Court action against Niwa 'stupid'
Court action against NIWA 'stupid'
Court action against New Zealand's state-owned weather and atmospheric research body is "stupid" and just creating confusion, University of Otago pro-vice chancellor of sciences Keith Hunter says. The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) is being taken to court in a challenge over the accuracy of its data used to calculate global warming. The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition said it had lodged papers with the High Court asking the court to invalidate Niwa's official temperature records.
The lobby of climate sceptics and the Act Party have long criticised Niwa over its temperature data, which Niwa says is mainstream science and not controversial, and the raw data publicly available.
Ok, so you don't like the figures. What do you do? In this case, it's to litigate.
I'd say odds on, the courts won't touch it because there is no point of law to rule on here so it's dead in the water. I'm mystified as to why this is being done, it seems to be more something that will misfire and end up shooting them in the foot. I suppose next on the agenda is suing to get the Arctic sea ice melt data eliminated, then pretend that it isn't happening too.
Plenty of commentary on this:
Journals not court is place for scientific debate – experts
Attacking NIWA (Best quote: They make Luddites look like rocket scientists.).
Hot Topic: When asses go to law
Hot Topic: NIWA vs Cranks - update one
Shame on NZ Herald climate denier spin
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Legal bunk
I agree it is likely pointless if not counter-productive to address these things through the courts, though if I understand correctly, the sceptics objection is not to the raw data, which they feel supports their view, but to the way the data has been adjusted according to international "best practice" to reach the conclusion it does.
Each side accusing the other of cherry picking and vested interests etc, and neither side helped by the those who seem to want more certainty than there is in order to validate other agendas.
I am one of those who is prepared to accept it could well be true that humans are affecting the climate, but that when ranked against other urgent issues requiring global cooperation, that it is irresponsible to divert too many resources away from the far greater threats of widespread human suffering & possibly extinction that we face.
Taxing or legislating to curtail human energy use unavoidably results in reduced economic and infrastructural capacity, capacity that we need more than ever to address ALL the global and local issues we face as a species - including global warming.
If it's not the data, why
If it's not the data, why call for the official temperature record to be invalidated? The reading I've done (check at http://openparachute.wordpress.com or other blogs for the debate about this) says that these guys have tried to challenge the work of NIWA before. This was based on that adjustments are made for site changes, but that's well documented and not controversial. There will be shifts in readings in the same location depending on factors like site and altitude changes or changes in equipment and where it would be dodgy is if no one accounted for that. In response, NIWA has in addition to a previous 7 station series, has done a 11 station series that required little to no adjustment and it shows the same thing (http://www.niwa.co.nz/news-and-publications/news/all/2009/nz-temp-record...)
There are 'sides' here, I think that rather than complain because there might have been bad behaviour at one time or another it's important to realise that only explanation for this action is that it's an straight out attack on science and on the integrity of the scientists involved in creating that record. This outfit only deserves criticism for attempting to get the courts to rule on what should be a scientific debate, if they had any balls they'd do the hard work of producing their own science and proving their case instead. They've got the raw data accessible to them after all. If you've got a good case and the evidence is on your side, you don't need to resort to tactics like this. You do the science and you publish.
I'm waiting to see what happens with legislation, would like to think that rather than reducing capacity it will encourage innovation and use of more sustainable sources of energy - like wind power. I think you'd have to be careful about characterising this as an non-urgent issue, as there are many risks to this approach if the science is correct, including mass displacement of populations due to sea level rise and even effects on health as you have things happening like the Malaria zone shifting. I'd personally rather face up to that possibility now rather than ignoring it and then trying to shut the gate after the horse has bolted. The possible consequences are too big to play "wait and see" games with.