How to destroy the Earth.

[Yossarian0815]

Speaking of hot spots -

Al Gore on The Conan O'Brien's show -

Conan:   Now, what about … you talk in the book about geothermal energy …
Al:   Yeah, yeah.
Conan:     and that is, as I understand it, using the heat that's generated from the core of the earth …
Al:   Yeah.
Conan:   … to create energy, and it sounds to me like an evil plan by Lex Luthor to defeat Superman. Can you, can you tell me, is this a viable solution, geothermal energy?
Al:   It definitely is, and it's a relatively new one. People think about geothermal energy — when they think about it at all — in terms of the hot water bubbling up in some places, but two kilometers or so down in most places there are these incredibly hot rocks, 'cause the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees, and the crust of the earth is hot … 

Several million degrees?    Wow.

heehee, I think Al mixed up the earth with the sun.

[Keano]

Now, I'm a rabid commie-loving, capital-loathing, freedom-hating left-leaning destroy-everything-we-hold-dear (especially if it's expensive and fun) environmentalist, but even I think big Al blew this one.

IMO, he is more trouble than he's worth to the environmental movement. Maybe all that publicity 'n all got into his head. I don't know. The way I see it, his presence only provides ammo for the right-wingers among us, neatly diverting public attention from the real issues into such trivialities as Al Gore and His Most Recent Act, part n+1.

[mididoctors]

I vaguely remember reading an article the "debunking" and not being impressed by the quality of the work.  ISTR there still being real urban hotspot problems in temp. trend data. 

the bias created by poorly located monitoring stations will fall into two camps

obvious distortion

or

doesn't make much difference

not only that you can base trends on a series of poorly sited stations and see if the trend in changing temp matches a series from well placed stations...

take a wild guess

[Dirtweasle]

Odd, I cannot get to Der Spiegel from the office anylonger... anyways, maybe this article is interesting ... or not.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,662092,00.html

[Soddball]

I vaguely remember reading an article the "debunking" and not being impressed by the quality of the work.  ISTR there still being real urban hotspot problems in temp. trend data. 

the bias created by poorly located monitoring stations will fall into two camps

obvious distortion

or

doesn't make much difference

not only that you can base trends on a series of poorly sited stations and see if the trend in changing temp matches a series from well placed stations...

take a wild guess

One of the other issues that isn't discussed much is the number of stations.  IIRC the number of sites in the continental US has dropped by a third in 50 years.  In the USSR since the 1989 it's halved.  These are obviously issues for long-term trends and for the quality of the data produced.

In today's news - Hadley's Climate Research Unit was hacked over night, and a heap of data dumped on the internet.  Some of it may be fake, some may be real.  Head over to WattsUpWithThat to get the low-down.

[mididoctors]

In today's news - Hadley's Climate Research Unit was hacked over night, and a heap of data dumped on the internet.  Some of it may be fake, some may be real.  Head over to WattsUpWithThat to get the low-down.

some people involved seem to state that the emails are true.

[SSgt Viljuri]

In today's news - Hadley's Climate Research Unit was hacked over night, and a heap of data dumped on the internet.  Some of it may be fake, some may be real.  Head over to WattsUpWithThat to get the low-down.

some people involved seem to state that the emails are true.

A Finnish professor (Atte Korhola) confirms this as well on today's papers, personally knowing researchers in question.

Similar worries are been raised inside Academia all the time, and there's growing discontent among the very scientist and researchers themselves. Hopefully we will see that paradigm shift as there already is enough momentum to make the field more scientifically sound and especially improve ethics of the scientists concerned.

Some practices of the field are nothing short of fraudulent activity. Ends do not justify the means here or anywhere else, for that matter, methodology and scientific transparency are way more important than any of our contemporary crises or issues. This should be very clear to anyone with an IQ of over 100.

[Dirtweasle]

Interesting on at least a couple levels.

First a summary -

Late on the night of of November 19, news broke on PJM and elsewhere that a large amount of data had been stolen from one of the major climate research institutions by an unknown hacker and made available on the Internet. The institution is the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit, home institution for Dr Phil Jones and one of the world’s centers of research into anthropogenic global warming (AGW), or “climate change.”

The hackers released about 172 megabytes of data, and we can be sure examining it closely will take some time. But after a few days, certain things are beginning to become clear.

 -  The data appears to be largely, perhaps entirely, authentic.
 -  The emails are incendiary.
 -  The implications shake the scientific basis for AGW, and the scientific reputations of some of AGW’s major proponents, to their roots.

Let’s look at the files and emails first. (For a running list of the interesting emails, see Bishop Hill’s list.) As I wrote earlier, you have to be really careful with this sort of thing, because it would only require salting a few really inflammatory fakes through a collection of otherwise real emails to make a convincing hoax (think Rathergate.) But since the data first came out, a number of the emails have been corroborated by recipients, and none of them have been refuted. So, at least tentatively, I think we need to accept them as authentic. ...   

What does it mean?

On the media spin from we have the New York Times with this howler on why they won't print the files / e-mails, etc ...

The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, ...

Naturally this same rationale didn't apply to say any number of stories over the years, like the tail markings and FAA numbers of covert CIA aircraft for instance.

I have not as yet been able to discover the reason for these properties of gravity from phenomena, and I do not feign hypotheses. For whatever is not deduced from the phenomena must be called a hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, or based on occult qualities, or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction.

Newton weeps.

[mididoctors]

Interesting on at least a couple levels.

First a summary -

Late on the night of of November 19, news broke on PJM and elsewhere that a large amount of data had been stolen from one of the major climate research institutions by an unknown hacker and made available on the Internet. The institution is the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit, home institution for Dr Phil Jones and one of the world’s centers of research into anthropogenic global warming (AGW), or “climate change.”

The hackers released about 172 megabytes of data, and we can be sure examining it closely will take some time. But after a few days, certain things are beginning to become clear.

 -  The data appears to be largely, perhaps entirely, authentic.
 -  The emails are incendiary.
 -  The implications shake the scientific basis for AGW, and the scientific reputations of some of AGW’s major proponents, to their roots.

Let’s look at the files and emails first. (For a running list of the interesting emails, see Bishop Hill’s list.) As I wrote earlier, you have to be really careful with this sort of thing, because it would only require salting a few really inflammatory fakes through a collection of otherwise real emails to make a convincing hoax (think Rathergate.) But since the data first came out, a number of the emails have been corroborated by recipients, and none of them have been refuted. So, at least tentatively, I think we need to accept them as authentic. ...   

What does it mean?

On the media spin from we have the New York Times with this howler on why they won't print the files / e-mails, etc ...

The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, ...

Naturally this same rationale didn't apply to say any number of stories over the years, like the tail markings and FAA numbers of covert CIA aircraft for instance.

I have not as yet been able to discover the reason for these properties of gravity from phenomena, and I do not feign hypotheses. For whatever is not deduced from the phenomena must be called a hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, or based on occult qualities, or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction.

Newton weeps.

what a epic hurricane force shit vortex this is going to turn out to be....   

Until these questions are answered, the various attempts to “deal with the climate change crisis” have no acceptable scientific basis.

so there we go.... royally fucked into a hat....

[Dirtweasle]

what a epic hurricane force shit vortex this is going to turn out to be....    

Yup.

[Egbert]

Water is a bit more complicated than that on this side of the pond.

Cadillac Desert is a good one stop shop on the issues.

Short version, many areas in the country depend on irrigation at a truly epic scale.     Before we start topping our cities in colossal grass domes of some sort we ought to think about it.    Regardless the Federalism issue, there are mattes of practicallity and economics to be overcome.

There are and the federal system will allow different states to deliver solutions appropriate to their areas.  There's plenty that can be done though.  Why, when I zip over Tucson, Arizona (minimum temperature 37C, average rainfall 1" per month) on Google Earth do I see gardens with dark green lawns?  Most houses have a dry brown back garden, but a significant minority have lawns that must be watered at least once a day.  If you want a green lawn, don't live in the desert.

In the case of something like that, it's not down to practicality and economics.

Much of that green is not grass. Much of it is a waste material of broken concrete or some semi-permanent material painted green.

A large amount is grass, however.

[Egbert]

what a epic hurricane force shit vortex this is going to turn out to be....   

Until these questions are answered, the various attempts to “deal with the climate change crisis” have no acceptable scientific basis.

so there we go.... royally fucked into a hat....

What is that Proverbial Chinese curse?
May you live in interesting times?

[tanq_tonic]

what a epic hurricane force shit vortex this is going to turn out to be....   

Until these questions are answered, the various attempts to “deal with the climate change crisis” have no acceptable scientific basis.

so there we go.... royally fucked into a hat....

What is that Proverbial Chinese curse?
May you live in interesting times?

The emails show how "down and dirty" that research and science can be.

The emails (even the language-loaded ones) really don't even come close to "shaking AGW to its roots."

[Marlow]

The emails show how "down and dirty" that research and science can be.

That is the party line anyway.  Some of those e-mails are well beyond what would be acceptable in normal academic circles.  Lying and fraud don't qualify as normal academic infighting.

The emails (even the language-loaded ones) really don't even come close to "shaking AGW to its roots."

Perhaps not.  Jury is still out.  It does pretty much trash the credibility of the particular academics involved, and destroys the integrity of the data and analysis associated with the particular institute.

[mididoctors]

[

The emails (even the language-loaded ones) really don't even come close to "shaking AGW to its roots."

hence the term shit storm comes to mind..... many will take it as just that