Random Jottings: Nudging the data...

There is, I think, a lot of incentive towards slanting science due to the personal politics of the people involved. When certain science topics come up, everyone gets twitchy because we know the issues have political implications. One of my sisters is a scientist (smart, honest as they come, not involved in any controversial research) and a liberal. We normally don't mention politics! But climate science came up once in a e-mail exchange, and she made some complaint about Bush/Cheney... and I pointed out that she had in fact instantly turned the science into a political weapon. That ended that conversation pronto, but it's stuck in my mind.

Maximizing Mitt - Cesar Conda - The Corner on National Review Online

Today there is a complete lack of adult economic leadership in Washington. President Obama’s agenda on health care, higher education, and climate change is diverting his attention from the economy.

Finally - an honest quantification of urban warming by a major climate scientist « Watts Up With That?

Its all about location, location, location. And climate monitoring stations that are poorly sited and that have been overrun by urban growth clearly don’t give a pure signal for assesment of long term climate trends. This puts a real kink in the validity of the surface temperature data in GISS and HadCRUT and could go a long way towards explaining the divergence between satellite and surface temperatures in recent years.