When the CRU emails first made it into news stories, there was immediate reaction from the head of CRU, Dr. Phil Jones over this passage in an email:
From a yahoo.com news story:
In one leaked e-mail, the research center’s director, Phil Jones, writes to colleagues about graphs showing climate statistics over the last millennium. He alludes to a technique used by a fellow scientist to “hide the decline” in recent global temperatures. Some evidence appears to show a halt in a rise of global temperatures from about 1960, but is contradicted by other evidence which appears to show a rise in temperatures is continuing.
Jones wrote that, in compiling new data, he had “just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e., from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline,” according to a leaked e-mail, which the author confirmed was genuine.
Dr. Jones responded.
However, Jones denied manipulating evidence and insisted his comment had been taken out of context. “The word ‘trick’ was used here colloquially, as in a clever thing to do. It is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward,” he said in a statement Saturday.
Ok fine, but how Dr. Jones, do you explain this?
There’s a file of code also in the collection of emails and documents from CRU. A commenter named Neal on climate audit writes:
People are talking about the emails being smoking guns but I find the remarks in the code and the code more of a smoking gun. The code is so hacked around to give predetermined results that it shows the bias of the coder. In other words make the code ignore inconvenient data to show what I want it to show. The code after a quick scan is quite a mess. Anyone with any pride would be to ashamed of to let it out public viewing. As examples [of] bias take a look at the following remarks from the MANN code files:
Here’s the code with the comments left by the programmer:
function mkp2correlation,indts,depts,remts,t,filter=filter,refperiod=refperiod,$
datathresh=datathresh
;
; THIS WORKS WITH REMTS BEING A 2D ARRAY (nseries,ntime) OF MULTIPLE TIMESERIES
; WHOSE INFLUENCE IS TO BE REMOVED. UNFORTUNATELY THE IDL5.4 p_correlate
; FAILS WITH >1 SERIES TO HOLD CONSTANT, SO I HAVE TO REMOVE THEIR INFLUENCE
; FROM BOTH INDTS AND DEPTS USING MULTIPLE LINEAR REGRESSION AND THEN USE THE
; USUAL correlate FUNCTION ON THE RESIDUALS.
;
pro maps12,yrstart,doinfill=doinfill
;
; Plots 24 yearly maps of calibrated (PCR-infilled or not) MXD reconstructions
; of growing season temperatures. Uses “corrected” MXD – but shouldn’t usually
; plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to
; the real temperatures.
;
and later the same programming comment again in another routine:
; ; Plots (1 at a time) yearly maps of calibrated (PCR-infilled or not) MXD ; reconstructions ; of growing season temperatures. Uses “corrected” MXD – but shouldn’t usually ; plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to ; the real temperatures.
You can claim an email you wrote years ago isn’t accurate saying it was “taken out of context”, but a programmer making notes in the code does so that he/she can document what the code is actually doing at that stage, so that anyone who looks at it later can figure out why this function doesn’t plot past 1960. In this case, it is not allowing all of the temperature data to be plotted. Growing season data (summer months when the new tree rings are formed) past 1960 is thrown out because “these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures”, which implies some post processing routine.
Spin that, spin it to the moon if you want. I’ll believe programmer notes over the word of somebody who stands to gain from suggesting there’s nothing “untowards” about it.
Either the data tells the story of nature or it does not. Data that has been “artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures” is false data, yielding a false result.
For more details, see Mike’s Nature Trick
UPDATE: By way of verification….
The source files with the comments that are the topic of this thread are in this folder of the FOI2009.zip file
/documents/osborn-tree6/mann/oldprog
in the files
maps12.pro
maps15.pro
maps24.pro
These first two files are dated 1/18/2000, and the map24 file on 11/10/1999 so it fits timeline-wise with Dr. Jones email where he mentions “Mike’s Nature trick” which is dated 11/16/1999, six days later.
UPDATE2: Commenter Eric at the Climate Audit Mirror site writes:
================
From documents\harris-tree\recon_esper.pro:
; Computes regressions on full, high and low pass Esper et al. (2002) series,
; anomalies against full NH temperatures and other series.
; CALIBRATES IT AGAINST THE LAND-ONLY TEMPERATURES NORTH OF 20 N
;
; Specify period over which to compute the regressions (stop in 1960 to avoid
; the decline
;
Note the wording here “avoid the decline” versus “hide the decline” in the famous email.
===============
I’ll give Dr. Jones and CRU the benefit of the doubt, maybe these are not “untowards” issues, but these things scream for rational explanations. Having transparency and being able to replicate all this years ago would have gone a long way towards either correcting problems and/or assuaging concerns.
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Senator Inahofe has called for a senate investigation into this:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/69141-inhofe-to-call-for-hearing-into-cru-un-climate-change-research
Call your congressman and senators to ask them to support this. (They take calls seriously). This is a chance to actually get something done here–let’s not let it pass.
I wasn’t one of those fancy dancy “scientists” in my career, I was a mere professional civil engineer. I was in responsible charge of (legally and actually) and supervised a good many highway and hydraulic engineering projects. I worked in both the private and public sectors.
All or any of the calcs, plans and specifications I produced during my career, and any procedures or methodologies I utilized, were open and available for anyone to review. I welcomed review from other professional colleagues, and anyone else who was interested, as I did not consider myself immune to error, and different ideas might prove to be fruitful for improving my designs.
I produced nothing whatsoever, in writing or in conversation, which I would have had the least hesitation anyone else knowing about. Petty “work” politics held no interest for me, and I wouldn’t have allowed myself to get involved in such things. But then, I did consider myself a professional engineer, and I did think that those who paid me for my services should receive commensurate work from me that they paid me for, private or taxpayer.
I have long since been retired, but (just in case) I am still licensed as a professional civil engineer in CA.
Laurence M. Sheehan, PE (CA) # C17518 (Just call me Larry)
A quick head up here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/fromthewebteam/2009/11/monday_23_november_2009.html
I suspected BBC2’s Newsnight would delve into the issue. Be interesting to watch. 22:30 UK Time
“And Susan Watts will be looking into the University of East Anglia (UEA) row. Thousands of emails and documents stolen from there and posted online suggest to some that researchers colluded to make the case for climate change. She’ll be asking if we can trust the scientists.
Do join Jeremy at 10.30pm on BBC Two.”
Sorry if repeating.
Briggs has a good take on this in terms of uncertainties. Here:
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=1362
Kindest Regards
“”” Harry MacDougald (08:57:23) :
“”” Jesse (21:24:11) :
. . . bunch of uninformed amateurs try and “debunk” real scientists. Leave the science to the scientists and go back to your day jobs as custodians, wal-mart employees and laborers. “””
I am perhaps mistaken, but the George E. Smith of these parts, who spoke just above of Mickey D’s and Wal-Mart, appears to be the same George E. Smith who will shortly be traveling to Stockholm to pick up the Nobel Prize for Physics.
But he has too much class to mention it. Think on that for a minute.
[REPLY – Hoo! c.f. Noblesse Oblige! – Evan] “””
Harry as I say above; that is not me; and given the state of ill repute the Nobel Prizes have come under recently, I am not sure I would want one. interested parties might find it illuminating to research the Physics Nobel Prize of our present Uber green energy Secretary; Steven Chu. Don’t be surprised if the name Arthur Ashkin pops out; he invented Optical Trapping about 39 years ago at Bell Labs; and 15 years before Chu (his “pupil”) did the work that the Nobel was awarded for; namely Optical Trapping. Vladilen S. Letokhov in the USSR was working along similar lines.
The code comment is a big “maybe”. Maybe it means this, maybe it means that, or maybe it just means what it means. Not much in it to get fired up about though, speculate all you want.
Does anybody else hear “Nearer my god to thee” playing on the HMS Global Warming
kdkd (20:41:01) :
If that’s the best you can do
You ain’t seen nothing yet boi.
From RC [Response: At least since 1998, the producers of a single MXD series (Briffa and colleagues) have counseled against using their series past 1960. Finding that, in fact, they don’t use that series past 1960 in doing analyses is hardly surprising. If you don’t like this, don’t give it any weight in your assessment, and look at the other series instead. But finding code that supports exactly what is in the literature is hardly a smoking gun. – gavin]
Yawn.
Oh well, at least they comment the code. About 30% of the developers I work with still refuse to do that…
Well, George Edward Smith the physicist but not the Nobel-Prize winning George Elwood Smith the physicist, I apologize for the error and stand corrected in my orthopedic shoes.
Not exactly a slander, though, was it?
Well, even if you ain’t even got a Nobel Prize to your name, I greatly enjoy your posts here on WUWT. You have a singular voice that is very enjoyable to read.
Very best regards,
P Gosselin (01:33:38) :
‘No sunspots today.
But if you want, I’m sure I could produce some.’
Thanks for the chuckle.
Hay, Jesse
Maybe I’ll change my handle to Fire Ant
I’ve been reading that HARRY text…. how CRU temps are produced. Utter shambles!
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 🙂
If an update station matches a ‘master’ station by WMO code, but the data is unpalatably inconsistent, the operator is given three choices:
You have failed a match despite the WMO codes matching.
This must be resolved!! Please choose one:
1. Match them after all.
2. Leave the existing station alone, and discard the update.
3. Give existing station a false code, and make the update the new WMO station.
Enter 1,2 or 3:
You can’t imagine what this has cost me – to actually allow the operator to assign false WMO codes!! But what else is there in such situations? Especially when dealing with a ‘Master’ database of dubious provenance (which, er, they all are and always will be).
False codes will be obtained by multiplying the legitimate code (5 digits) by 100, then adding 1 at a time until a number is found with no matches in the database. THIS IS NOT PERFECT but as there is no central repository for WMO codes – especially made-up ones – we’ll have to chance duplicating one that’s present in one of the other databases. In any case, anyone comparing WMO codes between databases – something I’ve studiously avoided doing except for tmin/tmax where I
had to – will be treating the false codes with suspicion anyway. Hopefully.
Of course, option 3 cannot be offered for CLIMAT bulletins, there being no metadata with which to form a new station.
This still meant an awful lot of encounters with naughty Master stations, when really I suspect nobody else gives a hoot about. 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.
SUSAN WATTS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
She of the lets sex up Obamas inauguration speech by selectively editing ?
This is bound to be an “On message ” sound bite from the BS Broadcasting Corporation
AKD (11:26:40) :
Plato Says and bernie
There is an e-mail that specifically states their FOI people sought and received advice from the Information Minister on how to block the FOI requests.
—————————————
I was wrong it’s FOI person, its was the link with the chief Librarian in the sentance below extracted from tux:mail> cat 1228330629.txt which made me think they were both employed by CRU or UEA.
“I’ve got to know the FOI person quite well and the Chief
Librarian – who deals with appeals.”
Theres no mention contacting the infomation minister in this email.
If they had sought and been given advice on how to avoid an FOI by a minister of the crown, the efluent would realy hit the fan.
As a professional programmer (who did work on scientific software at one point in my life) I would just like to point out that comments in code don’t actually mean ANYTHING. Yes, the original intention is to inform those that read the code in the future, but thats it.
The comments have no semantic effect on what the code does. So to claim that a comment in the code is some sort of smoking gun is absurd at best. In addition, comments often suffer “bit-rot”: that is they become out of date and incorrect as the code changes and the comments don’t. Often times programmers will change the code w/o making the correct changes to the comments.
If you want to look for smoking guns, read the code, not the comments. Does the code do as the comment says? Does the code really “bias” the data in some fashion so as to create a predetermined outcome?
All these kinds of code (scientific and otherwise) should be made open source. Then the conspiracy nuts can go crazy looking for the “tricks” and “biases” in the code.
BTW, I don’t buy Apple computers anymore because they are liberal and bias the results of my code.
Don’t hold your breath Scouser. This will be damage limitation by UEA.
“Nigel Lawson has quite rightly called for the NERC (who fund CRU, the Tyndall Centre etc) and the Vice Chancellor of UEA to set up an independent enquiry into the contents of the released emails/documents. I fully agree with this but don’t think this is ever likely to happen”
You might be surprised. There will be a new Conservative government in the next six months and Lawson carries a lot of weight, still. This is the sort of issue that an incoming government can pursue to show what a misapplication of resources the last 12 have brought.
This is why we should never accept computer models without seeing the underlying code.
I find it interesting that in public they can’t fulfill proper FOI request because of the value of the code/generated data, and then in private collude to delete it. I’d say I’m not sure which to believe, but having seen the code and the process, I am certain it has very little value : ).
“Finding that, in fact, they don’t use that series past 1960 in doing analyses is hardly surprising.” [Gavin]
Every graph I’ve seen from them suggests the data goes from pre 1900 to the end of the hockey stick. If they are not using the same data for the blade in those graphs, they are being very dishonest.
My biggest beef though, is the bad name they have brought to hockey.
Wait for someone to roll over from the hardened CRU/Jones/Mann, etc. machine. It will happen. Just wait.
munge-man:
I have looked at the code as well (it is still there under the comments, and doesn’t seem to suffer from the((oh so common)) bit rot that you mention. I guess that is mostly because these are very short programs, usually under 100 lines.
So it is doing what it says, which is generally removing, adjusting, creating or damping the signal after around 1960 (but not always exactly then). I can’t confirm that is anything sinister as I’m still trying to get it running, but it does strike me as a bit weird.
I mean, stepping back, if your signal gets worse as you verification data gets better, doesn’t that have to mean you have a problem with your signal? I just don’t see how that doesn’t invalidate your previous data — at very least, invalidate comparisons between the two sets.
It seems to me to be
1) recent temperatures don’t match our proxy (I assume the proxy predicts lower temperatures)
2) throw out/scale the proxy data for recent times and make things fit
3) wow, recent times are way hotter than before.
That is like saying the planets all rearranged their orbits around 1600 to become heliocentric.
See above the message from Tom_R … there is an example of the use of a static array of “VERY ARTIFICIAL” fudge factors which are applied to the raw data to reduce temperature in early years and increase it more recently.
On a more interesting note it’s intriguing to see the way that “the Team” are responding. So far they’ve fielded Watson to tour the studios to tell everyone that the people at CRU are honourable and that the physics is irrefutable. Simultaneously a couple of stock “scientists say..” standard scares have been floated.
At what point, I wonder, will the big beasts break their silence. James might be right. I wonder whether they’d throw the CRU people to the wolves to protect the main message? I’d love to be a fly on wall on these discussions.
Is this accurate?
http://i49.tinypic.com/mk8113.jpg