

Ask HN: Start formal group to peer review climate code? - hop

Wanted to see if some people had interest in forming a formal group to vet algorithms used to calculate climate data. In the wake of the CRU emails that included questionable programs written to interpolate temperature data, I think there will be a need for an independent review by coding experts.<p>Maybe a wiki style project with everything laid out in the open.<p>For the record, I'm impartial and agnostic about climate change because I haven't seen the raw data or the programs used to make future predictions. I think this whole "consensus of scientists so its right" is BS and goes against the scientific method. Plus, climatologists may be incentivised to spread FUD b/c it brings fame and more grant money - plus their expertise is not statistics and writing code.<p>A software engineer reviews CRU source code - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_buKNBrpcM<p>I'm sure some funding would not be difficult to find, given the magnitude of all this.<p>ClimateCodeReview.org? ClimateHackers.org? ClimateCrunchers.org?...
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crux_
One thing I don't get is how people always seem to follow the pattern "I'm
unbiased. #{strong_opinion_here}."

Unbiased... really, hop?

For the record: I think that open source + code cleanup + code review is a
great idea, and not just for climate science. But it's important to keep in
mind that ugly code isn't the same thing as wrong code, and that mistakes in
the code aren't automatically become mistakes in the science.

(For example, a poorly written data parser with lots of bugs will not affect
the science one bit, if none of the data triggers those bugs.)

So what's your purpose here:

\- To contribute to a community, finding and fixing bugs, making things more
readable and robust, etc?

\- To do a little audit to "prove" what you already believe? (I suspect a hint
of witch-hunt in the air...)

Edit to fix formatting and add a side comment: This "climatologists may be
incentivised to spread FUD b/c it brings fame and more grant money" bit
doesn't pass the smell test for me. If this is the true motivation of
climatologists, then why aren't more of them going for the fame and think-tank
money available to them by expressing dissent? I can't believe that all these
scientists are dishonest and greedy enough to lie about the science, but not
suitably dishonest/greedy to sell out their peers.

~~~
hop
I am biased - not about climatology, but having been in grad school and seen
it first hand, I am biased about scientists motives, especially when you are
competing for millions of dollars of grant money. I also know its easy to fit
big data sets to a desired conclusion.

I care about being confident that the data supports the conclusion. I want all
the data in the open and open to scrutiny. Whether the Earth is cooling,
heating, staying the same - I just want it proven with open source code, not
on a consensus of people I don't know using data hidden from the public, with
code that I haven't read.

Edit: I am sure the vast majority of scientists are true to the data. And this
project will only help reinforce their work.

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marltod
Even if you could get ALL the data in an open and transparent format and were
able to scientifically prove that "Global warming is (100% real/fake)" it
wouldn't matter because the political/corporate/celebrity forces on the other
side would claim that you are "using bad science, corrupt, in the pocket of
(liberal elites/big corporations)". Even if you proved that there isn't enough
data to prove anything, both sides would say you are wrong.

~~~
eru
It's still worthwhile.

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lutorm
I think you miss the fact that to figure out what scientific code does, you
also have to know the science. Yeah, you can look for dumb bugs like the one
they show in that clip, but you have no way of knowing whether calculations
are correct without knowing what's going on.

I found it disingenuous how they flashed a line of code that says "fudge
factor" as if that makes the code incorrect. Unless you know what that fudge
factor is for, you can't make that judgement.

~~~
riffer
Climatologists should articulate what adjustments are necessary and why.
Popularizers can then make it accessible to laypersons if need be - there is
certainly enough interest.

The whole point is that up until now we've been trusting the details to
climatologists, and that trust has been broken.

Layer on top the stakes, and also consider that this issue really lies at the
intersection of many fields: climatology, computer science, economic,
politics; opening this up is the only sensible next step.

~~~
lutorm
Oh, I totally agree that it all should be public. I'm just saying that the
OP's take that "let's get some professional programmers in there and clean it
up" won't work unless they work in close collaboration with the scientists
themselves.

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david927
I'd like to start a formal group to bring back the glaciers and arctic ice
cap.

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DanielBMarkham
The neat thing about being a professional programmer is that you are always
working in somebody else's problem domain.

So I wouldn't take the naysayers too seriously. If you can't peer review
climate code, you can't peer review financial code, or medical code, or
astronautics code.

Sure, you'll need problem domain expertise. But that's a given with any kind
of programming. Climate science is no different than any other kind of work
programmers do.

I think it's a great idea -- if you can pull it off. But that's a really big
"if".

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yters
I'm definitely interested, not sure about the time.

