Project policies
Nick Barnes
Some of this needs to go on a project website or wiki.
Here are the existing project goals:
<http://clearclimatecode.org/goal/>
1. To produce clear climate science software;
2. To encourage the production of clear climate science software;
3. To increase public confidence in climate science results;
4. To promote Ravenbrook's software consultancy services.
Of course, I don't expect you all to sign up for goal number 4,
although it will remain part of my agenda for the project and it is
best to be up-front about these things.
My present point is that the following are not project goals, and I
don't think that they will contribute to the project:
1. To pick fights and flame wars with sceptics and/or denialists;
2. To judge or arbitrate in climate science;
3. To pick public holes in the GISTEMP source code.
First, I am not a scientist and I didn't set up the project to make
judgements about climate science. By doing ClearClimateCode I hope to
help actual climate scientists to do actual climate science, and to
help others to trust the results.
My personal beliefs on some aspects of climate science are pretty
well-documented (if you make the reasonable and correct guess that I
am the Nick Barnes who hangs out on blog comment threads). And those
beliefs form a strong motivation for me to start and take part in this
project. But this project is not intended to be a platform for
promoting those beliefs. The blogosphere is full of places to vent
views about these subjects; please try to keep it off this project.
Finally, a natural consequence of our work on this code will be to
find errors, mostly minor, in the GISTEMP sources. It has happened at
least twice already, and will happen again before we're done. We will
find code which seems wrong, and sometimes the code will be wrong.
But that is the nature of software development.
Furthermore it would be very bad form to publicise any suspected
defect in GISTEMP code until after consulting the GISS team. The
project is intended to help climate scientists, not to antagonise
them. The project has benefited in the past from advice and help from
GISS, and doubtless will again.
What has happened in the past is that we (Ravenbrook) have privately
notified Reto Ruedy, guardian of the GISTEMP code at GISS (currently
still on the invitation list for this mailing list), he has
investigated, he has confirmed the defect and fixed his code, and he
has graciously thanked us for finding the defect. That process is
unlikely to work in quite that way as CCC-GISTEMP becomes a more
public project. I welcome suggestions of how we can continue to
handle suspected defects in a polite and respectful way, while
maintaining the open nature of the project.
Nick B