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Treemometers: A new scientific scandal [couple months back]
The Register ^ | 9/29/2009 | Andrew Orlowski

Posted on 11/24/2009 5:13:43 PM PST by sionnsar

A scientific scandal is casting a shadow over a number of recent peer-reviewed climate papers.

At least eight papers purporting to reconstruct the historical temperature record times may need to be revisited, with significant implications for contemporary climate studies, the basis of the IPCC's assessments. A number of these involve senior climatologists at the British climate research centre CRU at the University East Anglia. In every case, peer review failed to pick up the errors.

At issue is the use of tree rings as a temperature proxy, or dendrochronology. Using statistical techniques, researchers take the ring data to create a "reconstruction" of historical temperature anomalies. But trees are a highly controversial indicator of temperature, since the rings principally record Co2, and also record humidity, rainfall, nutrient intake and other local factors.

Picking a temperature signal out of all this noise is problematic, and a dendrochronology can differ significantly from instrumented data. In dendro jargon, this disparity is called "divergence". The process of creating a raw data set also involves a selective use of samples - a choice open to a scientist's biases.

Yet none of this has stopped paleoclimataologists from making bold claims using tree ring data.

In particular, since 2000, a large number of peer-reviewed climate papers have incorporated data from trees at the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia. This dataset gained favour, curiously superseding a newer and larger data set from nearby. The older Yamal trees indicated pronounced and dramatic uptick in temperatures.

How could this be? Scientists have ensured much of the measurement data used in the reconstructions remains a secret ...

(Excerpt) Read more at theregister.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption
KEYWORDS: treeringcircus
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1 posted on 11/24/2009 5:13:44 PM PST by sionnsar
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To: sionnsar; WL-law; Fractal Trader; Beowulf; Genesis defender; markomalley; scripter; proud_yank; ...
 


Beam me to Planet Gore !

2 posted on 11/24/2009 5:15:32 PM PST by steelyourfaith (Time to prosecute Al Gore now that fellow scam artist Bernie Madoff is in stir.)
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To: sionnsar
In every case, peer review failed to pick up the errors.

In light of these emails uncovered, was the failure intentional or no?

3 posted on 11/24/2009 5:16:03 PM PST by Reaganesque ("And thou shalt do it with all humility, trusting in me, reviling not against revilers.")
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To: sionnsar
Tree Rings for the Greenie Kings, in their halls of fraud: Hide the Decline
4 posted on 11/24/2009 5:16:27 PM PST by sourcery (Climatology will be science (and not a religion) when Hell freezes over, and AlGore doesn't deny it!)
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To: sionnsar

In light of this, I think the term hackers is not accurate.
Maybe some ETHICAL scientist decided he/she couldn’t be a part of the scam any longer.


5 posted on 11/24/2009 5:17:19 PM PST by Marty62 (former Marty60)
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To: Reaganesque

I understand that the data was “cherry piced”. The trees were carefully chosen to support preconceived conclusions. Peer review would not necessisary catch that. It was fraud, pure and simple.


6 posted on 11/24/2009 5:19:00 PM PST by fhayek
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To: Marty62
In light of this, I think the term hackers is not accurate.
Maybe some ETHICAL scientist decided he/she couldn’t be a part of the scam any longer.

I'm beginning to favor the "leak" hypothesis, though we may never really know.

Funny to watch the lamestream media try to ignore this. Going to be even more amusing to watch my industry and some of its pundits respond to this -- some have gone pretty far out on their respective limbs...

7 posted on 11/24/2009 5:23:15 PM PST by sionnsar (IranAzadi|5yst3m 0wn3d-it's N0t Y0ur5:SONY|Remember Neda Agha-Soltan|TV--it's NOT news you can trust)
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To: fhayek
It was a handful of trees anyway ~ and not a statistically significant bit of data.

Kind of like Jim and Tammy Faye Baker telling us all that to be a good Christian you had to give them money to buy Jim's cousin Timmy a house.

I find it exceedingly difficult to believe this didn't already torpedo that whole group.

8 posted on 11/24/2009 5:23:31 PM PST by muawiyah (Git Out The Way)
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To: fhayek

Of course I necessarily meant “cherry picked”. Doh! spell check, spell check, spell check.


9 posted on 11/24/2009 5:23:49 PM PST by fhayek
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To: sionnsar

I like the term “Tree-Ring Circus”. I only wish I’d made it up.


10 posted on 11/24/2009 5:23:56 PM PST by agere_contra
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To: sionnsar

From the article, a blockbuster (considering this was a couple months before the purloined emails):

“Mann too used dendrochronology to chill temperatures, and rebuffed attempts to publish his measurement data. Initially he said he had forgotten where he put it, then declined to disclosed it. (Some of Mann’s data was eventually discovered, by accident, on his ftp server in a directory entitled ‘BACKTO_1400-CENSORED’.)”


11 posted on 11/24/2009 5:28:16 PM PST by RightOnTheLeftCoast (Obama: running for re-election in '12 or running for Mahdi now? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdi])
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To: sionnsar

Yes there are trillions of dollars invest in this scam.
The world is not going to be amused at the falsity of this latest socialist Scam.


12 posted on 11/24/2009 5:30:42 PM PST by Marty62 (former Marty60)
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To: sionnsar
Funny to watch the lamestream media try to ignore this.

I'm wondering if Copenhagen is going to have a little of its own climate warming?

13 posted on 11/24/2009 5:40:16 PM PST by EBH (it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government)
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To: steelyourfaith

These guys not only jiggered the data and put in doubt their work but they put in doubt the whole of the process which needs review.


14 posted on 11/24/2009 5:43:21 PM PST by ully2 (ully)
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To: Reaganesque

When manuscripts are sent out for edit, rarely does the editor request the raw data and then try to reproduce the author’s results. In many cases, the editor won’t be able to request the data — the edit is supposed to be “blind.”

The editors generally just check if the text of the article makes sense, is the article relevant to the journal’s audience, etc.

If the data have been faked or altered, that is generally beyond the purview of the peer.


15 posted on 11/24/2009 5:45:51 PM PST by scrabblehack
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To: Reaganesque

When manuscripts are sent out for edit, rarely does the editor request the raw data and then try to reproduce the author’s results. In many cases, the editor won’t be able to request the data — the edit is supposed to be “blind.”

The editors generally just check if the text of the article makes sense, is the article relevant to the journal’s audience, etc.

If the data have been faked or altered, that is generally beyond the purview of the peer.


16 posted on 11/24/2009 5:45:51 PM PST by scrabblehack
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To: Reaganesque

When manuscripts are sent out for edit, rarely does the editor request the raw data and then try to reproduce the author’s results. In many cases, the editor won’t be able to request the data — the edit is supposed to be “blind.”

The editors generally just check if the text of the article makes sense, is the article relevant to the journal’s audience, etc.

If the data have been faked or altered, that is generally beyond the purview of the peer.


17 posted on 11/24/2009 5:45:57 PM PST by scrabblehack
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To: RightOnTheLeftCoast
I liked this quote:

All the papers come from a small but closely knit of scientists who mutually support each other's work. All use Yamal data. And without the Yamal data, the temperature record shows a very different shape.


Lying bastids. ;-)
18 posted on 11/24/2009 5:52:09 PM PST by Tunehead54 (Nothing funny here ;-)
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To: EBH
I'm wondering if Copenhagen is going to have a little of its own climate warming?

You mean (quoting another FReeper): Nopenhagen?

19 posted on 11/24/2009 6:15:16 PM PST by sionnsar (IranAzadi|5yst3m 0wn3d-it's N0t Y0ur5:SONY|Remember Neda Agha-Soltan|TV--it's NOT news you can trust)
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To: sionnsar

Memo to the U.S. media: this one isn’t going away. You might as well start reporting it.


20 posted on 11/24/2009 6:35:39 PM PST by Billthedrill
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