23rd
Rorscharch Events: Leaked Climate Change
(Note: I initially shared this item and comment on my Google Reader ‘shared items’ page, and Adam asked me for a longer response. Since it was fairly long, I thought I’d share it here.)
From the New York Times: Hacked E-Mail Is New Fodder for Climate Dispute
Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change.The e-mail messages, attributed to prominent American and British climate researchers, include discussions of scientific data and whether it should be released, exchanges about how best to combat the arguments of skeptics, and casual comments — in some cases derisive — about specific people known for their skeptical views. Drafts of scientific papers and a photo collage that portrays climate skeptics on an ice floe were also among the hacked data, some of which dates back 13 years.
In one e-mail exchange, a scientist writes of using a statistical “trick” in a chart illustrating a recent sharp warming trend. In another, a scientist refers to climate skeptics as “idiots.”
Some skeptics asserted Friday that the correspondence revealed an effort to withhold scientific information. “This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud,” said Patrick J. Michaels, a climatologist who has long faulted evidence pointing to human-driven warming and is criticized in the documents.
Some of the correspondence portrays the scientists as feeling under siege by the skeptics’ camp and worried that any stray comment or data glitch could be turned against them.
This is one of those Rorschach events where your interpretation of its significance depends entirely on your prior opinion.
My own interpretation is that I’m willing to question what I “know”, though I’ve always tried to characterize myself as someone that believes in the warming hypothesis based on second hand observation. I’m not nearly qualified to assess the first-hand evidence, and I try to keep a moderate, ‘non-panicked’ view on the question.
I haven’t read the excerpts yet, just the above story and a post on Vulgar Morality. Unless the full contents of the hacked emails are released, I probably won’t read through them. It’s too easy to cherry pick quotes that cast a negative light. Also, years of reading email lists leaves me with the opinion that you learn almost nothing about the subject being discussed and a great deal about the people discussing it.
That said, I’m not surprised by the characterization that emerges. That some scientists are derisive of people that disagree with them, or that some scientists may have overstated their conclusions or falsified results is pretty believable. Those are very human things to do, but since there’s no single piece of evidence that all of climate science relies upon, and no single scientist or group of scientists behind the theory, I don’t see these revelations having a huge impact on the debate. If they lead to a re-evaluation of the existing literature, then that’s even better.
What interests me most is the automatic reaction from climate change skeptics and believers. Some skeptics point to this event as a “smoking gun” and some true believers automatically downplay its significance, or ignore it altogether. I don’t think either of those responses is the right one, but that’s probably the result of my own bias.
