Sfdebris.net

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-feds-scrapped-100-years-of-data-on-climate-change

Canadians already suspicious of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax are likely be even more suspicious given a report by Ottawa-based Blacklock’s Reporter that Environment Canada omitted a century’s worth of observed weather data in developing its computer models on the impacts of climate change.

The scrapping of all observed weather data from 1850 to 1949 was necessary, a spokesman for Environment Canada told Blacklock’s Reporter, after researchers concluded that historically, there weren’t enough weather stations to create a reliable data set for that 100-year period.

“The historical data is not observed historical data,” the spokesman said. “It is modelled historical data … 24 models from historical simulations spanning 1950 to 2005 were used.”

Yeah, you read that right - Canada's government just cast aside actual recorded data in favor of models that have been proven to be inaccurate, in part by that data. So none of you get to call skeptics "deniers" now, just FYI.

Considering language used in that news article's very first line I have my doubts about that being legit news article. When first thing written in that shows to what direction person who wrote this one is biased towards it does make me suspicious.

Just reacting to what is said, a model that is trying to gauge the specific impact of climate change (ie changes in local weather patterns) is different and much more fine-grained then a model attempting to show the basic fact or possibilities of climate change due to changes in things like CO2 levels, which just has to do things like get average heat in the atmosphere and oceans about right.

Nothing in this article suggests that the basic models to establish the reasonableness of human caused climate change do not use data from the weather station in those 100 years, plus ice cores, tree rings and who knows what else. However that is what the article is implying they are doing (removing the data from the proof of concept models), I see no evidence of the implied behaviour from the explicit behaviour.

Anyway be confident if they were using that data you could just say it makes their models meaningless because the data is so inaccurate that it can mean whatever they want. Rest assured not matter what they do or what evidence is provided you do not have to change your opinion.

This is clearly an Opinion piece written by an opinion columnist. This perhaps explains the tenor of the writing. In my mind people who read the Toronto Sun say they do it because of its extensive sports coverage, it is also notable for its Sunshine Girls, pinups of a good looking women, it is how Pamela Anderson got her start.

Evidence very much would change my opinion - the problem is there's very little evidence to suggest humanity is driving climate change, and then you have examples like this of real data being ignored or buried while scare tactics are being used to push through legislation (rather like the Patriot Act). Indeed, all evidence I have seen suggests that what we are seeing now in terms of climate is not unprecedented. And the spokesmen directly says they scrapped that 100 years worth of measured data.

Still, it is fun watching people make excuses for stuff like this. I still remember the last time this kind of thing got called out and the lame excuse then was that they didn't have enough room on their hard drive or some bullshit like that.

A limited data set can easily be more meaningful than the complete data set for a given purpose, if I want to know how good a batter is right now as he goes up to bat, his current seasonal batting average would probably tell me way more than his lifetime batting average if he is late in his career etc. Yet seasonal batting average "scraps" the data from previous seasons that is included in lifetime. Not sure why that would not be true of things like predicting local weather patterns in Canada...

Also, the article nowhere says that the models with limited historical data are the only climate models that climate scientists in general, climate scientists in Canada or even that the website is using. It nowhere says no models on the website much less no climate models use the larger data set. The article says "These computer simulations are part of the federal government’s ClimateData.ca website" so everything in the article would be true even if other models on the website used the data from weather stations taken before 1950 (those computer simulations could be another part of the website presenting those models).

The thing about even a limited data set is that it gives you something you can at the very least make comparisons with. In any case it should be incorporated into any meaningful analysis, as it is known information, not just outright ignored as in this case. The government spokesman outright states that they are ignoring this data and then states a really lame excuse for doing so. This is even more significant because climate trends can only really be looked at over the very long term, yet here they are ignoring an entire century of data, seemingly for no other reason than it is inconvenient for them.

Umm are you reading a different article the only direct quotes I see are:

“The historical data is not observed historical data,” the spokesman said. “It is modelled historical data … 24 models from historical simulations spanning 1950 to 2005 were used.”

and

She described it as “an important next step in giving our decision-makers even greater access to important climate data for long-term planning. The more each of us uses this type of information, the more it will help.”

The second quote sounds like an explanation of why they have a website with those models on it not a justification for how those models were constructed.

Maybe the spokesperson gave an explanation of why the model only incorporates those 50 years of data, but if so the article did not see fit to quote it....

And you're both just ignoring the entire century that happened before that.

Let me lay out three things that I know about Canada.

1. Canada is the worst in the G7 for per-capita carbon use and has been among the last to make a serious effort at ending free-ride dumping of carbon pollution. Pricing carbon is a meaningful but tiny step compared to the scale of Canada's energy demands. Trudeau wasn't, and isn't really, prepared to kill permits for wells and pipelines, mainly due to the political consequences in Alberta - Note that even token efforts yield hitjob pieces like this.

2. Canada's ground weather data is not so great in the first place. That "100 years" of data is mostly within 200 km of the US border, or out on the islands in Atlantic Canada, not up in the Arctic where the decisionmaking needs to be focused on. Even in modern times, Environment Canada leans really hard on weather satellites to fill in the huge gaps in observations.

3. Canada doesn't have terribly many more places to go than the axe when it comes to decarbonizing; Canadian hydroelectric capacity is essentially fully developed - it could stop exporting to the US, maybe. Canada was formerly a leader in nuclear energy, but has been salami slicing away at Atomic Energy of Canada Limited for the better part of 25 years, the latest round of which was a far more justified political scandal; see: SNC-Lavalin.

So this whole thread started with what is, at best, a heckler's veto, "well you didn't do X".

The reply of a scientist is to look at the best available data and analysis. So if you start with "Here's 20 models, and this is what they say," and hmmm, you missed something, fine. Wait however long it takes to get to "Here's 21 models and this is what they say"

But if you don't look at the data yourself, well, at some point you need to pick who to trust. Fly-by-night Conservative Party dark money digi-rag, or scientists who can get fired and/or lose all their research money for any appearance of public malfeasance?

Considering that the other example we have of observed data being deleted resulted in the government of that country basically making light of the controversy with no negative consequences for anyone involved, I don't find that argument all that compelling.