Comments on: Should you believe anything John Christy and Roy Spencer say?

By: calvininjax

calvininjax — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:10:42 +0000

It all comes down to money. If a scientist perceives a theoretical problem, he will seek government funding to research the problem. It is obvioulsy in the scientist’s interests to exaggerate the problem in order to retain the funding.

The public seems okay with government funding of a scientist because governments are so “trustworthy,” unlike those nasty multi-national companies.

The scientist continues to come up with domesday scenarios, selects his data to support those scenarios, the government pays up and the scientist pursues whatever agenda it is that drives his research.

Science and the truth fly out the window.

Look at Dr Romm’s unscientific remarks rubbishing those who happen to disagree with him. And then look at his proud claim about the $1 billion of research he directed looking at clean energy. Do I detect a political agenda here?

Consider also that the greatest protagonist of global warming is Al Gore who has no scientific credentials whatsoever. The man is a plagiarist and a charlatan; worst of all, he is a politician.

And no I am not some raving right-wing Christian fundamentalist. I believe in the old-fashioned virtues of common sense and independent thought.

I hold a doctorate from a British university and believe in sound scientific research that seeks the truth; the very thing Al Gore and his kind are afraid of.

By: caerbannog

caerbannog — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:28:03 +0000

It is not fair to accuse them of “screwing up” tropospheric T measurements.

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That is a rather unkind bit of phrasing, but the discrepancy between the Spencer/Chrisitie mid-tropospheric temperature estimates and the climate-model predictions was mostly the result of a sign error in Spencer/Christie’s math. See http://www.sciencemag.org/ cgi/ content/ abstract/ 1114772v1?rbfvrToken=ff16cf7b93d3a28763d423ba3f06b8b56cfe37f7 for details.

Mistakes like that aren’t unknown (especially in “cutting edge” work), but the major problem that many folks have with Spencer/Christie is not that they made that error, but that they did not work hard enough to ferret it out. That work was left to others.

By: psi

psi — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:58:12 +0000

Joe, it is comments like this that disgust me and turn me away from the AGW “consensus”:

“Peter — You can distrust science all you want, but reality has a way of intruding upon your elite system. The hockey stick was vindicated by the National Academy of Sciences. Everything else you’ve written is denier talking points.”

What about Peter’s post signals to you that he “distrusts science.” No organization or individual has a monopoly on science, or scientific methd. You have a right to disagree with Christy and Spenser. If you want to influence intelligent bystanders who are trying to determine the truth in these matters, you should refrain from this kind of mudslinging. It is not fair to accuse them of “screwing up” tropospheric T measurements. For decades, they were the only ones making them. They used state of the art methods for doing so. As science and technology evolves, so do data collecting methods. By obscuring this reality, it seems to me that you are engaging in politics, not science.

This is confirmed for me by your response to Peter, who raised a number of pertinent points about method that you ignored in your response. You say that reality will intrude on his “elite system,” whatever that is supposed to mean. It seems to me that this kind of thing will work only so long as a herd mentality pervades public thinking on this subject. But reality is starting to intrude, as the evidence for imminent global cooling begins to mount.

By: Larry Coleman

Larry Coleman — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:24:25 +0000

Spencer and Christy are both kind of sad in my opinion. They have been so much the darlings of the Inhofe’s that is is hard to be objective anymore. It is hard to reverse course when you have been working within the denier culture for so long and when the deniers have said so many nice things about you. It would take a exceptionally courageous person to backtrack. They never will, no matter how solid the evidence against them.
What they both have done through the years (aside from their debacle of satellite measurements) is look at small issues that are poorly understood and try to raise them to the status of Popperian falsification. It won’t wash of course but they hope the reader will not realize this, if indeed they realize it. I have some knowledge of this as I debated Spencer a few years ago.
And it simply is not true that their background belief systems are irrelevant, as suggested by some. They are as relevant as the backgrounds of the opponents of Galileo, whose backgrounds made it impossible for them to view the evidence and see what was there for all to see…so they got it wrong. The consequence in that case was relatively benign; science, which Galileo almost single-handedly invented, moved out of Italy into northern Europe. Today, when people like Christy and Spencer are wrong, it is also because their backgrounds interfere with their reason, but the consequences for the Earth are potentially much, much greater. I wonder whether they think about this, the extent to which they will bear responsibility for what happens.
Probably not. Christy was a missionary in Africa and worries that policies to mitigate GW will negatively affect the meager existence of peoples there. Apparently, he thinks it will be a problem if they have to give up their SUVs because they don’t make enough to buy Priuses.

By: Paul Adler

Paul Adler — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:49:56 +0000

I need to contact John Christy. There is a live opportunity for him in the U.S.. Send me his contact information (email and phone) as soon as possible.

paul.adler@austrade.gov.au / 202 250 9249 .

Thank you,
Paul

By: Joe

Joe — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:23:57 +0000

Peter — You can distrust science all you want, but reality has a way of intruding upon your elite system. The hockey stick was vindicated by the National Academy of Sciences. Everything else you’ve written is denier talking points.

By: peter bartner

peter bartner — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 15:19:00 +0000

i completely distrust anyone who still believes in mann’s hockey stick.
lets forget about the worldwide records showing the medieval warming and the little ice age that the hockey stick left out. lets forget about the thames and new york harbor freezing over often during the little ice age, the vikings growing grain in greenland during the medieval warming and the collapse of their settlements during the little ice age, that someone (unknown) charted the northern coast of greenland (artic circle) in a wooden boat during the medieval warming. lets just stick to science.

1) a group of phd statisticians under the auspices of the national academy of science determined (2006) that the peculiar results producing mann’s hockey stick resulted from a mathematical error. this mistake would multiply any upward trend found in the data set (also random numbers) in the most recent data sets by a factor of 200 to 300 while de-emphasizing those occuring earlier.

2) the data set used to create this effect was used dispite the fact that the authors of this specific paper stated very clearly in the title that the tree ring accelerated growth in these pines was not due to temperature increase (suggested due to co2 increase). this conclusion was reached because their was a temperature station close by that showed a decline in temperature for this period.

3) sloppy work up of data; repeat of data sets, extrapolation of data points when data were missing, etc.

4) tree rings are a terrible proxy for temperature studies. it is impossible to distinguish the forcing of temperature from co2 level change, variations in precipitation, variation in the richness of soil, disease, relative amounts of competition (crowding).

if you are this wrong on the hockey stick, can you be trusted the discuss the statements of spencer and christy.

By: Mike Phipps

Mike Phipps — Sat, 31 May 2008 23:48:30 +0000

Well can believe what you want, but John Christy is not a man out to get rich and win the Noble Prize. He has no hidden political agenda. He is purely a scientist who looks at the climate and takes views that deal more with humans and less with hype. Whether the climate, so called warming is a product of man or a product of nature doesn’t change anything. If the world is ending there is little we can do about it. And to hype it serves only those who have little else to do our than look for a cause.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:57:01 +0000

Well it took RC long enough to try to rebut Spencer, the whole team must have been burning the midnight oil over that one, long live the hockey stick.

By: kim

kim — Sat, 24 May 2008 06:07:36 +0000

AJ, too much physics and not enough meteorology. Heh.

H/t P. Pere
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