A reader points me to a piece from New Zealand which looks at claims that New Zealand is ‘warming’ – and argues that they are just not true, if data going back 150 years are anything to go by.

So what’s happening with that data?

Are NZ data inconsistencies and the data inconsistencies in all that leaked material from the UK by some chance … related? Not least by a refusal on the part of key scientists to make available to wider scrutiny the basic numbers they are crunching?

Over at NRO some sensible words from Jim Manzi:

… the scandal is obviously a PR disaster for those who believe that climate reconstruction is “science” in the sense we normally use the term, but what it does not change is the basic physics of how CO2 molecules interact with radiation.

As I have always argued, this is the real basis for rational concern about greenhouse-gas emissions, and is a key reason that all the major national scientific academies agree that the greenhouse effect is a real risk.

Recognizing this risk, however, does not entail accepting the political conclusion that we need laws to radically reduce emissions at enormous cost.

Meanwhile check out too Willis Eschenbach on his battle to bring about honest insight into the key science involved in all those long-term climate predictions (my emphasis):

Science works by one person making a claim, and backing it up with the data and methods that they used to make the claim. Other scientists then attack the claim by (among other things) trying to replicate the first scientist’s work. If they can’t replicate it, it doesn’t stand. So blocking the FOIA allowed Phil Jones to claim that his temperature record (HadCRUT3) was valid science.

This is not just trivial gamesmanship, this is central to the very idea of scientific inquiry. This is an attack on the heart of science, by keeping people who disagree with you from ever checking your work and seeing if your math is correct.

As far as I know, I am the person who made the original Freedom Of Information Act to CRU that started getting all this stirred up. I was trying to get access to the taxpayer funded raw data out of which they built the global temperature record.

I was not representing anybody, or trying to prove a point. I am not funded by Mobil, I’m an amateur scientist with a lifelong interest in the weather and climate. I’m not “directed” by anyone, I’m not a member of a right-wing conspiracy. I’m just a guy trying to move science forwards.

And therefore incredibly dangerous – to some.

The answer?

Open source science.

For a change (and maybe even some hope).