The Blackboard

Some folks never hear the wake-up call.

http://video.google.com/videop.....amp;hl=en#

BBC news report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci.....375576.stm

I think it may be a good idea for folks to come up with ideas on how this process can be fixed. Venting frustration and persons X, Y, and Z, or publications A, B, and C may feel satisfying, but does little to correct the underlying problems in the science.

As I see it, the biggest problems to come to light from all of this are:

* Withholding of information / data
* Modifying data
* Computer models that are coded specifically to produced desired results
* Political pressure on individuals who publish papers that doesn’t please a small group of scientists and similar pressure on the journals that publish those papers

I’d suggest that in order to solve these problems, the following steps are needed at a minimum:

* All data and computer codes needed to reproduce the conclusion of a paper must be submitted with the paper before it can be published, along with any special steps needed to reproduce the conclusions.

* All such data and computer codes be placed in the public domain and be made available to anyone in the world via the internet for free.

* Pass laws making it illegal to hide any related data or computer codes behind “Intellectual Property” agreements.

Typical Grauniad: “Among the last citadels of climate change deniers…”

The few but well known independent reporters in Australia are on this like the hounds they should be. However look at this dismal performance of the so called Science Editor of one of its main news papers.

http://www.theage.com.au/envir.....-jheu.html

The sexist in me would say that the world has passed her by while she polished her fingernails.

lucia: have you read george monbiot blog in the guardian? please read it

Martin– That link doesn’t work and I can’t guess the right one.
Jorge C- link?

Jorge– If you mean http://www.guardian.co.uk/comm.....scientists I’ve read it. HankHenry and I have been discussing the odd transition to satire.

But, we are assuming everthing before “Luckily for the sceptics, and to my intense disappointment, ” is straight, and after that, it’s satire.

It’s real simple. Open all the books (data), all the adjustments, all the error bars, etc. Place them all on the table for people to see. It’s obvious that warming is unambiguous. If not, why all the coordination from the Team to keep things tidy. My guess is that the data and adjustments are NOT tidy. It’s not clear. Why is this so hard to say? Why do we have to have a clear answer if the data does not support it? I know – politics. The politics of AGW is not much different from the financial bubble that recently popped. Rising home prices (way above historical norms, pumped up by free money and fraudulent mortgages) only works for so long. When it pops, it pops. Final note. Warren Buffett says (roughly), “Bubbles always last much longer than one expects, but when they pop, they collapse much quicker than one thinks is possible”.

The left-wing press has put its blinders on and are dutifully hauling the load. In case the Guardian missed it, here are excerpts from a column by Nigel Lawson, former Chancellor of the Exchequer under PM Thatcher, that was published in the London Times yesterday:

“Astonishingly, what appears, at least at first blush, to have emerged is that (a) the scientists have been manipulating the raw temperature figures to show a relentlessly rising global warming trend; (b) they have consistently refused outsiders access to the raw data; (c) the scientists have been trying to avoid freedom of information requests; and (d) they have been discussing ways to prevent papers by dissenting scientists being published in learned journals.

“There may be a perfectly innocent explanation. But what is clear is that the integrity of the scientific evidence on which not merely the British Government, but other countries, too, through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, claim to base far-reaching and hugely expensive policy decisions, has been called into question. And the reputation of British science has been seriously tarnished. A high-level independent inquiry must be set up without delay. ”

A high level independent inquiry will definitely uncover even more dirty laundry.

So when are the “Hide the Decline” mugs going to be available?

theduke (Comment#24533)

No, Lawson’s article has not been missed. What is missing, however, is any evidence whatsoever to support his appalling allegation, viz.:

the scientists have been manipulating the raw temperature figures to show a relentlessly rising global warming trend

Even the most hysterical of blogs has suggested no revealed evidence of that from the emails. But perhaps you think there is such evidence? I’d be pleased to reread any emails you have in mind.

Otherwise, thanks for drawing attention again to Lawson’s distortion.

sorry lucia, the problem was that i did no read the comments at “crack investigative…”

So when are the “Hide the Decline” mugs going to be available?

Ehrmm… I just emailed Jean S for UC’s email. I think UC has authorship of the appropriate graphic and I think they are good buds. If anyone knows UC’s email, I’ll ask permission and slap some mugs together.

Simon–
I agree that there emails contain no evidence that anyone manipulated HadCrut or GISSTemp or NOAA/NCDC or any other set of “rare” measurements to show a relentless rising global warming trend.

I suspect Lawson is confused about the meaning of “the trick”– just as many defenders are confused about the meaning of “the trick”.

The trick applies to paleo reconstructions– not raw temperature. It doesn’t affect any “raw” data, but a presentation. The trick is an indefensible “trick” of using measured temperature data to compute a portion of the “paleo reconstruction”. This naturally improves the agreement between the, now, “sois dissant” paleo reconstructio– because it’s now partially based on the data. The temperature data is then shown “alongside” this “sois dissant” paleo reconstruction; naturally, the agreement looks pretty good (because the data is being compared to something which was computed using the data itself.)

This is a bizarre, shall we say “ideosyncratic’ end treatment, and appears to have been motiaved by the fact that the more commonly used end point treatments indicated a mismatch between the paleo reconstruction and the data. This mismatch tends to make people think “Oh. The paleo reconstruction isn’t that good, is it? After all, if it were good, it would match the data!”

So: a) the trick is not to fiddle the raw data, b) it is not to simply show the data “along with” the reconstruction. But it is a trick that has distorted very widely distributed temperature graphics distrbuted to the public.

I’m not sure the public understand the difference between creating this distorted graphic and fiddling with raw data. I strongly suspect Lawson does not.

The cure, of course, is for people to carefully explain the difference. Jean S has done that at Climate Audit. The trick was initially dissected and documented last March, long before the emails were found.

Lucia,

I agree with all of that. We’re aware that Lawson’s statement feeds into, or feeds from, the rather popular (albeit to my mind pretty bonkers) notion that the instrumental temperature data is being fraudulently manipulated. It will be extremely surprising, I think, if that meme is not amplified going forward. I hope that people of a sceptical nature will be just as keen to quash unreasonable speculation of such a nature as they are to question unreasonable practices of any other nature. I fear, though, that it would be naive to hope that we will improve our general (that is, the public’s) understanding of best judgement in these fields any time soon.

With respect to temp data, there *is* an issue. The monthly reports are not simply thermometer readings. Some station series get included others do not. There are correction algorithms to filter out UHI (by using airport tarmacs as rural stations in GISS, for example). The process does include elements of judgment and therefore some subjectivity. If the motives etc of those in charge of the process are questionable, then isn’t the process is also suspect.

I agree that there is no conclusive proof of falsehood in the reported data. However (1) attempts to check the Hadley raw data set have been defeated because Phil Jones’ dog ate the files and (2) we now know that prior to that FOI fiasco he stated a willingness to delete rather than share that raw data, therefore it is indisputable that we should have less confidence in that data product than before.

Simon– After I get (or am declined ) permission to use UC’s graphic for “hide the decline” mugs, I’m planning a post on that trick. In that post, I will explain the difference.

Because many of the “rebuttals” of Lawson’s smear (which I think is based on a misconception) I think a full discussion will be required. I think the full discussion needs to engage both sides. I’m budgetting time because… as you know… it’s the run up to Thankgiving– a busy time for us. Plus, I’ll need to collect together a bunch of links to make sure that the presentation doesn’t just end up engaging strawmen.

Lucia

As I understand it, another aspect of “hide the decline” is to truncate the paleo reconstruction at 1960 so it does NOT even show the downturn diverging from the instrumental temperature.

See: Mike’s Nature Trick

and
A very disturbing Harry_READ_ME-text
e.g.

\FOIA\documents\osborn-tree6\mann\oldprog\maps12.pro
;
; Plots 24 yearly maps of calibrated (PCR-infilled or not) MXD reconstructions
; of growing season temperatures. Uses “corrected” MXD – but shouldn’t usually
; plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to
; the real temperatures.
;

\FOIA\documents\osborn-tree6\mann\oldprog\maps12.pro
;
; Plots 24 yearly maps of calibrated (PCR-infilled or not) MXD reconstructions
; of growing season temperatures. Uses “corrected” MXD – but shouldn’t usually
; plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to
; the real temperatures.
;

Simon Evans [24540]
When you’re caught out, you’re caught out. A lot of people still seem to have difficulties coming to grips with that.

Mann’s Nature “trick” is the manipulation of data. The Hockey Stick is the very embodiment of the manipulation of data.

Briffa’s cherry picking on Yamal is the manipulation of data.

Jones’ proposed destruction of data to prevent them from being released under FOI is the manipulation of data [into oblivion, as it were..].

The discrediting not only of other scientists but of several scientific journals bold enough to publish papers questioning the orthodoxy is blatant manipulation of data.

Even Trenberth’s very recent complaint to Mann that they don’t have means to “explain away” the ongoing absence of warming tells us about the mindset that if they had a way of manipulating the data to “explain it away”, they would use it.

This package has data manipulation is multiple forms stamped all over it, as was the case in the recent destruction of all the CRU’s raw temperature data, also on Jones watch.

To maintain that all of this somehow is not a smoking gun found in the hands of a circle of key players at the very core of climate “science” is delusional. In the private sector you would wind up in jail for a long time for something like this [ref: Enron, the Vioxx scandal, etc, etc.] But hey, this is climate “science”.

Statistician William M. Briggs lists numerous sources of uncertainty in:
The CRU “climategate” proxy code: a primer
Taking his admonition to “Don’t pass by, pass it on:”

Sources of reconstruction uncertainty

Here is a list of all the sources of error, variability, and uncertainty and whether those sources—as far as I can see: which means I might be wrong, but willing to be corrected—are properly accounted for by the CRU crew, and its likely effects on the certainty we have in proxy reconstructions:

1. Source: The proxy relationship with temperature is assumed constant through time. Accounted: No. Effects: entirely unknown, but should boost uncertainty.
2. Source: The proxy relationship with temperature is assumed constant through space. Accounted: No. Effects: A tree ring from California might not have the same temperature relationship as one from Greece. Boosts uncertainty.
3. Source: The proxies are measured with error (the “on average” correlation mentioned above). Accounted: No. Effects: certainly boosts uncertainty.
4. Source: Groups of proxies are sometimes smoothed before input to models. Accounted: No. Effect: a potentially huge source of error; smoothing always increases “signal”, even when those signals aren’t truly there. Boost uncertainty by a lot.
5. Source: The choice of the model m(). Accounted: No. Effect: results are always stated the model is true; potentially huge source of error. Boost uncertainty by a lot.
6. Source: The choice of the model m() error term. Accounted: Yes. Effect: the one area where we can be confident of the statistics.
7. Source: The results are stated as estimates of β Accounted: No. Effects: most classical (frequentist and Bayesian) procedures state uncertainty results about parameters not about actual, physical observables. Boost uncertainty by anywhere from two to ten times.
8. Source: The computer code is complex. multi-part, and multi-authored. Accounted: No. Effects: many areas for error to creep in; code is unaudited. Obviously boost uncertainty.
9. Source: Humans with a point of view release results. Accounted: No. Effects: judging by the tone of the CRU emails, and what is as stake, certainly boost uncertainty.

There you have it: all the potential sources of uncertainty (I’ve no doubt forgotten something), only one of which is accounted for in interpreting results. Like I’ve been saying all along: too many people are too certain of too many things.

People are starting to pick apart the data. This blogger suggests that HADCRUT 1969 data had a sampling error of at least 1 deg C.
.
And, if true, and the margin of error is greater than the measurement, the results aren’t worth guano.
.
He also suggests that there has been no warming in South America, over the recorded period, using HADCRUT data from the UEA files.
.
Also, from the same source, in South America, 1945 was warmer than current, and hence the 1945 “blip”.
.
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/.....ives/11420
.
.
Its the data and the code from UEA, that could have the greatest impact….the emails will become a sideshow.

Tetris,

Your parsing of Trenberth speaks for itself. Show some integrity before spouting your anonymous defamations of others.

“…as was the case in the recent destruction of all the CRU’s raw temperature data, also on Jones watch”

Well, there was a claim by Jones that some data had been lost/destroyed, to avoid complying with the FOI request. I think the default position should be that anything that comes out of UEA-CRU is false until there is clear evidence otherwise. There were files released other than the emails, the missing data could be there. Not that they are of much interest given the complete shambles surrounding the data handling processes (HARRY_READ_ME file).

Simon Evans,

You do have a choice here. You can continue to hang on to your illusions about Climate Change/Global Warming -OR- you can do what reasonable people do: make a correction to where you were wrong and move forward with the updated information.

I have had to make corrections just about every day at work and in personal stuff, some of which have been painful and embarrassing. I’d rather avoid these corrections, but ultimately I can’t, and I’ve found that it’s better to take correction when it happens in the smaller dose than to build a fortress of imagination around myself, and then have the whole thing become a ruin.

If you decide after this episode to become a little smaller, and a little more down to earth, and accept that you don’t know as much as you thought you did, you’ll be in a real big group with the rest of us. Not a bad place to be.

Andrew

I’m glad this is coming out for reasons having nothing to do with climate. Holdren’s a pretty dubious character for other reasons:

http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/

Andrew_KY (Comment#24558)

What ‘correction’ do you think I should make, Andrew? For example, what ‘correction’ should I make to my assessment of this paper -

http://thingsbreak.files.wordp.....-grace.pdf

Should I knock of 10% maybe? Or should I discount it altogether because of something written in an email more than a decade ago?

I look forward to your advice.

Simon Evans,

For starters, you can be honest and state that you do not know if there is such a thing as Global Warming happening right now.

Andrew

Also Simon,

The link you provided to the paper is part of a political advocacy site. I’ve seen enough of those.

Andrew

Simon: Or, you could discount that paper on the grounds of isostatic rebound.

Which GRACE did not fully account for.

Simon Evans [24554]

You clearly belong to those who don’t know when the game’s up:

Email from Trenberth to Mann, dated October 12, 2009 titled” BBC U-turn on climate”:

“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a traversty that we can’t….” Read the rest yourself. Yes the very Trenberth who at least had the integrity to criticize Steig’s Antarctic concoction, is also up to his knees in this quagmire

So please get a grip and think twice before you next insult me and accuse me of defamation.

When you’re caught out, you’re caught out!

The Russians have an expression that captures this whole thing just right:

“A fish rots from the head down”.

Then again, since we have been dealing with a hockey stick, maybe it’s a puck in their own net…

Andrew_KY,

Nothing about this drama storm has any bearing on if “there is such a thing as Global Warming happening right now.” At worst we gain a bit more uncertainty about paleo reconstructions, and dig deeper into HadCRU’s methodology (which, frankly, is well needed since they were always the standout in not publicly releasing their code).

Revelations about Phil Jones or Mann calling people names or even working to prevent papers they felt were flawed from being published (which I agree is somewhat odious, though its a bit of a tricky subject since the point of peer review at its heart is to prevent flawed research from being published, and speaking from experience second tier journals don’t always find the most competent reviewers of articles you submit) have little bearing on radiative physics, the plethora of other temperature records (GISS, RSS, UAH, and HadCRU until shown otherwise) that clearly demonstrate modern warming. There are plenty of open questions about sensitivity, feedbacks, and other manifold uncertainties in the climate system which may yield results well below (or above) what the science currently suggests, but these emails have nothing to do with any of those.

Its fun to gloat over the misbehavior of prominent “team” members, and this certainly tells us a bit about the psychology of a close community of researchers who perceive themselves to be under attack from “enemies” (which, among other things, leads to a tendency to view things through an ideological lens and reject the arguments of the other side out of hand). Nail in the coffin arguments, however, are just as silly as ever.

tetris,

Feel free to email Kevin if you don’t believe me, but he was referring to global radiative balances in that email, not recent surface temps. It relates to uncertainties in ocean heat transfer, etc. That said, I do somewhat agree that recent surface temps are somewhat lower than what we would expect given the AR4 projects, as Lucia has worked hard to point out.

Zeke,

“Nothing about this drama storm has any bearing on if “there is such a thing as Global Warming happening right now.”

Yes it does. Since Global Warming is an Appeal to Authority argument (Global Warming is an Authoritatively Contrived Squiggly Line that bends a certain way), the credibility of the Authority is all there is.

Andrew

Zeke [24567]
Based on your gentle apologist rejoinder to Andrew_KY, it looks like you also don’t get it. As much as many of those on your side of ledger would wish this, this story is not a case of “nothing to see, just move on”.

The CRU files also show that CRU and GISS were regularly working together to “coordinate” results. Homogenized science to show same or similar results? It all depends on one’s definition of “collusion” I suppose.

I think that we have just started to see the outlines of this story. As of today the CEI is sueing GISS to obtain data and information that GISS has been withholding for several years in spite of repeated FOI requests. With both houses of Congress starting to dig as well, maybe Hansen will see reason and comply. Fact is that SteveM caught GISS with their hands in the cookie jar as well.

Andrew_KY,

Oddly enough, I’ve only found appeals to authority useful in cases where I don’t have the time or energy to spend a few hours guiding someone through the science. For us odd ducks who spend our days reading climate science blogs, appeals to authority are generally seen as insulting :-p

tetris (Comment#24565)

Trenberth -

http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Tr.....9final.pdf

Andrew_KY (Comment#24562)

Have you actually got anything to say about the science? I look forward to any pertinent comments you might have to make.

“I have had to make corrections just about every day”

A good start, Andrew. Keep going.

Zeke-

working to prevent papers they felt were flawed from being published (which I agree is somewhat odious, though its a bit of a tricky subject since the point of peer review at its heart is to prevent flawed research from being published,

Yes. But there is a process. They were working to super-impose their own layer, which is not quite right.

On the other hand, I agree with you more than Andrew_KY. There is no nail in the coffin of AGW here. Just.. no.. not there.

There were, by the way, couple of key emails from the point of view of comparisons to the AR4. Haven’t discussed them….

tetris,

I don’t think there is anything nefarious hidden behind the curtain. I do foresee this whole affair leading to more openness (which is good). Like recent temperatures, time will tell which of us is correct, for I agree with you that after now that the emails have been released people will not stop digging any time soon. I just hope we never get to the point where being a prominent climate scientist is akin to being Paul Offit or an abortion provider; e.g. to be subject to continuous harassment by those you cannot fundamentally placate.

Zeke,

That’s why I find Global Warming so offensive. It’s a logical fallacy.

Simon,

I’m not a climate scientist. If there is some relevant science that Climate Science thinks I should know about, then they should show me. So far, they have shown me Squiggly Lines, Airbrushed Polar Bears, Sarah Palin (not that I minded) as a creationist, Ice Melting (I can look in my Global Lukewarming Mug for that), and Big Al acting like the Clueless Liberal Girl I Dated.

Andrew

UC did have a blog at signals.auditblogs.com but it seems that auditblogs.com has since gone under. The google cache lists his contact as uc_edit (replace these parentheses with the at symbol) yahoo dot com. I don’t know whether this address is current and/or in use.

Obfuscation to confuse the spammers

As for the high-level public inquiry in the UK, I’m sure Gordon Brown will be right on it. And I’m sure Sir Nicholas Stern will be at the top of his list to conduct a thorough investigation!

“I do foresee this whole affair leading to more openness (which is good).”

Zeke,

Why was there less openness before? Since you can foresee things, surely you can tell us.

Andrew

The emails are nothing more and nothing less than a revealing look at the characters of prominent climate researchers. Specifically, we can now see that they are @$$holes. Does that mean they are wrong? No. The worst kinds of people can be right all the time. What it DOES show is that their attitude is very closed minded and takes for granted that they either are right or damn well should be, and whatever is necessary to achieve that end is justified because…they are right.

But all this bluster about it not “invalidating radiative physics” is rather ridiculous. I have no idea why warmers are so obsessed with belaboring such an irrelevant point, other than as a very effective distraction. That point isn’t even up for debate, we all agree, but THAT is what they insist on arguing on? Not the actual matters under dispute? I don’t get it. But then, I can recognize logical fallacies when I see them

“There is no nail in the coffin of AGW here. Just.. no.. not there.”

These aren’t the droids you are looking for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU5klWoMcK0

Andrew

“There is no nail in the coffin of AGW here. Just.. no.. not there.”

…and these aren’t the droids you are looking for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU5klWoMcK0

Andrew

the point of peer review at its heart is to prevent flawed research from being published

Yes, but it is obvious that their definition of flawed research is “papers that disagree with me or my colleagues”. Don’t forget the attempt to remove an editor that was considered sympathetic to skeptical papers.

Image if Jones et al were physicists confronted with Einstein’s original papers. What would be the chance of his being published? The words snowball and hell come to mind.

Zeke Hausfather,

Are’nt you missing something here? HADCRUT forms the basis of the IPCC temperature predictions. The UK Met Office is a prime mover in this field and it uses HADCRUT.

This is central to the IPCC process. You can’t dismiss it as an incidental. If Jones ( and others) manipulated data in one field why should they have not done it elsewhere?

Of course, you may be right, but as far as many people are concerned the damage has already been done.

Simon Evans (Comment#24572):

Why would cite the very same Trenberth article that he himself cites in an email decrying the fact that neither he nor the rest of The Team know how to explain the lack of warming?

It is reasonable to assume from his own words that the paper is rehash, advocacy and eyewash, written to counter growing skepticism. What possessed you to offer this as a great moment in climate science?

“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong.” 1255352257.txt

Got that? (Even after fudging) the data still won’t show enough warming to validate the IPCC…. so the data is wrong. But my paper will help spin that problem away as we dig out of the early snows here in unusually chilly Colorado….

You can no longer cite any of these guys as scientific authority. They have no standing anymore. Unless you get somebody outside the team to corroborate anything they do, it is presumed spin until established otherwise.

Tetris #24565
Yet another knee-jerk reaction from ignorant gotcha mining. Trenberth is not saying anything in this email that he hasn’t been saying publicly. See this recent 2009 paper where Trenberth says:

Given that there is continual heating of the planet, referred to as radiative forcing, by accelerating increases of carbon dioxide (Fig. 1) and other greenhouses due to human activities, why isn’t the temperature continuing to go up? The stock answer is that natural variability plays a key role and there was a major La Niña event early in 2008 that led to the month of January having the lowest anomaly in global temperature since 2000. While this is true, it is an incomplete explanation. In particular, what are the physical processes? …

No need to pry into peoples’ emails to find this out.

lucia (Comment#24529) November 24th, 2009 at 11:07 am

Martin– That link doesn’t work and I can’t guess the right one.

Try this one.

http://www.theage.com.au/envir.....-jheu.html

I see you denialists approach emails with the same bizarre logic with which you approach science.

Boris (Comment#24593)
November 24th, 2009 at 5:27 pm

I see you denialists approach emails with the same bizarre logic with which you approach science.

From the looks of things, I’d say some climate scientists write e-mails the way they approach science.

Nick Stokes (Comment#24588)
November 24th, 2009 at 4:27 pm

Trenberth is not saying anything in this email that he hasn’t been saying publicly

My version of Adobe Reader must be on the fritz. I searched for the words “travesty” and “surely wrong” and couldn’t find them in that paper you linked to.

Nothing to see here folks, move on….

“Peter Thorne wrote:
>> All,
>> as it happens I am preparing a figure precisely as Dian suggested. This has only been possible due to substantial efforts by Leo in particular, but all the other dataset providers also. I wanted to give a feel for where we are at although I want to tidy this substantially if we were to use it. To do this I’ve taken every single scrap of info I have in my possession that has a status of at least submitted to a journal. I have considered the common period of 1979-2004. So, assuming you are all sitting comfortably:
>>
>> Grey shading is a little cheat from Santer et al using a trusty ruler. See Figure 3.B in this paper,…”

So, a little cheat and a trusty ruler, sounds like proper science to me, carry on CRU!

How much a year in cap and trade?

George Tobin (Comment#24587)

“The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong.” 1255352257.txt
Got that? (Even after fudging) the data still won’t show enough warming to validate the IPCC…. so the data is wrong.

You’re just not reading what it plainly says. The CERES data shows there should be even more warming.

And what on earth is your basis for saying the CERES data was fudged?

Lucia #24538
Yes, I found UC’s argument reasonably convincing. They wouldn’t be altering the paleo reconstruction itself, but rather an endpoint smoothing of the reconstruction, using instrumental data to extrapolate.

This may cast light on that much-remarked comment in a graphics code:
Uses “corrected” MXD – but shouldn’t usually plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures
If this is what he is referring to, then the question would be whether the advice about not plotting past 1960 was observed. Briffa, Osborn et al in their 2001 paper said that they did not present post-1960 data.

Boris:

I see you denialists approach emails with the same bizarre logic with which you approach science.

I see you zealots approach discourse in science the same way you do religion.

Either one is a True Believer or an Apostate.

No in between.

Nick

They wouldn’t be altering the paleo reconstruction itself, but rather an endpoint smoothing of the reconstruction, using instrumental data to extrapolate.

Using the instrumental data to smooth the paleo reconstruction is bogus. This is even more bogus than the Rahmstorf changing smoothing to make Copenhagen results look better than using the smoothing he’d picked in the past. Besides which: the smoothed data in the graph give the impression of still being the reconstruction, not a smooth that includes non-paleo data at the end point. The choice is very deceptive particularly since one of the metric people use to judge whether the reconstruction “looks good to them” is whether it matches the thermometer data. Incorporating the thermometer data and then comparing achives a nearly unimaginable level of bogusity in data presentation.

lucia (Comment#24606) November 24th, 2009 at 6:22 pm

This is even more bogus than the Rahmstorf changing smoothing …

In a roundabout way, I agree with the underlying comparison. Rahmstorf’s use of internal data with an extrapolation formula is valid, as I argued; using instrumental data sounds better (the data is real), but isn’t, because it introduces extraneous distortions.

Lucia, related to this question of bogus smoothing algorithms,

I thought this was funny.

Context here.

Nick Stokes:

1) Golly, Nick, I would love a chance to prove that the data is fudged but somebody destroyed all the raw data so that I can’t check. Darn it.

The data is now presumably fudged because its chief steward deep-sixed all the raw data rather than let anyone examine how the record is produced.

The burden is on Phil Jones and his defenders (you?) to explain why he wrote about hiding or destroying data he later said in response to a FOI request were lost/destroyed long before. Why it would be so important to withhold or destroy all that if the public product were not done in a biased or negligent fashion?

2) The Trenberth quote you provided in response to Tetris is from the exact same paper Trenberth cited in the email Tetris cited and which I cited and linked in message #24587. It is not something Trenberth was saying all along as you disingenuously imply but a concession reluctantly and strategically made in that 2009 paper in order to sell the notion that despite the same discrepancy that lucia made famous, the models are somehow still right. We just need more time, faith and money to figure out why reality doesn’t happen to conform to them. More spin than science no matter how you slice it. Tetris’s take on that email was more accurate and honest than yours.

Robust+bogusity=Bogust!

“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong.”

The CERES data is the amount of heat going into the system – the Clouds and Earth Radiant Energy System. I think Trenberth is stating that the CERES data shows heaps of heat going into the system. And the surface record shows no warming up.

In such a case it seems quite reasonable to suspect that the data must be wrong, as the two datasets are contradicting each other.

Zeke [24575]
I too, hope that the high levels of scrutiny remain. Openess -as in allowing all and sundry to verifiy the data on which an argument/conclusions are founded- is one of the cornerstones of science. As much as some apologists now want to paper this over, reality remains that in climate science [as opposed to say the life sciences or chemistry] there not only has been no enforcement to fill out the “Methods and Materials” section of the paper, but the NOT releasing the underlying data has somehow become the norm. Thus, by definition the Team’s and Co’s papers are really NOT science.

Finally, this may provide an insight into what it is feels like to be called a “denier”, when what most people like me have done is to be skeptical, which from a science point of view should be a badge of honour.

Michael Hauber,

Suspecting the data is wrong is OK. Of course, that means you need to INVESTIGATE whether it is currently incorrect or HAS BEEN INCORRECT ALL ALONG INVALIDATING PREVIOUS ASSUMPTIONS!!!

The simple solution is to find where the energy is going. Did someone check how much more is being RADIATED OUT than is COMING IN???? Of course since he KNOWS what is happening that COULDN’T be a possibility, could it???

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

The CRU is responsible for developing and promulgating one of the principal assessments of global temperature records. The file “HARRY_READ_ME.txt”, details the trial and tribulations of an individual trying to make sense of HADCRUT-2, and develop version 3. The document appears to cover a three year period from 2006-09, and Blogosphere is attributing it to Ian “Harry” Harris, who is listed on the UEA website as a research assistant whose specialties encompass “Dendroclimatology, climate scenario development, data manipulation and visualisation, programming” [No, I didn’t make it up about data manipulation]. Whether this attribution to Ian Harris is correct or not remains to be determined.

I dropped the text from this file to a Word document. It’s 600+ pages long. It provides revealing comments about the problems with (and accuracy of) the (multiple) programs which are used to process the temperature and other data received by the CRU, before they tell us whether the world has warmed or cooled this month (or year or decade). There are some alarming comments in this text, which make reliance on the CRU results problematic in the extreme. In one of the more interesting comments (in relation to version 3 of the program), he notes:

“Back to the gridding. I am seriously worried that our flagship gridded data product is produced by Delaunay triangulation – apparently linear as well. As far as I can see, this renders the station counts totally meaningless. It also means that we cannot say exactly how the gridded data is arrived at from a statistical perspective – since we’re using an off-the-shelf product that isn’t documented sufficiently to say that. Why this wasn’t coded up in Fortran I don’t know – time pressures perhaps?
Was too much effort expended on homogenisation, that there wasn’t enough time to write a gridding procedure? Of course, it’s too late for me to fix it too. Meh.”

The file is filled with discussion of how poorly documented, quirky and unreliable is the operation of the program which produces the HadleyCru dataset. There are a number of websites which are now using Harry and delving into the code, and finding it wanting (see, for example: http://www.di2.nu/200911/23a.htm). The comments from “Harry” call into question whether the produced dataset can be relied upon. There are other world temperature datasets, of course; but to my (limited) knowledge, none of those have been independently examined either. If someone on 15 November had said that the temperature sets released by Phil Jones were not reliable, it would have been ignored. Now it cannot be.

How does this affect the question of AGW? It means that the materials produced by the “Crew”, cannot – without independent verification – be relied upon. Their account of AGW is now suspect.

What of the other temperature datasets? That now needs to be determined. Unfortunately, we cannot rely on their assurances alone. The issues at stake are simply too great to accept “trust me”.

Re: Nick Stokes (Comment#24588) November 24th, 2009 at 4:27 pm

Nick, you are funny. Did you simply incorporate the Trenberth quote you posted, without taste or smell?

Read it very slowly:
“Given that there is continual heating of the planet, referred to as radiative forcing, by accelerating increases of carbon dioxide (Fig. 1) and other greenhouses due to human activities, why isn’t the temperature continuing to go up?”

Did you catch it? Still no?

Read the first word.

@ Simon Evans

Let’s simplify the discussion.

————————-

Phil Jones wrote:

Mike,
Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.
Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.
We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!
Cheers
Phil

————————-

Michael Mann replied:

Hi Phil,

laughable that CA would claim to have discovered the problem. They would have run off to the Wall Street Journal for an exclusive were that to have been true.
I’ll contact Gene about this ASAP. His new email is: generwahl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
talk to you later,
mike

————————-

Please give us your answer to the following multiple choice question regarding the above:
1) It is a good thing
2) It is a bad thing

Hint: If after reading this, you feel an overwhelming urge to equivocate, make mewling noises about “context” or speculate on any manner of things that they could have been discussing that were possibly not related to pending FOIA requests, your answer should be “2) It is a bad thing”.

If before you can answer you feel you need to check headers, dates and the accuracy of the above transcription, please feel free to type 1212063122.txt into Google and click your choice of the links displayed.

We’ll have your answer now. It’s quite simple. Type 1) or type 2).

Thank you Simon.

OA

John M (Comment#24595)
The word travesty was not used. Published papers have to use more restrained language. What he said in the paper was:

But surely we have an adequate system to track whether this is the case or not, don’t we?

Well, it seems that the answer is no, we do not. But we should!

Sounds like the same thing to me.

Frankly, I find all this independent replication stuff to be over-rated. Since I stopped caring about independent replication I have been able to buy cold fusion devices to heat my home and power my car. Strange thing though, no matter how many times I read the owner’s manuals I just can’t seem to get them to work.

But I know I can trust the salesman, after all, he has more credentials than me. And, no matter what that Wegman guy tried to tell me, I don’t see any reason to be concerned that he only worked on these devices with his two brothers. After all, two nephews and a cousin did provide a peer review.

Maybe I should try installing them upside down. If that doesn’t work I can always just truncate the parts I don’t understand and add a picture of my radiator to replace the truncation.

The mention of the datasets being manipulated does, of course, point one towards “Chiefio’s” work.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/
This shows that not only is there a warming bias in the computer coding for GIStemp, but also a warming bias introduced by the removal of reporting stations.

OzzieAardvark (Comment#24648)

If you want to ask me openly what I think then do so. If you want to play false dilemmas then go play by yourself.

Lucia, I would like to suggest the PaperClip as a coffee mug. Perhaps BorePatch (assuming that’s the owner) would consider allowing that?

Nick Stokes (Comment#24652)
November 24th, 2009 at 11:32 pm

Sounds like the same thing to me.

If you say so. Didn’t see even that milquetoast language in any press releases though.

And you gotta admit, “travesty” is a lot more eye-catching.

Simon Evans [24672]
Figured out the part asbout the data manipulation yet?

And as I pointed out to Zeke, not making your data available for other to verify and thus replicate or falsify your conclusions, is NOT science.

I, as a good many others, no longer particularly care what you, Judy Curry, Zeke or any other of the many apologists call this travesty [to borrow from Trenberth], it is NOT science.

This biased, poltically driven pseudo science wouldn’t last beyond one serious read in the world of the bio and nano sciences I work in, and to base billion/trillion dollar policy decisions that are profoundly corrupting markets and altering the global economy on junk science like this is nothing short of criminal.

Which data manipulation do you have in mind, tetris? I see no reason to be concerned about any manipulation of HadCRUT and no new reason to be concerned about MBH 98 & 99. Perhaps you’d like to specify your concerns?

And as I pointed out to Zeke, not making your data available for other to verify and thus replicate or falsify your conclusions, is NOT science.

Cool. Which data do you want? The 2% of HadCRUT data tied up in ownership agreements? Ok, that’s fine, just dispense with HadCRUT altogether – it doesn’t bother me. All of the GISS data is available, so let’s just go with that. Btw, can you give me links to the UAH raw data and code? Many thanks in advance.

I, as a good many others, no longer particularly care what you, Judy Curry, Zeke or any other of the many apologists call this travesty [to borrow from Trenberth], it is NOT science.

Fun for you – so why are you addressing a post to me?

Simon [24711]

Because Simon, the way you are going, you stand a very good chance of winning the 2009 “Two Short Planks” prize.

For a close up and detailed introduction into how precisely the CRU data was manipulated and where necessary litterally made up, please have a look at today’s WUWT where, for all to see, are the programmers ORIGINAL detailed notes and comments about what he found and had to deal with. If that doesn’t get past your planks, nothing will.

Oh, and by the way, even uber alarmist, enviro demi god “Moonbat” Mombiot has seen the light and recognizes this for the complete cock-up [or should I say "cook-up"] this is and has thrown up over at the Guardian asking for an official inquiry, just like Lord Lawson.

Tah.

@ Simon Evans.

False dilemmas? It is a very simple question. It may be the simplest question I’ve ever ask anyone.

1) It is a good thing
2) It is a bad thing.

Choose one. We’ll have your answer now Simon… Or perhaps not. Choosing to be clear on an ethical position that runs contrary to one’s Faith is indeed difficult.

OA

OzzieAardvark (Comment#24872) November 25th, 2009 at 9:25 pm

@ Simon Evans.

1) It is a good thing
2) It is a bad thing.

Go look up what a false dilemma is, then you can get back to me. If you want to ask me what I think about ‘xyz’ try writing “What do you think about ‘xyz’?” That’s simple.

tetris (Comment#24870)

I’m not responding to ad homs, Tetris.

@ Simon Evans.

I know what a false dilemma is. Of couse if your cause is just, there are oh so many ethical shades of gray that can be appealed to regularly. In this particular case, it’s also a very a convenient way for you to avoid the very simple question. It must be nice to be certain.

OA

OzzieAardvark (Comment#24984) November 26th, 2009 at 9:09 pm

@ Simon Evans.

I know what a false dilemma is.

In which case you know that a false dilemma is not a “simple question”.

You can see my response to you on the Von Storch thread. I do not avoid straight questions but I do avoid multiple choice responses, since I do not like others to put words into my mouth.

Simon,

Have it your way [the only way you know, it seems]. Your ad hom isn’t one, but mine is? Never mind.

All you should retain from this cook-up is this: When you’re caught out, you’re caught out. In this case, getting caught out happens to be the game changer: cap-and trade in the US in 2010 is as likely as playing hockey in hell and the great unwashed will never again buy the “science is settled” line, ever again.

Tah,