Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Y’know, some of these climate games are getting kind of boring. I’m tired of people who are paid with my taxes hiding their data, results, and findings. Case in point, the “Community Earth System Model” of the University Center for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). They describe their model as:
The Community Earth System Model (CESM) is a fully-coupled, global climate model that provides state-of-the-art computer simulations of the Earth’s past, present, and future climate states.
Figure 1. The forcings and major flows in the CACM1.0 model. Source
OK, fine. This new CESM model is the successor to the CCSM3.0 climate model. People always tout the fact that the CESM code is open source, so you can investigate their results. I wanted to find out more about the CCSM3.0 model, in particular the forcings used in the AR4 simulations of the 20th century. What could go wrong?
Well, the first thing to go wrong is that you have to register to read their data. I don’t like that, but I can live with it. But then I find out that I can’t just register—I need to be approved by the good folks at UCAR to even view their holy climate results, we wouldn’t want just anyone reading them I guess …
About 95% of the UCAR funding comes from my taxes, and I need their approval to see their results??? C’mon, fools, this is not secret Al-Qaeda documents or the floor plan to Fort Knox, it’s just your stupid model results. Why are you making it hard to access?
Having no option, I applied to get access to the repository where they store the sacred results and forcings of the model runs. I figured OK, I can play their games. So I applied for the lowest level of access, read-only.
But this being climate science, today it got worse, viz:
- From: XXX <XXX@cgd.ucar.edu>
- Subject: Your request for access to the CESM repository was declined.
- Date: May 6, 2011 12:49:13 PM PDT
- Your request for access to the CESM repository was declined.You still have access to all public releases of CESM. Go to http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/models/ for access to the public model releases.
- Title:
- First Name: Willis
- Middle initial:
- Last name: Eschenbach
- Account name: XXX
- My position: climate researcher
- Primary working group: Climate Change and Assessment
- Relevant working groups: Atmosphere Model:Climate Variability:
- Type of access: Level-1: Read-only
- Summary of work: Analyzing the relationship of forcing to output of cesm models
- List of CESM collaborators: None
- Start date: Now
- End date: 2 years after starting
- Submission date: 5/6/2011
- Acceptance status: Declined
- Password issued: no
- Remarks on status: please use released cesm1 code base
Oooooh, that angrified my blood mightily, and I waxed wroth. I am ashamed to say that I generally disturbed the peace of the neighborhood with my voluble speculations on the species and personal habits of their ancestors, and with my loud suggestions that the good folks of UCAR should perform anatomically improbable forms of sexual auto-congress …
And Judith Curry and other people wonder why the public doesn’t trust climate scientists, and why their message is so widely disbelieved? In general, the public rightly assumes that people who hide something … have something to hide. Bozo logic, I know, but strangely, people believe it.
I can’t tell you how tired I am of this petty, provincial, and anti-scientific ‘you have to say the secret password before I’ll show you my results’ point of view. I have linked to this post in my response to the charming UCAR fellow … we’ll see how it plays out. Yeah, I know I should have written to them to straighten it out before posting, and if this were my first rodeo I would have done that. At this point, I’ve been stuffed around by this kind of nonsense too many times, I’m tired of being Mr. Nice Guy.
And more to the point, there is absolutely no reason for them to restrict access in the first place. It is non-secret, non-sensitive public data paid for by public money, and the public should have full and unfettered access to read it any time, without preconditions.
w.
[UPDATED May 7, ’11] If anyone else would like to join in the hunt, what I am looking for are the numbers underlying the graphics shown on this page. Month-by-month global values for the forcing variables. I’d prefer if they were in GISS style, where all of the forcings are expressed in W/m2, but raw concentrations (e.g. ppmv) are fine too.
[UPDATED May 8, ’11] Well, the powers that be have decided to let me in, and I’ve found what I need. My thanks to Steven Mosher and Derecho64 for the assistance. I’ll post up the results in Excel form once I convert them (the ozone data alone is almost 2 GBytes).
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The problem, Willis, is that you have no middle initial. Without one, your identity is too readily identifiable. 😉
“And more to the point, there is absolutely no reason for them to restrict access in the first place.”
Actually, there are lots of good reasons: You are going to look at their data and find stuff wrong with it, and then ask more questions, and find stuff wrong with their answers, and such behavior will financially harm them, cause some politician, who controls the purse strings may cut them off.
Everything would be so much better if would just SHUT UP, and get out of the way of those dedicated scientists feeding at the public trough.
And so for those reasons, you won’t be able to see the data.
Why is there no reason given for declining your request?
How do you further your argument if you don’t know the basis for being declined?
Sounds like you might hit the child’s rationale of “‘cos I said so”.
Well, I just applied as a “taxpayer who helped fund this research”. Let’s see what response I get.
I have in a past life had a top secret NOFORN CRYPTO clearance. Maybe I can get it.
Aparently their best model isn’t quite “best enough” for peeping eyes and the light of day.
NORFORN slowly waving a hand…”These aren’t the GCMs you are looking for”.
OK then, UCAR should not get any more public funding until they allow free access to their data. Can someone start that process going?
Position: Concerned citizen that pays taxes that pays YOUR salary
Maybe if you tried that…
I like your model of how the money flows in this kind of scheme . . . . You must realize Bernie Maddoff was playing his game 30 years before it exploded in everyone else’s accounts and he was goooooood at his game . . .
I do have my hobbies . . . . and one of them is trying to predict where trends are going or seeing patterns in charts of data . . . and then projecting the future of those patterns . . . and when it comes to ponzi con schemes of any kind they must have a maintain a certain momentum until a saturation point . . . then just like a rain cloud it rains itself out . . . .
And just like people like Bernie Madoff destroyed the confidence of Wallstreet’s . . . everyone suffered!
What data are you looking for exactly?
model source code or forcing inputs?
Why should they give it to you, you might find something wrong with it.
Ok – put in a FOIA request asking for a list of the components of the system which are covered by GPL.
My bet is there is at least one.
At least they appear to be trying to do something right:
“Capturing heat islands in climate models. A team of scientists led by NCAR’s Keith Oleson has incorporated urban areas into a global climate model. The development is important because most models used for predicting future climate change do not account for the urban “heat island” effect. The study will be published in the International Journal of Climatology. Oleson and colleagues used the Community Climate System Model, an NCAR-based model that uses trillions of calculations to simulate the chemical and physical processes that drive Earth’s climate.”
However, please join me in writing our legislators asking that they withhold funds from UCAR until they comply with public access to data and models for public funded research.
Not sharing data, analysis techniques and computer codes are the hallmarks of those who participate in the ‘science’ of the climate industry.
This is an understandable philosophy for those making hi-tech nuclear weapons or rockets – but for climate ‘scientists’?
So clearly there is lots to hide, lots to keep from the prying eyes and minds of those real scientists and statisticians who can readily shred the fraudulent logic/findings of the climate ‘scientists’.
ABOUT CESM
The Community Climate Model (CCM) was created by NCAR in 1983 as a freely available global atmosphere model for use by the wider climate research community.
The long-term goals of the CESM project are simple but ambitious. They are:
to make the model readily available to, and usable by, the climate research community, and to actively engage the community in the ongoing process of model development;
UCAR is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization and, as such, is subject to specific federal, state, and local laws regarding sources of income, political activities, use of property, and similar matters.
“The electrical dust is starting to rust
Her trapezoid thermometer taste
All the red tape is mechanical rape
Of the TV program waste
Data control and IBM
Science is mankind’s brother”
Jefferson Airplane
It is all about data control.
Just another case of “we have too much invested in the data to share it with those whose only objective is to find something wrong with it.” As Willis has said in his own way, it is OUR TAXES they have invested in it. The stupid models are OURS. The meaningless results of the stupid models are OURS. Stupid.
As somebody else said (I’m paraphrasing), if the planet is in deep peril from global warming, why hide data and model results?
“Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?” Phil Jones
start here
http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/models/cesm1.0/
RTFM
http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/models/cesm1.0/cesm/
Code browser is open
http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/models/cesm1.0/cesm/cesmAbrowser/
http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/models/cesm1.0/cesm/cesmBbrowser/
Some results
http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/experiments/cesm1.0/
registered for access to SVN. got it in 10 seconds
The only thing really surprising about this is that you were surprised by it. Sadly.
Willis, you should stop waxing wroth. Let Roth wax you this time.
[from one of my favorite movies, with apologies to S.J.Perelman]
mkelly
May 6, 2011 at 2:46 pm
I have in a past life had a top secret NOFORN CRYPTO clearance. Maybe I can get it.
###
But did you also have COSMIC ATAMOL and CNWD?
BTW, do you know what a Bi-Stable Ferromagnetic Switching device (Bi-mag) is, or if you are too young for that, what a KIK-26 is?
Entirely new definition of open source.
Downloading input data
Input datasets are needed to run the model. CESM input data will be made available
through a separate Subversion input data repository. The username and password
for the input data repository will be the same as for the code repository.
Note: The input data repository contains datasets for many configurations and resolutions
and is well over 1 TByte in total size. DO NOT try to download the entire dataset.
Datasets can be downloaded on a case by case basis as needed and CESM now provides tools to check and download input data automatically.
A local input data directory should exist on the local disk, and it also needs to be
set in the CESM scripts via the variable $DIN_LOC_ROOT_CSMDATA. For
supported machines, this variable is preset. For generic machines, this variable
is set as an argument to create_newcase. Multiple users can share the same
$DIN_LOC_ROOT_CSMDATA directory.
The files in the subdirectories of $DIN_LOC_ROOT_CSMDATA should be writeprotected. This prevents these files from being accidentally modified or deleted. The
directories in $DIN_LOC_ROOT_CSMDATA should generally be group writable, so
the directory can be shared among multiple users.
As part of the process of generating the CESM executable, the utility,
check_input_data is called, and it attempts to locate all required input data for the
case based upon file lists generated by components. If the required data is not found
on local disk in $DIN_LOC_ROOT_CSMDATA, then the data will be downloaded
automatically by the scripts or it can be downloaded by the user by invoking
check_input_data with the -export command argument. ”
So basically Willis you have to register for the public release of version 1.
That is dead easy.
Then you have go to the special subversion repository ( same username and password) for input data. Then you have to run some programs to download the input data. see page 13 of the user guide.
Hope that helps. Its not like you get to an FTP site and get to click on files