Posted on 11/24/2009 10:25:48 AM PST by Red Badger
British climate centre reeling over Internet posting of sensitive material.
The online publication of sensitive e-mails and documents from a British climate centre is brewing into one of the scientific controversies of the year, causing dismay among affected institutes and individuals. The tone and content of some of the disclosed correspondence are raising concerns that the leak is damaging the credibility of climate science on the eve of the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in December.
The Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich confirmed on 20 November that it had had more than 1,000 e-mails and documents taken from its servers, but it has not yet confirmed how much of the published material is genuine. "This information has been obtained and published without our permission," says Simon Dunford, a spokesman for the UEA, adding that the university will undertake an investigation and has already involved the police.
Many scientists contacted by Nature doubt that the leak will have a lasting impact, but climate-sceptic bloggers and mainstream media have been poring over the posted material and discussing its contents. Most consist of routine e-mail exchanges between researchers. But one e-mail in particular, sent by CRU director Phil Jones, has received attention for its use of the word "trick" in a discussion about the presentation of climate data. In a statement, Jones confirmed that the e-mail was genuine and said: "The word 'trick' was used here colloquially as in a clever thing to do. It is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward."
"If anyone thinks there's a hint of tweaking the data for non-scientific purposes, they are free to produce an analysis showing that Earth isn't warming," adds Michael Oppenheimer, a climate scientist and policy researcher at Princeton University in New Jersey. "In fact, they have been free to do so for decades and haven't been able to."
"There are apparently lots of people who really do think that global warming is an evil socialist plot, and that many scientists are part of the plot and deliberately faking their science," adds Tom Wigley, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, and former director of CRU.
Alleged e-mails containing critical remarks about other climate scientists are merely proof of lively debate in the community, adds Gavin Schmidt, a climate researcher with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City.
The title of the uploaded file containing the leaked e-mails — 'FOIA.zip' — has led to speculation that the affair may be linked to the deluge of requests for raw climate data that have recently been made under the UK Freedom of Information Act to Jones (see Nature 460, 787; 2009). The source of many of those requests is Steve McIntyre, the editor of Climate Audit, a blog that investigates the statistical methods used in climate science. "I don't have any information on who was responsible," McIntyre told Nature.
Nevertheless, e-mails allegedly sent by Jones seem to illustrate his reluctance to comply with these requests. "All scientists have the right to request your data and to try to falsify your results," says Hans von Storch, director of the Institute for Coastal Research in Geesthacht, Germany. "I very much respect Jones as a scientist, but he should be aware that his behaviour is beginning to damage our discipline." In a statement, the UEA said: "The raw climate data which has been requested belongs to meteorological services around the globe and restrictions are in place which means that we are not in a position to release them. We are asking each service for their consent for their data to be published in future."
However, von Storch believes that, at least until the affair is resolved, Jones should cease reviewing climate science for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Using that wonderful data from the CRU no doubt, oh that's right, they delete any data that doesn't support AGW.
And about those famous tree core samples from the Ural Mountains (not, as popularly supposed, from Al Gore): over three hundred samples were collected, but they used only ten of them, from a total of three (3) trees. It must have been an oversight. Yep, that was it. Couldn't possibly be the work of a bunch of cherry-picking, grant-grabbing socialist hacks, now could it?
How in Hell is meteorological data "restricted". This claim by itself should raise all kinds of red flags that there is something devious about the whole climate science establishment.
The disinguous bastard doesn't understand science only progresses when scientists open their data and algorithms for inspection and challenge. Or maybe he understands it thoroughly and fears the result.
That is what is misleading, their data does show warming. Here are the the most disturbing things about their data...
1) The hockeystick and all subsequent science was "proof" that the industrial age spewed CO2 and started MMGW. Problem is, they left out data that would have shown that it was cooling during the industrial age, not warming. The other problem was that about 1,000 years ago, during the medieval period, it was actually warmer for some time and the graph will the deleted data would have shown flux, punching holes in the Man Made portion of global warming. It would have been a non-starter.
2) The method of collecting the "average" temperatures included, among other things, rainfall amounts in tree rings, global data collectors positioned (and moved) and then satellite data. The tree ring studies assumed temps based on rainfall and drought. The positioned earthly data collectors had to be moved as urban sprawl caused island heating results. Rural data collectors had to be measured manually (site visits) and the records were suspect. Satellite data didn't seem to line up with other means and methods of collecting temperature records. Soooooo....they apparently either A) Cherry picked the data that helped their cause or B) performed algorithms to "balance" the means where they didn't think they got "good" data.
3) It is now apparent that they filled gaps or weak data points with extrapolations, means, averages, etc. which are all subject to subjectivity.
I for one do not doubt that the earth has gotten warmer. We went through the little ice age following the medieval warming period. Before both there were glaciers in North America. We have likely been in a global warming cycle. Ooorrr....we may have peaked and are turning back toward a long cold spell. Who knows? One thing is for sure, they do not know.
This whole scandal gives Al Gore an out.
“THEY LIED TO ME! THEY PLAYED ON MY FEARS!”
Ah yes. Perhaps it’s time to rename him AlPiltdown, or PiltGore.
From what little I know, they can measure the growth and health of a tree which tells something about the rainfall or dormacy of the tree. But do you know how they calculate to a degree what the temp was for a certain time period?
I could use some knowledge here.
No Tom, we USED to think that.....now we KNOW.
Um, I think this scientist dude forgot something. The GW controversy is not first and foremost about whether the earth is warming, it is about whether the precludable activities of man can affect global climate to a catastrophic extent.
I’m waiting for Norah O’Donnell or Katie Couric to ambush Mr Oppenheimer with note cards in hand and some really tough questions.
/sarcasm
Amen to that. They didn't mention (at least in the excerpt posted) the statement by Jones that he would destroy the data rather being forced to release it. When he was finally backed into a corner, he said the data had been lost. He should go to jail.
There are many things that can affect tree growth (and therefore ring width). Among them are:
The standard analytical process seems to involve an attempt to normalize some of the factors, including serial correlations (normal year-over-year deviations) and locational persistency.
There are so many factors at play here and such a large standard deviation derived from statistically significant samples that one begins to understand the desire of researchers to take "shortcuts" - by which I mean making blanket assumptions that reduce variability to a tolerance within which they are comfortable drawing conclusions.
It's only my opinion, but that might not be the best method for drawing conclusions that involve the potential expenditure of trillions of dollars and which might affect billions of lives.
"Of course, we won't give them access to any of the key data. And if they did manage to get data, and put something together, we would see that either it wasn't published; or that any journal editor who did publish it was fired," he added.
If the shoe fits.
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