Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Whoever took the Climategate emails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) are certainly playing the long game. Two whole years they waited before publishing the second group of 5,292 CRU emails, now known as Climategate 2.0. Impressive. I’m mentioned in 17 of the emails, because I made the first Freedom of Information Act (FOI) request to Phil Jones and the CRU to release his taxpayer-funded temperature data collection. Phil at the time was the head of the CRU. His data collection was and is the basis for one of the major global temperature records.
At the time they fobbed me off using a succession of excuses. They claimed the information was available on the web. But they were unable to say where. They put me off and put me off. My contemporaneous account of the CRU and the FOI lunacy is a posting on ClimateAudit entitled “Measuring Precipitation on Willis’ Boots“. (Not my title, that was Steve McIntyre’s). You should read it first for a concise background, it’s important for understanding the following story. I’ll wait here while you read it …
Eventually, after much time, long after I’d given up the chase as hopeless, the CRU folks admitted that the reason they didn’t release the data was that they didn’t have the data. Somewhere along the line, it had been lost.
Mr. David Palmer was the Freedom of Information Officer for the CRU at the time. In the newly released emails, he expresses his frustration with the whole procedure. I absolutely love his honesty at the time, but unfortunately, it’s a shame he didn’t say the same thing publicly. These latest emails fill in some very interesting holes in the story with new information that wasn’t revealed in the first set of Climategate emails.
From David Palmer to Phil Jones, regarding my FOI request, email #1184, April 2007 (emphasis mine):
Gents,
My head is beginning to spin here but I read this as meaning that he wants the raw station data; we don’t know which data belongs to which station, correct? Our letter stated:
“We can, however, send a list of all stations used, but without sources. This would include locations, names and lengths of record, although the latter are no guide as to the completeness of the series.”
Can we put this on the web? Perhaps I am being really thick here but I’m not sure if putting this on the web will actually satisfy Mr. Eschenbach – we’ve said we don’t have data sources, he says the external websites don’t have them, so who does? Are we back to the NMS’s? [National Meteorological Services -w.] I am happy to give this one more go, stating exactly what we are putting on the web and seeing if that suffices. Should Mr. Eschenbach still insist that we actually possess the information in the form he requests, I can then only give the file to Kitty Inglis for review and then we move on formally….
Cheers, Dave
Dave is right, there’s yer problem. “We don’t know which data belongs to which station, correct?”. That’s staggering, it’s gotta be in the running for some kind of truth in advertising award. Shame he wasn’t that honest with me. Instead, he worked hard to obscure that fact.
Phil Jones isn’t having any of it, though. He replies to David Palmer’s email on 23 April 2007 (emphasis again mine)
Dave,
…
I do not want to make the raw data available, as it will involve more and more requests. We make the gridded data available and that should be enough.
I think it would be worthwhile having a meeting involving a few more people in the light of the Keenan letter and what has been said on the Climate Audit website from Friday.
This to my mind is bullying and virtual harrasment. This is not for any reasonable scientific point. It is quite simply harrasment. These people are self appointed.
Cheers
Phil
My conclusion after all this time is that Phil truly didn’t get it. He actually didn’t understand. He was not the owner of private data. He was the curator of public data. He didn’t understand that FOI requests are legal documents. Throughout the whole episode he treated them as some kind of optional request to grant or not as he saw fit. In this he was aided and abetted by David Palmer.
Upon reading this email, I was very curious to find out what had gotten Phil’s knickers in a twist regarding “what has been said on the Climate Audit website from Friday”. Upon looking up the ClimateAudit post from Friday, April 20, 2007, I laughed when I found out that what Phil was referring to as “bullying and virtual harassment” was the post I cited above and requested that you read. I’m sure you picked up on how I was “bullying and virtually harassing” Professor Jones.
So that was what Phil was complaining about—me pointing out the foolishness of their various excuses. And on that basis he said that would not make the raw data available, as though me laughing at his transparent dodges were a valid exemption to an FOI request.
I note that over at RealClimate they are desperately trying to spin this as two-year-old turkey. However, it’s not just my case that has new information. Regarding a host of other issues, the recent emails contain much previously unrevealed evidence of the perfidy, subversion, misdirection, and malfeasance practiced by the Climategate un-indicted co-conspirators. Among many other things, they provide clear evidence of the destruction of incriminating emails. This was not just “boys will be boys”. This was the leading lights of the AGW supporting scientists, working together to deny access to publicly funded climate data, and twisting, bending and breaking the scientific norms, FOI regulations, and possibly the law in the process. And that’s just what they did in my case, that doesn’t even begin to touch their other misdeeds that they discuss in detail.
The discouraging part is that, to this day, not a person among them has admitted that they did anything incorrect in the slightest. Not one has acknowledged that they went a ways, not just a little ways, but a long ways over the line of ethics, morality, and honesty. No one has said they did a single thing wrong, no one has admitted they evaded an honest FOI request. Silence.
And silence, unfortunately, has also been the overwhelming response of the climate science community to their misdeeds. The miscreants say nothing, their supporters say nothing, they keep awarding each other honors and prizes, and they hope it will go away.
Ah, well. The saddest part is that the new revelations of the unthinking, off-hand venality of these main scientists of the AGW movement have lost their power to shock. That is a tragedy for climate science in particular and for science in general.
Finally, my particular thanks to Steve McIntyre for his part in all of this. Not that he advised me or told me to file the FOI in question, he didn’t do either. That was my own idea and choice. But his dogged persistence, his insistence on and demonstration of transparency of code and data, and his general Canadian generosity, honesty, and geniality have been an inspiration to me. His work is generally an example of the scientific method at its cleanest.
My best regards to all,
w.
PS—Interestingly, whoever released the emails also released a whole host of other CRU emails in a password protected archive. The purpose of this archive remains obscure, and the password has not been provided. At a minimum the publication of the archive ensures that the other emails will not be lost in a hard drive crash, or seized by the authorities. Whether it constitutes a warning or a message, and to whom it might be addressed, is unclear. Grab a beer and some popcorn, this story’s not over.
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Thank you for spelling this all out in a clear and concise (dare I say scientific) fashion….. it is appreciated
Persistence frequently pays off Willis.
Perhaps if every peer reviewed paper that relied on data that has since been lost, was withdrawn. And also any later papers that referenced them for support, then, just maybe, scientists would look after their archives a bit better.
Willis, thank you for all your hard work. Also your posts. Informative as always.
I agree with you Willis, that the silence is deafening.
These so called scientists indulged in this behaviour (and continue to do so) for many years.
There is evidence of corruption, conspiracy and other illegal activity in the first batch of E-Mails and that has lead to ,,well nothing nada from the establishment.
We appear to at the stage where the scientists could declare that white was black and they would be supported the Royal Society and the rest of the so called institutions.
Exceprt from a post I made at Judith’s place
‘We already know that Phil Jones – along with Mike Mann – believes that as a ‘Climatologist’ he has been granted some special immunity from adhering to normally accepted standards of professional behaviour and integrity. And in the case of FoI – the law of the land as well.
The only remaining question for me is whether this comes from sheer academic naivete, or through an earlier flawed assessment that nobody would ever dare to catch him.
In Mann’s case, the answer is clear. The jury is still out on Jones’
In other words
Is Phil Jones a fool or a charlatan? Or both?
Why would we expect anything else from ‘climate scientists’?
“we don’t know which data belongs to which station, correct?”
Exhibit A as to why the Original unedited Data is needed:
~ “I swear I pulled every trick out of my sleeve trying to milk something out of that. ”
~ “I don’t think it’d be productive to try and juggle the chronology statistics any more than I already have”
#3998
Jones mindset.
From #5303
Ian,
I have too much on to think about this. This meeting isn’t really about my area – the
science of climate change. It is more about doing something.
I know there are climate change deniers trying to malign some of the research going on.
They do not write any of this in the scientific literature, only on right wing blog sites.
All the climate scientists I know though are fully behind the conclusions of the last IPCC
Report in 2007. There is no doubt the world is warming and will continue to warm.
Cheers
Phil
I made the first Freedom of Information Act (FOI) request to Phil Jones and the CRU to release his taxpayer-funded temperature data collection. Phil at the time was the head of the CRU. His data collection was and is the basis for one of the major global temperature records.
Willis, when can we expect your analysis now that you have all the data? I’m sure there must be a lot wrong with it.
[Günther, what makes you think that now we have all the data? -w.]
“but unfortunately, it’s a shame he didn’t say the same thing publicly. ”
From just a quick look at many of the excerpts that I have seen posted, it seems that applies to many of the scientists as well.
All is not well in the CAGW camp.
” …the perfidy, subversion, misdirection, and malfeasance practiced by the Climategate un-indicted co-conspirators.” Nicely phrased, sir. Bunchabloodycrooks lacks elegance by comparison.
Palmer: “We don’t know which data belongs to which station, correct?”
Was it Palmer’s official function to enable the FOIA to be complied with fully or to help the institution to thwart FOIA requests?
The tone of that comment suggests that, whatever he was supposed to be doing, he was doing the latter. After all, he wasn’t saying “Are you sure we can’t figure out which data belongs to which station?”. It sounds more like “this is the excuse we could use, nod, nod, wink, wink.”
Phil Jones, rising above the fray of handwringing, washes his hands in a bowl of water.
#0344 is a great e-mail chain on UAE and FOI strategery.
Bloke down the pub says:
November 23, 2011 at 3:15 am
Persistence frequently pays off Willis.
Perhaps if every peer reviewed paper that relied on data that has since been lost, was withdrawn. And also any later papers that referenced them for support, then, just maybe, scientists would look after their archives a bit better.
Fully agree.
This should be done in every branch of science. There are citing engines around that would allow every paper that cites a suspect paper to be ‘asterixed’ as “Based on Unreliable Paper Unsupported By Data” any paper based on that paper would also be asterixed.
Such papers should then be disallowed as supporting PhD research papers and be a block on publication.
As Jones so beautifully projects: “These people are self appointed.”
artwest says:
November 23, 2011 at 4:40 am
I find it difficult to believe that Palmer could have been unaware of the extent to which Jones and Briffa were (as stated by themselves in some of the emails) deleting emails. This is one area which needs revisiting given the whitewash applied by the various ‘inquiries’ to the issue of email deletion.
Palmer: “We don’t know which data belongs to which station, correct?”
No surprise about that, if you recall the Harry_Read_Me file from the earlier Climategate release. Harry was a UEA employee (an insider working with the station data), and his frustration was evident in his running commentary.
The Harry_Read_Me file documents that Harry was not able to duplicate the CRU TS2.1 result using CRU’s own programs and data files! Then he documents his efforts trying to get the data files to work for Version 3. No wonder Jones didn’t want anyone else to see them.
Harry says –
* “am I the first person to attempt to get the CRU databases in working order?!!
* “But I am beginning to wish I could just blindly merge based on WMO code.. the trouble is that then I’m continuing the approach that created these broken databases.”
* “So, we can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!”
* “Here, the expected 1990-2003 period is MISSING – so the correlations aren’t so hot! Yet the WMO codes and station names /locations are identical (or close). What the hell is supposed to happen here? Oh yeah – there is no ’supposed’, I can make it up. So I have :-)”
… more details on his frustration with trying to work with the temperature data files, starting with Australia …
Harry says –
“getting seriously fed up with the state of the Australian data. so many new stations have been introduced, so many false references.. so many changes that aren’t documented. Every time a cloud forms I’m presented with a bewildering selection of similar-sounding sites, some with references, some with WMO codes, and some with both. And if I look up the station metadata with one of the local references, chances are the WMO code will be wrong (another station will have it) and the lat/lon will be wrong too.”
“I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations, one with no WMO and one with, usually overlapping and with the same station name and very similar coordinates. I know it could be old and new stations, but why such large overlaps if that’s the case? Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight.”
“Wrote ‘makedtr.for’ to tackle the thorny problem of the tmin and tmax databases not being kept in step. Sounds familiar, if worrying. am I the first person to attempt to get the CRU databases in working order?!!”
“…and just when I thought it was done I’m hitting yet another problem that’s based on the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform data integrity, it’s just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they’re found.”
I wonder how many British citizens will report the failure to follow FOI requirements.
After reading this I am beginning to sense a pattern as to why these climategate releases are happening over such a long time frame and in the way that they are. Excuse me whilst I don a ‘tin-foil hat’ and please indulge me in wild theorising for a moment but, perhaps these leaks are coming from the team themselves?
The first tranche caused a stir, had several whitewashes exonerate them and so they carry on…. What was revealed in the first tranche was prima facie evidence of bullying of journals and dishonest reporting within scientific publications and much else besides. Nothing that obviously rises to the level of outright fraud, but stuff that is clearly wrong, but with the right corporate, political and media spin, could be harmlessly ignored. It has hurt “the cause”, but not fatally and they had time to prepare for further releases.
This second tranche offers much more damning context, and shows alongside the first tranche, motivation to mislead, lie, obfuscate in publications and mislead the public. They wanted to present a wholly false level of consensus and absolute certainty, yet in these emails many of the key players express exactly the same doubts as those who they maliciously insult as ‘deniers’, then they go on to deny those doubts in public and present a false impression of the “science” in order to materially benefit from further research grants and the pursuit of academic prestige.
Had both tranches been released at once, then the investigations would not have had as easy a time covering these things up.
I am now more sure than ever that the remaining 22,000 emails and accompanying data in the encrypted file will show the whole picture and be much more damning and the mainstream media, the mainstream politicians and corporate interests who are making a fortune from this climate con, will continue to cover up and claim that these new releases are simply “malicious leaks from deniers which actually show nothing new” in the hope to distract everyone from what is actually being released.
Yes this is a high-risk strategy, but the alternative could be far worse for them.
Having parts of the picture released in this way allows the team to deal with each bit of new truth as it emerges with minimal damage to their “cause” (which is what they are confusing real science with, BTW) Had all this information come out, including the as yet non-public 22,000 emails, all at once due to the original lawful freedom of information requests, then the team would not have been able to contain the full extent of how utterly unscientific they have been in promoting and protecting their “cause” and how dishonest they have been. It would most likely be game over for the team and their acolytes.
This is how they get the information out whilst causing as little damage to their cause as possible as they hope each new tranche will have less and less impact as their co-conspirators in politics and the media keep covering up for them.
We are seeing much more of the same spin from the media and the alarmists as during climategate 1.0. Now with the addition of constant reminders of the
whitewashes,cover-ups, inquiries. The “nothing to see here” meme is sure sign that actually there is lots to see here, but they are desperate to avoid mass-public discovery of their deceit.Very well put Willis. If only the media would take interest. So far there is nary a peep. Even Sun News here in .ca is mum on the topic. (They should be ashamed!) I get the feeling it isn’t just the gang at UAE that are working to hide all this dirt. They are all keeping quiet and hoping it goes away — just like the economy.
A very big thank you Willis, I just wish I had your style.
“I do not want to make the raw data available, as it will involve more and more requests. We make the gridded data available and that should be enough.”
And evaluating how accurately the raw data was converted to gridded is precisely the first step in ensuring that the data being used is correct. That they insist on concealing it is the reason so many people, myself included, have suspected politically motivated fraud from the start. I still find it inconceivable that anyone who would claim the title “scientist” would be unable to understand or acknowledge the importance of evaluating the raw data and its analysis as the critical first step in reproducing the result.
Add the constant personal attacks on anyone who questions, let alone challenges, their findings, the distortions and misrepresentations of alternate hypotheses, and these people have so damaged the public understanding of science and scientists …
I dislike imputing motives, but I can only understand this entire charade as an arrogant, ideological passion.
As I said on Revin’s site, If I had to pick just one email which demonstrates the sheer nasty ill-intent of some of these people, I’d pick this one by Michael Mann: “I have been talking w/ folks in the states about finding an investigative journalist to investigate and expose McIntyre, and his thus far unexplored connections with fossil fuel interests.Perhaps the same needs to be done w/ this Keenan guy.
I believe that the only way to stop these people is by exposing them and
discrediting them.”
Wow. Now bear in mind that it’s more than likely than Mann well understands McIntyre is no more motivated by “fossil fuel interests” than the man in the moon. This is exactly what it looks like, a petty, nasty human being who’s willing to destroy someone’s reputation in order to protect his own, discredited work.
“I do not want to make the raw data available, as it will involve more and more requests.”
What exactly is the problem with releasing everything involved for a government funded project and having it posted on the universities website? One would think that if you REALLY believed in the validity of the results, you would want to explicitly detail every fact so that NOBODY could dispute the results. And they actually wonder why people are skeptical?