I have been trying very hard the last several days to get worked up by the New York Times story Saturday that NASA has quietly changed the mission statement of the space agency, deleting a reference to studying the planet. I haven’t been successful, but a lot of other people, particularly in liberal neighborhoods of the blogosphere, have expressed varying levels of outrage, seeing this as another case where the White House has meddled with NASA so that it devotes less attention to global warming.
An example of these arguments can be a found in a post by Laurie David on The Huffington Post on Monday. David, one of the producers of the Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth (as well as the husband of Larry David of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” fame), believes it’s “truly chilling” that NASA would quietly change the mission statement, and sees something more nefarious at work:
Since the quiet change to the mission statement was made in February, funding for research of our home planet has continued to disappear from NASA’s budget as Bush puts increased emphasis on returning to the Moon and putting men on Mars.
Getting past the argument about the perceived disappearance of Earth sciences funding (previously discussed here) is the question of just how significant that mission statement is for NASA. While David calls it “the mission statement of this 48-year-old agency”, the statement itself dates back only four years, when it and an accompanying vision statement were released a few months into the tenure of Sean O’Keefe. Go to the NASA web site and you’ll be hard-pressed to find this mission statement prominently displayed anywhere. Perhaps the most damning statement comes from the original Times article, which noted that “Though the ‘understand and protect’ phrase was deleted in February, when the Bush administration submitted budget and planning documents to Congress, its absence has only recently registered with NASA employees.” If the mission statement was more prominent with the agency, don’t you think its absence would have been noted earlier?
What would be cause for concern is if other references to space science disappeared from other NASA documents. Yet the agency’s 2006 strategic plan, released at the same time as other documentation with the revised mission statement, has listed as one of its goals to “study Earth from space to advance scientific understanding and meet societal needs.” Now if NASA (or the White House, or whomever is really pulling the strings) really wanted to stop global warming research, or whatever, do you think that section of the plan, whose first paragraph mentions the “understanding of Earth’s system and its response to natural or human-induced changes” would still be in there?
In the 21st century, NASA’s main job should definately be to put people in space, on the moon, on mars and other destinations outside of earth orbit and learn how people can live their permanently. Robotic exploration in support and ahead of manned exploration should also be part of NASA’s main job. Studying the earth and global warming should not be NASA’s priortity and should be give to other science organizations. Maybe studying the earth’s weather and climate should be given to NOAA.
This is my shocked face. =-|
Yeah, it’s probably not some great conspiracy, but it is symbolic of what the priorities are. If you agree (or at least don’t strongly disagree)with the priorities then I wouldn’t expect you to get outraged.
Tsk tsk Jeff, please don’t confuse the issue with facts!
The global warming crowd is ignoring the data from SOHO and other NASA missions anyway because it conflicts with the anthropromorphic causation for climate change.
I read recently where the Sun’s internal convection currents have slowed by 75%, indicating the distinct possibility that we may have a new solar maunder minimum (no sunspots [i.e. anyone hear of the Little Ice Age]) within 22 years.
The only way to save the earth is to develop space whether or not your religion is global warming.
Dennis
This political liberal believes that we should redirect much of NASA’s effort toward sending human explorers into the Solar System (after all, what part of “humanism” is served by sending robots?). However, this is another example of the political ham-handedness of NASA under Dr. Griffin. He has repeatedly picked unnecessary fights by cancelling, and worse restoring, science missions. Changing the Mission Statement (while I agree that it’s meaningless in any practical sense) again picked an unnecessary fight.
If the United States is ever to return to the moon and go on to Mars, it is critical that NASA keep the broadest possible constituency behind the effort. By picking fights with scientists and environmentalists — and then not even sticking by the decisions — he is unnecessarily weakening his constituency.
One of the most remarkable things about the VSE, in my opinion, was that many (or even most) space scientists were not automatically opposed to it, and a clear and bipartisan majority of the US government also supports it. While that widespread agreement was bound to unravel once hard decisions started to be made, it seems to me that Dr. Griffin has created far more friction, far earlier, than was really necessary.
For a project that must last for generations, through many Administrations and Congresses, keeping the widest possible coalition is far more important than any technical decisions — and on that ground, Dr. Griffin appears to be failing us.
— Donald
Politics is the art of the possible, and expanding the possibilities is all about building coalitions.
Given the potential for significant change in the make-up of the House and Senate in 2006, both Houses and the Executive Branch in 2008, and the political and economic aftermath of the current situation in Southwest Asia, NASA and those who support its goals should be doing everything possible to make those goals as national as possible.
Again, the real story here is 2 things
1 – We liberals are finally building a capable noise machine
and
2 – Again, if the Republicains hadn’t turned their party over to the idealoges, we wouldn’t be forced to see everything through the prism of “How are they trying to screw us now?”
Anyone remember George Deutsch?
Dennis : First it was Milankovitch cycles, now it’s the sun. What will it be next, besides the obvious? Your ludicrous claims are easily refuted.
Jeff : That’s exactly the way it happened, Hansen and the blogosphere noted NASA’s mission statement, NASA noticed that the blogosphere noticed, so they quietly changed NASA’s mission statement, and then conveniently NEGLECTED TO TELL ANYBODY!
Do I have to post my website logs to demonstrate that conclusively?
I don’t know how it could be any clearer.
The only way to save the earth is to develop space whether or not your religion is global warming.
“The Earth is just fine. We’re the ones who are fucked.” – George Carlin
corollary – we don’t need to “develop” space. It’s just fine, too.
I’m sure Earth did just fine “undeveloped” and without human beings, and space is probably doing pretty well without people, too. Yet, some of us kinda like Earth to be “developed,” with people in some of its nooks and crannies. It’s conceivable the same will be true in space.
If you don’t think space should be “developed,” why are you wasting your time on a blog that supposed to be discussing the politics of space development?
— Donald
If you don’t think space should be “developed,” why are you wasting your time on a blog that supposed to be discussing the politics of space development?
I didn’t say it shouldn’t be developed – but that it didn’t NEED to be developed.
You space tragics act as if you’re on some holy mission from (insert deity of choice here) and that it’s our destiny to develop space, and anyone who tries to criticise programs or particular kool-aid projects are to be demonised.
Well, hate to rain on your parade, but us cynics aren’t leaving. We’ll be around as long as you kool-aid drinkers keep peddling the BS of trillion dollar asteroids, space elevators, and the like.
Just protecting my tax dollars, you understand.
I didn’t say it shouldn’t be developed – but that it didn’t NEED to be developed.
Fortunately … you’re a fool.
It’s also clear that your tax dollars won’t be the ones developing it.
Well actions speak louder than words with 4 major earth observing satellites launched by NASA in the last 4 yrs, not sure how anyone can say NASA isn’t still looking earthward: Aqua launch on May 4, 2002, Aura launch on July of 2004, Calipso and CloudSat launch together on April 18, 2006.
As I understand it the money required to maintain a mission once lunched is less annually than during the R&D and launch phase. I don’t think NASA at this time needs to be developing more Earth science satellites but I could be wrong.
I think the important thing is to stay on it with Congress to keep sending money to NASA for the Earth Sciences. I really don’t see any weight in this mission statement.
Fortunately … you’re a fool.
Ahh, the sign of an intelligent argument: name calling.
It’s no wonder that you aren’t taken seriously on any space discussion board.
ah.
so I suppose “kool-aid drinkers” is a technical term?
Mission statements are good for two things:
– Formulating them is farmed out to committees that are generally made up of unproductive staff who can’t be fired. It keeps them out of the hair of the real workers.
– They keep the printing shop busy printing them, sending them to the employees, who read them once, and throw them into a file of other bureaucratic BS.
Obviously the NYT and Laurie David don’t read Dilbert.
(I once read that the only well-formulated mission statement in history was for the initial missions of NCC-1701.)
Shubber
Always enjoy seeing your contrarian views. Steel needs steel for sharpness.
The point is that if we want a global civilization where 9+ billion folks have a good life, the material resources of our single planet are inadequate. Furthermore, there is only a finite amount of time that we can remove billions of barrels per year of hydrocarbons from the ground. I don’t think that these two points are in contention by any serious student of the issue.
The question becomes, how do we surmount the problems.
One version is let all but about 500 million die and live with what is left. That version has some support (google: Georgia Guidestones). The problem is cleaning up the blood on the way down. It gets messy you know.
The other version is to access the wealth and resources of the solar system. We do have the financial and technical wherewithal to do this today. The result could be 9 billion plus moderately happy people.
Now of course the above is a simplified decision tree but you see where I am going. To be contrarian is fine, however to be a successful one it does require that an alternate solution set be presented for its own critique.
Dennis
Subber: You space tragics act as if you’re on some holy mission from (insert deity of choice here) and that it’s our destiny to develop space
Guilty as charged. However, the rest of your statement is demonstrably false. I have criticized many programs and strategies, not least the decision not to use EELVs for the VSE. The problem is, you are a cynic without a proactive strategy, which at best is a waste of time and effort and intellectual potential.
I fully agree with Dennis.
— Donald
NASA should be consentrating on getting the launch vehicales cheap enough so NOAA/USGS can make the observing instraments and do the earth sciences.
This way everyone wins (except boeing and lockheed
)
Dennis:
One version is let all but about 500 million die and live with what is left. That version has some support (google: Georgia Guidestones). The problem is cleaning up the blood on the way down. It gets messy you know.
The other version is to access the wealth and resources of the solar system. We do have the financial and technical wherewithal to do this today. The result could be 9 billion plus moderately happy people.
Finally – someone actually gives a rational reason for developing space. The problem that the majority* of space tragics don’t actually articulate even the most basic reasons for wanting to develop space – and turning a *want* into a *need* that is effectively communicated to the general public and the politicians. If the latter is not done, then the rest won’t follow. You know this.
Now of course the above is a simplified decision tree but you see where I am going. To be contrarian is fine, however to be a successful one it does require that an alternate solution set be presented for its own critique.
My job is not to provide an answer (although i have many times in the past when speaking at conferences, and you know what i think needs to be done) when i poke holes in a fluffy but intellectually weak proposition. My role as cynic is to call a spade a spade and point out when the emperor has no clothes at times that the alt.spacers seem reluctant or downright unwilling to do so. Shutting down ISS is a case in point. The tragics are still rambling on about “alpha town” and looking to make a buck off the government through resupply, etc – not because ISS is inherently valuable, but it’s a way to make a buck.
And that is how us cynics are born – when old-time space religionists turn out to just be fighting for a draw off the same govt teat as big aerospace.
* (yes, Donald, i *do* recognise that not every single space supporter fits the generalisation, but arguably most do – or did you miss the unpleasant reaction of the crowd at the Space Access conference last year when the paper on the economics of launch costs was presented…?)
Shubber, I am fine with criticism, but I get the (possibly unfair) impression that anything you disagree with is “a spade.” I have no idea what you agree with, in a positive sense, because you’ve never stated it, at least not here.
Shutting down ISS is a case in point. The tragics are still rambling on about “alpha town” and looking to make a buck off the government through resupply, etc – not because ISS is inherently valuable, but it’s a way to make a buck.
So what? I have argued here and elsewhere why I believe that something like the Space Station is a market required to jump start high-volume space transportation (e.g., COTS) and to provide an economic reason to develop lower cost transportation. You may disagree with that argument, but it is an honest argument that I have attempted to justify. Feel free to “poke holes in it” but please try to make them specific, honest holes, not your usual variation on “your and idiot and wrong and therefore I’m going to ignore you.”
And that is how us cynics are born – when old-time space religionists turn out to just be fighting for a draw off the same govt teat as big aerospace.
Every time you get in your car, you’re drawing on the government teat. The fact that the government paid for something does not in and of itself make it worthless. The Space Station may well be worthless — I think not for several reasons that I’ve stated before — but it is there and not likely to go away soon. If we can use it as a market, we should. There certainly are not any other markets as large that are likely to be there in the immediate future.
— Donald
“The global warming crowd is ignoring the data from SOHO and other NASA missions anyway because it conflicts with the anthropromorphic causation for climate change.”
Well, the conservative position on global warming has changed from “It’s not happening” to “okay, we concede that it is happening, but it is not due to fossil fuels.” In other words, that viewpoint has lost a lot of credibility over the past several years.
There are a lot of problems with both of these positions. The consensus across the vast majority of climate scientists is that global warming _is_ happening. There is also a majority consensus that at least some of this warming is due to solar variation. However, there is also majority consensus that a significant portion of it is due to human activity. Considering that we can control human activity but cannot control solar output, it makes sense that policy solutions focus on human activity, rather than simply decide to do nothing.
Second, there is a way to answer the question of how much of the warming is due to solar activity–launch a satellite to measure the radiation budget. You’d think that conservatives would support such a mission, but it is currently in limbo.
As for those people who say that NASA should be about space exploration and climate science should be turned over to NOAA, they seem to believe that their position is self-evident and unarguable. But they have little understanding of exactly who _does_ climate science in the United States and how.
In short, NASA built this field, not NOAA. NASA funds most of the scientists, not NOAA. NOAA is at best a weather agency (among many other duties), and NOAA _does not do climate science_. What this means is that the Earth science community believes that NASA–not NOAA–is the Earth science agency. NOAA, NSF, Congress, even the White House, all agree. So those who hold the view that NASA should focus primarily on exploring planets and flying humans and get rid of other stuff like Earth science are, and always have been, a minority view not shared by either the people in power or the people who perform this science.
Furthermore, what this opinion misses is that even if the mission is moved to NOAA, the US government has to pay for it. First, they would do that by taking the money out of NASA and transferring it to NOAA. And any additional money would have to come out of the Treasury, the same pool where NASA gets its funding. So shifting the mission to NOAA is not some magical solution that means that NASA gets more money to send astronauts to Mars.
The “give Earth science to NOAA” argument is not a reality-based opinion and I really wish that those of you who make this knee-jerk comment would actually go and do some research about how and where the money is spent on Earth science. Otherwise, your opinions hold no more weight than a drunk guy shouting about politics from his barstool.
Somebody else wrote:
“Well actions speak louder than words with 4 major earth observing satellites launched by NASA in the last 4 yrs, not sure how anyone can say NASA isn’t still looking earthward: Aqua launch on May 4, 2002, Aura launch on July of 2004, Calipso and CloudSat launch together on April 18, 2006.
As I understand it the money required to maintain a mission once lunched is less annually than during the R&D and launch phase. I don’t think NASA at this time needs to be developing more Earth science satellites but I could be wrong.”
All of your comments are true up to your last sentence.
It typically takes 5-10 years to design and build a sophisticated satellite. All of those satellites launched have nominal lifetimes of around seven years, meaning that they expire starting in 2009, 2011, and 2013. There are currently no replacements scheduled for them, even though the plan was always to continue (and improve) the data stream. The replacement instruments were scheduled to fly on NPOESS (by 2011 at the latest), but they have all been tossed overboard in order to save that program (turning NPOESS into a weather satellite). NPOESS is now delayed even further (four launches scheduled for 13, 16, 20 and 22).
This has been the complaint about NASA’s Earth science mission–not the current situation, but planning for the future. Griffin has tried to reverse the situation that he was left with by his predecessor, when there were really no funded programs to continue data after the current fleet of satellites died. But the money has not been forthcoming.
So the issue boils down to this: the current fleet of Earth sciences satellites, which are important to understanding the climate change issue as well as many others (things like El Nino monitoring are useful for commercial fishing), are all going to expire starting by the beginning of the next decade. That’s four years away, and no replacements are scheduled. If we want to measure climate change, if we want to do things like determine how much of it might be due to solar variation, then we need to fund replacements. And because satellites take many years to develop, we have to start funding those replacements now.
I agree we should start now investing in future earth science satellites but I don’t agree we need a lot of R&D money for those next generation satellites. We should leverage the technologies we have developed; we may need a few new instruments but not the original investment to develop the original instruments and satellite. I don’t think satellites are the only way to explore our oceans and atmosphere including lighter than air ships. I think CEV and all segments of our space program needs to work smarter to maximize the little money given to all science in the US.
“We should leverage the technologies we have developed; we may need a few new instruments but not the original investment to develop the original instruments and satellite.”
We are.
Years ago NASA made a deal that they thought would save money. Rather than put replacement instruments on new satellites, they agreed to put replacement instruments on the new polar orbiting weather satellites, NPOESS–the “E” stands for “Environmental,” not “Weather.” However, the Air Force and NOAA screwed up the program. NPOESS, it is now going to produce only 4 satellites instead of 6, cost twice as much, and do far less. A few months ago USAF/NOAA decided to throw all of the environmental instruments off of the platforms. This leaves NASA with a bunch of half-developed instruments and no satellites or rockets to put them in orbit.
“I don’t think satellites are the only way to explore our oceans and atmosphere including lighter than air ships.
They aren’t. The environmental monitoring program already includes other platforms. I suggest doing some research.
Well, the conservative position on global warming has changed from “It’s not happening” to “okay, we concede that it is happening, but it is not due to fossil fuels.” In other words, that viewpoint has lost a lot of credibility over the past several years.
******************
The anthropromorphic position has given rise to the “hocky stick” model of climate change which has been proven to be false. There is no indication of dramatic warming which has been the root and core claim of that viewpoint. Warming happens, cooling happens, Climate changes, we all know that.
With that said, I could make your argument that this mistake related to the “hocky stick” climate model would imply that the anthropromorphic viewpoint has “lost its credibility”. Science is about learning and learning necessarilly means that over time, as your knowledge increases, that your conclusions change. To not do so does more to damage credibility than to assume a dogmatic viewpoint and recruit “ecovangalists” to spread the gospel of global warming.
It is an absolute fact that solar variation and the Earth’s three major climate variables (Eccentricity, Obliquity, and Precession) have dominated the Earth’s climate for the past 3 million years, not Co2 concentration. Indeed, indications are that Co2 has been a lagging indicator of climate change not a leading one.
So lets all not be dogmatic and follow the data to where it points, not to some preconceived notion about how man is the root cause of all evil in the world, as is Al Gore’s root position.
Dennis
The anthropromorphic position has given rise to the “hocky stick” model of climate change which has been proven to be false.
And I thought only mathematics could prove things. Silly me. Heads up Dennis … classical mechanics has been ‘proven’ to be ‘false’ by general relativity. That’s why nobody bothers to use it at all anymore.
We are all still waiting in eager anticipation for that paper on Milankovitch cycles. No wait, I forgot, it’s an increase in solar irradiance now. Tomorrow it will be ‘carbon dioxide is life’. I’m sure the space station crew will agree whole heartedly with that.
Oh, I forgot, NASA forgot to include hydroponic plant growth in the life support system equation. Shit, I forgot, they’re proposing to kill ALL space station science.
Politics is great, isn’t it. Excuse me now while I go puke.
“So lets all not be dogmatic and follow the data to where it points.”
Okay, so can you start by pointing to a National Academy of Sciences study that supports your position?
How about from Geophysical Research Letters?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4349133.stm
The paper is referenced in the article. Geophysical Letters is the same publication that published Mann’s original “Hockey Stick” paper.
Here is an article by the researchers on how they analyzed Mann’s own data.
http://www.junkscience.com/jan05/breaking_the_hockey_stick.html
Here is the original paper on the Hockey Stick
http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/2004GL021750.pdf
Here is a second paper reviewing the data of both Mann’s and Macintyre’s paper, also from Geophysical Research Letters.
http://w3g.gkss.de/G/Mitarbeiter/storch/pdf/2005_von_Storch_etal__Comment_on_hockey_stick_GRL.pdf
From the paper
MM05 performed a Monte Carlo study with a series
of independent red-noise series; they centered their 1000
year-series relative to the mean of the last 100 years, and
calculated the PCs based on the correlation matrix. It turned
out that very often the leading PCs show a hockey stick
pattern, even if the data field was by construction free of
such structures. This finding was recently confirmed by
others (F. Zwiers, personal communication). The paradox in
the AHS effect is that the true covariance matrix is a unity
matrix, so that no real structures will steer the eventual
selection of the eigenvectors. However, in the biased
centering approach, those time series with largest differences
between their 1000–1901 mean and 1902–1980
mean will tend to contribute more strongly to the leading PCs, thus producing an artificial hockey-stick shape. The
MBH98 algorithm, however, involves several other steps
and it is not clear if the AHS-effect carries any relevance for
the final temperature reconstructions.
*******
This is all I had time to look up.
Follow the data, not the politics.
Dennis
Quick look up some stuff, McIntyre and McKitrick, ho hum. That’s pathetic, Dennis. Obviously you aren’t actually reading the science. Inhofe, Barton et. al. would be proud of you.
I guess we’ll just have to wait for your paper.
William
Here is an article about a new paper in “Science” that disputes the GW link to hurricanes.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-0729globalwarming,0,3801546.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines
I have an interesting book from Professor H.H. Lamb, founder of the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, showing how global cooling was going to disrupt civilization. The evidence was really interesting.
The point is that more data is good and the biggest problem that I see today is that scientists from various disciplines are ignoring data from outside of their field, especially when it is conflicting with the funding sponsors critera.
Dennis
“Here is an article about a new paper in “Science” that disputes the GW link to hurricanes.”
Who said anything about hurricanes? Can you cite a National Academy of Sciences study that states that global warming is not occuring and that humans are not contributing to it?*
“The point is that more data is good and the biggest problem that I see today is that scientists from various disciplines are ignoring data from outside of their field,”
So climate science is your field?
*Because you seem incapable of doing this, I did it for you:
http://www4.nationalacademies.org/onpi/webextra.nsf/web/climate?OpenDocument
“Are We Changing the Climate?
The Earth’s surface temperature has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the past century, and surface temperatures have risen at a substantially greater rate than average in the past two decades. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely because of human activities, for the most part. But it is not known how much of the temperature rise to date is the result of human activities, the report says. Climate models do not adequately represent all the processes that contribute to variability of the climate system. A Research Council report, Improving the Effectiveness of Climate Modeling, identifies the lack of a coherent national climate modeling program and sufficient computing resources and suggests areas for improvement.”
And:
“The report notes that the cooling trend in the Earth’s stratosphere — documented by satellite data since 1979 — is so pronounced that it would be difficult to explain through natural variability alone. The cooling is believed to be partially a result of the buildup of greenhouse gases and the depletion of stratospheric ozone, which warms the atmosphere at low levels but cools it at high levels.”
William
Laf, I provided two peer reviewed papers that dispute the hockey stick model of climate change. You provide a website for the report that relies on the data that is refuted by the peer reviewed papers. An interesting point in the reference that you provide is that there is a lack of a coherent modeling program. If you would actually read the papers that I referenced and develop a coherent argument to refute it I might be more inclined to believe you.
I am a spacecraft designer and am very familiar with how the sun effects the design of power systems on spacecraft. That has led to several years worth of interesting research on climate. My degree in physics and some of the modeling that I did in that field allows me to understand how easy it is to be mislead by inappropriate use of mathematics to prove a point. I know some of the people that do the mathematical modeling and we have had some interesting discussions about how the order of polynomials in the climate model can give dramatically different results.
The report that you cite uses the term likely because there is by far inadequate proof of what they cite. For example a short search will show how solar researchers have shown a 0.1% increase in solar output since 1900. This corresponds to a 1.38 watt/m2 average increase in the sunlight hitting the earth. According to the IPCC the increase in global warming potential is ~1.5 watts/m2 which when you insert the error bars, is indistinguishable from the supposed anthropromorphic contribution.
Indeed it is in the last couple of years that the GW proponents have grudgingly started to admit that solar variation on short scales and Milankovitch variations on longer scales, are contributors if not the dominate variables for global climate change.
The funny part about your second reference of the cooling trend in the stratosphere was strenuously denied for years until Dr. John Christy and Dr. McNighter from the University of Alabama in Huntsvile Center for Global Hydrology (my school and people who I know and respect) shoved the data down their throats. It was them in the early 90’s that forced the change to the models that reduced the GW forecasts by several degrees.
Please go back and read all of the posts that I made on this subject.
Dennis
First of all Dennis, you are not linking to a peer reviewed scientific paper, you are linking to a media article reporting on what we have now determined not to be a peer reviewed scientific paper, not even a peer reviewed comment to a peer reviewed scientific paper, but COMMENTARY in the PERSPECTIVES section of Science Magazine.
Let me give you a little perspective on Chris Landsea. He was a graduate student of William Gray, the distinguished emeritus gentleman who gives us some next year predictions of hurricane SEASON intensity based on pseudoscience, that we find so useful when we have less than five days to prepare for a major hurricane.
Actually, if you look back a couple of posts, I did provide links to the two peer reviewed papers. Here they are again for your enjoyment.
How about from Geophysical Research Letters?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4349133.stm
The paper is referenced in the article. Geophysical Letters is the same publication that published Mann’s original “Hockey Stick” paper.
Here is an article by the researchers on how they analyzed Mann’s own data.
http://www.junkscience.com/jan05/breaking_the_hockey_stick.html
Here is the original paper on the Hockey Stick
http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/2004GL021750.pdf
Here is a second paper reviewing the data of both Mann’s and Macintyre’s paper, also from Geophysical Research Letters.
http://w3g.gkss.de/G/Mitarbeiter/storch/pdf/2005_von_Storch_etal__Comment_on_hockey_stick_GRL.pdf
Dennis
Dennis, I’m not even going to bother to debunk any of the references that you post here. Anyone with any kind of research training or experience at all, that makes even a modest effort to research your references, will very quickly conclude that you are a crackpot completely out of your element.
We are in a planetary, fiscal and climatic emergency, the sooner the good folks at NOAA and NASA realize that, the sooner we can get started on solving the problems. You are a super denialist.
I patiently await the arrival of the terms ‘librul’ and ‘knee jerk’ from Space Politics more astute observers.
Thomas on the best day of your life you would not know a Hermetian maxtrix from a bessel function.
Dennis
You spelled matrix wrong. They aren’t even related, except vaguely mathematical. I’ve studied special functions at the UW. I took linear algebra for honors. I use this stuff every day. I also know how to find out things I don’t know. I do know you need to see a shrink. But then again, so do I. Everybody gets cranky when its hot. And it is hot.
Have a nice weekend Dennis.
William
Here is the link to the article in Science if you are interested
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/313/5786/452?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=%28Bruce+AND+Harper+AND+Chris+AND+Landsea+AND+Hurricanes%29&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT
Dennis
Gentlemen:
While discussion of overall earth science and NASA policy is certainly on-topic here, debate over evidence of anthropogenic climate change would be better suited to other fora.
The Management
Jeff
There is an intimate link between the two. In decrying NASA’s change of emphasis from science, it is legitmate to ask what is happening in regards to the use of data from the existing and upcoming solar/terrestrial missions.
I am actually quite amazed (as I am sure you are knowing your background) at the incredible revolution over the past decade in understanding our parent star. What irks me is that this data, this revolution, has been largely ignored outsided of solar/terrestrial physics circles. The recent discovery of the dramatic slow down in the solar convection currents should be discussed in their greater context of the potential effect on terrestrial climate but all that is heard is a lot of political hooey.
Dennis
Dennis, you have really missed the boat.
Really big bucks are to be made as oil company shills. Go for it.
Everybody gets cranky when its hot. And it is hot.
Imagine my surprise to read a (long-established) nutball willingly living in the Bahamas in July complaining that it’s hot.
Were you expecting snow, Thomas?
You forgot knee jerk and librul.
Actually, I’m in Madison right now, at least until the storms start rolling in. This is a new kind of hot, Rand. It appears to me that global warming is creating an entirely novel kind of weather related climate feedback. Vast areas of peristant high pressure clearing wide areas of clouds, narrower more violent storm fronts with training rain events. We saw it last year in the Gulf of Mexico, this year it’s in California and Europe. I’m trying to have a discussion with Harold Brooks about it right now, but he isn’t listening. Dennis claims it’s the sun, but we have very little evidence of any dramatic solar irradiance increases, it’s operating on time scales far shorter than other more traditionally expected climatic feedback effects, so by simple logical deduction it has to be the weather. Unfortunately we simply do not have the necessary space based and computational resources in place to quantify it as yet, and I place the blame solely on NASA and NOAA, and thus by default, congress, the president, and the American public. I think it is entirely relevant to the subject matter here.
Three days ago we had a huge flood here, maybe you heard about it. Yet another freak rain event. We had one in Pinellas Park, FL. last spring, maybe you heard about that one too.
But never mind, the market will adjust to future massive crop failures on an vastly overpopulated planet with a civilization utterly dependent upon coal, oil, uranium and weapons for its very existance, if one can indeed call it civilized.