Climategate

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Just sorting some stuff out...

Originally Posted by JaJae

It's been known they did this for a while, but they finally had to admit it publicly due to the FOI request. They destroyed all their raw data and only kept their altered data. This raw data is the most important data they had, apparently they felt it was expendable.

The Climatic Research Unit doesn't collect raw data from weather stations. As such, any data that they do have are from multiple sources and are shared in between research institutes. Those raw data are stored with NMSs that own them. As for the FOI requests for the release of data, that is complicated, as has been explained before.

The CRU's director, Phil Jones, told the science journal Nature that he was working to make the data publicly available with the agreement of its owners but this was expected to take some months, and objections were anticipated from national meteorological services that made money from selling the data. It was not free to share that data without the permission of its owners because of confidentiality agreements, including with institutions in Spain, Germany, Bahrain and Norway, that restricted the data to academic use.
Wikipedia (cited from Nature 12 August 2009)

The University will make all the data accessible as soon as they are released from a range of non-publication agreements. Publication will be carried out in collaboration with the Met Office Hadley Centre.
The procedure for releasing these data, which are mainly owned by National Meteorological Services (NMSs) around the globe, is by direct contact between the permanent representatives of NMSs (in the UK the Met Office).
28 November - University of East Anglia (UEA)

Imagine if the researchers at CERN decided to destroy years of raw data they receive. Every last director and manager of the facility would be out of the job never to be employed in their field ever again. There is a huge double standard when it comes to climate change "scientists."

The two situations wouldn't even be comparable. If these hypothetical CERN researchers collect raw data from an experiment, use the data in their research, and then destroy the only copies of that data, then that would be a problem. The researchers at the Climatic Research Unit don't collect the raw data, and they don't possess the only copies of that data. They didn't delete homogenized data sets used in their research (some of which are available online). The raw data are still in the hands of the NOAA, NASA, the (UK) Met Office and other national meteorological services who actually own the data.

Originally Posted by Stylerod

This was the first I had heard of it. No wonder they were unwilling to give it out, they destroyed it!

These emails have been a sort of blessing. It's making them tell the truth

And how wonderful of them to tell us the world is coming to an end because of humans being here but still feel the need to hide 5% of the data. And of course, by 5% it could really mean 50%. Who would know and how could we ever find out?

If the information that I have gathered thus far is accurate, nothing they did is actually unethical or even unusual. I'd like someone to provide evidence that would demonstrate otherwise.

Jones made these statements before the hacking incident.

"The research unit has deleted less than 5 percent of its original station data from its database because the stations had several discontinuities or were affected by urbanization trends. When you're looking at climate data, you don't want stations that are showing urban warming trends, so we've taken them out. Most of the stations for which data was removed are located in areas where there were already dense monitoring networks. We rarely removed a station in a data-sparse region of the world."
Phil Jones - Climate: Scientists return fire at skeptics in 'destroyed data' dispute -- 10/14/2009 -- www.eenews.net

The ironic thing is that if they had used this ~5%, the climate change "skeptics" would've accused them of knowingly skewing the data in favor of global warming by using those urban weather stations. Such UHI claims have already been made by "skeptics" and refuted.

[Stylerod]

Originally Posted by Schrödinger's Cat

Just sorting some stuff out...



The Climatic Research Unit doesn't collect raw data from weather stations. As such, any data that they do have are from multiple sources and are shared in between research institutes. Those raw data are stored with NMSs that own them. As for the FOI requests for the release of data, that is complicated, as has been explained before.

The CRU's director, Phil Jones, told the science journal Nature that he was working to make the data publicly available with the agreement of its owners but this was expected to take some months, and objections were anticipated from national meteorological services that made money from selling the data. It was not free to share that data without the permission of its owners because of confidentiality agreements, including with institutions in Spain, Germany, Bahrain and Norway, that restricted the data to academic use.
Wikipedia (cited from Nature 12 August 2009)

The University will make all the data accessible as soon as they are released from a range of non-publication agreements. Publication will be carried out in collaboration with the Met Office Hadley Centre.
The procedure for releasing these data, which are mainly owned by National Meteorological Services (NMSs) around the globe, is by direct contact between the permanent representatives of NMSs (in the UK the Met Office).
28 November - University of East Anglia (UEA)

The two situations wouldn't even be comparable. If these hypothetical CERN researchers collect raw data from an experiment, use the data in their research, and then destroy the only copies of that data, then that would be a problem. The researchers at the Climatic Research Unit don't collect the raw data, and they don't possess the only copies of that data. They didn't delete homogenized data sets used in their research (some of which are available online). The raw data are still in the hands of the NOAA, NASA, the (UK) Met Office and other national meteorological services who actually own the data.



If the information that I have gathered thus far is accurate, nothing they did is actually unethical or even unusual. I'd like someone to provide evidence that would demonstrate otherwise.

Jones made these statements before the hacking incident.

"The research unit has deleted less than 5 percent of its original station data from its database because the stations had several discontinuities or were affected by urbanization trends. When you're looking at climate data, you don't want stations that are showing urban warming trends, so we've taken them out. Most of the stations for which data was removed are located in areas where there were already dense monitoring networks. We rarely removed a station in a data-sparse region of the world."
Phil Jones - Climate: Scientists return fire at skeptics in 'destroyed data' dispute -- 10/14/2009 -- www.eenews.net

The ironic thing is that if they had used this ~5%, the climate change "skeptics" would've accused them of knowingly skewing the data in favor of global warming by using those urban weather stations. Such UHI claims have already been made by "skeptics" and refuted.

Again, all you have is their word and everything they are saying is the truth. When those emails showed that they were willing to hide or destroy data instead of releasing it.

And I would expect it could take months to get all the data from whatever sources they originally got them from. But weren't they requested years ago?

[Stylerod]

This is sort of on topic. It's interesting but I don't know enough about how Google makes their search suggestions.

Is google censoring ClimateGate? - Web Search Help


Google search climategate. It will autofill everything BUT climategate even when it's typed fully in.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Originally Posted by Stylerod

Again, all you have is their word and everything they are saying is the truth. When those emails showed that they were willing to hide or destroy data instead of releasing it.

If you want to see conspiracies, then that is what you will see. I personally suggest that you step back, walk through the series of events dispassionately and without preconceived notions, and reach conclusions based on the best evidence available.

Did they hide data? Making FOI requests to the Climatic Research Unit instead of to the NMSs that own the data is a political move. It takes time for all of those services to actually grant permission for the CRU to share it with anyone not covered by the agreements. In the mean time, the "skeptics" can say, "See they are hiding something!"

The strategy is outlined very nicely here:
Leaked emails mark dangerous shift in climate denial strategy | Mark Lynas | Environment | guardian.co.uk

"Destroyed data"? Apparently all the data sets used in their research are still there. Which raw data are actually not retrievable?

And I would expect it could take months to get all the data from whatever sources they originally got them from. But weren't they requested years ago?

I am not entirely sure about the entire course of events with FOI requests, when it started or how many there were in total.

According to Wiki:
"Despite this, the Climate Research Unit has been the target of attention by climate change sceptics who have made numerous requests under the Freedom of Information Act for data used by the unit's scientists. Nature reported that in the course of five days in July 2009 the CRU had been "inundated" with 58 FOI requests from Stephen McIntyre and people affiliated with his blog Climate Audit."
Climatic Research Unit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Swift]

Originally Posted by HughRuss

I'd have to say that they were worried about the deniers jumping all over the deletion of said data as a cover up --much like they are now. Scientists have been fighting the corporate denial machine for 2 decades now, and such an oversight would cause further skepticism where there ought to not be any.

Wow, and you say republicans tow the party line.

Seriously HR, how can you stand behind these guys when they are doing things like politicians(on both sides) would do?

Deleting raw data? Educate me here, wouldn't that put a monkey wrench into the scientific method? I'm asking in all sincerity.

[Stylerod]

Originally Posted by Schrödinger's Cat

If you want to see conspiracies, then that is what you will see. I personally suggest that you step back, walk through the series of events dispassionately and without preconceived notions, and reach conclusions based on the best evidence available.

What I see is a rush to judgment that falls right into the hands of people, and politicians, that want to control business. Hence all the calls of doom and world courts demanding what countries do with their infrastructure. All because if we don't do something in 10 years it will be too late and the world will end

[Stylerod]

Britain's University of East Anglia says the director of its prestigious Climatic Research Unit is stepping down pending an investigation into allegations that he overstated the case for man-made climate change.

The university says Phil Jones will relinquish his position until the completion of an independent review into allegations that he worked to alter the way in which global temperature data was presented.

The allegations were made after more than a decade of correspondence between leading British and U.S. scientists were posted to the Web following the security breach last month.

The e-mails were seized upon by some skeptics of man-made climate change as proof that scientists are manipulating the data about its extent.

Interesting. I wonder who is going to investigate?

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Originally Posted by Stylerod

What I see is a rush to judgment that falls right into the hands of people, and politicians, that want to control business. Hence all the calls of doom and world courts demanding what countries do with their infrastructure. All because if we don't do something in 10 years it will be too late and the world will end

Just because some people are not objective doesn't mean that you shouldn't be either. Sure, I get tired of people that say the world is going to end. Humanity will survive, but at what cost to our environment, biodiversity and our economies? Why do you still not accept anthropogenic global warming (or have you changed your mind)?

Originally Posted by Swift

Deleting raw data? Educate me here, wouldn't that put a monkey wrench into the scientific method? I'm asking in all sincerity.

I have already explained this. All raw data is kept at the NMS where it originated. If you want to look at what has been said, it is that in the 1980s they didn't keep copies of the raw data for <5% of the weather stations which they had determined they weren't going to use do to urban warming effects (basically, because of contaminated data). That doesn't "put a monkey wrench into the scientific method". As has been stated multiple times, other independent research groups have used their own data sets and came to the conclusions that the CRU have.

I am sure that, over 20 years ago, the CRU could not have foreseen that the raw station data might be the subject of legal proceedings by the CEI and Pat Michaels. Raw data were NOT secretly destroyed to avoid efforts by other scientists to replicate the CRU and Hadley Centre-based estimates of global-scale changes in near-surface temperature. In fact, a key point here is that other groups -- primarily at the NOAA National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) and at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), but also in Russia -- WERE able to replicate the major findings of the CRU and UK Hadley Centre groups. The NCDC and GISS groups performed this replication completely independently. They made different choices in the complex process of choosing input data, adjusting raw station data for known inhomogeneities (such as urbanization effects, changes in instrumentation, site location, and observation time), and gridding procedures. NCDC and GISS-based estimates of global surface temperature changes are in good accord with the HadCRUT data results.
Phil Jones and Ben Santer respond to CEI and Pat Michaels attack on temperature data record (posting from Climate Science Watch)

Originally Posted by Stylerod

Interesting. I wonder who is going to investigate?

That was to be expected. Maybe we will actually get some objective and definitive answers. I don't envy whoever that person will be.

[Stylerod]

Originally Posted by Schrödinger's Cat

That was to be expected. Maybe we will actually get some objective and definitive answers. I don't envy whoever that person will be.

He'll be the next Kenneth Starr.

[HughRuss]

Originally Posted by Swift

Wow, and you say republicans tow the party line.

Seriously HR, how can you stand behind these guys when they are doing things like politicians(on both sides) would do?

Deleting raw data? Educate me here, wouldn't that put a monkey wrench into the scientific method? I'm asking in all sincerity.

The data in question was deleted before AGW was considered a serious threat. Before there was any green revolution. Back in the '80s when you can drive a 7 mpg car, and be considered the guy with the biggest penis.

You're acting as if they deleted the data to cover something up, as if they are interested only in one thing and that's deceiving the public.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Official statements:

Professor Phil Jones has today announced that he will stand aside as Director of the Climatic Research Unit until the completion of an independent Review resulting from allegations following the hacking and publication of emails from the Unit.

Professor Jones said: "What is most important is that CRU continues its world leading research with as little interruption and diversion as possible. After a good deal of consideration I have decided that the best way to achieve this is by stepping aside from the Director's role during the course of the independent review and am grateful to the University for agreeing to this. The Review process will have my full support."

Vice-Chancellor Professor Edward Acton said: "I have accepted Professor Jones's offer to stand aside during this period. It is an important step to ensure that CRU can continue to operate normally and the independent review can conduct its work into the allegations.

“We will announce details of the Independent Review, including its terms of reference, timescale and the chair, within days. I am delighted that Professor Peter Liss, FRS, CBE, will become acting director.”

CRU Update 1 December - University of East Anglia (UEA)

Perhaps we should wrap up "climategate" until more is learned through the review process.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by Schrödinger's Cat

In regards to the incredibly shoddy story in the Times Online about the CRU getting rid of some raw data in the 1980s...

Please read the entire article.

* - It should be noted that the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich collates a lot of data from many sources, but they aren't the originators of that data. If they delete any data in its raw form from their database, that doesn't mean it no longer exists.

Very interesting turn of events indeed. What's interesting here is that many scientists, including AGW followers had been complaining for some time about the deletion of this data. I wonder what they were complaining about unless the data would need to be reconstructed in a manner that would be heavily time consuming or they were unaware of the data existing at other locations.

What's interesting also is that the CRU was unhelpful and put off all requests for this data for quite some time refusing to admit they deleted it and refused to give assistance for people to locate such data. It doesn't change the fact that they have deleted other public data relevant to FOI requests though. We will have to wait and see what comes of all this I suppose.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by Schrödinger's Cat

Official statements:

CRU Update 1 December - University of East Anglia (UEA)

Perhaps we should wrap up "climategate" until more is learned through the review process.

I would have to agree here. If they are truly going to do an in depth private investigation then I would assume the little information we have on the subject will not stack up to what they will find.

Either way it can't look good for Phil Jones who is caught on e-mail saying he would rather delete climate data than hand the information over for a legal FOI request. I would have a hard time accepting him being reinstated into that position after all that has been found out.

[Swift]

Originally Posted by HughRuss

The data in question was deleted before AGW was considered a serious threat. Before there was any green revolution. Back in the '80s when you can drive a 7 mpg car, and be considered the guy with the biggest penis.

You're acting as if they deleted the data to cover something up, as if they are interested only in one thing and that's deceiving the public.

LOL, OK. So since it wasn't a problem at the time, it's cool to get rid of negligible data. And the great justification for that is it was the 80's? We had 7mpg cars?

What if the government did it about some surveillance that was done 20 years ago? Would you say the same thing? I seriously doubt it.

[JaJae]

There's some more interesting aftermath from this. This could have serious implications on the Copenhagen summit.

'Mad Monk' Tony Abbott dooms Kevin Rudd's Australian climate change bill

The Australian government's plan to take a lead at the Copenhagen summit have been thrown into doubt after the opposition Liberal party elected a self-confessed climate change sceptic, Tony Abbott, as leader.

The maverick, known for his conservative Catholic views and nicknamed the "Mad Monk", seized the reins of the Liberal Party in an emergency party ballot on Tuesday, ousting Malcolm Turnbull in a narrow 42-41 vote.

His victory threatens to doom climate legislation championed by the Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd.

Mr Abbott, a former senior minister in the former Howard government, has been a fierce critic of the government's cap-and-trade scheme to cut emmissions which he labels a tax on Australians.
He said he wants the bill sent to a Senate committee to be reassessed.

"We will oppose the legislation in the Senate - that is the right thing to do," he said, adding that he was "not frightened of an election on this issue".

An eventual defeat of the government bill, which aims to cut carbon pollution by between five and 25 per cent of 2000 levels by 2020, would give the government powers to call an early election.

Mr Abbot has ridiculed those advocating the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as acting like "the Salem witch hunts" - crushing anyone who questioned the science of climate change.

He once called Mr Rudd "a toxic bore" because of his environmentalist zeal.

"I don't say there aren't problems, but I refuse to be terrified of the future," Mr Abbot said recently.

"If you look at Roman times, grapes grew up against Hadrian's Wall. In the 1700s they had ice fairs on the Thames.

"So the world has been significantly hotter, significantly colder than it is now. We've coped."

Mr Abbott's victory took Australians by surprise and even the new leader himself with his election sharply dividing the country.

He had been expected to finish well behind Joe Hockey, a much more popular candidate.

"I do feel humbled and daunted by what's ahead," Mr Abbot said.

"I also feel proud and exhilarated at the prospect of leading this great party into the next election."

Basically Australia literally ousted Turnbull from the Liberal party who was a climate alarmist promoting cap and trade. They replaced him with a climate skeptic who will likely prevent a cap and trade bill in Australia which could have effects on Copenhagen. The political climate is changing faster than the planet is warming...

Phil Jones is out at the CRU. Top climate scientists are going to be under investigation as is there behavior. Governments are literally revolting. And Copenhagen is around the corner... rough week to be an alarmist.

[JaJae]

Wall Street Journal has a good article on "Climategate." It does mention ExxonMobile at the start. That isn't a jab at ThatGuyOverExxon... it was an article I found posted by a political junky friend on facebook.

This article goes right in hand with what Stylerod so wisely posted a couple pages back about money trails.

Originally Posted by Stylerod

I mean lets face it. These guys are like rock stars now. They are getting all the fame, all the money. It's a good life for someone to scare people into thinking that man is ending the world. Why would they want to let people challenge that?

Climategate: Follow the Money Climate change researchers must believe in the reality of global warming just as a priest must believe in the existence of God.

Last year, ExxonMobil donated $7 million to a grab-bag of public policy institutes, including the Aspen Institute, the Asia Society and Transparency International. It also gave a combined $125,000 to the Heritage Institute and the National Center for Policy Analysis, two conservative think tanks that have offered dissenting views on what until recently was called—without irony—the climate change "consensus."

To read some of the press accounts of these gifts—amounting to about 0.00027% of Exxon's 2008 profits of $45 billion—you might think you'd hit upon the scandal of the age. But thanks to what now goes by the name of climategate, it turns out the real scandal lies elsewhere.

Climategate, as readers of these pages know, concerns some of the world's leading climate scientists working in tandem to block freedom of information requests, blackball dissenting scientists, manipulate the peer-review process, and obscure, destroy or massage inconvenient temperature data—facts that were laid bare by last week's disclosure of thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, or CRU.

But the deeper question is why the scientists behaved this way to begin with, especially since the science behind man-made global warming is said to be firmly settled. To answer the question, it helps to turn the alarmists' follow-the-money methods right back at them.

Consider the case of Phil Jones, the director of the CRU and the man at the heart of climategate. According to one of the documents hacked from his center, between 2000 and 2006 Mr. Jones was the recipient (or co-recipient) of some $19 million worth of research grants, a sixfold increase over what he'd been awarded in the 1990s.

Why did the money pour in so quickly? Because the climate alarm kept ringing so loudly: The louder the alarm, the greater the sums. And who better to ring it than people like Mr. Jones, one of its likeliest beneficiaries?

Thus, the European Commission's most recent appropriation for climate research comes to nearly $3 billion, and that's not counting funds from the EU's member governments. In the U.S., the House intends to spend $1.3 billion on NASA's climate efforts, $400 million on NOAA's, and another $300 million for the National Science Foundation. The states also have a piece of the action, with California—apparently not feeling bankrupt enough—devoting $600 million to their own climate initiative. In Australia, alarmists have their own Department of Climate Change at their funding disposal.

And all this is only a fraction of the $94 billion that HSBC Bank estimates has been spent globally this year on what it calls "green stimulus"—largely ethanol and other alternative energy schemes—of the kind from which Al Gore and his partners at Kleiner Perkins hope to profit handsomely.

Supply, as we know, creates its own demand. So for every additional billion in government-funded grants (or the tens of millions supplied by foundations like the Pew Charitable Trusts), universities, research institutes, advocacy groups and their various spin-offs and dependents have emerged from the woodwork to receive them.

Today these groups form a kind of ecosystem of their own. They include not just old standbys like the Sierra Club or Greenpeace, but also Ozone Action, Clean Air Cool Planet, Americans for Equitable Climate Change Solutions, the Alternative Energy Resources Association, the California Climate Action Registry and so on and on. All of them have been on the receiving end of climate change-related funding, so all of them must believe in the reality (and catastrophic imminence) of global warming just as a priest must believe in the existence of God.

None of these outfits is per se corrupt, in the sense that the monies they get are spent on something other than their intended purposes. But they depend on an inherently corrupting premise, namely that the hypothesis on which their livelihood depends has in fact been proved. Absent that proof, everything they represent—including the thousands of jobs they provide—vanishes. This is what's known as a vested interest, and vested interests are an enemy of sound science.

Which brings us back to the climategate scientists, the keepers of the keys to the global warming cathedral. In one of the more telling disclosures from last week, a computer programmer writes of the CRU's temperature database: "I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seems to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. . . . Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight. . . . We can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!"

This is not the sound of settled science, but of a cracking empirical foundation. And however many billion-dollar edifices may be built on it, sooner or later it is bound to crumble.

Bret Stephens: Climategate: Follow the Money - WSJ.com

I tried discussing this issue previously, but this article puts it much better than I did. This is why this CRU release is so important and quite frankly so devestating. It is getting people to sit back and realize just how corrupt this entire process is and how unscientific these so-called scientists are behaving.

[Stylerod]

Originally Posted by JaJae

Wall Street Journal has a good article on "Climategate." It does mention ExxonMobile at the start. That isn't a jab at ThatGuyOverExxon... it was an article I found posted by a political junky friend on facebook.

This article goes right in hand with what Stylerod so wisely posted a couple pages back about money trails.



Bret Stephens: Climategate: Follow the Money - WSJ.com

I tried discussing this issue previously, but this article puts it much better than I did. This is why this CRU release is so important and quite frankly so devestating. It is getting people to sit back and realize just how corrupt this entire process is and how unscientific these so-called scientists are behaving.

Great article.

[JaJae]

It's spreading.. Penn State is investigating Michael Mann... finally.

Penn State Will Investigate 'Climategate' - The Paper Trail (usnews.com)

[JaJae]

Senator Inhofe, noted skeptic, has requested Barbara Boxer investigate Climategate.

He suggested “a possible conspiracy by scientists, some of whom receive or have received US taxpayer funds, to stifle open, transparent debate on the most pressing issues of climate science.”

Inhofe also noted that there appeared to be “a campaign to vilify scientists who question global warming alarmism.”

“For instance,” Inhofe wrote, “one scientist wrote of a ‘trick he employed to ‘hide the decline’ in global temperature trends, as well as discussed attempts to ‘redefine what the peer-review literature is’ to prevent papers raising questions about anthropogenic global warming from appearing in IPCC reports.

CNSNews.com - Inhofe Asks Boxer to Investigate Possible Scientific ?Conspiracy? in ?Climategate?

[HughRuss]

Originally Posted by Swift

LOL, OK. So since it wasn't a problem at the time, it's cool to get rid of negligible data. And the great justification for that is it was the 80's? We had 7mpg cars?

What if the government did it about some surveillance that was done 20 years ago? Would you say the same thing? I seriously doubt it.

This example is not analogous to the current debate, and you're clownish attempts to link it as such are annoying.