[ExI] Don't obsess over "climategate"

[spike]

>>We don't need another conspiracy theory
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/earticle/7748/

>>Max


> ...On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki
> ...
> 
> And one doesn't need to posit a global conspiracy, just Phil 
> Jones, Thomas Karl and James Hansen working together to get 
> the impossible 0.98 correlation... Rafal

Thanks for the Spiked reference Max.  I like the name too.  {8-]

Looking from the outside, I am struck by a subtle recent shift in the
assumption of the onus of proof.  Somehow it seems the Mann-made GW crowd is
now asking the skeptics to prove their their case, and assuming that the
AGW's case is established as the baseline.

In all the discussion I haven't really seen anyone talk about the
metrologist's POV.  An instrumentation guy knows that of all things to
measure, temperature is probably the trickiest one, because there are at
least three separate effects that go into it: radiation, convection and
conduction.  Moderns get this because we have all put something in the
microwave oven and seen it come out so overcooked as to be spoiled in one
part, and practically raw elsewhere.  We have ridden bicycles on a fall
evening and felt pockets of cool air relative to the surroundings.

When I read over the leaked CRU memos, I am struck not so much by a sense of
conspiracy, but rather reminded of my days as a metrologist.  Measuring a
small overall average temperature change over a long span of time is far
trickier than it sounds.  

spike