Man Based Global Warming....

Some do go to oil companies. Not to do actual research though.

 

My point was, where did the $350 million come from?

Second major development that is gett almost no airplay in the main stream media. Dr James Hansen's former boss coming out and saying the data is being manipulated. Is that not important?

 

Maybe because John S. Theon wasn't actually Hansen's boss. Although he does fit nicely into the usual denier category (i.e., either old and retired or a weatherman).
Deltoid: So who is John S Theon?

The usual denialists (e.g. The Register) are excited because some guy they never heard of before has joined Inhofe's merry band, writing:

"I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made."
​

M. J. Murphy has some information about Theon. It seems that Inhofe's claim that Theon was Hansen's supervisor is completely untrue:

Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009. "I was, in effect, Hansen's supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his results. I did not have the authority to give him his annual performance evaluation...
​

Read the last bit closely. Being "in effect" Hansen's supervisor is here contrasted with being "in reality" Hansen's supervisor--being the guy who gives Hansen his annual performance appraisal, in other words--which, frankly, does linguistic violence to the term.
​

Gavin Schmidt writes:

Dr. Theon appears to have retired from NASA in 1994, some 15 years ago. Until yesterday I had never heard of him (despite working with and for NASA for the last 13 years). His insights into both modelling and publicity appear to date from then, rather than any recent events. He was not Hansen's 'boss' (the director of GISS reports to the director of GSFC, who reports to the NASA Administrator). His "some scientists" quote is simply a smear - which scientists? where? what did they do? what data? what manipulation? This kind of thing plays well with Inhofe et al because it appears to add something to the 'debate', but in actual fact there is nothing here. Just vague, unsubstantiated accusations.
​

 

Damn you Scott! I was waiting to tear down that denialist point myself!

 

Roy Spencer, Ph. D.

To me the reason the scientists questioning AGW tend to be older is they are no longer in the system and thus have nothing to lose.

 

I know your an inteligent man Mallorn so please don't act simple.
You and I both know it is government money from tax payer funds. It is awareness not research.

Who is Dr James Hansen? Who does his boss now work for? Has he disclosed all his sources of income?

 

Nothing except the respect of other scientists. We've seen this before. A few decades ago it was possible to find actual scientists who didn't believe in the Big Bang or plate tectonics. Those elderly scientists were either not keeping up with current research, or their ability to form new opinions had frozen, or they were blinkered by non-scientific ideologies. They're gone now.

 

Classic! More denialist fraud, pretty much par for the course. And that twit Inhofe is at the center again.

Too funny.

 

Heh. Yeah, I'd seen it days ago, but figured I'd wait until someone posted the story again.

 

Roy Spencer:

And now my old boss when I was at NASA (as well as James Hansen’s old boss), John Theon, has stated very clearly that he doesn’t believe global warming is manmade…and adding “climate models are useless†for good measure. Even I wouldn’t go quite that far, since I use simple ones in my published research.
I remember the old days at NASA, when even John Theon was singing the same tune as most people at NASA were. Manmade global warming was a potentially serious threat, and NASA wanted Congress to fund new satellites to study the problem. It was a team effort to get that accomplished.

 

And when asked about Theon's comments, a current climate researcher comments:

Gavin
Are you going to comment on your bosses former bosses,
Dr. John S. Theon, recent comment?
Theon declared “climate models are useless.†“My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,†Theon explained. “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy,†he added.
Anne

[Response: He was not my boss’s former boss. And what is there to comment on? What study is he alluding to? What papers does he reference? If this is just his opinion, how can it be refuted? Who are these scientists who do such terrible things? When did they do them? Where? As for sub-grid scale processes, we’ve just done two dense FAQ posts that address precisely those issues. His conclusion about climate models does not appear to be based on anything, and is patently false. Climate models have proved useful in myriad ways - for prediction (effects of Pinatubo, strat cooling), for assessment of data consistency (ice age tropical temperatures, MSU trends), as test beds for new instrumentation or methodologies, for explaining past climate changes, and indeed for being more skillful at future projections than any naive expectations of no change. Asking me to comment on Theon’s remarks, is like asking me to duel a ghost. There is nothing there. - gavin]
​

and

Theon is quoted, by Morano, saying something that goes beyond the silly claim that he was Hansen’s boss that has propagated through the blogosphere:
“As Chief of several of NASA Headquarters’ programs (1982-94), an SES position, I was responsible for all weather and climate research in the entire agency, including the research work by James Hansen, Roy Spencer, Joanne Simpson, and several hundred other scientists at NASA field centers, in academia, and in the private sector who worked on climate research,â€
That is a pretty sweeping claim…. responsible for all weather and climate research in NASA? Really? What does “responsible†mean?

[Response: NASA has two parallel structures. There are the centers (GSFC, JPL, etc.) which have a great deal of autonomy about who they hire, and how they organise themselves and what they should be doing who report directly to the administrator. Then there are the directorates - for space and earth science, aeronomy the manned program etc. These have varied over time as administrators have organised them with different themes. The role of the people at HQ is to see how much money goes to each theme, and apportion research funds based on proposals and/or specific initiatives. That money gets spent at the individual center level. Thus the chief of Earth Science could rightly be described as being in charge of Earth Science research activities, but they don’t employ any of the people who are doing it. Individual decisions on funding are generally made lower down the ladder though. Thus Theon is unlikely to have made specific decisions concerning Hansen’s funding, though he might have been influential on deciding which satellite programs got how much money (and note that satellites are far more expensive than GISS). - gavin]
​

 

He is commenting about his current bosses former boss? What do you think he is going to say?

 

No, he says quite clearly, "he's NOT my boss's former boss" and that doesn't change the main point, which is that Theon made a bunch of vague allegations, so vague that one can't respond. As Gavin asks, what scientists, what studies?

 

What are you guys, in junior high? Forget about all this "he said" crap and get on with what matters:

I'm disappointed to hear back from no one about the mind blowing Climate Wars podcasts from the Canadian Broadcasting Company - post 568:

http://priuschat.com/forums/environ...2-man-based-global-warming-15.html#post785416

Once you've listen to it, this discussion should get a whole lot more intelligent.

 

I have to admit I am not a climate scientist but if this global warming doesn't stop soon I am going to freeze my Butt off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I agree the he-said she-said is not really core. But I would suggest (respectfully) that "Climate Wars" is not really core here either. The supposition of catastrophic global warming appears to be a forgone conclusion of the author's.

But maybe more to the point, (and to your credit I think you raised this question earlier) has anybody's view on the matter changed one bit as a result of this 70+ page thread? My guess is "no" - unless they have absolutely no prior opinion on the subject.

 

I will try to listen to it tonight just for you fibb222.

 

Good Man.

And we wouldn't want to hear why an authority on war history is concerned or who else (the Pentagon) agrees with him. That would be a tad bit too informative. Better to just dismiss it out of hand before we get too enlightened.

 

By the way, for anybody who thinks we've got the climate all figured out, you might consider that we thought that about the ozone hole -- remember the chicken littles screaming the sky is falling so we passed the "Montreal Protocol" that was supposed to cure it all?



Well how come it is getting bigger?

But hey, climate models that project climate catastrophe 100 years hence on the basis of trace gases? No problem.

 

My point is that the supposition on which his arguments are built are in question here. Now agreed - if the earth tumbles into an out of control climate situation, there is going to be conflict. It doesn't take a Nostradamus to figure that. But that the catastrophic AGW climate scenario is at all likely is what is in question on this thread. And to my (and your) earlier point, I don't think any minds have changed about that.