Quote of the week – 5th anniversary of Climategate

climategate-burn-tapes

5 years ago today, a cache of emails was dropped into the lap of several Climate blogs, including WUWT. Paul Matthews has a great writeup on it:

On 17th November 2009, comments appeared on a number of sceptic blogs such as here at the Air Vent. The comment started with the text:

“We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps.

We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents.

Hopefully it will give some insight into the science and the people behind it.

This is a limited time offer, download now:”

This was followed by a link to the file of emails and a brief summary of some of the contents.

What I think is the most succinct quote from Paul’s article is this:

“To me, the real scandal was not so much that two or three climate scientists behaved badly, but that virtually the entire climate science community tried to pretend that nothing was wrong”

More here: https://ipccreport.wordpress.com/2014/11/17/climategate-anniversary/

On November 19th, WUWT broke the story, and I’ll have some reflections on the past 5 years in a couple of days.

h/t to Barry Woods

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nigelf
November 17, 2014 4:33 pm

It was a glorious day indeed for we got to look into their souls. And what we found was suspected by many but not nearly to the extent that it proved to be.
Happy Climategate Day!

Jimbo
Reply to  nigelf
November 18, 2014 8:41 am

Many times since Climategate many commenters have said words to the effect of:

My journey into skepticism started with Climategate……..

It was a wonderful gift. On the post of 19th November 2009 WUWT had 1,616 comments!

Antonia
Reply to  Jimbo
November 19, 2014 1:42 am

Yep. Incredibly I had just stumbled upon WUWT for the first time that night and stayed up all night agog with excitement and reading calls for calmness in case it was a hoax. An unforgettable night. Thanks to whoever did it.

Jeff Mitchell
Reply to  nigelf
November 19, 2014 9:39 pm

This reminds me of the current discussion of Jonathan Gruber in the scope and magnitude of deception. It shows that the climate non-scientists were not alone in their disrespect of truth. When the climategate story was first published, I thought it was too good to be true.

November 17, 2014 4:40 pm

Climategate shows that climate science as it exists today is full of Jonathan Grubers, those bent on advancing a personal agenda rather than looking after the welfare of the world’s people. Let’s hope people wise up and demand the truth from people under our employ, and also the transparency that was promised us in 2008.

Cold in Wisconsin
November 17, 2014 4:41 pm

The defining moment that forged many a doubter into a true skeptic.

PaulH
November 17, 2014 4:47 pm

I had Comment Number 4 back then. 🙂 Happy 5th Anniversary, everyone!
I think the traditional gift for the 5th is wood. Perhaps a slice of tree rings? 🙂

rogerknights
Reply to  PaulH
November 18, 2014 1:02 am

I was #1–not that I had anything much to say.

michael hart
November 17, 2014 4:48 pm

Don’t forget

“Five years to save the planet”

How often have we heard that since David Bowie sang it in 1971?

November 17, 2014 4:49 pm

Unfortunately, little happened. However, we did continue to spend many, many billions of taxpayer dollars based on the AGW fairytale.
History will not look kindly on these people, especially in light of the myriad of serious problems we face around the world.

Reply to  Mike Smith
November 17, 2014 5:45 pm

I think a lot has happened.
Kyoto is dead.
Australia changed direction.
The US has no carbon tax or carbon trading scheme.
The president of the US just cut a bogus deal with the ChiComs to try and save face with the greens and is using the EPA which can be reversed by the next president. (so long as “congress shall make no law” we’re good.)
Germany will fail to meet CO2 goals
Five short years ago we were on the verge of a one world government.
Copenhagen was a done deal and everybody was on board except a few right wing oil shills.
I feel like we helped save humanity…
or at least delayed man’s demise by demanding truth.
The people smelt a rat and the skeptical blogs pointed out who the rats were.
We’re not done but we’re making progress.

Reply to  mikerestin
November 17, 2014 9:20 pm

Amen

Steve R
Reply to  mikerestin
November 18, 2014 12:48 pm

“Unfortunately, little happened. However, we did continue to spend many, many billions of taxpayer dollars based on the AGW fairytale.”
Their crediility was lost thats something.

November 17, 2014 4:50 pm

“virtually the entire climate science community tried to pretend that nothing was wrong”
On the other hand, the climate scientific community is not a police force; they are normal people with careers and jobs. And it is damaging to swim against the flow, particularly in a field that is politically charged.
It’s worth remembering that when Andrew Wakefield’s fake vaccine studies were retracted, the investigations that lead up to those retractions was instigated largely by a journalist, not other scientists.

Reply to  Will Nitschke
November 17, 2014 5:40 pm

Will, I both agree and disagree. I agree that the “the climate scientific community is not a police force; they are normal people with careers and jobs”.
However, speaking out against scientific malfeasance is crucial for maintaining the public’s confidence in scientists. They did not do so.
As a result, a recent Rasmussen poll showed that over 60% of those questioned think that climate scientists are faking the data. Not just wrong. Faking it.
Nor was their any reason to continue to fete and listen to the people shown by Climategate to be acting either unethically or illegally. It’s like asking Peter Gleick to chair a session at the (from memory) AAAS meeting. Those are not just doing nothing. Those are actively lauding and supporting liars, cheats, and criminals.
So while the “climate scientific community” has successfully resisted the temptation to tell the truth about the Climategate unindicted co-conspirators, the cost has been huge, both to climate science, and to science in general.
As someone said, “For evil to triumph, it’s only necessary for good men and women to do nothing” … and man, have they done nothing, in spades and with bells on …
So I don’t let them off the hook as easy as you do. The mess is in their backyard, and by and large they have steadfastly refused to have anything to do with cleaning it up. And as a result, they won the battle … but all of science is losing the war.
w.

Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
November 17, 2014 5:50 pm

It’s worse than we thought…
The scientists don’t recognize their backyard (climate science) as a mess.

Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
November 17, 2014 6:45 pm

Willis,
This is as it should be. Skepticism, even of scientific claims, by the public, is healthy. This is a learning exercise, for some members of the public at least, although this detour in science has some years to play out yet.

Catherine Ronconi
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
November 17, 2014 6:57 pm

It’s 69%:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/environment_energy/69_say_it_s_likely_scientists_have_falsified_global_warming_research
Man-made global warming has been falsified in both the general and technical senses of the term. I agree with the 69% of the population which believes that 97% of “climate scientists” are rent-seeking. lying slimeballs who put their careers and ideology ahead not only of a search for reality but the health and welfare of seven billion people.

Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
November 17, 2014 7:00 pm

Dead-on, Willis

Catherine Ronconi
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
November 17, 2014 7:02 pm

Which puts “climate scientists” below professional politicians, ambulance chasing PI lawyers and used car salesmen in public regard. They might however have just pipped out drug dealers, violent mass murderers (which in effect they are, only white color instead of violent) and child molesters in the respect which they are accorded.

Catherine Ronconi
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
November 17, 2014 7:09 pm

Speaking of child molestation, wasn’t being indirectly compared to his PSU colleague Jerry Sandusky one of the issues with which Mann took National Review and Mark Steyn? That Mann is to science as Sandusky was to sport? That Mann molested data similarly to Sandusky’s “horse play” in the showers with disadvantaged boys? Sounds fair to me.
Mikey is after all proud of being a public figure, although of course with typical false modesty, he claims that notoriety was thrust upon him. He never sought it. No, not he.

Catherine Ronconi
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
November 17, 2014 7:11 pm

Not to detract from the dreadful seriousness of child abuse, but Mann and his unindicted co-conspirators have caused the deaths of at least tens of thousands.

r murphy
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
November 17, 2014 7:27 pm

One could view the climate science situation as being very similar to the Muslim situation, if the majority are really decent people that we should trust, why is it so hard to hear them condemning those that are shaming their faith?

BFL
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
November 17, 2014 7:28 pm

Perhaps much of the public realizes that their work is automatically suspect when they insist on only presenting one side of the issue. I know of only one other area that this has occurred (HIV/AIDS controversy), but imagine if no debate were allowed on many of the other political issues, as in WE know what is good for you and WE think that you the public are just too stupid too make an informed decision.

Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
November 17, 2014 7:47 pm

Will Nitschke November 17, 2014 at 6:45 pm

Willis,
This is as it should be. Skepticism, even of scientific claims, by the public, is healthy. This is a learning exercise, for some members of the public at least, although this detour in science has some years to play out yet.

Thanks, Will, but I disagree strongly. Skepticism is one thing. But when 69% of the American public are not just skeptical, but think that the scientists are actively falsifying the data, that’s bad for climate science and science in general.
Regards,
w.

Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
November 17, 2014 8:56 pm

Willis,
I understand why some people are really upset, but if the expectation is that (putting myself in their shoes) I have to go out there and defend this abstraction thing called “science” and the result will be personal attacks, criticism of my credibility and reputation, ostracization, and damage or destruction of my career, then no thanks. I’ll keep my mouth shut, which is what I suspect 97% are doing.

Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
November 17, 2014 9:28 pm

…As a result, a recent Rasmussen poll showed that over 60% of those questioned think that climate scientists are faking the data. Not just wrong. Faking it…..
____________________________________________________________________________________
Willis, this was exactly my concern, not just when this started but decades before when I saw John Christy hauled before Albert Gore’s senate committee simply because he wrote a paper, using old satellite data, that contradicted the then existing AGW meme (1990). I learned a lot about science an politics at that time and since that gave me pause. Much has been made over the years about Eisenhower’s warnings in his farewell speech about the military industrial complex. More needs to be written about his equally grave warnings about the confluence between federal dollars and science.
Science is not a substitute for religion as many take it. It is a process, no more no less, of using instrumentality to measure the natural world in order to gain understanding of how it works. We have augmented that with computers and in many ways computers and computer analysis has led us astray, allowing us to use their power to make predictions that are not justified by the data.
In the 1920’s we had a name for this, perversion of science, it was called technocracy. I have a great book from 1934 wherein a group of engineers, using advanced analysis, declared that capitalism was doomed and that civilization must be reordered and control be turned over to the technocrats in order to save it. To me computer modeling of climate is the modern technocratic fallacy.
Back to the data!

Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
November 17, 2014 10:10 pm

Will Nitschke November 17, 2014 at 8:56 pm Edit

Willis,
I understand why some people are really upset, but if the expectation is that (putting myself in their shoes) I have to go out there and defend this abstraction thing called “science” and the result will be personal attacks, criticism of my credibility and reputation, ostracization, and damage or destruction of my career, then no thanks. I’ll keep my mouth shut, which is what I suspect 97% are doing.

Thanks, Will. I expected that some people would just stay schtumm. What I didn’t expect is for the perpetrators to be feted, for their investigations to be total whitewashes, for them to be invited to chair meetings of the AAAS, and for them to not suffer even mild indignity from the assembled masses of scientists, much less their just punishment.
Look, many of these climate scientists cannot be fired, so it can’t be that holding them back. And some people, like Judith Curry, spoke out loud and clear about the abuses … and became famous as a result, it didn’t “destroy their careers”.
To understand my objection, think about what happened to Peter Gleick. He got caught committing mail fraud, for heavens sake. He cost the Heartland Institute big money. He either forged a document (most likely) or “merely” disseminated a document that he knew to be forged. Those are crimes, for goodness sake, not just some minor scientific infraction.
I find the silence about that kind of action to be reprehensible.
Next, you seem to think that the choice was either say something and perhaps experience opposition, or say nothing and lose nothing … but in fact, what was lost was most precious—the trust of the public in their field of science. I’d say that was an extremely bad trade.
Finally, no one is being asked to “go out there and defend this abstraction thing called “science””. They are being asked to speak up against things like mail fraud, the destruction of evidence sought under an FOI request, the subverting of the IPCC rules, and the “investigations” that never even asked the easy questions, much less the hard ones.
I gotta say, I don’t find that a hard ask, particularly when it is the trust in their own field of science that is being destroyed by these miscreants. They may have won the battle to save their personal reputations by staying quiet . But they lost the war, since their reputations are now trashed along with all other climate scientists, the people that think climate scientists are faking their data certainly don’t exclude them from the tarring just because they stayed quiet …
Best regards,
w.

Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
November 17, 2014 10:45 pm

Willis,
While I’m sympathetic to your arguments, I just can’t follow how this would work in practice. While each research field has its peculiarities, what’s happening in climate science is not necessarily unnormal. Climatology should be an obscure field that most of us don’t even know exists. It rose to prominence for political reasons only. Let me offer another example: Most of us sciencephiles would be familiar with the seminal research paper by Miller–Urey in origins of life research. What’s less well advertised is that Miller affectively blocked publication of papers that were critical of his work or that proposed alternate explanations. He was able to do this because it was his team that essentially controlled the peer review process. Or one might look at the countless useless and dubious medical procedures recommended routinely by doctors. Many of these procedures, often expensive, have no scientific basis at all. The reason why people undergo these procedures (PRP or stem cell treatments for ligament damage are first to spring to mind) is because they trust their doctors and they trust their doctors because they believe their doctors are being ‘scientific’. Or there is the entire field of psychoanalytics. I’ve never meat a psychology academic who didn’t think the psychoanalytic fraternity were anything more than a bunch of crack pots. But psychoanalytic associations have all the trappings of ‘science’ including journal publication. Psychology academics only rarely criticize psychoanalytic practitioners. What they usually do is roll their eyes, shake their heads, and ignore them.
It’s a sad state of affairs. I’m not pretending to have solutions. There is little you write I disagree with. Only on one thing I am less worried. If the reputation of science takes a few knocks, that is not always all bad.

Editor
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
November 17, 2014 10:55 pm

w says “speaking out against scientific malfeasance is crucial for maintaining the public’s confidence in scientists. They did not do so.
+1

Norbert Twether
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
November 18, 2014 3:53 am

Hi, Willis,
To be fair – James Lovelock – the scientist who started all this “warming stuff”, with the backing of Thatcher (as a further excuse to attack the mining unions, forcing the closure of the UK coal mines, – still with 300 years of coal left) – has back-tracked substantially;-
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/04/23/11144098-gaia-scientist-james-lovelock-i-was-alarmist-about-climate-change
(For some reason the above link is “broken” on his web-site); –
http://www.jameslovelock.org/key7.html
This is what he thinks now ……….
“……..we were all so taken in by the perfect correlation between temperature and CO2 in the ice-core analyses [from the ice-sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, studied since the 1980s]. You could draw a straight line relating temperature and CO2, and it was such a temptation for everyone to say, “Well, with CO2 rising we can say in such and such a year it will be this hot.” It was a mistake we all made.”
http://www.nature.com/news/james-lovelock-reflects-on-gaia-s-legacy-1.15017
Regards
Alan J.

RayG
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
November 18, 2014 8:40 am

Where is there a modern day Hercules to cleanse these Augean stables called “Climate Science?” Certainly not among today’s main stream media.

Catherine Ronconi
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
November 18, 2014 9:42 am

Willis Eschenbach
November 17, 2014 at 7:47 pm
But “climate scientists” do actively fake the data, which crime has spread even down to the level of NOAA’s thermometer readers.
Corrupt climate pseudo-science has tarnished the reputation of real science. This is just one of the baleful outcomes of this mass-murdering, anti-human conspiracy.

Catherine Ronconi
Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
November 18, 2014 10:33 am

Government-funded “scientists” aren’t the only flunkies faking data. Many if not most federal data sets are phony, notably unemployment and inflation numbers.
The people know from their own lives that these “data” are fudged, at best, so it’s natural that they’d doubt (correctly) the validity of climate figures.

Reply to  Willis Eschenbach
November 23, 2014 11:26 am

Scrolling and skimming the comments, hit on this with author’s name off-screen. Read it, and thought, “Wow, very sharp and cogent. Whodunnit?” Then saw the w. Figgers.
Edit: “Nor was their there any reason …”

Reply to  Will Nitschke
November 17, 2014 7:20 pm

Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s discoveries have been verified when the same vaccine/autism connection was found by scientists is two other countries. Repeatability is part of the essence of science.
But there is good news. Every case of autism has been found to have abnormal gut bacteria. That can be fixed and then the susceptible child can probably be vaccinated.
Currently, pediatricians are in denial on the harms of vaccines while the number to be given has risen to an outrageous 69. Meanwhile many parents now know a child or family who has been harmed by vaccines. Therefore trust–and vaccination compliance rates–have been dropping. You can help. Investigate this matter with a lot more care than you have shown so far and get the gynecologists in your area to check gut flora of mothers at birth. You will improve the future and the health of the whole city.

BFL
Reply to  ladylifegrows
November 17, 2014 7:46 pm

Logic would tend to dictate that improper gut bacteria would probably be the result of antibiotic use as with C.Diff. However, one could surmise that C. Diff or similar troublesome gut bacteria could also take hold without a precursive cause. Oddly this condition is usually treated medically with antibiotics but probiotics are sometimes used and the newest procedure uses a fecal transplant.
http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/clostridium-difficile-colitis
http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/08/age-of-autism-science-summary-.html
http://www.mayoclinic.org/medical-professionals/clinical-updates/digestive-diseases/quick-inexpensive-90-percent-cure-rate

Reply to  ladylifegrows
November 17, 2014 7:50 pm

ladylife, you may be right or wrong, but this is not just the wrong thread, it’s also the wrong website for a discussion of autism and vaccination. There are a number of websites dedicated to just such discussions, and they are the place for your contribution.
I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to discuss … it’s just a terrible place to discuss it.
w.

vigilantfish
Reply to  ladylifegrows
November 17, 2014 8:14 pm

As the mother of 4 sons, one of whom (son #2) is autistic, I have no idea what on earth you are talking about. As a scientifically-literate observer of the entire MMR vaccine controversy, and as a historian of science, I am confident that Wakefield’s studies have been thoroughly debunked, funded as they were by a law firm seeking to target a pharmaceutical firm in a class-action lawsuit by parents of autistic children. Lancet rebutted the paper it had published, and disavowed Wakefield’s flawed ‘science’. Very often studies are published elsewhere that appear to confirm the original study, and these too are usually found to be flawed after the original study was debunked. Not only was there a conflict of interest in the Wakefield study, but the sample size was pitiful and useless for affirming a link – 12 patients in all, not a statistically viable study.
I was skeptical about this claim from the very beginning, as once my son was diagnosed I finally could understand why he had been different from earliest infancy. He did not develop autism after birth, he was born that way. I can only assume that this study was fed by, in some cases, belated parental awareness of difference in their child that might coincide with the timing of MMR vaccinations.
I can affirm that there is likely a genetic component to autism, as I have a nephew who is also autistic (the son of one of my brothers. And I am pretty sure my ‘gut flora’ were pretty much the same when I gave birth to my wonderful autistic son and when I gave birth to my normal third son. Yes, fully autistic individuals have weird bowels (more information than that would be TMI) but my son did not get this from me!

Reply to  ladylifegrows
November 17, 2014 10:14 pm

It’s very sad that some believe nonsense such as “Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s discoveries have been verified”. I understand why people might cast around looking to blame some group for a personal tragedy that has affected them. The fact of the matter is that his papers were retracted and he is widely reviled for putting people’s lives at risk. Nonetheless, he will always have worshipers.
Climate skepticism also tends to attract contrarians – people who disagree with mainstream science *because* it’s mainstream – but the reason why I raised this topic was because it was a clear example of how the medical community utterly failed to police their own standards. Much like the climate science community.

November 17, 2014 4:58 pm

There has been no bigger game-changer than the release of these e-mails. It essentially leveled the playing field in the AGW discourse.
Fortunately, the weather has helped in persuading the common man that maybe AGW isn’t what he had been previously told.
MSM desperately clings to some reversal of the weather, but until then, MSM will continue to run their propaganda.
If skeptics wish to further help their cause, it is time to start making long range forecasts of their own and get those predictions printed and circulated.

Skeptic Tank
November 17, 2014 5:01 pm

Now it’s called “Grubering” or being “Grubered”.

November 17, 2014 5:07 pm

I have aways thought that “Warmergate” was a better name for it.

Mike G
November 17, 2014 5:11 pm

Maybe now would be a good time to summarize what happened with III.

mebbe
Reply to  Mike G
November 17, 2014 5:59 pm

Mike G, I don’t know if you’re an evil warmist troll but I’m not, for sure, and I can’t understand the deathly silence that surrounds CG III.
Does everybody else know what was in the final stash and it’s just Mike G and me that missed that episode?

hoodathunkit
Reply to  mebbe
November 17, 2014 6:17 pm

So where is the final stash? Isn’t it time for that?

SkepticGoneWild
Reply to  mebbe
November 17, 2014 7:02 pm

Agreed. Was CG III a bust? Or what? So what gives? Why the deafening silence??

Reply to  mebbe
November 17, 2014 7:21 pm

What? I heard about II and Himalayagate, but what is this 3?

David Ball
Reply to  mebbe
November 17, 2014 7:37 pm

LLG, just search this blog. It seems to be a delicate subject as our host has the key to the III. I have been told they are of no consequence, but there are 220,000 of them. Hopefully we will be able to judge for ourselves someday,……

Just Steve
Reply to  mebbe
November 17, 2014 8:14 pm
noaaprogrammer
Reply to  mebbe
November 17, 2014 9:46 pm

There may be good reason for hanging on to the trump card. It may be keeping some over a barrel.

David Ball
Reply to  mebbe
November 18, 2014 5:54 pm
The Mighty Quinn
November 17, 2014 5:19 pm

Dr. Gruber has stellar qualifications and a stellar reputation. Nonetheless, Democrats persuaded him to lie to each and every American for a mere $400,000. Democrats are throwing tens of BILLIONS of dollars at 1st, 2nd & 3rd tier climate scientists. Image the tales they are willing to tell to keep that money flowing in.
[Gruber’s total take was 3.9 million dollars from the democrat politicians. And he now is still holding several 400,000.00+ contracts with other states. .mod]

Rud Istvan
Reply to  The Mighty Quinn
November 17, 2014 6:16 pm

Correction. Had stellar credentials and reputation.
Which he himself has cast to the winds because he had to prove in multiple venues, in multiple ways, (leaving no doubt) how much smarter he was than the ordinary stupid voter he despises.
A wonderful example. But Obummer takes pride of place in this stupid narcissistic category.

RockyRoad
Reply to  Rud Istvan
November 18, 2014 6:09 am

Yes, in today’s 24-hr news cycle and Internet access to everything, it doesn’t take much to destroy a reputation.
And Jonathan Gruber’s reputation is toast.
He’s so radioactive neither Pelosi nor Obama claim to have ever heard of him.
But then, they’ve become just as radioactive as Gruber!

Mike H.
Reply to  The Mighty Quinn
November 18, 2014 2:16 pm

“Democrats persuaded him to lie to each and every American for a mere $400,000.”
He was not persuaded, it’s part of his ethos. His chagrin is that he was caught.

TonyL
November 17, 2014 5:22 pm

My, my, how time flies. We knew the emails (and harry-read-me) would be big. But we could hardly imagine the picture of malfeasance and conspiracy which would emerge in the following months. Back then, WUWT was a little special-interest site, virtually unknown in the larger blogosphere. Times have changed, and things sure are different now.

David L. Hagen
Reply to  TonyL
November 18, 2014 2:12 pm

ClimateGate After Five Years: Ten Credibility-Killing Quotes from Leaked Files That Media Ignored . . .

Here are just 10 of the most stunning quotes from the HARRY_READ_ME file. WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE:
1. “OH F**K THIS. It’s Sunday evening, I’ve worked all weekend, 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.”
2. “So, once again I don’t understand statistics. Quel surprise, given that I haven’t had any training in stats in my entire life, unless you count A-level maths.”
3. “I am seriously close to giving up, again. The history of this is so complex that I can’t get far enough into it before by head hurts and I have to stop. Each parameter has a tortuous history of manual and semi-automated interventions that I simply cannot just go back to early versions and run the update prog. I could be throwing away all kinds of corrections – to lat/lons, to WMOs (yes!), and more.”
4. “Bear in mind that there is no working synthetic method for cloud, because Mark New lost the coefficients file and never found it again (despite searching on tape archives at UEA) and never recreated it.”
5. “So.. should I really go to town (again) and allow the Master database to be ‘fixed’ by this program? Quite honestly I don’t have time – but it just shows the state our data holdings have drifted into. Who added those two series together? When? Why? Untraceable, except anecdotally. It’s the same story for many other Russian stations, unfortunately – meaning that (probably) there was a full Russian update that did no data integrity checking at all. I just hope it’s restricted to Russia!!”
6. “Had a hunt and found an identically-named temperature database file which did include normals lines at the start of every station. How handy – naming two different files with exactly the same name and relying on their location to differentiate! Aaarrgghh!!”
7. “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 :-)”
8. “Now looking at the dates.. something bad has happened, hasn’t it. COBAR AIRPORT AWS cannot star[t] in 1962, it didn’t open until 1993!”
9. “So with a somewhat cynical shrug, I added the nuclear option – to match every WMO possible, and turn the rest into new stations (er, CLIMAT excepted). In other words, what CRU usually do. It will allow bad databases to pass unnoticed, and good databases to become bad, but I really don’t think people care enough to fix ’em, and it’s the main reason the project is nearly a year late.”
10. “Because although I’m thrilled at the high match rate (87%!), it does seem worse when you realise that you lost the rest..”

Reply to  David L. Hagen
November 18, 2014 6:28 pm

Ten just as bad could be posted, and ten after that and ten after that.
ClimateGate is truly the gift that keeps on giving. Too bad the federal courts wouldn’t let the public look at Mann’s UVA emails for which the taxpayers paid.
And it has only gotten worse in the five years that have passed, since the GIGO models and cooked book “data series” have been shown ever more egregiously wrong with each passing month.

November 17, 2014 5:28 pm

The truly shameful response was not “that virtually the entire climate science community tried to pretend that nothing was wrong” but rather that virtually the entire institutional science community tried to pretend that nothing was wrong.
Not just the AGU, the WMO, and the AMS, but the Royal Society itself, the US National Academy, the American Physical Society, the American Chemical Society, and every single (pdf) major national science academy in the world; with a recent reiteration by the European Academies Science Advisory Council (easac) (pdf), which represents the “National Science Academies of the European Union (EU) Member States.”
It’s beyond shameful.

knr
Reply to  Pat Frank
November 18, 2014 6:23 am

Indeed its the playing of the three wise monkeys by the very people that should have acted as gatekeepers , that may mean science in general gets a kicking when ‘the cause ‘ falls not just climate ‘science’ and for that we may all be sorry.
Has for the RS , under various heads they become fully on board the cause to such an extent they handing ‘Lew paper ‘30,000 to work at Bristol after his rubbish has been exposed in Austral . They long given up any right they had to be consider people who view good science has important for the sake of scoring political points .

D.I.
November 17, 2014 5:29 pm

“Climategate” a moment in time when Climatology became ‘Climastrology’ and Science became a Seance.

Catherine Ronconi
November 17, 2014 5:29 pm
November 17, 2014 5:33 pm

Hold the celebration. The victory appears Pyrrhic:

White House taunts GOP on climate change: ‘I don’t believe they can stop us’
The White House forged ahead Monday with yet another piece of its climate change agenda and bragged that Republicans are powerless to stop it.
A presidential task force unveiled a report on how communities across the country can prepare for the effects of global warming. In all, the recommendations on “climate preparedness and resilience” could cost the federal government more than $100 billion to protect drinking water supplies, shore up coastlines against rising sea levels and take other preventive measures.
The recommendations and subsequent expenses are just two pieces of an ever-expanding slate of global-warming that is sure to come under the microscope when Republicans assume control of the Senate in January.
But legal analysts say the Republicans have little ammunition to fight back, short of shutting down the federal government to stop Environmental Protection Agency funding. . .

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/17/white-house-taunts-gop-climate-change/#ixzz3JNZhNWEj
Hard as it may be to believe, The Puppet President and his handlers are hell-bent on marching off the “Climate Change” cliff. And the Republicans are too gutless to stop them. What they should do is just live up to their Constitutional role and shut down the damned federal government until the miscreants in the White House just pack up and leave, with their tails between their legs. But don’t hold your breath.
/Mr Lynn

Reply to  L. E. Joiner
November 17, 2014 5:36 pm

Oops! Screwed up the blockquote tags. From headline in bold to “funding” was all a quote from the Washington Times article. If the moderator can fix it, I’d appreciate it. /Mr L

Mike the Morlock
Reply to  L. E. Joiner
November 17, 2014 7:27 pm

Pardon but no, L.E Joiner. Pyrrhic, “Another victory like this and we are undone”, is not correct for this. The better description of the administration’s statement would be a Parthian shot which one fires as they flee a lost battle.
Now, saber them down.

Reply to  Mike the Morlock
November 18, 2014 7:10 am

Mike, I was describing all the Climategate boasting as Pyrrhic. The Warmists carry on as if there were no battle at all. They aren’t fleeing. /Mr Lynn

TYoke
Reply to  L. E. Joiner
November 17, 2014 7:28 pm

I do get tired of the “too gutless” meme.
In the lead up to the shutdown last October, the Republican spending proposal was perfectly defensible on the merits. The response from the administration, Democrats, and MSM was a full throated scream: no negotiations with hostage takers, no compromise, and the shutdown began.
After 11 days of steadily plummeting poll results, the Republicans finally caved, their caucus in tatters. The public, even conservatives, blamed the Republicans and not the Democrats for the shutdown. This happened even though politicians like Mitch McConnell were razor sharp and defended the Republican position on any talk show that would have him.
These guys are politicians. They live to get re-elected. It is completely unrealistic to expect them to fall on their swords just to please bystanders.
The real villains here are the MSM, academics and Hollywood. I.e., the culture. So long as the culture is overwhelmingly on the left, Republican politicians are going to be able to do very little. Mark Steyn has been terrific on this issue for those who are interested.

noaaprogrammer
Reply to  TYoke
November 17, 2014 10:10 pm

TYoke has a good point: “The real villains here are the MSM, academics and Hollywood. I.e., the culture. So long as the culture is overwhelmingly on the left, Republican politicians are going to be able to do very little.”
Another kind of counter-culture needs to arise. Find pop artists to write songs such as “The Day Science Died,” and filmmakers to produce movies where the villains are lefty power and money grubbers – or is that spelled gruber now!?

Reply to  TYoke
November 18, 2014 7:01 am

Their job is not to “get reelected”. Their job is to represent us. If that representation requires them to do something unpopular with someone else, so be it.
While MSM, academics and Hollywood are indeed the real villains, the Republicans, elected to fight them ar enablers.

Reply to  TYoke
November 18, 2014 7:27 am

Last year during the ‘shutdown’ the vicious bastards in the Obama White House shut down the parks and kept Honor Flight veterans out of the WWII Memorial on the Mall, and the liberal media tried to blame the Republicans (mainly Ted Cruz) for it all. But this year the public voted for Republicans in droves. “The culture” may be on the left, but the people aren’t.
Mark Levin points out that because Congress has the power of the purse under our Constitution, withholding funding is a perfectly legitimate tactic, and one which is in effect built into our system.
/Mr Lynn

RockyRoad
Reply to  L. E. Joiner
November 18, 2014 6:10 am

Looks like our President Who Lies is about to create another scandal. There’s no stopping some idiots.

David in Cal
November 17, 2014 5:44 pm

The combination of Climategate and the Pause ought to have destroyed the credibility of the doomsters. Not to mention serious scientific analyses showing that the Hockey Stick was bogus, that the IPCC models include substantial guesswork and bias, and that the IPCC verbiage often goes well beyond the IPCC science.
Sadly, our current institutions are so decadent that climate alarmism remains the dominant belief among media, politicians, diplomats and other policy-makers

Barry
Reply to  David in Cal
November 17, 2014 6:06 pm

Hockey stick confirmed by a dozen other studies, and now 2014 is the warmest year on record.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/xmillenia.htm
Oh wait, it’s all just a global institutional conspiracy, right? Whew! I’m so relieved…

Reply to  Barry
November 17, 2014 6:50 pm

The AIP is participating in the bowdlerization of science, Barry, by posting that graph with a temperature scale despite the fact that none of those proxy lines represent a physical temperature series. Not one of them.
This is how far the termites have chewed, that now even physicists accept a statistical falsehood.
They have completely lost their critical sense.

TRM
Reply to  Barry
November 17, 2014 7:00 pm

http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/gisp-last-10000-new.png
How convenient of you to eliminate the medieval warm period after all “we have got to get rid of the medieval warm period”.

Catherine Ronconi
Reply to  Barry
November 17, 2014 7:05 pm

Please show these studies, so that we can all enjoy a hearty belly laugh.
Thanks.

Derek Nishino
Reply to  Barry
November 17, 2014 7:15 pm

Interesting that the graph you link to only goes to about 2000. Why don’t you show a graph that shows anything beyond that when you mentioned 2014 in your post? Is it maybe because the data doesn’t support your argument? Also, the graph you linked to uses “Instrumental” readings to show the greatest 20th century temperature increase yet the scale is in 10ths of a degree going back to the early 1800’s. That’s amazing accuracy for hand made thermometers. Does that “instrumental” record include satellite data? Or just human eye observations of thermometers? It’s interesting that the next closest curve (PS20014) peaks at less than half of the “instrumental” curve.

Reply to  Barry
November 17, 2014 7:16 pm

Barry,
Your link has a bogus reconstruction. That kind of misrepresentation is exactly what Climategate was all about. The conspiracy — and Climategate showed that’s exactly what it is — was all about creating a false alarm in order to generate money and power. The ‘Hockey Stick’ is not based on reality.
As far as “the warmest year on record”, that is not only nonsense, but the entire false alarm over a perfectly natural, minor *fluctuation* of only about 0.7ºC — over more than a century — is nothing but Chicken Little arm-waving over what is actually a very benign global temperature. A change of only 0.7º over a century is very rare in the temperature record.
You are one of those people who took a mistaken position early on, before many facts were available, and now your stupid ego won’t allow you to admit you were wrong. The planet has been far warmer in the past; up to 12 degrees warmer, with no ill effects. But you are clucking over a possibleM 2º rise, for which there is no evidence. It is pure unfounded speculation.
Plenty of readers here have changed their minds based on new information. But there are always some who can’t, or won’t. They are the problem, not the solution.

Reply to  Barry
November 17, 2014 7:21 pm

Did you just forget John Beale.
How about EPA sue and settle.
IPCC says not causing extreme weather.
“Never let a crisis go to waste”.
I truly wonder if it’s honest ignorance on your part or you’re just a paid for propaganda pusher?
Why do you trust them so?

RockyRoad
Reply to  Barry
November 18, 2014 6:12 am

Earth’s climate history is longer than the last 50 years, Barry.

Tim
November 17, 2014 6:04 pm

As with any revelations that go against the elite; those involved close ranks, ‘investigations’ are stacked, PR replaces fact and information is withheld or destroyed. It’s a typical blueprint.

PMHinSC
November 17, 2014 6:13 pm

David in Cal November 17, 2014 at 5:44 pm
Sadly, our current institutions are so decadent that climate alarmism remains the dominant belief among media, politicians, diplomats and other policy-makers.
I am not sure if it is a “belief” or just a handy club to beat around the head and shoulders those they want to dominate. Although we know that CAGW will end just like the Dodo bird and the Carrier Pigeon, we still have to fight the good fight, as it won’t go away by itself. Just don’t know when it will end and how much more suffering will have to be endured and treasure will have to be spent.

magicjava
November 17, 2014 6:27 pm

I’m glad you allowed me to play a small part in ClimateGate Anthony. Thanks.

Crispin in Waterloo
November 17, 2014 6:27 pm

The pause was already well developed in 2009. They were talking about it with CRU. No doubt they are talking about it ‘off-list’ still.
That’s more the reason to point fingers at the weasels who pretended nothing was wrong with the behaviour of very well known scientists.
The mendacious defences arrayed for the public have continued! Can you believe it? They still discuss hidden heat and clock-spring energy leaping out of mythical deeps.
The amazing thing is the extent to which the fix is in with the media. The breadth of the betrayal of humanity is astonishing to me.

ghl
Reply to  Crispin in Waterloo
November 18, 2014 12:02 am

Crispin
The worst part, in my view, the almost unbelievable part, is the sheer number of politicians and civil servants who have a duty to seek the truth, who have appointed biased advisors, and avoided eminent skeptics, to maintain their wilfull ignorance. Ditto learned societies where a minority take it upon themselves to ignore and exclude the membership and write a warmist report. Everyone obviously has their price, even if the transaction is purely internal.

TRM
November 17, 2014 6:31 pm

I raise a toast to the person(s) who released it. You did it great and hopefully someday when everyone realizes that they’ve been had that you can come forward and collect your Nobel Prize. You deserve it.

KTM
Reply to  TRM
November 17, 2014 11:59 pm

Ditto, whoever did this is an unsung hero. I don’t blame the person for staying low, but perhaps in another 10-20 years when the lack of warming is indisputable by even the most hardened Warmist and the hypothesis has been universally rejected he or she can come forward and get the recognition they deserve.

November 17, 2014 6:31 pm

Worth remembering that Google immediately began running interference for the Climategate crew until I called them on it: http://talkingabouttheweather.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/google-gate/
[And we thank you for that effort. .mod]

TRM
Reply to  Harold Ambler
November 17, 2014 7:19 pm

The Hood vs the Bismark or the dozens of smaller ships. Congrats on your part of sinking the Bismark!

Catherine Ronconi
Reply to  TRM
November 17, 2014 7:23 pm

As you must know, Bismarck and Prinz Eugen sank Hood catastrophically, but the Empire struck back with Fairey Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers and the RN’s surviving surface ships.

Mike the Morlock
Reply to  TRM
November 17, 2014 9:11 pm

Don’t forget the “Prince of Wales”

gnome
Reply to  TRM
November 17, 2014 10:36 pm

Somehow, the Prince of Wales and Repulse came together in peoples’ minds in 1941, and the connection was enhanced when the current incumbent of the title started to demand prominence.

Catherine Ronconi
Reply to  Harold Ambler
November 17, 2014 7:19 pm

Thanks. Climate skepticism is a true people’s movement, against an oppressive, entrenched elite trying desperately by hook or crook, mostly the latter, to hold onto its ill-gotten gains and privileges. In the end, truth, justice and the scientific method will prevail, I hope and believe. After all, Nature is on the skeptics’ side. Or as Jefferson so aptly put it, Nature and Nature’s God.

Brett Keane
Reply to  Catherine Ronconi
November 18, 2014 1:41 am

People do forget that Hood was just an old Battlecruiser, though a lovely ship. When the real RN Battleships intercepted, things changed. Though as you say, a combined op., and a worthy opposing flotilla. Brett

RoHa
Reply to  Catherine Ronconi
November 18, 2014 4:16 pm

The Swordfish were obsolete! That was, in fact, why the Bismarck had trouble dealing with them. The Bismarck’s anti-aircraft system was designed to deal with faster planes, and could not easily be turned down to meet slow, creaky, biplanes.

Catherine Ronconi
Reply to  Catherine Ronconi
November 18, 2014 4:34 pm

Canada is blessed to have three of these wonderful aircraft, as loveable as a torpedo bomber, ie machine of death, can be. Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia each have one.
They’re perhaps most important historically for the Taranto raid which gave the IJN the idea for Pearl Harbor.

Reply to  Harold Ambler
November 17, 2014 7:39 pm

Interesting Harold, so tonight I punched in climategate and there are a few links that popped up. Most especially http://www.ucsusa.org about the “debunking the skeptics” was interesting and undated so not sure how old it is but it is an interesting CYA story nonetheless.

Reply to  asybot
November 17, 2014 7:42 pm

add Debunking Misinformation About Stolen Climate Emails in the “Climategate” Manufactured Controversy | Union of Concerned Scientists, sorry

eyesonu
Reply to  Harold Ambler
November 17, 2014 8:45 pm

Harold,
Thanks for your past efforts with google. Your link and related comments are a dramatic documentation of the firestorm created by the release of the ‘climategate’ emails.
And a special thanks to FOIA, whoever you are 😉

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