Second Inquiry Exonerates Climatic Research Unit

mvdwege writes "After being cleared of charges of misconduct by a parliamentary committee, now the CRU has the results of the inquiry (PDF) by a panel of scientists into their scientific methods. Here is the CRU press release. Criticisms: The statistical methods used, though arriving at correct results, are not optimal, and it is recommended future studies involve professional statisticians if possible; and the CRU scientists are lacking somewhat in organization. A very far cry from the widespread allegations of fraud. It seems 'Climategate' is ending with a whimper."

Yeah! APATHY RULES!

[warrax_666]

Woo-hoo!

APATHY RULES?

[gyrogeerloose]

Who cares?

I'm not saying the CRU are Nazis...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but they haven't exactly denied it. Strange, hmmmmm?

Re:Let's go ahead and quote from the report:

[alexibu]

That's an axe to the groin there

Since your posting on slashdot depends so heavily on english, grammar, logic and computer use it is surprising your work has not been carried out in close collaboration with professional linguists, logicians, philosohers and computer scientists.

Re:Here is how you do science.

[MichaelSmith]

* Prof David Hand: a statistician. He's done statistic work for a lot of companies. Doesn't seem to know much about climatology, but he knows more about statistics than I even dreamed existed.

* Prof David Hand: Professor of Theoretical Geophysics. Has publicly criticized the Mann Hockey Stick graph. Also really likes math.

Clearly a talented guy.

Re:Let's go ahead and quote from the report:

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I just used to believe in the science of climate change. But after reading your post I can see how wrong I was!

Re:Doesn't matter.

[siloko]

I love the way your only statement of fact is a King of the Hill episode . . .

Re:Doesn't matter.

[bwcbwc]

...and all the conspiracy theorists will be convinced this evaluation is just a whitewash by the liberal, ivory tower academic community.

The difference between mathematicans and engineers

[Dr. Manhattan]

In the high school gym, all the girls in the class were lined up against one wall, and all the boys against the opposite wall. Then, every ten seconds, they walked toward each other until they were half the previous distance apart. A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were asked, "When will the girls and boys meet?"

The mathematician said, "Never."

The physicist said, "In an infinite amount of time."

The engineer said, "Well... in about a minute and a half, they'll be close enough for all practical purposes."

For example, "chaotic climate" doesn't mean "completely unpredictable climate". It means "prediction precision is limited to a particular range, though maximum and minimum expected values can be derived". Look at the Lorenz Attractor [wikipedia.org]. You can't predict exactly what it'll do, but you can say "It'll be somewhere in this region of phase space."

For some mathematicians, anything less than an exact analytic solution is unacceptable. But engineers and others who have to actually deal with the real world tend to be more accepting of ranges of uncertainty and working heuristics.