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Koch-Funded Study Confirms Climate Data

Posted: 10/26/11 10:10 AM ET

Climate skeptics were hoping this study would debunk data proving the existence of the climate crisis -- instead it reaffirmed the science:

Back in 2010, Richard Muller, a Berkeley physicist and self-proclaimed climate skeptic, decided to launch the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project to review the temperature data that underpinned global-warming claims. Remember, this was not long after the Climategate affair had erupted, at a time when skeptics were griping that climatologists had based their claims on faulty temperature data.


Muller's stated aims were simple. He and his team would scour and re-analyze the climate data, putting all their calculations and methods online. Skeptics cheered the effort. "I'm prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong," wrote Anthony Watts, a blogger who has criticized the quality of the weather stations in the United States that provide temperature data. The Charles G. Koch Foundation even gave Muller's project $150,000 -- and the Koch brothers, recall, are hardly fans of mainstream climate science.

So what are the end results? Muller's team appears to have confirmed the basic tenets of climate science.

With the evidence reconfirmed (again), I would hope that skeptics would rethink their position and join me in pushing our government, and governments around the world, to take steps to solve the climate crisis.

Source: Washington Post's WonkBlog

Cross-posted from Al's Journal.

 
 
 

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11:03 PM on 11/01/2011
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20111027_drought.html
People need to read.
10:34 PM on 11/01/2011
Well guess what Mr. Gore.... Humans are simply not up to this task. We are a failure on the whole as a species. The majority are so engaged in politically partisan, ideological, egotistical bickering and one upping that the truth of the situation doesn't show up as a blip on any of their screens. I honestly don't know why you waste any time posting anything on this site or anywhere else about this on the Internet as it is obvious that it is exactly money that is all anyone cares about. The true value of this world we are destroying is lost on them. They yammer on and on and on about addressing this costing money but haven't a clue as to the damage already being done around the world to culture, biodiversity, other species, and the systems that keep us thriving because of climate change because they never look beyond their modems and their own damn wallets as they stew in their ignorance and apathy.
11:27 PM on 10/31/2011
one little detail - all this man "confirmed" Al is that the data is reasonable - he specifically did not say he agrees that any temperature rise was caused by man made CO2.

Little detail I notice you failed to mention ......Big surprise. LOL
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Publicola
Reality has a scientific bias
06:01 PM on 11/06/2011
heian120: "one little detail - all this man "confirmed­" Al is that the data is reasonable"

Not merely "reasonable" but moreover reliable and robust. Dr. Muller put it this way, with respect to previous studies that have examined the instrumental global temperature trend:

"[T]hese studies were done carefully and that potential biases identified by climate change sceptics did not seriously affect their conclusions.”

Nice spin attempt though.

heian120: "[Muller] specifical­ly did not say he agrees that any temperatur­e rise was caused by man made CO2."

Dr. Muller's studies did not address that question, which Dr. Muller specifical­ly said, and you heian120 failed to mention.

heian120: "Little detail I notice you failed to mention ......Big surprise. LOL"

Science denier irony never ends.
10:16 AM on 11/11/2011
right. his studies did not address AGW theory. and do not help them. and as Climatologist Curry, who was part of the study points out....

Uh oh: It was the BEST of times, it was the worst of times
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/29/uh-oh-it-was-the-best-of-times-it-was-the-worst-of-times/#more-50286
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Publicola
Reality has a scientific bias
12:44 PM on 11/11/2011
Nice Gish Gallop*, heian120 - what exactly did Curry say that is your supposed point here?

-----------------------
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Richard2
11:36 PM on 10/30/2011
When examined more objectively Best data confirms the global temperature standstill of the past decade. That the standstill should be present in land only data is remarkable. There have been standstills in land temperature before, but the significance of the past decade is that it is in the era of mankind’s postulated influence on climate through greenhouse gas forcing. Predictions made many times in the past few years suggest that warming should be the strongest and fastest in the land data.


Only a few years ago many scientists and commentators would not acknowledge the global temperature standstill of the past decade. Now that it has become unarguable there has emerged more explanations for it than can possibly be the case.

....
We make a big deal of the temperature going up. In my view we should make a bigger scientific deal about temperature flatlining for a decade or more in the face of rising CO2 levels. If further scrutiny of the Best dataset confirms this finding we will have new questions about the nature and balance of oceanic and land warming.


The fact that Best confirms the global temperature hiatus and shows that it is apparent in land only data is significant, and in my view its major scientific finding, so far. David Whitehouse
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gallon
Those who fail to remember history are, um
12:42 AM on 10/31/2011
When the chinese quit emitting so much sulfur aerosol from their new coal plants, I think we will witness the temperatute shooting up to the previous trend line.
01:50 AM on 10/31/2011
For a moment R2, I thought this:

"We make a big deal of the temperatur­e going up. In my view we should make a bigger scientific deal about temperatur­e flatlining for a decade or more in the face of rising CO2 levels. If further scrutiny of the Best dataset confirms this finding we will have new questions about the nature and balance of oceanic and land warming."

came from your brain. It was intelligent. Too bad you cut and pasted it.

Yes, change is what makes scientists salivate R2. It means we have to identify new mechanisms. or the realtive balance between known ones. And that beats following the same old trends. Plus it helps pin down causitive factors and their relative magnitude. It is the "stuff"of science.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Richard2
11:20 PM on 10/30/2011
Scientist Who Said Climate Sceptics Had Been Proved Wrong Accused Of Hiding Truth By Colleague

Sunday, 30 October 2011 06:50 David Rose, Mail on Sunday .It was hailed as the scientific study that ended the global warming debate once and for all – the research that, in the words of its director, ‘proved you should not be a sceptic, at least not any longer’.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a leading member of Prof Muller’s team has accused him of trying to mislead the public by hiding the fact that BEST’s research shows global warming has stopped.
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gallon
Those who fail to remember history are, um
12:39 AM on 10/31/2011
Newsflash for R2: We are all aware of the atmospheric temperature plateau for the past decade. It is not a secret being kept from you R2. Science is working on the issue. One leading cause is the sulfur aerosols being emitted by all the new chinese coal plants. Those sulfur aerosols are reflecting some of the incoming infrared. Another line of reasoning is that the deep ocean is soaking up extra heat now.
11:31 PM on 10/31/2011
Yup - the data is the DATA. One cannot say they are happy this scientist agrees with it and then say they don't like all that falls out of it........
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
disappointedliberal
TP candidate = Dem Wins
09:46 PM on 10/30/2011
What really makes me mad is the false claims about main stream media having a liberal bias. When e-mails of climatologist raised eyebrows, the MSM were all over the story. Where is the reporting from MSM on this. I am not talking sites like Huffpo, which has a liberal slant. I am not talking about the Daily KOS. I am talking ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN. It is complete and total nonsense when you hear that the MSM has a liberal bias.
gclafontaine
Sand is a small price to pay for sandlessness.
10:20 PM on 10/30/2011
I agree whole-heartedly. This claim results from confusing intellectualism with liberalism.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
disappointedliberal
TP candidate = Dem Wins
11:39 PM on 10/30/2011
F&F
11:32 PM on 10/31/2011
ya sure - they were "all over it" superficially - and since then? they bought into the obvious coverup. how could they be that Stupid and not be biased????

lay it out for us......LOL
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
disappointedliberal
TP candidate = Dem Wins
12:46 PM on 11/01/2011
"ya sure - they were "all over it" superficia­lly - and since then?" I love teachable moments like this. Here is the difference b/t news and spin. News reports what happens. Hopefully they do it without interjecting themselves or their opinions about what happened. Then they move on to the next story. If the event has not happened again, and if there is no new twist, then it is not news. Fox repeats the same story over and over and over. They interject their their interpretation of the events. Remember the Fox "News" anchor who interpreted Barack and Michele Obama's fist bump as a terrorist fist jab? If you don't remember it, you can find it on the internet. Of course they news networks did not repeat the story day after day and week after week this stupid story. There was nothing new to report and they are not Fox, trying to persuade instead of report. Even the Koch brothers funded study found the science to be legitimate but that was not covered at all. If they were biased, then they would have not only covered that story but they would have covered it for days. They would have interviewed the scientists for reaction to the study. They would interview the critics. Instead, the passed on the study. And I am sure that you will think I have not laid it out for you but that is your issue.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
sandhillsrider
tail lights and dust trails
09:23 PM on 10/30/2011
Centuries in the future, people (if there are any left) will look back at us the same way we look back at the technology in the 1600's. Before we today can turn the ship around we first have to get the economy on solid footing, put people back to work and reduce the national debt. Hell, we can't even produce a budget! How can anyone take the climate problem seriously when they are sleeping under an overpass!
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Publicola
Reality has a scientific bias
06:28 PM on 11/06/2011
sandhillsrider: "Centuries in the future, people (if there are any left) will look back at us the same way we look back at the technology in the 1600's."

Yeah man, what has science ever been right about - obviously science cannot be trusted or ever taken seriously.

/sarcasm

-------------------------------------------

"How should scientists respond to the allegation that our ‘faith’ in logic and scientific truth is just that — faith — not ‘privileged’ (favourite in-word) over alternative truths? A minimal response is that science gets results. As I put it in River Out of Eden,

'Show me a cultural relativist at 30,000 feet and I'll show you a hypocrite ... If you are flying to an international congress of anthropologists or literary critics, the reason you will probably get there — the reason you don't plummet into a ploughed field — is that a lot of Western scientifically trained engineers have got their sums right.'

"Science boosts its claim to truth by its spectacular ability to make matter and energy jump through hoops on command, and to predict what will happen and when."

- Dr. Richard Dawkins
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
MassWG
08:29 PM on 10/30/2011
"I would hope that skeptics would rethink their position and join me in pushing our government, and governments around the world, to take steps to solve the climate crisis."

Translation:
"I would hope that I could profit immensely by pushing our government to take steps to NOT solve the climate crisis, but merely to PRETEND to solve it. A carbon tax might solve it, but no money would go to me. Therefore I have no interest. Cap and trade, on the other hand, would perpetuate the crisis AND enrich me, so I wholeheartedly support that plan."
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
disappointedliberal
TP candidate = Dem Wins
09:48 PM on 10/30/2011
Now, now, Mr. Gore is rich. Sorry, I mean he is a job creator. Where is the conservative love for the job creator? Common on, where is it?
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
JoeTroll
Prove your own claims. I'm not your intern.
09:56 PM on 10/30/2011
That's funny, because the Republican party is where the cap & trade idea came from in the first place.
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4eva
.-.. --- ...- . --..-- / -. --- - / .... .- - .
08:11 PM on 10/30/2011
If Gore and others put half as much time and energy into getting on with developing alternative energy solutions as they put into trying to convince people of climate change, we'd be awash in alternative energy ... we'd have more options than we could imagine.

Stop yammering and just do it.
07:47 PM on 10/30/2011
The sun controls the climate.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
waltifarian
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
08:56 PM on 10/30/2011
The researchers at the Stanford Solar Center disagree with you: http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/glob-warm.html
11:35 PM on 10/31/2011
to a great degree. and it may mean we will be getting cooler not warmer....
07:31 PM on 10/30/2011
FOX news will problably predict a new ice age arriving any minute since the nor easter that hit the east coast this weekend. The problem is that the pin heads tuning in will actually believe it.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
TeraWatt60
Cogito Ergo Sum
07:31 PM on 10/30/2011
When the environmental equivalent of the "Tobacco Lobby" can't even fund a study that will confirm the result they want you know that industry shills are in trouble. Now ,if you haven't noticed, they are trying to get their way using scare tactics/blackmail under the guise of "Well maybe if we were allowed to pollute and damage the environment we just MIGHT create a job or two..." Teapublicans then rush to claim that damaging the environment will create jobs
11:38 PM on 10/31/2011
you missed the fact that this man did NOT say that he believed man made CO2 is cauusing the rise. and as you might or might not know that IS the point isn't it.

and that is where the science is far from settled.......
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groland
socially left, fiscally right
07:13 PM on 10/30/2011
Science is a liberal plot! You can't trust those nerdy scientists, no better to put our faith in Republican politicians. They would not lie to us, would they?
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Sweet Liberty
04:49 PM on 10/30/2011
Spread this news around!! We got a lot of Americans who still refuse to believe that climate change is caused by us. And it will still be hard to change their minds. FOX won't report this, so its up to the rest of us to do so.
11:40 PM on 10/31/2011
and this mans report did not say that anything was "caused by us".. amusing that AL cut that out of this story.
This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
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fanofariana
Rooting for Obama
04:09 PM on 10/30/2011
And it will only get worse if out of control population is yet again overlooked.7 billion on this planet. More ppl to feed, more CO2 spilled to the atmosphere. Prices of crop being dealt as commodities..... Sky rocketing.....We are doomed.