Last week on Friday August 1st you may recall that I commented on the release of the Draft report Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States
In that post I mentioned that “The draft document reads more like a news article in many places than it does a scientific document, and unlike a scientific document, it has a number of what I would call “emotionally based graphics” in it that have nothing to do with the science.”
One of those graphics that tug at your heartstrings turns out to be a fabrication, pure and simple. Here is page 58 of the NCDC authored report:
Click for a larger image. Note the arrow pointing to this photo:
Image above taken directly from the CCSP report.
There’s been a discussion on Climate Audit about this photo, namely that it has the flood waters “photoshopped” in.
When I showed it to my graphic artist at my office he said, “no problem, I can recreate that using any house photo and a Photoshop filter.
I had contemplated having him do just that, but it turns out proving this photo to be a digital fabrication is a lot easier.
Simply go to IstockPhoto.com, where you can buy this photo online:
Click image for original source location
But apparently, the lead authors of the report didn’t see the caveat that comes with the photo:
Here’s another graphical rendering of water by the same photographer/photoshopper. Doomsday in Seattle or as the caption describes it: “An apocalyptic view of Seattle sunken into Puget Sound.”
But the real question is, with so many different photos of real flooded houses available, why did they choose one that was not real? Surely they know such a report will be highly scrutinized?
As I said last week, the use of graphics in the report makes it look more like a news article than a scientific paper, and if principal National Climatic Data Center authors Dr.’s Thomas Karl and Peterson can’t even bother to check if the photos they use are real or not, or even spot such obvious fakes, it makes one wonder just how much fact checking went into the other parts of the report.
Do you think our policy makers, for which this report is intended, would be smart enough to catch such things?
Hat tip: various contributors on this Climate Audit thread
Warmists assert: Ve vill photoshop und powerpoint you into sub-mission, ja!
I swing from elation to despair every day at the moment.
From a bad place a voice whispers; “do what you like, we have all this media exposure and stuff”.
Well its a pretty good fake, complete with realistic looking reflections on the water. But if they are really using fake photos it seems to me that we should point it out to them and complain like hell about it.
Hmmm I see this is just a daft. Maybe we should let them publish the final version and then start complaining. A good fisherman always lets the fish take the bait, and then sets the hook, before he cranks in his catch.
A fabrication? This has come as something of a shock. Next thing, you’ll be telling us that Al Gore is buying his carbon credits from himself.
That also looks like the rare mid-winter flood. Notice there are no leaves of buds on the shrubs.
It’s also the rare clean water flood. No floating wood, debris, leaves, swimming animals, or anything else. Maybe real floods aren’t photogenic enough.
First Draft – Do not cite or quote.
“Physical and MENTAL health impacts due to extreme weather events are projected to increase”
OK… this caption is just as troubling to me as the fake flood. It should say,
“Mental health has been impacted by the NCDC’s misuse of Government funds to push an agenda….”
I know that this report has negatively affected MY mental health.
Mike
. . . ya but the fishing will be really easy – just drop a line out the bedroom window
Hmmmm, a computer program makes the weather look however you want it to… Somehow I think we have talked about this before….
Mike
Yeah, I seem to recall someone somewhere has climate models that produce whatever output you want. How cool is that?
Where have the real scientists gone, and where do they think this leaves their reputations, and the reputation of science itself. When will it stop.
As I see it, the alarmist must think all the people in America are recent graduates from government schools.
I would assume that use of a “Stock” photo has all the proper model release and property release obtained. For editorial use of photos, the issue is not that important, but if the picture were ever used for commercial or “non-editorital use”, the property owner may hire a lawyer.
But that does not excuse the use of images that was photoshoped to create a flood in an image. This is where you get into ethics. If ends justifies the means….
Well we had cartoon polar bears tiring out in the arctic, why can’t we have cartoon floods to scare us? I’m sure cartoon droughts and cartoon tropical diseases are next.
Anthony, excellent. Take them to the band-saw.
I am not American so cannot persue this, but surely a Congressman or Senator would be very interested in the fraudulant use of public funds?
Henry Galt, are you related to John Galt by any chance? 🙂
Tarpon, they are not “alarmists”, they are hysterics.
Just look at the house on the right at the water line. The water is not level with the house as it should be unless they build houses at a slant in that location.
This type of photoshop is really easy to do, I’ll happily show you some of my photoshop work, some with these type of water effect filters and shadows…
Its the Piltdown Mansion
Someone should ask Industrial Light & Fakery for a refund.
Of course a house which computers say might get flooded should first be flooded by computers.
And I note the mention that wildfires have increased in recent decades. In recent decades (after World War II) the fire suppression policies began to be overturned with a return to the original burning of outdoor spaces. I would not be surprised that official approval of management by fire (I think it’s called “fire management”) is somehow correlated with an increase in fires.
I believe there is a new mental condition called “Climate Neurosis”, so I suppose those afflicted would be Climate Neurotics. Some poor boy did not want to drink water because he felt that some other person would die because of his selfishness. Hmmm, could his parents have a case against these entities that appeal to emotions to change peoples’ behaviors?
Fighting Climate Neurosis,
Mike Bryant
Mosh, that’s one of the best puns I’ve heard in a month. Thanks.
for those who don’t know:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man
Reply: Anthony, forgive me for commenting on your post, but you are missing the backstory.~charles the moderator
of course photoshopped. penguin-shopped polar bear-shopped CO2-shopped temperatures-shopped ice-shopped maps-shopped graphics-shopped models-shopped stations-shopped please, a link to concentration of atmospheric oxygen. Jeez: You’re Welcome many brahmas, caipirinhas and chopps (no shopped). Are you waiting
Reply: Brahma yes, caipirinhas no, can’t stomach them, haven’t tried a caipiroska yet. Who knows? Maybe this year.~charles the moderator
Though it sounds dodgy, the use of a photoshopped stock image for illustrative purposes is hardly misleading. It’s just been purchased so that copyright issues are easy to solve.
Of far greater concern is the use, elsewhere in the document, of the hockey-stick graph which has been comprehensively disproven. See Climate Audit. This is bad science, mendacious and misleading. Citing a known incorrect item of data should be a disciplinary offence. I hope that any complaints about this paper will draw attention to the graph.
The Piltdown Man Hoax was perpetrated in 1912 and was revealed as a hoax in 1953. Meanwhile it lent legitimacy to Eugenics, which caused the deaths of millions. Fortunately WWII stopped the excesses of Eugenics (for the most part).
The Catastrophic Global Warming Hoax is very similar in that so many are working so hard to legitimize it. I hope that it doesn’t take 40+ years to put the lie to this corrosive cultist hoax.
Mike
Notice the other comment in the piece about “Wildfires are already increasing due to warming” making the point that wildfires are now larger, longer duration, longer season
Why blame this on global warming?
From the Forest Service’s own website and independent studies. Wildfires have become worse because:
1. Reduced cutting of trees due to enviromental regulation is increasing the amount of fuel in the forests since the 1980’s.
2. A “let it burn” policy if the fire naturally started increased the severity, duration, and size of fires. For example, Yellowstone National Park still looks like a Christmas tree farm years after they let a fire burn the park down for enviromental reasons. Don’t believe the lie that some pine cones need fire – I got a bunch of the pine cones and guess what, they open in hot weather, and they burn up completely with fire (seeds and all).
3. More environmental regulations in late 2007 are now limiting the application of fire retardant on wildfires to try to protect endangered fish. Apparently a fire burning all the vegatation next to a stream is worse than fire retardant.
4. Enviromentalist are burning our national parks intentionally. For example, I just got back from Yosemite and the front section of the park is horrible as they intentionally burned down the everything under about 10 to 20 feet killing numerous “fire-resistant” trees in the process in an attempt to favor the Sequoia. Enviromentalist think burning up a tree is righteous (increasing CO2), cutting down the same tree is evil (locking up CO2).
5. 1 or 2C increase is not enough to cause a fire or even change the intensity of a fire in a measureable way.
In summary, global warming is NOT responsible for the increased fires in the west – Enviromentalists are.
On a slightly different note….does anyone else see “images” in the reflections of that water that remind you of anything? The reflection on the left looks kind of like a cartoon head and the one on the right looks to me like…”ahem”… a distorted image of a nude female body. Or am I giving my self some kind of psycho Rorcshack test? LOL. Somebody please tell me you see it too. 🙂
Dan Rather gave us “Fake, but Accurate” so no anything goes. There used to be a debate among the journalists about the ethics of photo “retouching” when it first became possible. Now everybody does it and it’s “art.” All I can say is, “Trust no one.”
If, as some advocates of anthropogenic climate change have claimed, the ‘science is settled’, how come their side of the argument feels impelled to fake stuff like this?
This of course is a rhetorical question.
Henry Galt, are you related to John Galt by any chance?
Who is John Galt?
Reply: Five dollars please~charles the moderator
Does anyone remember y2k complient? Global warming will be the around until something more trendy takes its place
Since I can atone for my climate sins in my next life, I am now AGW Compliant…
Mike
Too bad AGW does not have a deadline like Y2K.
Compliant Bryant
Overcast,
OK I see her too, but she looks more like a one-eyed fish with a spot on her tail.
I remember the cult classic book “Subliminal Seduction”, I never saw anything in those icecubes. And I was really trying too.
Mike
Statepoet: Skipping forward to the most recent outrage thread, seeing as how the last one is shut down:
I tracked down that quote via Google and that guy Ali is a hoot. Thanks for the laughs.
It’s even better than you think. The quote I cited was from “archie and mehitabel” by Don Marquis, which i highly recommend.
The “Ali” section you commented on was actually a very clever parody of the very clever original.
Make that “archy”
http://www.donmarquis.com/archy/
From the original:
expression is the need of my soul
i was once a vers libre bard
but i died and my soul went into the body of a cockroach
it has given me a new outlook upon life
i see things from the under side now
thank you for the apple peelings in the wastepaper basket
but your paste is getting so stale i cant eat it
there is a cat here called mehitabel i wish you would have
removed she nearly ate me the other night why dont she
catch rats that is what she is supposed to be fore
there is a rat here she should get without delay
Nope. The left side is a fat aliens head and the one on the right is Smokey theBear with his hat cocked over one ear.
Her here Mosh
Piltdown Slamdown. Waiting for the Piltdown Manson trail. Just be strange and everyone will think you are the one.
Oh Anthony,
BTW that is suppose to read CCCP not CCSP.LOL
John McDonald, you are absolutely correct. I cut firewood in Colorado for heating over some 20 years, $10 for a permit to have all the deadwood I could haul out. Then the enviros put a halt to it, damaging the forests and all. So now it burns anyway, in situ.
I was rummaging through that bloated corpse know as U.S. gov when I realized that NCDC is not the agency writing this thing. It’s a multi-agency coordinated activity, the U.S. equivalent, I would guess, of the IPCC, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. They’ve even got an organizational chart on their website.
Back in April, when you were reporting on your visit to NCDC, the final photo in one of your posts, about a powerpoint presentation, was probably a stock photo within NCDC & has also been used by CCSP as I’ve seen it in an earlier Synthesis and Assessment Product report.
My disappointment with the NCDC continues. Seems no one can convince the masses without resorting to some ficticious hollywood stunts.
Mark them off my list of “people to trust”…
uhhhh Ted I think that must be smokey the bear’s wife.
Mike
Fake data?
Wait untill I phone my Senator about this.
The same people who adjust the land surface temperature are the big supporters of the “CO2 drives the climate” theory.
The adjustment have never been independently validated or verified.
Conflict of interest, you bet.
looks like your typical flooded home in suburban coastal Jersey or Long Island during a winter tidal flood from a a nor’easter event.
Off topic, but climate-related… TV program “Nova; dimming sun”
I’ll try to ignore the possible puns from the title The program is being shown multiple times this week at 8:00 PM and 11:30 PM on PBS in Buffalo. I don’t know about other areas. It’s in HDTV if you can receive it. The blurb about the program is…
Quote:
The discovery that the sunlight reaching Earth is dimming and the implications that has for global climate change, is examined. Included: how researchers used the days after 9/11, when aircraft were grounded in the U.S., to study how plane vapor trails affect the atmosphere; and how less pollution in the atmosphere may have the unintended consequence of accelerating global warming.
They have only made some small “adjustments” to improve the climate photos….
Evan, thanks for the humor links.
When er my life gets dull
something turns up droll.
When that does not the trick
some classical muse ik.
Overcast: you’re right, spot on, (or two spots!) This is actually an ad for water skiing, you can see the slope quite clearly.
[…] 5. 2008 07:51 Wow, who would’ve guessed that fearmongering global warming advocates would have to stoop to using Photoshopped flood images in order to provide “evidence” to support their cause? Convincing proof. As Anthony Watts points […]
… My mind shut down as I read that blurb:
Quote:
The discovery that the sunlight reaching Earth is dimming and the implications that has for global climate change, is examined. Included: how researchers used the days after 9/11, when aircraft were grounded in the U.S., to study how plane vapor trails affect the atmosphere; and how less pollution in the atmosphere may have the unintended consequence of accelerating global warming.
I keep reading it, yet it still doesn’t make sense to me. I guess I wasn’t expecting that on the Public Indoctrination Station.
Climate Fauxtography!…
Wow, who would’ve guessed that fearmongering global warming advocates would have to stoop to using Photoshopped flood images in order to provide “evidence” to support their cause?
Convincing proof.
As Anthony Watts points out, this photo is av…
or Piltdown Manor
which ever pun you like better. When people are convinced of the truth of their beliefs they will go to any length to reinforce them and defend them. The
Actually the Midwest floods occurred due to cool air still pusing southward when it normally would have stopped, clashing with the warmer air.
Katrina? If the 2005 season was an example of warming, is the subsequent lack of hurricanes in the following years an example of cooling? Or was it just
a random atmospheric event?
“Climate change”. The term is a dramatic change from.”Global warming”. Warming states a path that can be defined, assessed for accuracy. Climate change is a vague, ill defined term, deliberately political garbage, that encompasses all changes in weather patters. Climate change has a 100% chance of occurring because the climate has always changed. “Climate change” was adopted as the enviros ran for political cover as the IPCC warming model has fallen apart very rapidly. In fact, the Warming movement now defines global cooling as a part of global warming.
“have you no sense
plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us”
from http://www.donmarquis.com/readingroom/archybooks/moth.html
I should have read this before the fatal redhead. Oh well, live and burn.
Drat! One of these days I’ll learn how to turn off italics.
Photoshopped images have all kinds of things put into them that unsuspecting people will not find, but brings mischievous pleasure to the original artist to see it slip by the buyer.
That is a naked woman. I am guessing the other is either a gremlin or ET.
Since someone asked about John Galt, consider this quote from the “State Science Institute” concerning “Reardon Metal” and how similar in tone it sounds to things we hear everyday now.
“It may be possible that after a period of heavy usage a sudden fissure may appear, though the length of this period cannot be predicted. The possibility of a molecular reaction, at present unknown, cannot be entirely discounted. Although the tensile strength of the metal is obviously demonstrable, certain questions in regard to its behavior under unusual stress are not to be ruled out. Although there is no evidence to support the contention that the use of the metal should be prohibited, a further study of its properties would be of value.”
Anyone who has not read “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand, has not done so at their own peril. Find a copy and read it at once! Besides having way too many parallels to the world as it is today it is, to borrow a phrase, a ripping good yarn.
Several commentators suggest that the data manipulation and faked photos and graphics should be brought to the attention of a congressman. This is the worst sort of wishful thinking.
The Democrat majority in both Houses of Congress is subject to the strict control of Commissars Pelosi and Reid. The will do nothing. The Republicans are powerless to do anything as shown by their current futile attempt to force the House back into session.
Seek aid from a Democrat and you will get platitudes and hollow promises to investigate. Republicans in the House are powerless. In the Senate Coburn has shown great courage and tenacity by blocking all disputed legislation from being considered. To date, Reid cannot get the 60 votes he needs to submit those bills to a vote.
Democracy in action can be ugly.
It these are “experts”, then bigger problems with their report than faked photos… read the text next to the photo, last line… cryptosporidia and giardia are not bacteria… they are protozoa
Paddy: “Democracy in action can be ugly.” Yes, and so can a Representative Republic, which is precisely the show you’re watching. You must have been thinking of The Democracy Hour on another channel. Thankfully, the Republic makes it possible for a minority to block the majority. That’s what the Founding Dads intended — make it difficult to get ANYTHING done. Sometimes it works for you, sometimes it works against you. In this case, I say it’s to our advantage. Lord help us if Reid can get his 60 heads in the Senate in the coming election.
Great discussion, BTW. I’m loving it.
The Democrat majority in both Houses of Congress is subject to the strict control of Commissars Pelosi and Reid. The will do nothing. The Republicans are powerless to do anything as shown by their current futile attempt to force the House back into session.
Paddy
Paddy, the President himself can call Congress back into an emergency, “special session”, and it has to occur – as far as I know. Even Speaker Pelosi agrees that the energy crunch, which affects nearly everyone not “rich” – and may tank the economy/nearly everyone’s wealth for many years, at best – is an emergency, as evidenced by her specific proposal to draw down the Strategic Reserves, which are specifically designed to confront “National emergencies”.
I have no idea why the President would not call Congress back into a special session. If he does not, I’m going to have to have some pretty good explanations for “why not”.
If McCain gets in, all he has to do in the Senate is what Ford did (brilliantly) in the House: forge a coalition of his own people together: If he can hold the dems below 60, he retains the filibuster. If he holds a third-plus-one, he can at least veto any legislation he chooses.
Ford was a consummate intellectual and a brilliant debater (and an all-American athlete) who will go down in history as a clumsy moron because he cleverly worked it out so he was able to veto the “veto-proof congress” over 40 times (a record, and IIRC he was never once overridden). Ford will be forever scorned for his “pathetic” WIN program, which cut inflation by half in two years, hadn’t you heard? (No, I thought not.)
The way most of you feel about Ford is a tribute to the incredible power of a vehemently hostile and dishonest, vicious press. Something we flat-earther, extremist, denier, creationist, lunatic fringe, pseudoscientfic, greedy, heedless, prejudiced, criminally destructive, low-IQ big oil stooges should bear very heavily in mind.
Paddy, the President himself can call Congress back into an emergency
First, it’s not an actual emergency. Second, I think dubya would far rather shake his head sadly and watch Reid and Pelosi twist slowly in the wind (enjoying every minute of it). Besides, look at the effect it’s had on the recent polls.
Reply: Five dollars please~charles the moderator
Saved by Burch Seymour. You Don’t Get Any.
Reply: #%#^@^~charles the moderator
cryptosporidia and giardia are not bacteria… they are protozoa
Your Protists fall on deaf ears.
The way most of you feel about Ford is a tribute to the incredible power of a vehemently hostile and dishonest, vicious press.
Back where I came from, the people who constitute the current “press” wouldn’t have made it through First Grade. I’m serious.
Evan,
I’ve read just about all the Don Marquis I could find on that site. I particularly liked “only thy dust …”. Thanks a heap. Here is a favorite of mine who never fails to entertain day after day. He might be a bit of an acquired taste because he is so shockingly self-honest. One can learn quite a bit about our monetary system while being greatly entertained. Here is his latest:
http://www.dailyreckoning.com/Writers/Mogambo/DREssays/MG080508.html
Second, I think dubya would far rather shake his head sadly and watch Reid and Pelosi twist slowly in the wind (enjoying every minute of it). Besides, look at the effect it’s had on the recent polls.
Me, I’d go for the valid and deserved kill.
All in good time, all in good time.
Sometimes you have to let the gamebird hang for a bit. Acquire the desired odeur.
Like the man said, when your opponent is hurting himself, just get out of the way.
Statepoet: He’s very funny.
He’s dead wrong, of course, in almost every particular , like all these populist pessimists (if he thinks real wages haven’t risen since 1968 he is smoking something better than I am).
But he is funny.
Doug:”Thankfully, the Republic makes it possible for a minority to block the majority. That’s what the Founding Dads intended ”
Exactly, they knew that democracy will always fail as soon as the majority realize they can vote themselves all of the minority’s money and property.
And if they’d shown a real flooded house, you’d have complained they were capitalizing on the woes of whoever owned the house.
Can there be a more trivial complaint? How about the paper stock the thing was printed on? The font? The background color for the graphic text box? It was basically green — what sort of message was that supposed to imply?
Some would pray that God should make climate skeptics look silly and trivial, but it would too often be a superfluous prayer.
How about that photo on your masthead, Anthony — is it yours?
REPLY: No it’s not mine, but it’s also not “fabricated” to illustrate a point. It is a photograph of earth’s atmosphere seen from the International Space Station, publicly funded, and thus public domain.
“Can there be a more trivial complaint? How about the paper stock the thing was printed on?” Ed, there’s no printing of this, it is an electronic draft.
Actually yes, I think there could be a more trivial complaint; your complaining about Bush and the Mars announcement on the other thread comes to mind. If you have something of value to say that is factually based, say it, otherwise if you just want to rant about how silly and trivial we are, there’s other blogs for that.
The sad part is it isn’t fraudulent in the legal sense. The paper points toward its sources. The use of a graphic is not out of line for a Report to Congress. Think of it as a giant PowerPoint presentation. The paper isn’t meant to be a scientific treatise. It’s more like the IPCC Summary for Policy Makers.
The photoshopped flood scene was likely chosen because it was easier to obtain and license than an actual photo.
The part that’s frustrating is the repetition of AGW vs. GW theme. Without looking I’m quite sure that viewpoint can be derived from many of the referenced papers, many of which blithely state or assume AGW as fact.
This paper, just like the IPCC SPM, is going to be a real nuisance. Unfortunately, not much can be done about it. The authoring board can likely defend it six ways from Sunday. The best anyone can do is point to the likely bias in the text. The fact that they used a graphic instead of an actual photo is pretty much beside the point . The point, of course, is the bias of more flooding from AGW message, more specifically, the AGW part.
“He’s dead wrong, of course, in almost every particular , like all these populist pessimists…” Evan
Maybe in his pessimism but there is something wrong in our economic system. It isn’t the free market, it isn’t honest greed, it isn’t just Congress. It is the Fed and your local neighborhood, “respectable” member of the government-backed banking cartel.
“Respectable”, hah! The only difference between them and counterfeiters is they are legal and don’t require a printing press.
Anthony, feel free to explain what the significance of using a stock photo is in a report like this. You’ve been in the position of having to find an illustration, surely, and one that you can get the rights to duplicate. Since the photo only purports to show a flooded house, since it makes no difference — what is the significance of using a stock photo?
Sorry I missed it in the original post — I don’t think you said why it’s significant, did you?
While you’re at it, you might try to explain the significance of the Mars stuff, too. I had assumed you were aware that Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and others got these briefings from NASA as standard operating procedures. OF course, they were all intelligent, engaged people who were genuinely interested in the space program.
The question is why Bush didn’t get it. But that’s not what you highlighted.
So tell us – what is the significance of Bush sending a proxy to get his information when past presidents have done it themselves as a point of national pride?
Both posts are trivial, IMHO. You’re getting different mileage? Tell us how.
REPLY: Well I suppose the concerns you raise are equally significant to posts about Millard Fillmore. Prove to me that 1) Bush specifically sent a proxy, instead of the process being normal chain of information handling, i.e., show that he consciously ignored it, told somebody else to handle it, and doesn’t know anything about it, and 2) Fabrications aside, why it’s OK to put loads of carefully chosen disaster photos that are mostly emotional in nature into a report on science that should be factual, not emotional.
Then I’ll consider it worth my time to respond further. Otherwise I think you are simply harping on things that only interest you, and not the majority of readers here.
LOL
Checking the masthead, I see this is your blog, Anthony. If your readers aren’t interested in the stuff, why did you post it?
[…] after that, we had a post outlining how NCDC had used a photoshopped image to illustrate flooding. Something of a no-no in “science” […]
Wow, thank you everyone for the free publicity and links to my portfolio! For those of you who understand what royalty-free stock imagery is, you can find thousands more great images in my porfolio. Please visit http://www.istockphoto.com/jhorrocks. Thank you and have a great day! 🙂
Reply: Don’t thank us, thank the NCDC!
Other moderators…I de-spammed this comment because it is Justin’s photo that is the topic of this post.