rstuart you said "A climate gate would require them to lie in their published papers. Somewhere in a paper, in their explanation of how they got from raw data to conclusions, they would have to deliberately hide, distort or deceive. I haven't seen any evidence they did."

Don't you think Michael Mann's substition of instrumental data for proxy data post 1960 or so because the proxies show a decline in temperature, without revealing that fact is to "deliberately hide, distort or deceive"? (I'm not saying that the actual temperature went down, but it makes the proxies inappapropriate as proxies if they don't correspond to the actual temperature, which throws the Hockey Stick out the window completely!)

The data and code the computer programmer was frustrated with was from all over the planet, Australia just got a special guernsey. Anthony Watts has a handy compilation of the programmers comments at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/25/climategate-hide-the-decline-codified/. You will be horrified at some of the programmers' comments. This is not minor but major stuff.

Q&A just diverted you from the real problem with the models. He had an explanation for something unrelated to the issue, but which involved water. To nullify a model output you don't need to understand how it works. (I suspect even the modellers themselves only have a vague idea of that given the complexities.) What you need is to test a prediction. The one that is normally cited is the troposphere hot spot which the models predict, but which doesn't exist.

Or you can look at the comments of modellers who actually know (versus anonymous posters who claim to know). The quotes from Ann Henderson Sellers in this blog post by me give you proof of this kind http://ambit-gambit.nationalforum.com.au/archives/003405.html.

You're pretty casual about Climate Gate given that it involves deliberate destruction of data so as to avoid their legal obligations. I don't know what industry you're in, but I hope you don't indulge in that sort of behaviour because it is probably criminal.

It is interesting to see how this particular forum is evolving. Monckton has catalysed a particularly useful debate, which seems to mirror the diversity of views I find in the community- ranging from incoherent angry raves to cogent discourse on details.

At its heart, there is a genuine concern that society might be being ripped off again. These rip-offs have a long history which includes stock market bubbles over many centuries, Y2K, WMD in Iraq, the GFC and so on. By the very nature of society, technical people have been involved at all levels- some struggling to do their best with the task at hand with limited resources, others seizing the day to make career moves, others innocently reacting to received data and others manipulating people and organisations for personal and/or political motives. The media seize any opportunity for a story (Recent absurd example: "Terrier terror: list reveals Jack Russell attacks" ABC http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/25/2800176.htm). That's a vigorous democracy up close!

But, as Galileo said:“Eppur si muove” -"and yet it turns". The state of the planet is inexorably deteriorating,due to human activity, even if the climate is only changing within "normal" statistical variability. Scientists, accustomed to making reliable nano-scale and peta-scale measurements, have applied their methodologies to the global malaise. Their job is to turn data into knowledge via testing conjectures and hypothesese.

Then the public bandwagon and free-for-all begins,complete with showmen and snake-oil-salesmen.

Monckton may have done us a service of a kind, but, to use a zen quote: "When a wise man points at the moon, the fool looks at the finger."
...and yet it turns, Christopher, and yet it turns.

Hi candide, I'm not sure if I agree with you. Check out Google Prof Jones who seems to be in hot water, fudging the data, to favor global warming evidence. And deliberately hiding the fact that FOI should be denied as FOI laws in GB are not generally known. Well they are present. There is something in the Telegraph UK about it. By deliberately and willfully siding with the AGW argument is prejudiced.

In my opinion,there is strong political/economic/social manipulation involved in this climate change swindle. Corrupting so called scientific data to prove a point is scandalous. And retribution against those swindler's should be followed up. Including the IPCC and Al Gore et al, and the UEA people.

It's not as though they did a terrible job of the research as you suggest, it was willfully manipulated to substantiate the UN draft treaty advocating taxing under a globally run government, (not an elected one) developed countries to pay compensation to undeveloped countries for the damage we developed countries are doing to them. That goes beyond just a stupid mistake but absolute fraud!

I recommend people get onto U Tube and see "The Great Global Warming Swindle" produced back in 2007. Even the founder of Greenpeace resigned for reasons you will understand.

Hi all, maybe GrahamY might like to make a comment he seems to be cluey on the scientific facts. It was mentioned there maybe another element missing from what controls climate and water vapor and if I understand it water vapor is the key element of Greenhouse gases, that keep the planet warm and cool depending on seasons and also cloud cover.

In that UTube DVD 'The Great Climate Change Swindle' check out the
Canadian report. Initially instigated by the fisheries department on why there was sometimes a decline in herring and anchovies hauls. They suggested that cosmic rays influence cloud cover, and solar activity deflects Cosmic rays. They did a very good report not I believe beyond most people's intelligence to suggest global warming has anything to do with CO2 emissions or climate change. It's those dreaded cosmic rays and those sunspots that control the weather and climate ... now Mr Rudd and Obama can you suggest how we control them?

This is my second post in twenty four hours, so I will say goodnight
now but look forward to reading from ALL posters. Au revoir mon amies.

Bazz: "something running so many arithmetic calculations on something like weather would run into chaos and fractal complications. ... go out to 50 years or more seems just far fetched"

They do the equivalent of modelling the effects of the river bank, while ignoring the rapids. Thus if you pour a glass of water into the rapids they can't tell you where it will be in 5 seconds time, yet they can still tell you pretty accurately where it will be in 1 week.

GrahamY: "without revealing that fact"

My understanding is he did explain all steps he took in the resulting paper.

GrahamY: "Q&A just diverted"

I knew I didn't have a clue how they model water before Q&A gave me his explanation. After his explanation I knew they modelled the water flow in Hadley cells using fluid dynamics. But as Q&A later explained, that was only one part of the picture. And I didn't even know how how big a part it was. So I as far as I could tell, I still didn't have a clue. I don't see how that could be called a diversion. The only thing that changed was my frustration level.

GrahamY: "You will be horrified at some of the programmers' comments."

You want to see programmers when they are really pissed off? Read this:

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=477454

After a decade of watching flame wars like that between open source programmers, it would take a fair bit to horrify me. The above flame war has another lesson. What you see in there is the infighting triggered by a horrendous mistake compromising the security not only of that program, but of the entire Debian archive, and every distribution derived from it (eg Ubuntu). But you know what? After it all died down the original problem had been fixed, the holes it created plugged before serious damage was done and life went on. I'd say the same thing happened with the temperature data.

GrahamY: "deliberate destruction of data so as to avoid their legal obligations"

I don't know what you are referring to.

GrahamY,30Jan 9:15 PM:
Addressing the allegedly large cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Graham said
"When it comes to economic modelling, Stern is regarded as a joke by good economists."

Stern's discount rate is equivalent to valuing a human life in 2050 as equal to one now, as he clearly explained. The discount rate used by "good" economists values a human life in 2050 as worth almost nothing, and therefore our grandchildren as disposable. Their lives can be traded for more growth now. Typical of the destructive abstractions of economists.

You don't even have to argue this using economic theory. There are many practical demonstrations of how to cut emissions for a modest cost, when properly done. The mainstream of "good" economists like Nordhaus is oblivious to this on-the-ground evidence that clearly contradict their models. (You want to criticise models, have a look at economic models.) See my post
http://betternature.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/cut-emissions-and-boost-economy/

But then the entire neoclassical economics profession is oblivious to blatantly obvious evidence that their theory bears no resemblance to real modern economies:
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8644
Pseudo-science.

I think GrahamY is immune to such arguments, but others may be interested.

And Graham you fudged your response to why you rely on the Hadley data (peak 1998) rather than the NASA data (peak 2005) by saying you don't trust any data. So how do you know the globe has been cooling since 1998, or at all? In any case, neither is inconsistent with global warming, as I have explained many times here.
http://betternature.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/global-cooling-since-1998/