Leave aside the notion that there hasn’t been any discernible warming trend in about 12 years, despite continuing increases in global CO2 levels. The fact is that if there is any real warming trend (increasingly called into question), there is much reason to think CO2 is a minor player at best. And if so, we’ve already wasted money and lives, with proposals on the table to waste much more money and many more lives. Thus, it matters a very great deal if there has been cooking of the numbers. And we’ve seen a growing body of evidence of just such number cooking in the last decade, with this latest revelation seeming to vindicate those who’ve been saying all along that the science on CO2 and warming is very bad. That matters a great deal.

They’re also the keepers of one of two major terrestrial instrumental temperature records. If it’s corrupt, then we’re down to GISS for instrumental record. That has its own problems.

Without a long instrumental record, we’re down to just satellite data. I wouldn’t think that to be a terribly solid basis for evaluating models.

It should be obvious to anyone that there are many factors that effect global climate. The question that should be studied is whether human caused CO2 increases is a factor effecting global climate and whether it might cause changes that will effect global climate in dangerous ways. Anyone who thinks CO2 is the only factor needed to explain all global climate changes is just naive. If these scientist were cooking there data to agree with the models, they should get what they deserve for doing it, but this really does not seem central to the issue of global warming.

It matters because the AGWers claim is that current temps can only be explained by current CO2 levels. If temps were higher when CO2 was lower that hurts that argument a lot. That’s one reason why these emails are important: they show a deliberate effort to kill the MWP.

Global temps probably underwent a similar rise around 1200.
The top scientist usually have huge egos and are top scientist in part because of self-promotion.

That’s fine for astronomy. No one is asking us to spend trillions of dollars to keep the Moon from crashing into the Earth.

This is generally true, but from astronomy I am very familiar with studying subjects where we simply cannot get good data.

I remember in graduate school one student with a physics background saying a certain book wasn’t very good because it only gave the distance to Hyades to two decimal place. This distance is general considered the underlying basis of all stellar distance determinations. The other astronomy graduate students considered this hilarious, since the distance to the Hyades had be revised by a factor of two only a few years before the book was published. Even the two decimals given are not significant. We simply don’t know this kind of thing with great precision.

I think the same thing can be said about global temperatures 1000 years ago. We do not know this very accurately, and unless we develop time travel technology, probably never will. To do science in this area, you have to understand the limitations of your data.

Global temperatures have gone up a lot in the last 100 years. Who cares if it is now hotter than in the MWP. The important question is how much (if any) of these warming is due to CO2 and will the warming continue at the same rate for the next few hundred years.

They’re useful for validating models. Existing models have problems with the MWP and LIA. They can’t really explain them. If the model can’t explain some significant data features, then it has a problem.

Global climate has been changing for billions of years. It is clear that many factors effect global climate. CO2 is only one factor that may be effecting climate. Other factors include the energy output from the Sun. I know from astronomy that many stars are variable in energy output. It is clear our sun does not vary by large amounts, but it is very hard to determine if it is not slightly variable. This is an extremely difficult thing to measure. It is entirely possible the Sun is slightly variable in energy output and that might explain some climate variations.

It would be extremely naive to expect to be able to explain all temperature changes in the last few thousand years based on CO2 alone. So what if climate models of CO2 variation cannot explain MWP and LIA. That just means there are other factors effecting global climate.

The question remains, is CO2 a factor we should be worried about. Human activity is increasing CO2. Will that lead to any global climate changes?

Organizing a trip to Siberia to gather new Yamal data would be more expensive than most of us could justify

Why do we need more samples from Siberia? Samples from Siberia can only give you temperature data about Siberia, which is subject to local climate as well a global climate variations. To get an estimate of global temperatures we need samples from more places. There are very old trees in other places in the world too.

Unless you’re hunting rocks, I’m not terribly concerned about any mistakes you make with your astronomy. It really doesn’t affect me. I get enough value out of your work that I don’t even mind paying for it, as long as you don’t go overboard. Even your mistakes help push science forward.

I care a whole lot more if someone asks me to dramatically change my lifestyle. That affects me. That gets my attention, and I start to care.

A number of your points I have some knowledge of.

The Earth’s average surface temperature is essentially independent of the contents of some piece of paper. The only reason that the pieces of paper matter is how we understand our environment. Our understanding is captured in terms of models, which may or may not be relevant. It largely comes down to a question of what the models say, and whether or not the models are valid.

The historical reconstructions matter for two reasons:
1) The IPCC claim of “unprecedented” warming. There are a number of reconstructions which show a RWP and MWP warmer than today, and a LIA much colder than today. Mostly these were generated prior to 1995, though Loehle and others have generated some since. The MBH99 reconstruction (aka The Hockey Stick) showed almost no MWP or LIA. Subsequent reconstructions by Mann, Briffa and others (The Team) have shown a MWP much lower than today. The Team figures prominently in the CRU e-mails.
2) They’re useful for validating models. Existing models have problems with the MWP and LIA. They can’t really explain them. If the model can’t explain some significant data features, then it has a problem.

The “Ababneh thesis” was an attempt at independent verification of the Graybill Sheep Mountain series used by Mann. She got different results.

Professional researchers face retribution for asking too many questions (see reference Saier).

There is no real organized, well funded “skeptics” group. It’s mostly individuals asking questions on their own dime. Organizing a trip to Siberia to gather new Yamal data would be more expensive than most of us could justify, and it wouldn’t necessarily even work. On the other hand, Briffa didn’t make that trip himself. There’s evidence in the e-mails that a new data set could be secured for $10k.

There’s also evidence, both in the e-mails and in existing public information, that the scientists involved have deliberately chosen to involve themselves in political activity and seek political action. This takes it out of the realm of pure science, and I believe, brings with it higher level of scrutiny. It’s no longer enough to conduct separate paths of research. The science has to be right.

In astronomy it is mainly access to large telescopes. Only a small subset of astronomers have access to the largest telescopes with the best instruments to collect data. This is somewhat better today, because there are more large telescopes, some at the national observatories open most astronomers.

I have not gotten into the details of this climate controversy very deeply. Much of it seems to be controversy over analysis of tree ring samples. Why can’t more people collect independent tree ring samples? Why spend all this effort arguing over the analysis of one set of samples? Collect more data and independently analyze it. That is the way scientific controversies are resolved. Re-analyzing the same old data different ways will not really resolve anything. It just shows that you need more data.

It seems obvious to me that any estimates about global temperatures 1000-2000 years ago are very uncertain and subject to bias. You simply will never be able to know this with any great certainty. We know that there was a so called “little ice age” somewhere between 1300 and 1850 and that it was warmer before that. Whether the earth was as warm as now or warmer than the current temperature seems not relevant to the question of whether human activity and CO2 in particular is responsible for any of the current warming over the last 100 years.