This is wonderful news. As I mentioned in a different thread I expect that knowledgeable people will pick this program apart and find many flaws. I think the simplified version will leave out much of the speculative forecasting that he used to make such, what I consider, outlandish predictions. The fact that he was so visibly angry about this amplifies my belief that he knows the original program is heavily flawed and was very much hoping nobody would ever find out. As for the part about leaving most of the planet out of global warming, I understand that is due to his claim that carbon drifts towards the poles, and thus from the major industrialized nations (in europe, america and china) most of the carbon would trend toward that artic. I also remember seeing a study, maybe by svensmark but I don't recall, that set up mock magnetic poles, and had a general wind pattern similar to the u.s, co2 was then added and it did not as expected by Hansen drift toward the pole. Being as I don't have the document or an accurate citation that is meaningless but if anyone else can find it that would be great.

Again though I think this may be the largest victory for the public so far. It's little (maybe big) things like this that will help to de-politicize the issue. Whether, as I expect, the program is flawed and it brings about a collapse to much of the panic fueled theory of global warming, or it just enlightens the public to the exact methods used, it should be very interesting to see what comes from this. Some exterior source should be the one to provide the simplified code. Hansen obviously has something to hide, though it wouldn't surprise me if he already edited the program a bit before releasing it.

And speaking of bad data, the majority of the warming came from northern reaches of russia and siberia, to the tune of 6 or 7 degrees warmer than average this year, or some ridiculous figure like that. I don't think the temperature data from siberia is reliable at all, but in any case it certainly isn't as good as that provided in the U.S. The above paragraph is my opinion and I don't have data to prove that the siberian weather stations are less accurate, I just have a very strong felling that that is the case.

Good morning folks - anyone interested in the sea temperatures & the potential problems with that data set ( which Brett has correctly pointed out is the biggest by area ) could take a look on the Climate Audit archives where there were some really interesting facts uncovered ~ 18 months ago. The sea temp data set may be the most undependable of all ( for obvious reasons ) from a historical point of view.
I watched the feeding frenzey at the CA blog over the weekend & one point sticks with me. One fellow found a section of code where inputing 42 F as a tempereature & running it through resulted in an answer of 42.08 which was then rounded to 42.1 .... inputting 42.1 also resulted in an answer of 42.1.
A small error for sure but it doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling on the accuracy issue that is always the first claim of the AGW crowd. On a further note the science may be settled as many claim but the errors have always lay in the application of that science ... especially where it applies to climate models.
This truly is a positive outcome & perhaps it will result in Hansen's vindication & the silencing of sceptics such as myself. I remain open to that possibility but I think others should also open their minds to the possiblity that this global temperature debate is much more complex than simplistic first thoughts considered it to be.

Record cold temperatures around Calgary Saturday night .... good call on the jet stream move & outbreak of Arctic air Brett. Reply: just wait till Wednesday! That cold airmass means business! But it will be brief. Brett

Be good,
Rick.

I'm glad to see that Hansen has released his sources. While I appreciate his frustration (I don't recall anyone from NASA being forced release Apollo mission source code to prove that humans actually walked on the moon), this release is ultimately the best way to settle the question once and for all.

Now that the code is out, I have some predictions:

1) Some additional bugs and discrepancies will be found. These will be loudly trumpeted by the contrarians and denialists.

2) The 99.9% of the code that is found to work fine and as-advertised will not be discussed by that community.

3) The code will found to be chock-full of spelling mistakes, mismatches between code and comment, routines that contain wildly incorrect code that is (fortunately) never executed, and a host of similar skeletons. THIS is why research code is different from production code, and (in my opinion) THIS is why the originators have been reluctant to release it. Those of us who have some experience with open-source code are no longer surprised by such phenomena. One hopes that BOTH sides will, for example, develop and apply some unit-tests and test harnesses to help track and bugs, verify corrections, and avoid reversions.

4) It will take months or even years for the contrarians/denialists to get this code working well-enough to produce consistent results. A huge number of the comments on the CA blog, for example, are from authors who clearly have NO prior knowledge of Python. This community has a VERY STEEP learning curve in the technology before they get ANY valid results.

5) It will take additional months or even years to associate differences between results with bugs and problems in either code set.

6) Ultimately, the various camps will settle on a "consensus release" that all agree represents the best-available analysis/coding at the time.

7) When the dust settles, Hansen's results will be validated to within some reasonable error bar (like 10%) of the results from this "consensus release".

In short, this entire exercise is a tempest in a teapot. Necessary, perhaps, in that perhaps it will finally silence all but the most dogmatic of Hansen's attackers. One hopes that Hansen and McIntyre, at least, will be able to agree on the outcome.

I hope that in the meantime, the loyal attack-dogs of each side can perhaps bark up a different tree.

Brett,

I see two fatal flaws in Hansen's argument

1. Accurate SST temperature records are measured from satellites, and the records do not go back very far. How can he compare them against the 1930s?

2. SST records don't show much if any warming.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/sst/ani-weekly.html
The red areas north of Siberia are exaggerated in size by at least 7x due to the map projection, and are only present for about 3 months in the summer when anomalous arctic melt occurs.

Reply: the satellites are not very accurate in measuring sst's north of 60 degrees. You basically take it with a grain of salt that far north. Brett.

Amazing how bad some of this science is.

This really amounts to ongoing diversionary tactics by neocons who are upset that the measurements do not agree with their economic agenda.

There was significant global warming from the 1890 to 1940. Maybe that was some sort of recovery, but then the warming continued from 1980 to the present and it is this most recent warming that has unequivocally placed the climate in a precarious position.

The statistically insignificant rearrangement of data for just the US does not alter data from all over the rest of the world.

Hansen backpedals on releasing complete data? Another brilliant move designed to foment suspicion and controversy. When are the AGW people going to realize that refusing to allow complete analysis of data by others (pro, con or neutral) is reason enough for grave concern about its legitimacy?
Again this sounds not like science but rhetoric from a zealot knowing his data is less convincing than his words.

It appears that Dr. Hansen has his own set of rules at NASA. From ClimateAudit.org (Steve McIntyre in the comments section):

A number of the readme's have been written in only the last couple of days. My initial impression is that the code is poorly documented. NASA has very specific standards applicable to software described here . They say:

"Software engineering is a core capability and a key enabling technology necessary for the support of NASA�s Mission Directorates. Ensuring the quality, safety, and reliability of NASA software is of paramount importance in achieving mission success. This chapter describes the requirements to help NASA maintain and advance organizational capability in software engineering practices to effectively meet scientific and technological objectives."

Among other duties of the NASA Chief Engineer is the following:

"1.2.3 The NASA Chief Engineer shall periodically benchmark each Center's software engineering capability against its Center Software Engineering Improvement Plan. [SWE-004]"

As I understand it, GISS is part of the Goddard Space Flight Center and is subject to these guidelines. It looks like they apply even to Hansen

Yet, Dr. Hansen seems to be above the rules. Amazing, eh?

Andrew,

It did warm up between 1980 and 1998. If you add in the inexplicable 0.6 degree USHCN fudge factor, temperatures in 1998 were almost as warm as 1934.

Really scary......

Well, it looks as though the proverbial schist is hitting the alluvial fan (sorry for the poor geology pun). Apparently, Dr. Hansen and crew have been applying corrections to station data that really don't need correcting. This has resulted in a station in Walhalla, SC showing an increase in temperature prior to 1985 when there really wasn't one. (This is fro a preliminary analysis and, if true, it should be interesting to see how pervasive this ad hoc correcting is.)

BTW, I resent being called a neocon. I consider the term to be derogatory in nature. If you must resort to name-calling stick with skeptic. I like that moniker.

Just noticed something about McIntyre comment.

He creates strawman arguments by claiming that Hansen is implying that there is a lack of material change since the 1930s with the U.S.

The reality is that there has been significant warming since the 1930. The last 10 years has been the warmest 10 years for the US and it has been that way for a while.

Has Hansen actually stated that there has been no change since the 1930s?

I doubt it!

I do not trust McIntyre at all.

Creating strawman arguments and confusion is probably reflective of his character.
Sorry to say, but this seems to be a common trait of deniers.

Reply: Andrew, from what i have read McIntyre is not a denier, more of a skeptic, and there is a difference. Brett

It appears that Dr. Hansen has his own set of rules at NASA. From ClimateAudit.org (Steve McIntyre in the comments section):

See my items (3) and (4) above.

While folks like Paul may get a kick out of blowing smoke for awhile, those with industry and/or academia experience know better. NASA software responsible for real-time command, control and guidance of shuttle missions is qualitatively different from Python scripts written to massage data sources in climate simulation -- in the former, a system crash has immediate life-threatening consequences. In the latter, it generally means that somebody has to correct a typo and restart a batch.

Those who care more about the science than the argument will welcome this release and direct their attention to coming to agreement about the best answer possible.

It appears that North America, South America, Africa, Antarctica and the oceans are going to be declared officially irrelevant in the search for Waldo. The IPCC already declared the MWP irrelevant because it was (as far as they knew) only a European and Asian phenomenon.

What does that leave as evidence? A couple of hot spots in Siberia?

Brookline Tom
What McIntyre, Watts and others have shown is that the US temp data, supposedly the best available on Earth, is in fact unreliable [ref. surfacestations.org for some mindboggling examples]. The data is overstating temps due to UHI and as McIntyre showed a few weeks ago probably has been manipulated in support of the AGW hypothesis so passionately advocated by Hansen, Schmidt and their fellow travellers.

A review of a broad spectrum of peer reviewed papers published the past 18-24 months provides an interesting picture: Northern Hemisphere temps have levelled off since 1998 and Southern Hemisphere temps are falling. Sea surface temperatures [SSTs] are flat or falling. There is no increase in hurricane frequency or intensity in either hemisphere. Current Arctic temp increase is a regional [not global]phenomenon for which there are several good non-AGW explanations, and Antarctica temps are falling. Greenland is experiencing coastal "calving" [as it did in 1930-40s] but overall its ice mass balance is up and its key glaciers have stopped regressing.
There is no "consensus" [an oxymoron in science anyway] and more and more scientists are now saying so publicly. The IPCC approved "consensus" science actually provides no verifiable proof of a man-made component to whatever temp changes we may be seeing.
McIntyre, together with McIntrick, in 2003 demonstrated that the so called "Hockey Stick" [Mann, et. al.] which showed runaway temp increases was a scientific fraud, a finding corroborated by the US National Academy of Sciences. He most recently caused GISS/NASA to revise downwards post-2000 US temps and my guess is he will probably wind up demonstrating how GISS/NASA manipulated their data through their code.
AGW is politics and the scientific hoax in support of it is coming apart. Just watch and see the mainstream media start to pick up on the new story line.
I doubt very much that McIntyre will ever "agree on the outcome" or somehow "settle" with Hansen as you suggest. Facts are facts and his auditing work has shown that they run counter to AGW. It took a while for people to get their minds around this, but fact is the earth is not flat and the sun does not revolve around us.

Fortunately, we have satellite/MSU for the last 30 years or so with which the surface temp data can be compared.

And don't forget the history of the MSU data analysis done by Spencer/Christie. Errors in their orignal analysis resulted in huge errors in the temperature trends they calculated. This is in stark contrast to the small errors found in NASA's analysis.

Andrew
The importance of the recent temperature adjustments made to the US 1880-2006 record by GISS/NASA [read Hansen] is precisely that there has been NO warming since 1998. McIntyre doesn't say this so don't crticize him. GISS/NASA, a US Federal Government agency, actually does, but only after McIntyre doggedly audited their methods [just like he took apart Mann's Hockey Stick fraud].
Take out 2006 [which is expected to be adjusted downwards even further] and none of the years after 1998 make it to the 125 year Top Ten.

We go backwards and forwards continually on this topic, cherry-picking the parts of the argument that suit us.

If you look at overall trends then the picture is clear. If you look at the holistic argument then the picture is also clear.

The trouble is that this topic will never be solved while so much FUD can be added to the debate..

Brookline Tom and Andrew:
Someone has just left a link at CA to this site and thread. I hope you have your facts straight because these guys for the most part try to deal strictly with facts - they are skeptics not denialists. Steve McIntyre, for example, has repeatedly indicated that he believes that significant warming is taking place but he also has demonstrated that certain of the strong AGW proponents are playing games with the data and not following standard practices as far as archiving their methods and their data. CA contributors are pretty sophisticated number crunchers who have been inappropriately dismissed by churlish academics, Mann in particular. Hansen's belated release of the code is above all a victory for the scientific method and the principle of scientific replication: No code, no meaningful replication; No replication, no verification; No verification, no certainty attached to catastrophic predictions.

bt,

Yes, I agree. Why should the Royalty be held to the same rules as the common folk and us jesters? Why don't we just leave Dr. Hansen alone?

Hansen has a nice little kingdom there at GISS and now the jesters have gone out and ruined it for him. He may now actually have to explain to the masses how he does that thing he does. How inconvenient. Boo Hoo. I shall shed a tear for him tonight.

I see why he is such a bitter man. Too bad, so sad.

The last eight 5-year periods (2002-2006, 2001-2005, 2000-2004, 1999-2003, 1998-2002, 1997-2001, 1996-2000, 1995-1999), were the warmest 5-year periods (i.e. pentads) in the last 112 years of national records, illustrating the anomalous warmth of the last decade. The 9th warmest pentad was in the 1930s (1930-34), when the western U.S. was suffering from an extended drought coupled with anomalous warmth.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2006/ann/us-summary.html

Suffice it to say that if the 8 warmest 5 year periods were the last 8 such periods, that the warmest decade for the US has clearly been the last decade!

This is information that McIntyre and his like do not want people to know.

Of course, this is just for the US. While global temperatures vary slightly from the US ranking (since the US is only 2 percent of the Globe), the trend is still overwhelming.

Do not pay attention to lies from the deniers!

"luctoretemergo" and Paul remind of the proverbial dog that caught the car. Now that the actual code has been released, the contrarians/denialists find themselves in the perhaps awkward position of "put up or shut up".

If McIntyre has any professional integrity, he will see that he has no choice but to come to terms with Hansen about how this data will be handled. What I mean by "agree on the outcome" is that Hansen and McIntyre will agree on the quantities to measure, the algorithms by which that data is processed, and the code that implements those algorithms.

Nobody will need to "settle", in the sense of settling a lawsuit. The data will speak for itself.

I'm glad he's releasing it. Although what I find funny about the whole thing is how deniers are getting all worked up about one-thousandth of a degree. Sorry, guys, but a change of one-thousandth of a degree doesn't change the consensus view that AGW is occuring.

Wouldn't surprise me if ExxonMobil started hiring programmers to fudge the code...lol.

good post luctor summing the current state of the AGW scam...in the face of mounting real scientific evidence, it never ceases to amaze me how the doomdayers continue to look into a crystal ball and try to predict the future even when it comes to computer code critique...but in reality, i guess this is all they have ever had was some computer generated fairytale...its funny to watch the screaming getting louder as domino after domino falls proving their game is about up...but then again, i still see around a few terot readers, fortune tellers, national enquire magazines, fictional movies and books making a living off make believe...have a nice sunny warm day...its a good thing!!!