CRU Climategate continues

The first thing everyone discussed was the content of the emails. It turns out that may not be the worst aspect of what has been discovered.

To review, we have enough from the emails to see that FOI requests were resisted to the point of rather destroying data than comply, emails related to FOI requests were deleted, scientific journals that did not follow the dogma were threatened and the overall claim that the science is settled is far from true. These actions are bad enough for the scientific method, where independent replication and falsification are central to the process. However, the zip file released to the internet contained more than just those emails.

While the emails revealed a great deal, the data that was freed also included programming code that was used to process the various temperature and proxy databases. Within that code were comments left by a programmer who worked for about three years attempting to fix the program.

Bishop Hill has a continuously updated list of the comments and summarizes them.

The code

Watts Up With That? has a post with all the comments in raw fashion.

Climategate: hide the decline – codified

One reason is quite clear as to why this climate team did not want to release its code. It is incredibly buggy as can be seen from the programmer’s frustration and confusion. The temperature databases being used are also very problematic.

With regard to the scientific process, the program used to create the temperature plots is needed by others to ensure that the methodology produces dependable and accurate results. It is sad enough that the program is so clearly sub par, but it appears this was well known, hence the hapless programmer having to try and fix it. Yet despite the known problems, the world at large was kept unaware of the issues and new temperature reconstructions were produced.

If this climate team had always been open with it’s data and programs, as it should have been, these problems could have been taken care of quite early. That is the scientific method after all.

Also hidden from the world were some of the scientists noting concerns with the data and some doubts in the certainty of the AGW conclusions in their emails. In fact, some of what they said echoed criticisms from ClimateAudit and other skeptics. But all we heard from the lamestream media and these climate study groups and various AGW proponents and evangelizers was that the science was settled.

Sadly, despite the many criticisms from global warming skeptics being affirmed, there may be too much pride and prestige at stake on the “science” side and too much political power at stake on the political side for the AGW proponents to stop themselves. With trillions of dollars of economic activity in numerous countries threatened because of the view that AGW is settled science, will they ever admit publicly that AGW can not be considered settled when it is based on such shoddy programming work and incomplete, undocumented databases?

That question remains to be answered. While we are waiting, another story is breaking about how AGW proponents/scientists may have treated the raw temperature data in New Zealand, conveniently showing rising temperatures where hardly any existed.

The New Zealand Government’s chief climate advisory unit NIWA is under fire for allegedly massaging raw climate data to show a global warming trend that wasn’t there.

The scandal breaks as fears grow worldwide that corruption of climate science is not confined to just Britain’s CRU climate research centre.

In New Zealand’s case, the figures published on NIWA’s [the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research] website suggest a strong warming trend in New Zealand over the past century:

But analysis of the raw climate data from the same temperature stations has just turned up a very different result:

Gone is the relentless rising temperature trend, and instead there appears to have been a much smaller growth in warming, consistent with the warming up of the planet after the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850.

[…] (source, be sure to read it all for graphs and further commentary)

The AGW proponents and evangelizers claim skeptics are only pseudo or non-science. With more proof being revealed of improper methods, corrupt data, undermining of peer-review and other actions that completely ignore and contradict the scientific method, such critics would do well to pull the log out of their own eyes before imagining splinters in eyes of everyone that disagrees with them.

*Update*

NIWA’s [the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research] has responded to the accusation of altering data. Unfortunately the explanation brings up more questions. They are still refusing to release data on all the stations, including only one with their justification for altering temperature data.

Reeling from claims that it has massaged data to show a 150 year warming trend where there isn't one, NIWA's chief climate scientist David Wratt, an IPCC vice-chair on the 2007 AR4 report, issued a news release stating adjustments had been made to compensate for changes in sensor locations over the years.

While such an adjustment is valid, it needs to be fully explained so other scientists can test the reasonableness of the adjustment.

Wratt is refusing to release data his organisation claims to have justifying adjustments on other weather stations, meaning the science cannot be reviewed. However, he has released information relating to Wellington temperature readings, and they make for interesting reading.

[…] (source, thanks to Ace’s blog)

Be sure to read it all to understand why the explanation leads to more questions.

A small snippet from Ace’s blog summarizes the NIWA’s response.

“I'm seeing a pattern here, and it's not so much a pattern of climate as of obfuscation”

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Previous posts:

More CRU email analysis and other climate warming goodies
More on that CRU email and data hack
Climate Research Unit – What the hack?!
Mark My Words – Global Warming archive

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More CRU email analysis and other climate warming goodies

The Climate Research Unit emails number around 1000. As people search the online archive or their own copy of the released data, more detail on the inner workings of this group come to light.

I’m going to first direct readers to the Ace of Spades blog. Gabriel brings together several PowerLine posts about this matter with brief summaries. a brief intro:

John Hinderaker at PowerLine have been doing a great job digging through the emails leaked from the the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit.

[…] (source, be sure to follow the links to Powerline for the full details.)

The other climate warming goodies are several online resources covering the overall debate on AGW. Some I have mentioned or linked to before but I thought readers would be helped by mentioning them again. Of course you can find even more by perusing their blogrolls.

ClimateAudit.org

Watts Up With That?

Lucia - Blackboard

the Air Vent

Bishop Hill – This blog covers other issues as well but the author is recognized as being quite adept at writing on the global warming issues under debate in a way that is accessible to the average person. He now has a book coming out called The Hockey Stick Illusion.

Finally, I recently ran across climate skeptic which brings up some good points about the global warming controversy.

[…] I often make a wager with my audiences. I will bet them that unless they are regular readers of the science-based climate sites, I can tell them something absolutely fundamental about global warming theory they have never heard. What I tell them is this:

Man-made global warming theory is not one theory but in fact two totally separate theories chained together. These two theories are:

1. Man-made greenhouse gasses, such as CO2, acting alone will warm the planet [between] 1.0 and 1.5 degrees Celsius by the year 2100.
2. The Earth’s climate system is dominated by positive feedbacks, such that the warming from Greenhouse gasses alone is amplified 3-5 or more times. Most of the warming in catastrophic forecasts comes from this second effect, not directly from greenhouse gas warming.

This is not some Iird skeptic’s fantasy. This two-part description of catastrophic global warming theory is right out of the latest IPCC report. Most of the warming in the report’s forecasts actually results from the theory of positive feedback in #2, not from greenhouse gasses directly.

One of the most confusing issues for average people watching the climate debate is how one side can argue so adamantly that the science is “settled” and the other can argue just the opposite. The explanation lies in large part with this two-part theory. There is a high degree of consensus around proposition1, even among skeptics. I may disagree that the warming is 0.8C or 1.2C, but few on the science end of the debate would argue that CO2 has no effect on warming. When people say “the science is settled” they generally want to talk about proposition 1 and avoid discussion of proposition 2.

That is because proposition 2 is far from settled. […] (source)

It may be that good and honest people currently on opposite sides of the debate are actually talking past each other due to confusion over these two points.

I’ll end this post by asking a question of those who are following this story. Do you know people who do not follow blogs and/or only watch Lamestream Media? Hopefully you will be talking to them about this unfolding story, emailing the various blog posts you find with good information and/or posting on whatever social website you and they use.

The point being, we obviously cannot rely on the Lamestream Media to inform people. With Cap and Trade still a possibility in the Senate, we need to maintain pressure and ensure that important information such as this is not ignored.

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Previous posts:

More on that CRU email and data hack

Climate Research Unit – What the hack?!

Mark My Words – Global Warming archive

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Technorati tags: CRU -- AGW -- climate change -- global warming -- hadley Climate Research Centre -- philip Jones -- michael mann -- james hansen -- RICO

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More on that CRU email and data hack

I covered the server hack of the Climate Research Unit in my previous post. There are some issues that have been raised since then and a resource that is now available on the internet for those wanting to dig into this more.

The (slim?) prospects of a RICO investigation are discussed in preliminary form at BigGovernment.com.

For some time. several individuals have asked why we don’t just initiate suit against the obviously dishonest tactics and claims by the global warming industry under the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO). This law commissions “private attorneys general” to pursue violations on their own, in essence as proxies for the state.

I have explained with intermittent impatience that just serially lying or exaggerating to deceive are not on their face  RICO “predicate” offenses. There must be three instances of a certain type of enumerated behavior over ten years to constitute a pattern in violation of RICO.

I have received an email from someone who has much appropriate training and experience and which causes me to revisit the issue. […] (source)

Along with that, Michelle Malkin makes the important point:

First things first: The alleged hackers need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

That said: The crimes revealed in the e-mails promise to be the global warming scandal of the century — and have massive bearing on the climate change legislation being considered by our lawmakers here at home. (source)

But it may be that the outrageous actions of some of the more extreme in the environmental movement may have the unintended consequences of protecting the hacker(s). A comment at Michelle Malkin’s blog makes that connection.

I say turnabout is fair play. James Hansen flew to England to help get six Greenpeace climate change activists cleared of causing £30,000 of criminal damage at a coal-fired power station. “It was the first case in which preventing property damage caused by climate change had been used as part of a ‘lawful excuse’ defence in court. It is now expected to be used more widely by environment groups.”

[…]

If a “lawful excuse” defence can work for climate change hooligans, why not for these hackers/whisleblowers? The only damage they did was to expose the truth and reveal data paid for by public funds (assuming the files were not doctored, of course.) (full comment text here)

There is a searchable database of the over 1000 alleged emails online now.

Alleged CRU Emails – Searchable (thanks to What’s Up With That?)

The Bishop Hill blog has a readable summary of some of the emails.

General reaction seems to be that the CRUgate emails are genuine, but with the caveat that there could be some less reliable stuff slipped in.

In the circumstances, here are some summaries of the CRUgate files. I'll update these as and when I can. The refs are the email number. (source)

How many of the usual suspect media outlets have covered this?

*crickets*

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Climate Research Unit – What the hack?!

It appears that a leading climate sciences research center had its servers hacked and numerous emails and files released to the internet. This could be very embarrassing for proponents of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

A good summary here that also links to the various blogs that are discussing this in depth.

The University of East Anglia's Hadley Climatic Research Centre appears to have suffered a security breach earlier today, when an unknown hacker apparently downloaded 1079 e-mails and 72 documents of various types and published them to an anonymous FTP server. These files appear to contain highly sensitive information that, if genuine, could prove extremely embarrassing to the authors of the e-mails involved. Those authors include some of the most celebrated names among proponents of the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

[…]

Be sure to read it all and peruse the other blogs mentioned for even more as this story continues to unfold.

If these emails are true, we have a number of troubling issues thus far.

• Collusion to change the peer review criteria to keep out an author and study that did not tow the line.
• A request to delete emails. If this was in response to a FOIA request it most definitely runs afoul of the law. It may also be problematic due to the work and correspondence being supported by public funds.
• The claim of independence and transparency is clearly a lie.
• Philip Jones (Director of the CRU) stating that the death of an anthropogenic global warming skeptic was good news.

One of the emails that is getting a lot of attention, and has been verified as accurate by Philip Jones contains this statement by Jones:

I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline.

Jones has responded to questions about this. The site ClimateAudit.org puts the email into context and explains what this is really about.

When smoothing these time series, the Team had a problem: actual reconstructions "diverge" from the instrumental series in the last part of 20th century. For instance, in the original hockey stick (ending 1980) the last 30-40 years of data points slightly downwards. In order to smooth those time series one needs to "pad" the series beyond the end time, and no matter what method one uses, this leads to a smoothed graph pointing downwards in the end whereas the smoothed instrumental series is pointing upwards — a divergence. So Mann's solution was to use the instrumental record for padding, which changes the smoothed series to point upwards as clearly seen in UC's figure (violet original, green without "Mike's Nature trick"). (source, *Update* ClimateAudit.org is overloaded, their post is mirrored here, if you are having trouble getting to the ClimateAudit.org site)

This story is going to take time to unfold. Let’s keep in mind that while Jones has said that the data released appears to be genuine, and Steve McIntyre has verified that his email correspondence in the hacked data is accurate, and others have pointed that the data is much too large (62mb) and detailed to have been the result of a hoax, caution is still warranted.

It is possible that much is accurate but that some of the exchanges were spiked to increase the embarrassment of those targeted. We do know their system was hacked and that some of the emails are accurate but careful study and time is still needed to determine the accuracy of all questionable correspondence and data.

Considering the government expansion and control proposed by AGW proponents and that this is supported by our tax dollars, it is not too much to ask that this data be thoroughly studied to determine the truth of what has been released.

That is, if one is concerned with the truth here.

*Update*

Of course RealClimate.org has responded. The astute reader will notice the response does nothing to address the actual issues regarding adding in temperature data as covered at climateaudit.org and already referenced in this post. Even worse is the obfuscation Gavin offers in his response to a reasonable question asked in the comments.

KTB says:

20 November 2009 at 12:57 PM

It would be nice to get comments from the authors for lines like this. This can of course be understood in many ways…
I hope that posting of this small snippet doesn’t violate copyright, and I left the name out:

“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Xxx and I will keep
them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is”

[Response: Bad papers clutter up assessment reports and if they don't stand up as science, they shouldn't be included. No-one can 'redefine' what the peer-reviewed literature is. - gavin]

If it was really bad science then the current definition of peer-review literature would not have to be changed. The person who wrote that thought it was proper to go so far as to change the definition to keep the report/papers out, thought they and others had the ability to do so, and worst of all believed this was an appropriate thing to do.

With attempted defenses such as this, it is time to buy more popcorn and sit back and enjoy the show as much lulz is to be expected at the expense of the AGW faithful.

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The ACORN story continues

ACORN staged a protest in Los Angeles. Andrew Breitbart decided to show up to ask and also answer questions.

In short, the ACORN story is far from over.  There are more videos to come next week.  You’ve seen the Baltimore story, the Philadelphia story, the New York story.

Now you will know about the LA story. (source)

Be sure to read the entire account and keep an eye on BigGovernment.com for the coming videos.

It is hardly surprising that an organization that is corrupt from top to bottom, so much so, that good people have been fired when they tried to do the right thing, has protests with rent-a-thugs.

While there has been some progress in diminishing our tax dollars supporting ACORN, it is only temporary at this time. We need to maintain pressure so this corrupt and partisan organization cannot regroup, reorganize, or change its name while continuing it’s dirty business as usual and with public funds helping it.

And despite Obama and his Kool-Aid drinking apologists doing all they can to distance him from the mess, Barack Obama has long and deep ties to ACORN.

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Infidel woman stops jihadist’s murder rampage

The death toll and injury could have been higher at Fort Hood if not for the actions of a police officer.

… the police officer who gunned him down, Kimberly Munley, a civilian Fort Hood police officer, is in stable condition. (source)

Her bravery and quick action should be commended. Fortunately, she had training in "active-response tactics", which teaches aggressive action against a threat.

As for this jihadist, there is already too much passing by of Nidal Malik Hasan’s developing Jihadi mindset.

Apparently the truth is at odds with the desired narrative. We must not upset CAIR after all.

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Obama decides to escalate the war

The war on Fox News that is, never mind our troops in harms way in Afghanistan, who are waiting for the support and resources they need in an important theater for the war on terror. Never mind that defeat is looming if we do not do what is necessary to achieve the victory that is still possible, Barack Obama has more important priorities.

The White House has taken the war on Fox News to a strange new level.  Bitterly complaining that the news channel does not provide a balanced presentation of the issues, the Obama administration has now warned strategists from the Democratic Party that they won’t work with them any longer if the strategists appear on Fox’s programming as guests: (source)

Be sure to read it all.

I’m sure that saying something about Barack Obama’s skin will be construed as racist by some nitwit, but this guy sure is thin-skinned. Unfortunately this character flaw is expressing itself by suppressing a news agency for not towing the line like others. Clearly, this also intends to send a message to others in the media to keep sucking up.

Considering only a few data points, the lack of in depth investigation or coverage of the ongoing discovery of ACORN corruption, and the incredibly late and whitewashed reporting on Van Jones, do they really need the encouragement?

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