Familieruzie binnen NASA

Vaak horen of lezen we alarmistische verklaringen van de NASA over het klimaat. Aangezien het deze organisatie is gelukt is om een man op de maan te zetten, worden deze in het algemeen als geloofwaardig beschouwd. Bij nader inzien blijken zij echter altijd afkomstig te zijn van een semi-autonome dochter van de NASA, het Goddard Institute for Space Studies, o.l.v. klimaatalarmist nummer één, James (Jim) Hansen, die meelift op de reputatie van het moederbedrijf.

Is moeder daar blij mee? In het geheel niet.

Larry Bell rapporteert daarover het volgende in Forbes:

The next time you read that NASA declares this or that day, month or year the hottest since yadda, yadda, yadda — you might want to check the source. It’s a pretty safe bet that it came from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and probably quotes its director, James Hansen. One would imagine that if you can trust any organization regarding reliable climate information, it would be NASA, right? Particularly a NASA organization named after Dr. Robert H. Goddard, widely recognized as the “father of American rocketry.” Think how important it is to get weather information right when launching people into space, and consider all those satellites and other high-tech stuff they have at their disposal. One would certainly believe that they could be relied on to give us the real scoop. Unfortunately, one might be very wrong, at least regarding the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

First of all, GISS is actually only a climate modeling shop that relies on surface (not satellite) data that is mostly supplied by others. And even some top NASA scientists consider the dataset produced by GISS inferior to data provided by two other principal organizations, the National Climate Data Center’s Global Historical Climatology Network and the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) — home of the “ClimateGate” scandal. As reported in a NASA memo to USA Today’s weather editor from Reto Ruedy at GISS: “My recommendation to you is to continue using NCRDC [NOAA] data for U.S. mean [temperatures] and Phil Jones’ [CRU] data for the global mean We are basically a modeling group for that purpose what we do is more than accurate enough [to assess model results]. But we have no intention to compete with either of the other two organizations in what they do best.” He clarified this point, saying, “ the National Climate Center’s procedure of only using the best stations is more accurate.”

And just how good is that CRU data? One ClimateGate log posted by database programmer Ian “Harry” Harris doesn’t provide much public confidence, reporting: “[The] hopeless state of their [CRU] database. No uniform data integrity. It’s just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they’re found There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations and duplicates Aarrggghh! There truly is no end in sight. This project is such a MESS. No wonder I needed therapy!!”

En zo gaat de auteur door.

En is moeder NASA blij met het gedrag van dochterlief? Nou nee, niet ècht. De gespannen relatie kwam wel heel duidelijk tot uitdrukking in een aanvaring tussen Hansen en een voormalige chef van hem, John Theon.

In a Jan. 29, 2006, New York Times interview Hansen charged that NASA public relations people had pressured him to allow them to review future public lectures, papers and postings on the GISS website. Yet in January 15, 2009 testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works-Minority Committee, his former boss John S. Theon, retired chief of NASA’s Climate Processes Research Program, took issue with the interference charge, stating: “Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind’s effect on it). Hansen has embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claim of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress.”

Dr. Theon also testified that: “My own belief concerning anthropogenic [man-made] climate change is that 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”. He observed: “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modeled in the observations, nor explain how they did it this is contrary to the way science should be done.” He then went on to say “Thus, there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy”.

Lees verder hier.

Tja, van je familie moet je het maar hebben.