NASA Scientist: Global Warming a load of hooey

James Hanson is the NASA scientist best known for setting off the whole global warming bit that goes something like ZOMG we're all gonna dieeee!!!!1!!. I have some posts that talk about him, along with the rest of the man-is-causing-global-warming crowd.

Well, it seems like I'm not the only one who think he's an overblown, grandstanding windbag. His boss does, too:

Dr John Theon, who supervised James Hansen - the activist-scientist who helped give the manmade global warming hypothesis centre prominent media attention - repents at length in a published letter. Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009, and excerpts were published by skeptic Senator Inhofe's office here last night.

Thank you, Senator Inhofe.

This report is simply stunning in its bluntness.

“My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the 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. Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it.

"They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy.”

Now this is still in the nicey-nicey scientific discussion form. What is says translated into plain English is that the models don't model the climate system, the data has been jimmied, and the scientists are blowing smoke to hide what they're up to. Strong stuff.

Usually you'll get a bureaucratic gloss that requires you to read between the lines to get to the I think he's a lying SOB part. Not here. Seems Hanson's claims that the NASA higher-ups tried to shut him up lack some transparency, too:

“Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA's official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind's effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress."

Make that an overblown, grandstanding, lying windbag. Remember, Hanson was the one who said Global Warming deniers should be jailed.

Look, I can be wrong on all this man-made-global-warming stuff. I do think I have solid reasons for skepticism, though. But I need reproduceable, transparent data, not shouts of "denier!!!11!One!"

I don't rant very often here, but Hanson looks to me to be perverting the scientific process for cheap personal benefit, and that's just wrong. If the world listened to him, million of people would be hurt, and that's even more wrong. And he's trying to win the argument by cheating, which is more than a little annoying. We deserve better.