Quite a lot of interest continues in the files from CRU that were leaked/hacked and placed on a Russian FTP server. Quite a number of other websites have been things with them ranging from commentary to evaluation of validity. With over 1000 emails, it is a bit of a task to wade through.
The Internet is an amazing place. Now there’s a website that has put all of the emails into a searchable database with a web engine interface.
The screencap below shows the engine at http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/
I have no idea who put this together, but it does seem to work quite well. For example, typing in the keyword “moron” yields an interesting email. So does typing in the name of a prominent climate “bulldog”.
Interesting stuff.
NOTE: Link updated to new website on 1/23/10
Curiousgeorge,
Hammer meet nail head.
Curiousgeorge,
I was wondering the same thing. Has anyone noticed if some of the data files contain any of the information that Steve M and others have been trying to get hold of?
Wow, Ben Santer comes across as quite the bully. Consider these snippets, in chronological order…
I looked at some of the stuff on the Climate Audit web site. I’d really like to talk to a few of these “Auditors” in a dark alley. / 25 Apr 2007
Douglass is the guy who famously concluded (after examining the temperature response to Pinatubo) that the climate system has negative sensitivity. Amazingly, he managed to publish that crap in GRL. Christy sure does manage to pick some brilliant scientific collaborators… / 12 Dec 2007
[H]appy holidays! May all your “Singers” be carol singers, and not of the S. Fred variety… / 13 Dec 2007
I share your frustration about having to devote valuable time to the rebuttal of crappy papers. Douglass et al. is truly awful. It should never have been published. Any residual respect I might have had for John Christy has now vanished. I can’t believe that he’s a coauthor on this garbage. / 04 Jan 2008
This is a little disappointing. We decided to submit our paper to IJoC in order to correct serious scientific errors in the Douglass et al. IJoC paper. We believe that there is some urgency here. Extraordinary claims are being made regarding the scientific value of the Douglass et al. paper, in part by co-authors of that paper. One co-author (S. Fred Singer) has used the findings of Douglass et al. to buttress his argument that “Nature not CO2, rules the climate”. The longer such erroneous claims are made without any form of scientific rebuttal, the more harm is caused. In our communications with Dr. Osborn, we were informed that the review process would be handled as expeditiously as possible. Had I known that it would take nearly two months until we received a complete set of review comments, I would not have submitted our paper to IJoC. / 05 May 2008
Dr. Douglass: … I note that you did not have the professional courtesy to provide me with any advance information about your 2007 IJoC paper, which was basically a commentary on previously-published work by myself and my colleagues. Neither I nor any of the authors of those previously-published works … had the opportunity to review your 2007 IJoC paper prior to its publication – presumably because you specifically requested that we should be excluded from consideration as possible reviewers. … I see no conceivable reason why I should now send you an advance copy of my IJoC paper. Collegiality is not a one-way street, Professor Douglass.” / 27 May 2008
Prof. Douglass, … you have access to the same model and observational data that we used in our 2008 IJoC paper. … You are quick to threaten your intent to file formal complaints against me “with the journal and other scientific bodies”. If I were you, Dr. Douglass, I would instead focus my energies on rectifying the serious error in the “robust statistical test” that you applied to compare modeled and observed temperature trends. … Please do not communicate with me in the future. / 14 Oct 2008
While on travel in Hawaii, I received a request from Steven McIntyre for all of the model data used in our IJoC paper (see forwarded email). After some conversation with my PCMDI colleagues, I have decided not to respond to McIntyre’s request. / 31 Oct 2008
Dear Mr. McIntyre, I gather that your intent is to “audit” the findings of our recently-published paper in the International Journal of Climatology (IJoC). … I gather that you have appointed yourself as an independent arbiter of the appropriate use of statistical tools in climate research. Rather that “auditing” our paper, you should be directing your attention to the 2007 IJoC paper published by David Douglass et al., which contains an egregious statistical error. Please do not communicate with me in the future. / 10 Nov 2008
Yeah, I had already seen the stuff from McIntyre. Tom Peterson sent it to me. McIntyre has absolutely no understanding of climate science. … I see that McIntyre has put email correspondence with me in the Supporting Information of his paper. What a jerk! / 29 Jan 2009
Congratulations on the AGU Fellowship! … I hope that Mr. Mc “I’m not entirely there in the head” isn’t there to spoil the occasion… / 29 Jan 2009
Dear Mr. Smith, Please do not lecture me on “good science and replicability”. … Your criticism was entirely unjustified, and damaging to my professional reputation. I therefore see no point in establishing a dialogue with you. Please do not communicate with me in the future. I do not give you permission to distribute this email or post it on Mr. McIntyre’s blog. / 30 Jan 2009
The CEI and Michaels are applying impossible legal standards to science. … In my personal opinion, Michaels should be kicked out of the AMS, the University of Virginia, and the scientific community as a whole. He cannot on the one hand engage in vicious public attacks on the reputations of individual scientists … and on the other hand expect to be treated as a valued member of our professional societies. / 09 Oct 2009
Next time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted. / 09 Oct 2009
All – ALL RAW data – should be in one place in one modern relational database on modern server hardware and storage for people to access. Then, the sql and resulting, subsequent analysis could be published, making it easy for anyone to repeat or or criticize the results.
The data sets are quite small by modern database standards – just a few million rows. This could be done quite easily.
RC does not seem to actually be as open as may seem.
I posted a very mild piece over there yesterday, and it showed up.
The posts I made today, which were not inflammatory at all, do not even get posted:
If you found out your 401-k was being managed like these guys are managing climate science, what would you do?
Would you trust what they told you?
Would you keep your money with them?
low and behold, scientists are human too, with all the foibles of the common used car salesman. It’s just the the data generally holds them in check. That and the frequent replication of results, where most errors are discovered. With AGW, however, there’s no data in the future and the existing arguments are over interpretation of past data that is so obviously questionable that any sane engineer would be lothe to build anything on its basis. when I saw the Inconvient Truth graph going back 600,000 years with CO2 FOLLOWING temperature, while Al waved his hands saying look, the curves go up and down together, I figured the whole concept was unlikely to pass the laugh test. Unfortunately the humanity of many scientists overcame their science and now, here we are. Tainted data, questionable interpretation, inadequate models and a religion sprung from, possibly, nothing. sad.
Carrick (08:24:24) :
There’s also this one.
It lets you access them by message ID.
The site in the OP also allows this, just paste the number part of the filename into the search field.
From: Phil Jones
To: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Fwd: CCNet: PRESSURE GROWING ON CONTROVERSIAL RESEARCHER TO DISCLOSE SECRET DATA
Date: Mon Feb 21 16:28:32 2005
Cc: “raymond s. bradley” , “Malcolm Hughes”
Mike, Ray and Malcolm,
The skeptics seem to be building up a head of steam here ! Maybe we can use
this to our advantage to get the series updated !
Odd idea to update the proxies with satellite estimates of the lower troposphere
rather than surface data !. Odder still that they don’t realise that Moberg et al used the
Jones and Moberg updated series !
Francis Zwiers is till onside. He said that PC1s produce hockey sticks. He stressed
that the late 20th century is the warmest of the millennium, but Regaldo didn’t bother
with that. Also ignored Francis’ comment about all the other series looking similar
to MBH.
The IPCC comes in for a lot of stick.
Leave it to you to delete as appropriate !
Cheers
Phil
PS I’m getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data.
Don’t any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act !
As of Saturday morning, the BBC Online has demoted the story
of “hacked” emails from their “Science and Environment” section
to their “Technology” topics.
This way for the BBC readership, the fact of the e-mails and data existing in the open is totally divorced from the revelations found in their content.
The search engine will help keep particular phrases and references in the context the original author used them.
I fear that the people who inflate the threat AGW will try their utmost to downplay the damage that this email leak has done. If this is really the “climate gate” that a lot of people believe it is, than measures must be taken so that the alarmists cannot take these emails, edit them and befog the truth.
If you want my opinion, this really doesn’t reveal a conspiracy at all (never blame malice for what you can adequately explain with stupidity). After all, scientists are only human. All it reveals is that they’re inflating the danger that AGW poses to the world by skewing the data in their models. People are naturally self-important, so it comes as no surprise that anyone would try to make their lifework look way more important than it actually is.
Cheers
Phil
A good way to wade through CRU emails is to use a tabbed text editor like Crypt Edit. Here is where you can download it: http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/WoundedMoon/win32/ceditdl.html
Open the editor after you install and then open Edit>Options. On the view tab, check “hide all” and choose a background color that is easy on the eyes.
You can also change the font on the “advanced” tab. Then click the general tab and choose the folder where the emails were unzipped. Click OK to exit. You may have to restart the editor for changes to take effect.
Click File>Open. The Open dialog should open with columns of five in the “Mail” folder. Highlight the first file and then click the right arrow 19 times and then
select the bottom file on the left column while holding down the shift key. Then click Open. Crypt Edit will open 100 files in a tabbed view.
The open file will be on the lower left tab. Click this tab once and broken lines will appear. You can then move through all 100 files by clicking the left arrow on your keyboard. When you reach the 100th file the text will stop changing when you click the arrow.
To open the next 100 files, choose File>Close All Files, then choose File>Open and the file dialog box will appear with the last file highlighted in the File Name box. Click the right arrow until you see the last file viewed. Keep clicking until it disappears.
Highlight the top file in the first column after it and click 19 times again and open the next 100 files.
Repeat these steps until you’ve viewed all files
Hints:
When you are arrowing through the files, you can go quickly by looking for the first 3 numbers of the file, then slow down and look for the last three.
Create a folder called “Saved” in the same directory as “Mail”. Then it’s a simple matter of going up one level and opening when the File dialog box opens. Don’t worry about saving files in another Folder, you can always reconstitute them from the original zip file.
Has to be said – I’m getting increasing p-d off with the BBC’s fingers-in-the-ears la-la-la I can’t hear you attitude to this. Writing a complaint to the trustees now.
As a (retired) professional engineer from Canada, I am truly shocked by the contemptible behaviour of the scientists at Britain’s CRU. A total lack of ethics.
Canadian Order of the Engineer inductees wear a stainless steel ring on the little finger of their working hand as a visible reminder of the oath of integrity and ethics that they’ve taken. This Oath of the Obligations of an Engineer, heart of the “Iron Ring Ceremony”, governed my 40 years in the field of electronics. The various provincial Orders in Canada closely monitor the activities and professionalism of the practice of engineering in Canada.
These shameful and “so-called” scientists wouldn’t have lasted a day in the Engineering Profession in Canada. Well, at least that’s my impression after working with hundreds of colleagues for 40 years. What these men and women have done, and apparently continue to do, is despicable in the worst sense of the word.
Although I am not one to recommend breaking the law I do feel that the individuals who illegally obtained and posted this information are heroes and should be recognized as such. I would even go so far as to recommend them for a Nobel Prize but since these individuals actually did something productive and helpful for the world, apparently that would disqualify them from this honor.
TerryBixler (08:16:51) :
I found it last night works great! I tried “trick” good search. These characters were not doing science they were into propaganda for grants. Maybe at one time they were doing science but to my view lost their collective way.
I get the same idea.
You all can help the cause by adding this to every post you do everywhere.
Free the data; Free the Code; Free the Debate.
And feel free to copy what I wrote above in the thread and post it everywhere.
Jari (08:42:48) :
From one of the emails:
“…I would like to see the climate change happen, so the science could be proved right….
Cheers
Phil”
So a leading climate scientist hopes that the climate change happens, regardless of the consequences, so that his science could be proved right.
He’s got the cart before the horse. More ‘robust’ science.
P Gosselin (10:16:57) :
Class Action Lawsuit I say.
Any lawyers out there? I’m ready to file suit and contribute to a legal fund.
I agree that this is the way to go. The taxpayers versus the tax takers and science fixers.
IMO This has a much better chance of success in the states than the UK, but as an interested Brit, I’d kick in to the fund too.
Has anyone tried to get the legal eagle websites interested?
LIA
Tom Wigley is a climate scientist at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR).
He was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for his major contributions to climate and carbon-cycle modeling and to climate data analysis, and because he is “one of the world’s foremost experts on climate change and one of the most highly cited scientists in the discipline.”[
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wigley
At 02:18 PM 5/16/2003 -0600, Tom Wigley wrote:
Dear folks,
……..
The real issue that the press (to a limited extent) and the politicians (to a greater extent) have taken up is the conclusions of the paper’s original research. First, Soon et al. come down clearly in favor of the existence of a MWE and a LIA. I think many of us would agree that there was a global-scale cool period that can be identified with a LIA. The MWE is more equivocal.
The issue now is what to do about this. I do not think it is enough to bury criticisms of this work in other papers.
So, we would probably say: there was a LIA; but the case for *or against* a MWE is not proven. There is no strong diagreement with Soon et al. here.
The main disagreements are with the methods used by Soon et al. to draw their LIA/MWE conclusion, and their conclusion re the anomalousness / uniqueness of the 20th century (a conclusion that is based on the same methods).
……
So, their methods are silly. They seem also to have ignored the fact that what we are searching is a signal in global-mean temperature.
Furthermore, I do not think that a direct response will give the work credibility. It is already ‘credible’ since it is in the peer reviewed literature (and E&E, by the way, is peer reviewed).
A response that says this paper is a load of crap for the following reasons is *not* going to give the original work credibility — just the opposite.
How then does one comprehensively and concisely demolish this work?
What is needed is a counter example that uses the method of reductio ad absurdem. This would be clear and would be appropriate since it avoids us having to point out in words that their methods are absurd. I have some ideas
how to do this, but I will let you think about it more before going further.
You will see from this email that I am urging you to produce a response. I am happy to join you in this, and perhaps a few others could add their weight too. I am copying this to Jerry since he has to give some
CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY
next week and questions about the Soon et al work are definitely going to be raised. I am also copying this to Caspar, since the last millenium runs that he is doing with paleo-CSM are relevant.
Best wishes,
Tom.
hunter (11:24:32) :
If you found out your 401-k was being managed like these guys are managing climate science, what would you do?
If my 401K manager were as successful as these guys have been, I’d be a lot richer.
The web search site works great! The Yamal search makes interesting reading, too.
I have now found something with which to occupy myself during those periods when I am not busy.
Thanks!
Bob Tisdale (09:30:08) :
And, Phil, what assumptions might they be? I’m not the one assuming the relationship between ENSO and global temperature is linear, when the instrument temperature record shows it’s not.
He really assumed that? Unbelievable!
Shug,
Great site. I am trying to come up with the search words to uncover whom of the team are regular contributors to CA under alias. Any ideas?
Paul Vaughan (11:11:58) :
Note to anyone searching the database:
I would be very interested in hearing about anything you can find on “1945″ & “COWL” (cold ocean – warm land).
I came across a message saying the SST’s around 1945 would be changed. I’ll try to find it for you.
21 results for 1945 here:
http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/search.php