a genuine expert to engage will ensure that the posited logic flaws are in fact such.]
BTW, this is my secret. So no one else is allowed to email Huybers and Jollife and such. that nuclear option is reserverved for me. If y’all start bugging them, then they’ll just get too much time taken away. So forget I told you this trick. 🙂
P.s. Note that these argument style ideas are really issues of human nature and have extensibility outside of the climate debate (to debates on issues of sport, business, military, etc.) And that they are HUMAN issues that can impact the leftoblogosphere, not just the rightists. For instance, PTCOAB can be a little bee-hatch and tell Tammy something, that is logically what Jollife will tell him also (and Jollife will even give P some “love” later)…but Tammy will shut off the insight from the hoi polloi. But when J engages…STFB. He’ll at a minimum think about it. And is even amenable to reconsidering his position. To his credit, the latter–to his detriment, the former. But at the end of the day, just something to realize about your “opponents”, of whichever side. On whichever issue!
OK clear enough Susann. Just watch your back 🙂
There’s no open thread, so I thought I’d post this here. Sorry for the OT. New story at The Guardian.
Tea Party seeks candidates who say no to global warming and gay marriage
It’s a leaked email from a Tea Party group, The Freedom Institute of Erie County, looking to influence choices of candidates. Here’s the doozy…
How very… ummm… Dark Ages.
A link to the full email HERE.
My favorite was #15 “I advocated moving our currency to a debt free supply-side labor based currency.” All I can say to this one is huh? Sounds communist to me!
#10 is outright idiotic (“No, us heterosexuals don’t have blood-borne diseases! And if we do, it isn’t transmitted. God is good, you know.”)
#13 is funny: “fair economics, raise tariffs!”
It gets better. Go to their website and click on Partners.
http://www.americaslastbesthope.org/
Interesting exchange here. Some unfettered nastiness frm the feline cousin of Schrodinger’s cat expressing horror and disgust at the audacity of shewonk’s attempt to assess in some detail surface temp database maintenance analyses by Mosher et al. given her interest in probing/observing denialist community(ies); Nastiness which in an earlier time would likly have been fettered a bit or at least more diplomatically expressed. Nevertheless, I think I agree more with the alley cat’s view that probing blogified and borderline daffy denialism is not likely a potent line of policy research. The more worthwhile line of policy research IMHO would focus on executive and legislative organizational behaviors.
But I have a hard time buying the G-Cat’s view that S-W and possibly other policy analysts naively fail to percieve the actual “game being played and the memes being planted”; even though undoubtedly G-cat and colleagues could fill us in on incidences they know of and endured directly that would cause our collective neckhairs to stand up more than they are already. Folks who work in and/or study policy/governance usually appreciate well enough the forces working just beyond public view, and their power and sophistication.
With the emphasis on ‘just beyond’. After all, a fourth branch of U.S. government emerged ~65 yrs ago and its geometrically elegant capital building sits in full view along the Potomac (with the Puzzle Palace et al. possibly a fifth)!
Sloop, I am not claiming that what I write is of immense significance. I only write about what interests me, no more no less. This is meant to be educational and enjoyable for me and hopefully for any readers who happen by. If you want gravity, there’s always climate progress where serious discussions of climate policy happens by people who know what they are talking about. I don’t claim to have that knowledge about climate policy options. I am fascinated by denialism as a force in the policy process and how it plays out and how it influences the policy process. Don’t underestimate the power of denialist/skeptic work, even the very worst most shoddy kind. It and the public’s response to it can give a reluctant politician just enough reason to delay and dither so that the policy process stalls or the policy never gets written. Politicians can always find ample reason not to develop policy that is politically risky for them and skeptics / denialists give them extra reason. Doubt is the product and the denialist / skeptic echo chamber feeds that doubt and plays into the hands of reluctant politicians.
I have worked directly for politicians in my career and was a writer for the equivalent of a governor of a Canadian province. I knew the party line and did research that was used to make policy. I have looked at policy options and made recommendations based on the research I did, I have analyzed “stakeholder” interests and motives as part of thinking about strategy and how to get policy written. I have sat in rooms when the big policy makers made policy (I’m not one of them — just the scribe/analyst). I communicated policy to the public once it was made.
Now, none of this policy had the immense significance of climate policy (I work in health policy and have worked in social policy) but I do know how policy is made first hand. My knowledge of policy making is not all book larnin. I know that the politician’s view of the public pulse and the purse-string holder has a great deal of weight in how a policy is made and what it ultimately looks like and if it even exists at all. In other words, I’ve seen the way personality, economics, politics, ideology and organizational forces affect the policy process. It’s not just a matter of good science being enough to craft good policy. If it were only that simple.
I aspire to one day be an old curmudgeon of a professor of policy studies who is writing a history of climate policy and can say that I was insulted by the likes of Mosher. 🙂
Well said. I find the denialism shtick fascinating too, and I don’t dispute its potential/actual influence on governance.
My preference simply would be to situate analysis of this phenomenon into a broader socio-political framework and context and, where possible, minimize (with minimal loss of insightful signal) the analysis of often very flawed debates concerning the biophysical science theory and data relevant to illuminating and understanding atmospheric/oceanic warming/acidification because in many executive agency policy circles at least there is nearly universal appreciation and concern for the reality and danger of the of global atmos/ocean warming (and their biological/chemical/ecological impacts, current and future); the help we really need is with regard to adaptation/mitigation and risk assessment and, yes, science communications. As I’m increasingly responsible in my little part of the world for finding such help, I’m looking anywhere to find it, even blogs written simply out of personal interest.
My preference simply would be to situate analysis of this phenomenon into a broader socio-political framework and context and, where possible, minimize (with minimal loss of insightful signal) the analysis of often very flawed debates concerning the biophysical science theory and data relevant to illuminating and understanding atmospheric/oceanic warming/acidification
Sloop, that is for a dissertation chapter or book, not a blog post. 🙂
Seriously, what you are asking is important — analysis of adaptation/mitigation and risk assessment are fundamental parts of the policy process and require people with far more knowledge than I have of climate and the economy.
I’m here doing what I do — for what it’s worth — because I smell a rat and am trying to describe it and understand it.
Oh, and I want to add that I suspect those who work in various climate policy units are quite convinced of the need for action but they will also be aware that there are many forces at work influencing whether policy will or will not be made.
“. . . . because I smell a rat and am trying to describe it and understand it.”
you may have just insulted the rats.
“those who work in various climate policy units are quite convinced of the need for action but they will also be aware that there are many forces at work influencing whether policy will or will not be made.”
Yeeaah, . . . . what’s the insight here?
Of additional difficulty/complexity is that fact that the policy made is never the same as the policy implemented.
somewhat OT but:
Beyond study commissions, few states in USA have standing ‘climate policy units’, . . . yet. but they have prog/agencies dedicated to water supply, water quality, fish and wildlife, coastal zone management, habitat restoration, invasive spp., river management, port/harbor infrastructure, agriculture, parks, etc. All such entities are trying at some level to figure out how to plan for and execute CC impact response and mitigation, and even occasionally in intergrated cross-sectoral manner. State budget cuts in past few years have diminished strategic planning/policy exploration capacities in such agencies. In the short-term, this is is not an apparent loss.
In Canada, every department of environment has a policy unit that would be responsible for climate policy and legislation. The Ministry of the Environment Ontario for example has a policy unit that has a specific branch for climate policy.
This is Ontario’s MOE division responsible for environmental policy:
Most provinces /territories in Canada will have a similar structure as will the federal government.
So there are many policy units across Canada responsible for climate policy. I expect that many of those who work in policy jobs will be familiar with the debates in climate science. A old friend of mine with a PhD in physics works on Canada’s climate policy for the feds. I’ll have to ring him up and pick his brain…
Speaking of rats, Mr. Watts has a post up now about the situation at the Discovery Communications building. Joe Romm discusses it.
Sloop, if you took away an impression of nastiness from our exchange, I should work on communicating better 😉
Anyway good to see that it developed an interesting follow-up.
Maybe ‘nastiness’ was too harsh a descriptor on my part. The rapid pace of blog writing can lead to texts that read harsher than intended. Wrote my responding post late at night when I tend to not read or write carefully enf, so excuse me also if my critical remark was off the mark.
A local columnist Ed Achorn just defecated some foul-smelling nastiness of his own in our local fishwrap (the Providence Journal) trumpeting the need for “less religion” and “more science” in climate change discussions. I.e., scientists are distorting the facts to advance their world view. A familiar bit of libelous tripe. It reminded me of how influential on-line blogging can potentially be on pundits who have to produce on a schedule tiny essays that stir the pot and draw in readers, but won’t do the hard work of examining an issue before sounding forth on it. The need to respond quickly and effectively to such undigested regurgitations is obvious; I should be writing a counter to that op-ed piece instead of this post!
The discussion of climate policy institutions in Canadian and American Gov. is an interesting follow-up which, while not perhaps as energizing as ‘discussing’ the latest denialist inanity, could be worth a continued look so that, among other benefits, scientists and the public can begin developing a better feel for how governments are, or are not, working productively on these issues.
TCO:
“But Moshpit has always been much less willing to accept logical statements or “points” in discussion that correct skepticism, unless accompanied with the calculations. He’s also more willing to accept McI-style points sans calculations. The good thing is that he is somehow reachable. And if you really care enought to want to convince him of something, you know the method to do it.”
Thanks: I don’t think there is a question about climate science where I hold an opinion that is NOT open for question. Moreover, I can say in all cases that I have a clear rational test for changing my mind. “show me X and I will change my mind”
and by the way, I have modified my position on airports. In short i like testable hypotheses. Let’s take the airport question. Looking at the geography and understanding the importance of a long fetch has led me to question the standard skeptical position that airports are BAD. there is some evidence of a slight warming bias ( the CRN study) but, airports might be good places, they might not be. I won’t be swayed by a “logical” argument in the ABSENCE of an empirical one. So Watts et al may argue till they blue in the face that airports should be hotter and others may argue that they shouldn’t. and a third may argue that you can’t tell. In the end, I care about a test which settles the matter. ideally a test agreed to before the test takes place.
My views on AGW physics are straightfoward. GHGs cause warming
My views on Sensitivity lie within the IPCC envelope.
my views on GCMs are that they are good tools, but can be better.
My views on the temperature record are pretty straightforward and well within the concensus science.
1. There is a strong likelihood of some UHi bias in the record. Jones outs the figure at around .05C. I would hazard that there may be more, but certainly no more than say .15C ( land record only)
2. The microsite bias ( which may overlap with the UHI bias) is likely to be small. less than .1C
by the only field experiemnt made to date.
3. These potential land biases DO NOT mean that AGW is false. It’s not.
4. These questions can only be accurately answered with Accurate metadata. Don’t make me go into all the innaccuracies in the metadata. BUT its a solvable problem.
5. hansens UHI adjustment is a useless piece of crap, I prefer Jones approach.
6. The present accounting of uncertainty is INADEQUATE. Everyone fails to account for the uncertainty due to adjustment. In most cases the uncertainty of adjustment ( while mean preserving) is greater than the uncertainty due to sampling. This just changes out confidence.
7. A more accurate Land record may result in GCMs Looking BETTER.
8. The best statistical method ( Roman’s) shows more warming than CRU or GISS.
Now of course, I am labelled as a denialist because I happen to dislike
A. closed data
B. Closed code
C. Paywalls
D. science by closely knit groups
oh.. and i said Piltdown Mann.
So basically the challenge is this: Somebody needs to show me a settled piece of climate science that I fundamentally DISAGREE with.
Oh, far more than that, Mosher. You’re labelled a denialist because of a body of work that includes multiple accusations of scientific fraud not only of Mann (“Piltdown Mann”), but CRU (your book on ClimateGate), and elsewhere.
You continuously make such accusations built upon willful misrepresentation of reality, and that makes you a dishonorable character.
And, frankly, when people like you and your co-author Tom Fuller whine “oh, we really believe the science, even if it’s conducted by bad apples”, I simply don’t believe you.
I think you’re posing for effect, trying to establish credibility for your efforts to destroy the reputation and careers of prominent people working in the field.
Your points A-D are mostly silly, since the data is mostly open, the code mostly open, paywalls don’t exist because of efforts by the scientists you accuse of fraud and misconduct but because of the historical business model of both profit-making and non-profit publishers of scientific journals, and most science in narrow fields are done by relatively small groups of closely-knit researchers.
These points amount to your saying “I don’t like science is done, period”. Nothing specific to climate science, and in no way supportive of your widespread accusations of fraud and misconduct.
Would you rather us simply label you as being dishonorable due to your efforts to destroy the reputations and careers of honest scientists (and cashing in on crimes committed against UEA/CRU), rather than a denialist?
I’m personally willing to drop “denialist” and go with “scum” …
Moshpit: You are reachable, but it is too hard. Why do you hang with people that are so reluctant to look at either side of the issue, that go in with such strong self-serving biases and that lack real perspective? Why do you hang with McI and Watts when they are dishonest. They would literally be drummed out of VMI for their weasely equivocations.
And you still owe me a response at Blackboard on the topic of the negative UHI adjustements and why some will occur. Pinning you down is a pain in the ass. There are men who will fight and die and look truth in the eye. You’re just another jerk on the Internet.
Why was it so fucking hard for that dude at some other blog to pin you down on a minor error? Fucking hate that shit. I physically hate it. Disgusts me of all you.
You may appreciate this comment from thngsbreak, then:
http://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2010/09/12/welcome-to-the-blogosphere-dr-curry/#comment-2632