Alternate title: Something wonky this way comes
I try to get away to work on my paper and the climate world explodes, pulling me back in. Strange things are happening related to the BEST data and co-authors Richard Muller and Judith Curry. Implosion might be a good word.
Popcorn futures are soaring. BEST Co-author Judith Curry drops a bombshell:
Her comments, in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, seem certain to ignite a furious academic row. She said this affair had to be compared to the notorious ‘Climategate’ scandal two years ago.
Here’s the short timeline.
1. The GWPF plots a flat 10 year graph using BEST data:
2. The Mail on Sunday runs a scathing article comparing BEST’s data plotted by GWPF and the data presented in papers. They print this comparison graph:
Note: timescales don’t match on graphs above, 200 years/10 years. A bit naughty on the part of the Sunday Mail to put them together as many readers won’t notice.
3. Dr. Judith Curry, BEST co-author, turns on Muller, in the Mail on Sunday article citing “hide the decline”:
In Prof Curry’s view, two of the papers were not ready to be published, in part because they did not properly address the arguments of climate sceptics.
As for the graph disseminated to the media, she said: ‘This is “hide the decline” stuff. Our data show the pause, just as the other sets of data do. Muller is hiding the decline.
‘To say this is the end of scepticism is misleading, as is the statement that warming hasn’t paused. It is also misleading to say, as he has, that the issue of heat islands has been settled.’
Prof Muller said she was ‘out of the loop’. He added: ‘I wasn’t even sent the press release before it was issued.’
…
But although Prof Curry is the second named author of all four papers, Prof Muller failed to consult her before deciding to put them on the internet earlier this month, when the peer review process had barely started, and to issue a detailed press release at the same time.
He also briefed selected journalists individually. ‘It is not how I would have played it,’ Prof Curry said. ‘I was informed only when I got a group email. I think they have made errors and I distance myself from what they did.
‘It would have been smart to consult me.’ She said it was unfortunate that although the Journal of Geophysical Research had allowed Prof Muller to issue the papers, the reviewers were, under the journal’s policy, forbidden from public comment.
4. Ross McKittrick unloads:
Prof McKittrick added: ‘The fact is that many of the people who are in a position to provide informed criticism of this work are currently bound by confidentiality agreements.
‘For the Berkeley team to have chosen this particular moment to launch a major international publicity blitz is a highly unethical sabotage of the peer review process.’
5. According to BEST’s own data, Los Angeles is cooling, fast:
Of course they missed it. They cannot possibly afford to notice and display it.
error estimates on those plots if you please !!
Yes, yes, I know they would dwarf the “average” — that IS the point.
Dr Muller.
The sound you hear ring in your ear is the S**t hitting the fan.
Was it worth it?
This has never been about data, or science. This is all been about politics and control. AGW is Lysenkoism.
Look it up.
Muller is a Loose Cannon on Deck. There, I have said it for the umpteenth time. I am extremely pleased to read that Dr. Curry used the “hide the decline” line. Her name is on the paper with Muller. But she was not consulted and is faulting Muller for his pre-peer-review antics.
Anthony, do you honestly believe this is about the science. This has the reek of amateurish politics all over it. They do a media blitz with favorable outlets before peer review along with the purposeful intent of hamstringing the reviewers from comment.
By the time the fraud/incompetence is exposed, the damage is supposed to already be done with a false truth established in the minds of the general public. We skeptics are supposed to be behind the curve and put on the defensive. This is amateurish in that it is old school. Muller needs to crawl out from under his rock every now and then and take a look at the real world of information technology. They only damage he will succeed in doing is to his own reputation and tenure will be the only thing that keeps him his job.
I look at that temperature graph for Los Angeles and wonder how much of the portrayed 1ºC rise is do to UHI? I suspect more than 1ºC is. Puts a whole new perspective on climate-gate’s hide the decline, doesn’t it? Maybe the One Tree was right. Maybe we just have a hard time accepting what it tells us about the last 50 years?
Holly Molly.
BEST or WORST?
Or, he (they) knew they had results they didn’t like, and figured they get ahead of the game and unleash the propaganda early, hoping the truth would be obscured by the holiday season. Hey, when you’ve only got one shot, it’s best to get it off first. But they missed…..
Aw heck. The trolls were just starting to settle down, then a loose connection to the router, a bit of quiet, snow ten hours earlier than predicted here in Southern New England, and then THIS?
Ah Anthony what an exciting life you lead.
Not only a ringside seat at what promises to be a serious bout of Academic fisticuffs but one in which you have, to mix my metaphors, a dog in the fight.
Forget the work, sit back and enjoy.
Kindest Regards
Couldn’t happen to a nicer, more deserving guy.
/sarc
It’s been all about Durbin. If they could squeek the idea that the skeptics were wrong about station data until Durbin they won. After that, who would care if the graphs were proven to be junk or the articles were sunk under the weight of misinformation.
Poor Judy. Sleep with dogs, wake up with …
Now the BEST is worsening…..
Erm, on the subject of misleading graphs… that graph from the Mail could be worse I guess. They put the 10 year flat line against the whole century’s temperature. The first impression, and the one they intend, is hockey stick versus flat temps. No call for that kind of misrepresentation.
Re Los Angeles cooling rapidly: it’s not just Los Angeles, but the entire U.S. West Coast, as shown in the NCDC data (link below). One can select State/Region as California, then Climate Division as 1, then 4, and then 6 (north coast, central coast, and south coast) and look at the rapid drop in the temperatures for the past 7 to 8 years. The same is true for selecting State/Region = Oregon and Climate Division = 1. Same is true for Washington State and Climate Division = 1. The average of all the West Coast regions is approximately a decline 10-11 deg C per century.
Seems that the colder Pacific Ocean and sea level decline is also affecting the land-based temperatures. Meanwhile, CO2 continues to rise and rise and rise.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=tmp&month=9&year=2011&filter=12&state=4&div=1
Just when things were quieting down and you thought it was safe to turn on the fan …
My hypothesis:
1. The surface temperature has arisen due mainly to urbanization.
2. Urbanization is approaching saturation these years, in many cities globally.
An example is Tokyo: its surface temp rose by ca. 3 degC from 1880-2000, but remains nearly flat thereafter.
Curtis J. says:
October 29, 2011 at 9:13 pm
Erm, on the subject of misleading graphs… that graph from the Mail could be worse I guess. They put the 10 year flat line against the whole century’s temperature. The first impression, and the one they intend, is hockey stick versus flat temps. No call for that kind of misrepresentation.
===============================================================
Curtis, these are news people…… they obviously don’t know any better or they wouldn’t have fell for the first graph….. as I recollect it ended in 2006 or some crap. This is why I know Muller doesn’t know his head from his …… And this is why we saw some of the alarmist pan his work. They couldn’t accept it. It was even more flawed and intentionally misleading than what they usually do. It was too obvious.
BTW, about 40 hrs ago……. http://suyts.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/best-proves-that-the-earth-is-warming/ I’m not saying……. I’m just sayin….. 🙂
This makes no sense to me. Muller’s no dummy and he’s rightly, and in my view bravely, made a public stink about Mann’s decline hiding antics. That he would leave himself open to a similar charge (from one of his own co-authors yet) boggles the mind.
I will now summarize the follow up stories by the liberal media including the UK Guardian, Washington Post, NY Times, etc. concerning this little bit of criticism of the veracity of the BEST study and the methods of the scientists involved.
_____________.
There you have it.
Judy, Judy, Judy! Come to the dark side, we have cookies 🙂
Anthony get back to work and don’t read this!
Judith has nothing to be embarrassed about in a “lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas” way. She made a good-faith cooperative effort of the kind that she stands for, and she has the gutsy honesty to call the results as she sees them. It’s Muller who has some splainin to do.
And yes, it does boggle the mind. I can’t help thinking that fuddlesome forces behind the scenes are turning the science into a sitcom.
This is a side show to the actual main event, we have unusual deep early season snow in NYC and where’s Al Gore ?
I have no idea where he is but if he’s in the Big Apple this evening I’d say it’s game, set and match.