UPDATE: After some late night insomnia, and re-reading Steve’s essay again, I have decided to make this introduction to his essay a “top post” for a couple of days. New stories will appear below this one.
Readers, I urge you to read and digest this story, because it forms the seminal basis for everything that is wrong with Team paleoclimate science: the hard earned field work of Russian field researchers whose inconvenient data was excluded, warnings from colleagues ignored, tribalism exposed, testimony self-contradicted, whitewashes performed, and in a hat-tip to Leibig’s Law, even a “reindeer crap theory”. As one CA commenter, Peter Ward, put it:
My 13-year-old daughter asked me what I was reading. I explained at a high level and showed her figure 4. She grasped it immediately. How can we get this figure publicised widely?
I urge every climate blog to pick this utterly damning story of forensic investigation up and make it as widely known as possible. – Anthony
By Steve McIntyre
In The Climate Files, Fred Pearce wrote:
When I phoned Jones on the day the emails were published online and asked him what he thought was behind it, he said” It’s about Yamal, I think”.
Pearce continued (p 53):
The word turns up in 100 separate emails, more than ‘hockey stick’ or any other totem of the climate wars. The emails began with it back in 1996 and they ended with it.
Despite Jones’ premonition and its importance both in the Climategate dossier and the controversies immediately preceding Climategate, Yamal and Polar Urals received negligible attention from the “inquiries”, neither site even being mentioned by Kerry Emanuel and his fellow Oxburgh panellists.
I recently submitted an FOI request for a regional chronology combining Yamal, Polar Urals and “other shorter” chronologies referred to in an April 2006 email – a chronology that Kerry Emanuel and the “inquiries” failed to examine. The University of East Anglia, which seems to have been emboldened by the Climategate experience, not only refused to provide the chronology, but refused even to provide a list of the sites that they used to construct the regional chronology.
This refusal prompted me to re-appraise Yamal and its role in the Climategate dossier.
Read the full story here: Yamal and Hide-the-Decline
============================================================
It appears the cardinals of deadwood at UEA and CRU have learned absolutely nothing.
Note to the person who’s running the BOT to keep posting one star like you did the last top post where over 1000 “1” star votes were logged (a new record). I have your IP address from the widget. If you keep it up, I’ll register a complaint with your ISP. In the meantime, “grow up”.
– Anthony
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The conscience that released the emails was remarkably current with the guilty consciences of the scientists involved.
Just sayin’.
========
Mr McIntyre shredded my previously strongly held convictions about global warming with his various articles on the Yamal Chronology. His work pulled me out of ignorance and into the light of truth. It was a link to an article at WUWT, posted in a comment at Climate Audit that brought me here. I will never be able to thank him enough.
One tree and constantly disturbed lake sediments, two of the most unreliable proxies. A dishonest rewrite of the last 1000yrs of global temperatures.
What exactly is being taught in classrooms regards the global past temperatures?
Don’t these ‘beings’ responsible care about the doom and gloom being preached in our classrooms!
Do these people have a conscience? When Mann’s hockey stick was criticised for wiping out the MWP, they thought up the absurd excuse that the MWP was only a regional phenomenon. Then they had to disguise it int their own data.
The worst thing is that there as thick as brick Senators in Australia that believe and quote it.
McIntyre is single handedly taking apart the team. It is now clear (to even the British Press Council) just how disgraceful, FOI-breaching, email-deleting, and scientific-method abusing their behavior has been. There was a time when RealClimate tried to rebut the revelations. However, it is noticeable of late that Gavin et al have ceased even trying to spin the facts in their favor.
If you had to think up a viral plan to take down Western Civilization by planting an idea, the AGW conundrum would be hard to beat. They took too long. Natural Climate cycles kicked the Earth into reverse, and the emperor’s clothes did the rest.
I’m amazed at how shabby all of this is. These guys are a club of self-congratulating fools…wrapped up in their own mythical beliefs.
Mr. McIntyre’s work deserves a Nobel Prize in Science and another in Letters. The world is greatly indebted to Mr. McIntyre.
One tree to rule them all…
A continued defense of the stick is not a bad thing. The boys have taken their scientific posture as infallible. I have not seen a single case in which a member of the clique has said, “Yes, this result is probably inaccurate (or exaggerated, or whatever). Odd isn’t it? Only Pope Benedict is infallible and then only on matters of faith, as I understand it. So the more the boys defend the undefendable, the more credibility is lost, and the more isolated they become. So sue me.
I don’t think the CRU people, or our own warminists, are particularily worried about the science – or lack of it – any more. They’ve got the politicians and the media on their side and they don’t need anything or anyone else. THey’re producing propaganda at this point.
As a matter of routine, I hereby confess that I am an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate, with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
I do not understand anything of the case Mr McIntyre has presented so ask that readers just accept that I accept it in its entirety.
But I am sorry I find the indignation expressed above by bloggers naive.
So the UEA crew cherry picked data and used inappropriate methods to make a case. By so doing they were evidently doing what they were told to do, whether implicitly or explicitly, by the organizations in which they worked. Very possibly they made a substantial contribution towards the continuation of the organisation’s funding, thereby ensuring continuity of employment and ability to feed their families.
It seems to have been the same with the enquiry teams, Russell and Oxburgh: (1) They were themselves chosen by people who believed they would produce the required whitewash and duly came up with the goods, so improving their reputation for reliability and future employment prospects. (2) They may have taken the UEA crew’s duties to the university into consideration and felt it right to let them off.
And the polemicists, eg Bob Ward and Dr Pidgeon, do what their employers want.
All these people were merely doing their jobs – more or less well according to their abilities, the difficulties of the tasks and personal enthusiasm for the work.
Some elasticity in behaviour has been required, and, if my reading of contributions to this thread is correct, deplored as personal failures. But the way people have behaved is the consequence of the institutional arrangements. What the Climategate episode, and for that matter the whole CAGW scam, reveals is a failure, not even of individual institutional arrangements, but of the way the institutions have to work together. If blame has to be placed somewhere, I suppose it should be with Government.
I have no doubt that some who post to this blog will feel affronted by these views. I take their point – that scientists have an almost religious duty to search for the truth, and that the UEA crew departed from that path in order to establish a particular truth and achieve some other end. But, in the absence of so much data, climate science is bound to be somewhat political, and the characters behaved in more or less the same way as politicians, and nobody, I take it, would believe one of them without reservations. We live in a complicated world!
The attacks on the work must continue, but do try and lay off the people!
@Ecclesiastical Uncle
Contrary to your opinion that bloggers’ indignation is naive, informed sceptics are utterly disgusted at the hypocrisy of the scientists, who, on one hand, decry their lofty position as scientists as being ‘above’ such things, but on the other have utterly embraced the cause of their funding masters. I say that because they have gone to the extent of abusing the scientific method (‘hide the decline‘) and subverting the peer review process (as revealed by the ‘Climategate emails’).
Many here (myself included) have gone though their own process of transformation from ‘warmist’ to ‘sceptic’ as a result of self study (of ‘both sides’). The devil is in the detail, particularly on Yamal and the other tree-ring issues. It takes time to do such reading, but it is recommended.
So, should we lay off the people – or more precisely their behaviour? They may not enjoy the limelight that their success and leading position in climate science has brought, however that they enjoy their career success is not in doubt. That success has come through the duplicity of portraying themselves as being above the base motivations of which many accuse sceptics (funding from industry to push one side of a debate), while being drawn into that very position themselves. While the aim is to avoid ad hominem comments, certain people’s behaviour has led to the elevation of AGW to its present position and their behaviour has produced the work that needs to be challenged.
To Rhoda R above: the only thing the warmanists (I prefer warmongers) have to fear is Mother Nature herself. She will have the last word.
I remember the Yamal story breaking and getting taken over by Climategate. I wonder if the whistleblower will ever reveal him/herself? And if you are reading this, do you have any more info to release?!
The cost of fuel, as well as energy, has smashed through the roof thanks to the eco-loon policies brought about by insane climate “science” and criminally inept politicians. Ordinary people, who are growing increasingly aware of the AGW scam, are becoming very angry as well as much poorer. Fortunately, tumbrils don’t require petrol and since they are a “green” method of transport we’ll get nice fat subsidies to build as many as it takes…
/sarc
Mike Bromley says: April 9, 2011 at 8:13 pm
I’m amazed at how shabby all of this is. These guys are a club of self-congratulating fools…wrapped up in their own mythical beliefs.
A third rate bunch of people, in a new subject sprung out of “ecology” allowed to dumb down their ethics to “make the line fit” their preconceived notions, etc. A surprise?
That’s not what is amazing. Science isn’t some kind of police state, so there aren’t Gestapo style rule enforcers swooping down on rogue subjects to force them back into line. It usually works by peer (I mean science peer not climategate type peer) pressure to adhere to the scientific principle or suffer the disdain of the rest of science.
But when it goes wrong, when you get a rogue subject that just refuses to adhere to proper science and basically holds two fingers up to scientific ethics, what is amazing is that the “scientific” elite could possibly have condoned their activities.
It wasn’t the burglary that created watergate, but the attempted coverup. Likewise, it is not the third rate “science” at UEA that made climategate, but the attempted coverup by the “inquiries”.
As a matter of routine, I hereby confess that I am an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate, with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
I do not understand anything of the case Mr McIntyre has presented so ask that readers just accept that I accept it in its entirety.
But I am sorry I find indignation and disapproval expressed above by some bloggers somewhat disingenuous.
So the UEA crew cherry picked data and used inappropriate methods to make a case. But making the case was evidently what they were told to do, whether implicitly or explicitly, by the organizations in which they worked. Very possibly they made a substantial contribution towards the continuation of the organisation’s funding, thereby ensuring continuity of employment and ability to feed their families.
It seems to have been the same with the enquiry teams, Russell and Oxburgh: (1) They were themselves chosen by people who believed they would produce the required whitewash and duly came up with the goods, so improving their reputation for reliability and future employment prospects. (2) They may have taken the UEA crew’s duties to the university into consideration and felt it right to let them off.
And the polemicists, eg Bob Ward and Dr Pidgeon, do what they do.
All these people were merely doing their jobs – more or less well according to their abilities, the difficulties of the tasks and personal enthusiasm for the work.
Some elasticity in behaviour has been required, and, if my reading of some contributions to this thread is correct, deplored as personal failures. But the way people have behaved is the consequence of the institutional arrangements. What the Climategate episode, and for that matter the whole CAGW scam, reveals is a failure, not even of individual institutional arrangements, but of the way these the institutions have to work together. If blame has to be placed somewhere, I suppose it should be with Government.
I have no doubt that some who post to this blog will feel affronted by these views. I take their point – scientists have a duty to search for the truth, and that the UEA crew departed from that path in order to establish a particular truth and achieve some other end. But, in the absence of so much data, climate science is bound to be somewhat political, and the characters behaved in more or less the same way as politicians do, and nobody, I take it, would believe one of them without reservations. We live in a complicated world!
And might not many of the failures to provide data in response to FOI requests and the like have been because they simply lost it and when found, after searching through all sorts of discarded rubbish, they found that it was so in so much of a bxxxer’s muddle it could not be sent off, at least until a lot of cleaning up had been completed? Instances of sloppy work and archiving rather than deliberate obfuscation.
The attacks on the work must continue, but do try and lay off the people!
The problem with refusals and hiding is that it makes people think there is seomething worth finding out about. Something along the lines of: “There’s no smoke without fire.”
Ecclesiastical Uncle:
At April 9, 2011 at 10:12 pm you say of the UEA conspirators and those who have whitewashed their activities;
“All these people were merely doing their jobs – more or less well according to their abilities, the difficulties of the tasks and personal enthusiasm for the work.”
Sorry, but No!
Acting under orders is NOT – and must always be prevented from being – a valid defence for any nefarious activity. Google Nuremburg Trials if you want to know why.
Richard
Anthony,
It always amazed me that the focus of climate science is on to the last 150 years out of 4.5 billion years.
This missed a great deal of evidence on how the atmosphere’s changed and the planet evolved. There are so many mistakes made that is is mind boggling.
Did anyone really think you could get temperature reconstructions from trees?
….and that was all you could get?
ZT says:
April 9, 2011 at 6:32 pm
“…However, it is noticeable of late that Gavin et al have ceased even trying to spin the facts in their favor.”
And that’s too bad. We want them to stick their feet in their mouths as much as possible. We want them to constantly discredit themselves with their goofy logic and spin tactics and abusive behavior.
It is true that the Hockey Stick and then climate gate and the e-mails have given us much horrifying insight into the workings of The Team.
The shenanigans of pal review were equally horrifying.
But I agree with Jimmy Haigh above: the saga of the Yamal Tree was what got me drawn into CA, even though it was a bit above my pay grade then.
After a steep learning curve, I am glad that Steve McIntyre is revisiting this. It is indeed an icon of both his audit and of the stupidity of the AGW defenders.
How can any scientist – climate or otherwise – justify this?
There is no way to minimize the impact of the CO2 Saga.
Ecclesiastical Uncle:
“Very possibly they made a substantial contribution towards the continuation of the organisation’s funding, thereby ensuring continuity of employment and ability to feed their families.”
6 billion people manage to feed their families without resorting to falsifying scientific data. I’m sure they could have found some honest work to earn a living like most of the rest of us.
I just watched a documentary on the capture of Adolf Eichmann in 1960. One defense he offered at his trial was of only following orders. He was sentenced to death.
Joe Lalonde says:
“It always amazed me that the focus of climate science is on to the last 150 years out of 4.5 billion years.”
The important period is the 450 million years of continuous life on this planet without the climate tipping into extremes despite widely varying levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.