More on "Climategate". Should NASA's Dr. James Hansen be "tried for high crimes against humanity and nature" ?

Yo all.

Still about good science and a followup on my last post about "Climategate."

Backing up a year and a few days prior to "Climategate" to a "GISSgoof" outed November 16, 2008. And where to get some background for that?

Maybe by quoting chief global warming hysteriologist Dr. James Hansen, since 1981 serving as Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in NY. Dr. Hansen, speaking to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on June 23, 2008 ,

( http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,370521,00.html )

said that heads of major fossil-fuel companies who spread disinformation about global warming should be "tried for high crimes against humanity and nature."

Sounds very authoritative. Well, it should be since GISS is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures. So what do we know about Dr. Hansen? According to the UK Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/3563532/The-world-has-never-seen-such-freezing-heat.html

("The world has never seen such freezing heat" by Christopher Booker, 16 Nov 2008)

"If there is one scientist more responsible than any other for the alarm over global warming it is Dr Hansen, who set the whole scare in train back in 1988 with his testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore. Again and again, Dr Hansen has been to the fore in making extreme claims over the dangers of climate change. (He was recently in the news here for supporting the Greenpeace activists acquitted of criminally damaging a coal-fired power station in Kent, on the grounds that the harm done to the planet by a new power station would far outweigh any damage they had done themselves.)"

But Booker's Telegraph article exposes a slight blunder on the part of Hansen and GISS:

"A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.
So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running. (Emphasis mine. DU)

The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious "hockey stick" graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new "hotspot" in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.

So by what standard should the GISS (and Dr. Hansen) performance be measured, in light of his zealously litigious and prosecutorial attitude toward major fossil-fuel companies? Jesus said this: "For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." (Luke 6:38, NIV).

Let's see, disinformation about global warming tantamount to "high crimes against humanity and nature" was it? And maybe put perpetrators of the infamous and thoroughly debunked Gore-Mann "hockey stick" graph on the hot seat as well.

Submitted with respect for the Watts(s) and McIntyre(s) of the world who demand truth, integrity, and transparency in science that impacts profoundly on public policy. Don't back down guys.

D.U.

P.S. The policy issue is the same in the life origins controversy - crying for integrity and transparency.

P.P.S. More on the American media AWOL (Absent Without Official Leave) on the hacker global warming revelations in next post. It's all so puzzlingly ugly.

P.P.S. (Added Nov 23, 2009, 9:18PM). UK's globalist PM Gordon Brown wrote an article for Newsweek (Sep. 26, 2009) entitled, "Copenhagen or Bust." He wrote "As scientists spell out the mounting evidence both of the climate change already occurring and of the threat it poses in the future, we cannot allow the negotiations to run out of time simply for lack of attention. Failure would be unforgivable. ... And if it is necessary to clinch the deal, I will personally go to Copenhagen to achieve it..." And your friendly blogger is wondering if the Brits have enough grit to clip GB's wings in light of the big big question marks about the science.

P.P..S. The "GISSgoof" outing date was mistakenly posted originally on this post to be Nov. 16, 2009. Corrected to Nov. 16, 2008 as of Dec 5, 2009. DU.