4 ms·

> Scientist rarely keep the data secret. It's the basis of peer review. In a better world, that would be true. In this world, it's not. Most of the climate s

by tjic 15y ago

> Scientist rarely keep the data secret. It's the basis of peer review. In a better world, that would be true. In this world, it's not. Most of the climate science data that Phil Jones and others have worked with, and most of their models are secret. It is THIS that makes me keep at least one ear open for the "anti-" side in the climate debate. Real science SHOULD be conducted out in the open.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
Tycho 15y ago
The models are secret... wait, seriously??
- Retric 15y ago
  Short answer is no, long answer is sort of. The way in which data / code is released is a complex issue. However, if your willing to wait a reasonable amount of time AND pay for the costs involved you can get just about everything produced. Still, in the larger context validating someone's data is basically worthless activity. It's far more important to go out and collect new data, build a new model, run a new simulation, and report those results than it is to try and shortcut the process. The data deluge is making it way to easy for people to validate bad science using the same bad data / model as someone else. Fundamental assumptions in statistics break down when you use the same 10 coin flips to substitute for the 10 million coin flips that cost more than your willing to pay for. PS: The failure to collect significant quantity's of new data is a hallmark of fringe / bad science. If you really think global warming is a joke or you can be more healthy by eating coco puffs then go collect that data and do your analysis and see if someone can poke holes in your process.
  - Tycho 15y ago
    Well the model is the thing that tells us what effect a rise in temperature/CO2 would actually have, no? Seems common sense to me that this should be open so that people can judge it. You could program a model to say anything regardless of the data.
    - Retric 15y ago
      When it comes to global worming you have two models one of which is what happens after a fraction of a second when you have various levels of CO2 in a column of air over in daylight or darkness. That's a well understood thermodynamics problem and rarely debated, but you will have little trouble finding out the specific details on this issue. The larger model is based around how that the extra heat maintained gets distributed around the world and everyone knows this is far less accurate. The people building this are well aware it's highly limited but by trying to balance the errors in both direction they hope to create a good estimate. The problem is when you start tweaking the heat distribution equations it's easy to find errors in every direction because they are greatly simplified so it's easy for someone to introduce systematic errors by only correcting issues in one direction. Which is why you provide a high level description but when you release your source code you open yourself up to a lot of fruitless debate. Sort of like someone saying based on your methodology the rocks are really 1/1,000,000th a year older which means your science is a joke and less valid than my consistent theory that god created the world 8 weeks ago. But, if you actually build a model from scratch under similar assumptions it's going to have similar outputs and error bars or look really biased.
- jfoutz 15y ago
  After about 20 million requests for their data and models by people who were motivated by god to disprove climate science, they got a little less open. I don't think they're "secret" i think they assume anyone they haven't heard of who is asking for the info is a troll.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
chrisb 15y ago
IPCC AR4 models all listed with lots of information and links (although some now dead): http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/ipcc/model_documentation/ipcc_model_documentation.php http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/ipcc/model_documentation/ipcc_mode... For example, the three models developed by NASA: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelE/ar4/ http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelE/ar4/ Direct links to each model + code + datasets: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/ http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/ - with nightly code snapshots here: http://simplex.giss.nasa.gov/snapshots/ http://simplex.giss.nasa.gov/snapshots/ http://aom.giss.nasa.gov/ http://aom.giss.nasa.gov/ - with direct access to code here: http://aom.giss.nasa.gov/code.html http://aom.giss.nasa.gov/code.html and here: http://aom.giss.nasa.gov/code4x3.html http://aom.giss.nasa.gov/code4x3.html http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelii/ http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelii/ - seemingly work on this has now been merged with the ModelE simulation. Lots of other code and data is available if you take the time to find it ... and then considerably more time to understand it.
logjam 15y ago
No. In this world, it is true that scientists rarely keep the data secret, more often than not, silly conspiracy theorist views notwithstanding. Business-sponsored science is very often secret, but please don't attempt to paint, as the parent commenter disingenuously attempts to do, that scientists are the root of data secrecy. There have been now six separate inquiries into the misguided, corporation driven, politically-motivated and frankly dumb charges that climate science data is faulty or is associated with some kind of scientific misconduct. All six separate inquiries indicated it was not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy#cite_note-IWR-83 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_co... Moreover, scientific organizations are overwhelmingly making changes that makes their data even more accessible: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Data+without+the+doubts%3A+the+climategate+furore+has+galvanised+the...-a0257556897 http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Data+without+the+doubts%3A+the...
- ellyagg 15y ago
  I don't know about scienctists in general, but at least in climate science it is not true that scientists rarely keep the data secret. You can review untold number of cases of this on climateaudit.org and the justifications by the stonewallers are extremely poor. Given the high profile and sweeping consequences of their work, this attitude is giving science a black eye.
  - 3am 15y ago
    http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Steve_McIntyre http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Steve_McIntyre
    - mseebach 15y ago
      > He is the proprietor of the Climate Audit blog (or, more accurately, "Climate Fraudit") If you can't make an argument without resorting to name calling in the first line, please excuse me while I disregard anything at all you have to say. kthxbye.
      - 15y ago
grammaton 15y ago
And it's unfounded statements like this that contribute to ignorance and useless "debate." They do not keep their models "secret," it's just difficult for them to release homebrew software not written by software engineers to the general public and get much use from the exercise without a lot of handholding. Difficult != secret.

by tjic 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

Tycho 15y ago

The models are secret... wait, seriously??

Retric 15y ago
Short answer is no, long answer is sort of. The way in which data / code is released is a complex issue. However, if your willing to wait a reasonable amount of time AND pay for the costs involved you can get just about everything produced. Still, in the larger context validating someone's data is basically worthless activity. It's far more important to go out and collect new data, build a new model, run a new simulation, and report those results than it is to try and shortcut the process. The data deluge is making it way to easy for people to validate bad science using the same bad data / model as someone else. Fundamental assumptions in statistics break down when you use the same 10 coin flips to substitute for the 10 million coin flips that cost more than your willing to pay for. PS: The failure to collect significant quantity's of new data is a hallmark of fringe / bad science. If you really think global warming is a joke or you can be more healthy by eating coco puffs then go collect that data and do your analysis and see if someone can poke holes in your process.
- Tycho 15y ago
  Well the model is the thing that tells us what effect a rise in temperature/CO2 would actually have, no? Seems common sense to me that this should be open so that people can judge it. You could program a model to say anything regardless of the data.
  - Retric 15y ago
    When it comes to global worming you have two models one of which is what happens after a fraction of a second when you have various levels of CO2 in a column of air over in daylight or darkness. That's a well understood thermodynamics problem and rarely debated, but you will have little trouble finding out the specific details on this issue. The larger model is based around how that the extra heat maintained gets distributed around the world and everyone knows this is far less accurate. The people building this are well aware it's highly limited but by trying to balance the errors in both direction they hope to create a good estimate. The problem is when you start tweaking the heat distribution equations it's easy to find errors in every direction because they are greatly simplified so it's easy for someone to introduce systematic errors by only correcting issues in one direction. Which is why you provide a high level description but when you release your source code you open yourself up to a lot of fruitless debate. Sort of like someone saying based on your methodology the rocks are really 1/1,000,000th a year older which means your science is a joke and less valid than my consistent theory that god created the world 8 weeks ago. But, if you actually build a model from scratch under similar assumptions it's going to have similar outputs and error bars or look really biased.
jfoutz 15y ago
After about 20 million requests for their data and models by people who were motivated by god to disprove climate science, they got a little less open. I don't think they're "secret" i think they assume anyone they haven't heard of who is asking for the info is a troll.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

chrisb 15y ago

IPCC AR4 models all listed with lots of information and links (although some now dead): http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/ipcc/model_documentation/ipcc_model_documentation.php http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/ipcc/model_documentation/ipcc_mode... For example, the three models developed by NASA: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelE/ar4/ http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelE/ar4/ Direct links to each model + code + datasets: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/ http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/ - with nightly code snapshots here: http://simplex.giss.nasa.gov/snapshots/ http://simplex.giss.nasa.gov/snapshots/ http://aom.giss.nasa.gov/ http://aom.giss.nasa.gov/ - with direct access to code here: http://aom.giss.nasa.gov/code.html http://aom.giss.nasa.gov/code.html and here: http://aom.giss.nasa.gov/code4x3.html http://aom.giss.nasa.gov/code4x3.html http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelii/ http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelii/ - seemingly work on this has now been merged with the ModelE simulation. Lots of other code and data is available if you take the time to find it ... and then considerably more time to understand it.

logjam 15y ago

No. In this world, it is true that scientists rarely keep the data secret, more often than not, silly conspiracy theorist views notwithstanding. Business-sponsored science is very often secret, but please don't attempt to paint, as the parent commenter disingenuously attempts to do, that scientists are the root of data secrecy. There have been now six separate inquiries into the misguided, corporation driven, politically-motivated and frankly dumb charges that climate science data is faulty or is associated with some kind of scientific misconduct. All six separate inquiries indicated it was not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy#cite_note-IWR-83 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_co... Moreover, scientific organizations are overwhelmingly making changes that makes their data even more accessible: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Data+without+the+doubts%3A+the+climategate+furore+has+galvanised+the...-a0257556897 http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Data+without+the+doubts%3A+the...

ellyagg 15y ago
I don't know about scienctists in general, but at least in climate science it is not true that scientists rarely keep the data secret. You can review untold number of cases of this on climateaudit.org and the justifications by the stonewallers are extremely poor. Given the high profile and sweeping consequences of their work, this attitude is giving science a black eye.
- 3am 15y ago
  http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Steve_McIntyre http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Steve_McIntyre
  - mseebach 15y ago
    > He is the proprietor of the Climate Audit blog (or, more accurately, "Climate Fraudit") If you can't make an argument without resorting to name calling in the first line, please excuse me while I disregard anything at all you have to say. kthxbye.
    - 15y ago

grammaton 15y ago

And it's unfounded statements like this that contribute to ignorance and useless "debate." They do not keep their models "secret," it's just difficult for them to release homebrew software not written by software engineers to the general public and get much use from the exercise without a lot of handholding. Difficult != secret.