Well, we finally got some action out of our very secretive climate researchers. Most of the action is the usual bluster, but if the release of these emails and files forces them to be more transparent, it will be a great victory for science.
It has been completely inexcusable from the beginning that hundreds of millions of tax-payer dollars have been spent on research that is not open to the public. Results, yes. But data, computer models and methodology have been hidden from anyone who is not in "the tribe." In other words, it was impossible for real science to work.
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Science as a process is best reflected when folks reproduce experiments, analyze results skeptically, and discuss freely without suppressing or censoring any view. In that way, the scientific method is able to overcome abuses by individuals. That is why "climategate" is a tempest in a teapot, since the actions of one individual can never reflect the method as a whole, and cannot influence the *results* of the method as a whole. Science is a system that helps correct individual errors of judgment such as those we find in East Anglia, because many other scientists do their own independent work that supports the same conclusions.
Also, why do we require code and data to be released for the work to qualify as science? I do not have access to the equipment or original data of Michelson and Morley, but nonetheless we all view their experiments as important science that constitutes evidence of special relativity.
I completely agree with your first two sentences. And that is my point.
We don't need Michelson's original equipment because we can reproduce it - or make better instruments. We have his method and his results. They are falsifiable and reproducible. And they have been reproduced.
The AGW data is critical because it cannot be replicated at any reasonable cost. We also need to know the methods by which they have adjusted it and why, both the measured data and the proxy data.
The code is neither falsifiable nor reproducible, therefore we must look at the algorithms in it to see why the results are so much larger than predicted by basic physics. See http://brneurosci.org/temperatures6.png for the effect of CO2 on temperature. We are currently in the zone of the blue circles. It's clear that a doubling of CO2 should only affect temperature by less than 2 degrees C. Additional CO2 has even less effect because of the asymtotic relationship.
Without these elements, it is impossible to reproduce their results - or falsify their hypothesis.
By the way, the secrecy in the data and codes is not the action of one person. The entire AGW community, actually numbering just a few dozen, has not only failed to properly document their work, but they have actively refused to share their data and code outside their small community of "trusted" individuals. They also corrupted the peer-review process by keeping reviews among their "peers" in a very small group of scientists who agreed with them. That is absolutely not good science, much less good use of the almost $1 billion dollars that taxpayers worldwide have invested in this process.
For one example of how poorly the science has been done, read the Wegner report on Michael Mann's "hockey stick" chart. http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/others/07142006_Wegman_Report.pdf or the Wikipedia entry under "Hockey stick controversy."
His work was "peer-reviewed," but apparently not one person caught the abuse by using statistical methods. It took a third party, a retired statistician named Steve McIntyre, who spent about a year trying to get Mann's data out of him. When he finally got it, after Congress demanded it be released, he showed that any random set of data manipulated by the same process would produce the same graph. Mann and his supporters have made a lot of denials, but the fact remains that this chart was published in the 2005 IPCC report as if it were good science.
McIntyre's web site at http://www.climateaudit.org/ continues to find serious errors in Mann's published work. He's sloppy. The whole process needs documenting and auditing by real peer reviews.
I hear you, Dave. If all of that is true, then it's completely inappropriate and needs to be exposed and fixed. But IS it true? I hear about the hockey stick problem, about the tight-knit cabal of climate scientists, about the fraud and faulty reasoning, and about how somehow all the relevant data of climate science is tied up in climategate. But I cannot bring myself to believe that version because it is all so conspiratorial, and does not attribute an adequate motive for such a grand conspiracy. So, without digging fully into details, I have simply chosen the side that seems most likely to me, and that supports my own prejudices and predilections. It's lazy, but that's where I am right now.
The size of the AGW research community has been a dispute for some time. The IPCC likes to claim thousands, but the truth is that they continue to use the names of scientists who have little if anything to do with their research including some who have resigned from the panel in disgust. The best estimate is that several dozen are actually on the "inside." The key conspirators are Phil Jones, Michael Mann, and James Hansen. Gavin Schmidt is Mann's man taking care of realclimate.org.
The motive is money and prestige. These guys are getting millions of dollars in funding and recognition as the most important researchers in the world. The IPCC (and Gore) got a Nobel Prize for Peace, for crying out loud! I have no doubt that they sincerely believe everything they say, but it's still lousy science. And imagine what would happen to them if they reversed their stand. Actually, that's happening in a way; each 5-year IPCC report seems to tone down the conclusions of the previous one.
I agree that the purloined files do not in themselves disprove their conclusions. But they are very good evidence of very bad scientific practices. My basic concern is that we have nothing that explains why their conclusions are so dire when the basic equations come to a lesser conclusion. In addition, the geologist in me says that their models can't possibly take into account all of the relevant physical parameters. We (geochemists) don't even totally understand the carbon cycle. They appear to have completely ignored what we know about the effect of sun spots - or lack thereof. They have no way of modeling the effect of H2O and clouds in the atmosphere, but H2O is a far more potent "greenhouse" gas than CO2. And they seem to cavalierly dismiss the potential that their ground-based thermometers suffer from creeping civilization. The longer they sit in one place, the more pavement and buildings surround them and the fewer trees there are in the vicinity. The data needs a thorough review.
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