More Evidence of Data Tampering in Climate Debate

I have said all along that I would like to see the evidence…that I would like to see real scientific studies on the assertions made by the global warming folks. Frankly, the underlying studies are often hard to find. They are buried under layers and layers of references. Mostly due to the politicalization of the subject.

I have been a believer to a certain degree. Though I was never certain enough to back efforts that would have significant impacts on the global economy. Last year, some material, from Lord Monckton, made me start questioning whether the political influence on the debate had tilted it from real science to political posturing. Today, more evidence was released of the latter. Granted, the source of the article may be considered biased. However, the report that it quotes is from the Chief Meteorologist at the Weather Channel. Frankly, there are only a few guys with better credentials.

The global warming scandal keeps getting worse. Revelations over the few weeks show that many important assertions in the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were based on misquotes and false claims from environmental groups, not on published academic research as it was originally presented. This is on top of the recent mess regarding data, where the three most relied-on data series used by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 assessment report still have not been released. Other data simply never seem to have existed or cannot be provided to other scientists.

link: FOXNews.com – The Next Climate-gate?

Here is the actual report:

Surface Tempertature Recrods: Policy Driven Deception

I have not read it in full. So, I won’t comment on it yet. At first glance, however, it does throw a significant amount of doubt at the data that the theories are based upon. This may be the first evidence of the impact of the internet on scientific studies. It may be that like journalism, we have lost the practical and ethical importance of fact checking, correct referencing, and critical thinking. It should be an interesting read.

As a side note…scientists need to be careful about how tangled up they (as a media entity) get in politics. They should be like a good reporter, no opinions only fact. In this climate debate, they are starting to look like editorialists. If science starts to develop a reputation that it cannot be trusted to be impartial, then we may start to see a cultural shift. You may start to see a shift away from the belief that science is the search for truth to a perception that science is the mechanism that people use to support their political agendas. I think that would be catastrophic to our pace of technical and scientific advancement. I don’t want to see that happen and I hope these scientists don’t either.