Socrates Paradox

I just finished reading  “The Hockey Stick Illusion”, by A.W.Montfort (Bishop Hill) and I would recommend it to anyone. 

The first question I have for science is, “Does a tree’s growth rate respond to temperature?” and a corollary to that is, “Is the science of dendrochronology advanced enough to pick up temperature changes of 0.7C per century?”

 In searching the internet (Googling) for “tree growth rate” my first selection was www.arborday.org/treeguide/growth.cfm.  They quoted from “Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, by Michael Dirr” that “Rate of growth refers to the vertical increase in growth unless specified differently. Rate, as is true for size, is influenced by numerous variables such as soil, drainage, water, fertility, light, exposure, ad infinitum.”  No mention made here of temperature. (more…)

The main issue of ClimateGate that is often overlooked is the attempts by scientists to avoid releasing their data, either voluntarily or under FOIA actions.  I am reposting this because I would like to advance this issue, possibly with a petition,  similar to the letter by 255 scientists to Science Magazine. 

Both Science Magazine and Nature Magazine have detailed requirements for data archiving.  The NSF has requirements that need improving.  It is hard to understand why Nature, having a sound policy that states, “An inherent principle of publication is that others should be able to replicate and build upon the authors’ published claims” could defend those who went to extreme measures to prevent disclosure. (more…)

The function of scientists is to advance science.  They do not produce a product.  Entire different disciplines and procedures are used to produce products than to advance science.  In the advancement of science, peer-review and publication is the end of the process.  In producing a product, maintaining customer satisfaction is the end of the process.  (Yes, I know this is idealistic; selling the product and making a profit is what it is all about.)  The scientists involved in the Climategate e-mails simply did not and do not exhibit the discipline required to produce a product, in this case the product is the global climate database.  (more…)

Reviews of the Global Climatic Data Center show that the number of stations used to calculate global average temperatures has decreased from a peak of over 6000 in the 1950’s to 1990’s  to less than 1500 in 2009.  Surprisingly, this resulted in an increase in the calculated global average temperatures.   It has been pointed out by numerous sources that the stations omitted are those from higher elevations, rural locations and higher latitudes, all of which tend to show cooler temperatures.  The position of NCDC on their website is that a large number of paper records were collected and these were manually entered into the system.  Eventually the records from these stations will be entered.  (more…)

So what is natural variability? To do the calculations yourself, you should have a minimal understanding of algebra, just sufficient to calculate a straight line with the formula y=ax + b and understand the concept of a normal distribution or bell curve. A standard deviation is a statistical value that is used to describe the variability of a set of data, in our case the temperature measurements.  A band of plus or minus three standard deviations will include 99.7% of the population and is typically used to define what is naturally occurring. The standard deviation can be calculated using the STDEV function using Microsoft Excel.  (more…)