Before I begin, I just want to make a general comment on scepticism. You’ll come across sceptic groups around the intertubes. In fact, I subscribe to a couple of sceptic feeds myself. And one thing I’ve noticed is that it’s okay to be a sceptic … except when it’s not. So, for example, you can question the link between the MMR vaccine and autism, but you can’t question the unbelievable quickness of the WTC building collapses of 9/11. You can question the efficacy of homeopathy, but you can’t analyse the Blue/Red Book data with a view to finding out if we really have been visited by extraterrestrials. You can question the claims of chiropractics, but you can’t research rumours of a government using its own population as chemical weapon guinea-pigs by injecting them with radioactive substances masquerading as vaccines.

Do any of the first in each sentence and you’re a true blue sceptic. Do any of the second and even the sceptics will call you a conspiracy nut. Whether I believe in any of these things (first or second parts) is irrelevant, but the point I want to make is this: if you’re a sceptic then shouldn’t it be the case that you’re sceptical of everything? That you shouldn’t take anything at face value because you are, y’know, a sceptic?

As I’ve said before, even when a leftist writes an essay on a particular topic, and even though I’m unabashedly politically a leftist, I still research the arguments that person is presenting. To blindly accept a fact because it comes from a source that I believe is ideologically (or economically or psychologically or socially) close to my own views negates the very ideal of scepticism completely, turning it instead into dogma. Dogma is something we vilify religion for, but it would do well for sceptics to remember that the charge can be equally made against members of our own group when they side blindly with one argument due solely to ideological proximity. Or to a fear of being ridiculed.

All this is a long-ass introduction to a topic that I’ve touched on several times before. That is, climate change. Now, I don’t know what the deal is with climate change. I remain a sceptic about the whole issue, which means that I don’t believe the case has been made ozone-tight for either side of the argument. Plus, I’m not a climate scientist, so a lot of data just flies over my head tbh, and — judging by the papers I read, appropriately cross-referenced, natch! — I really don’t believe 80% of what the mainstream media screams in its headlines.

I’d like to believe that all the noxious by-products we’re pumping into the atmosphere is making some kind of change to the way our planet operates. But that private view (still a postulation, not even an hypothesis in my mind) is not helped when I read the latest on climate data.

Let me introduce the Climatic Research Unit of East Anglia, which unabashedly tells us that it is:

widely recognised as one of the world’s leading institutions concerned with the study of natural and anthropogenic climate change.

The Reg tells me that “the CRU Global Climate Dataset, is the most cited surface temperature record by the UN IPCC.” Is it? Well, if you can be bothered to go to Chapter 3 (Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change Supplementary Material) of the IPCC publication “Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change“, published by Cambridge University Press, and start at p. 241, Section 3.2.1 onwards, you will see that data from the CRU was used predominantly as the basis for changes in temperature of the surface climate. So yes, it’s true.

(As an aside, it also tells you why being a sceptic is such damn hard work. You have to do so much checking. But that is my, heh, cross to bear. Onwards.)

Enter Steve McIntyre and the blog, Climate Audit. Steve and his fellow bloggers at Climate Audit are scientists. Statisticians, but mathematical scientists nonetheless. So they do what scientists do, which is take raw data as presented and try to construct reproducible test cases. This is the essence of science. Not blowing things up, but making sure that the underlying model of Something is robust enough that anybody around the world can come to the same conclusions using the same data. To bring back that tired word, it’s the difference between science and dogma.

So what happens when McIntyre et al. request the raw climate data from that most august institution, the CRU? I’ll go back to the Reg here, which has a useful summary, although you can always go to Climate Audit for the full blow-by-blow account, if you’re so inclined. Well, the CRU has multiple responses, essentially boiling down to:

1) It lost all its data from the 1980s onwards, and/or
2) It destroyed all its data from the 1980s onwards, and/or
3) nobody (including other scientists) has a right to see any of its data.

On (3), to whit:

Professor Phil Jones, the activist-scientist who maintains the data set, has cited various reasons for refusing to release the raw data. Most famously, Jones told an Australian climate scientist in 2004 [admittedly not referenced in The Reg, but there's a trail at Climate Audit if you go looking, and my emphasis on the following]:

Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.

Um, because it’s the basic of scientific enquiry, which is the cornerstone of human civilisation?

Here’s the thing. If you want the entire world to believe that the sky is falling down around our ears, wouldn’t it be in your best interests to release all the data associated with it so you can convince other people that the atmosphere is indeed descending? Especially if you purport to be a scientist while doing this? What gain can possibly be made in behaving like a spoilt prima donna, withholding the very information that you base your sky-breaking conclusions on?

To sceptics like me, behaviour of that ilk is more likely to drive me away from the IPCC’s conclusions, because it smacks of hidden agendas and, yes, dogma. So I can now say that, whereas before I was a firm believer in climate change, now I have turned into a sceptic. And it’s all thanks to the IPCC.

ADDITIONAL: I’ve written about my doubts on climate change before. See this post on a Japanese report, and the last item in this one on weather station placement, which mentions that other august body mentioned in the IPCC report, the GISS. I don’t think we’re done with this topic by a long shot.