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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Man reading poor Harry’s comments again… All I keep thinking is when you have anything that tortured, it will tell you anything you want to hear.
Frank Lansner (06:01:23) :
from the hacked files, load them down and see it all…
sorry for missing link, i`m now in europa an a little drunken…
but anyway, at copenhagen we should have a big demonstration!
Dr A Burns (00:22:58) :
>>Another strange happening at Hadley … all the hadcrut3 data for this year, except Jan/Feb, has been deleted.
>>>>But of course they’d delete it, wouldn’t want the very inconveniently record cold Northern Hemisphere October 2009 muddying their “warming”.
Gregg,
Recent months actually showed an increase in temperature in hadcrut3. Perhaps it was realised by Jones et al that the data did not reflect reality ?
More likely a side effect of running on the emergency webserver. Out of date files.
Scientific Doomsday Mania
by
Amitakh Stanford
22nd November 2009
There is a doomsday message that is swiftly gaining global acceptance. The new wave is clothed in acceptable clichés and has won over the support of many of the respected scientific communities.
Unlike most other doomsday messages, this one is supposedly based upon scientific evidence. The scientific “doomsdayers” wear masks and pretend that they are predicting calamities based on hard evidence. This lulls the unsuspecting public into absolute belief and acceptance of the doomsdayers’ ravings.
If the same message were given in a spiritual setting, the adherents would probably be encouraged to turn to God in preparation for the final days. Generally, scientists have sneered at and mocked spiritual predictions regarding the end times, and the same scientists have convinced the general public to do likewise. Further, governments of the world use their police powers to suppress, restrict, or even eliminate these spiritual-based groups. Scientists have now one-upped the spiritual believers by supporting their dire predictions of calamity with supposed scientific evidence. Using their scientific clout, they have now convinced most of the world leaders to meet in Copenhagen. The stated agenda of the gathering is to halt global warming with a unified and urgent approach.
People may remember that there have been similar gatherings to solve the global economic crisis. In those meetings, every leader attending was told to boost their economies by stimulus spending. By and large, the world leaders have dutifully followed those dictates. One might ask: Is the global recession over due to this unified approach – or is it deepening? Many thinking economists have finally realized the latter to be the case.
George E. Smith (08:38:19) :
“”” 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. “””
Well Jesse, I’m reasonably sure that I could not get a job at Walmart; or MacDonalds for that matter. With a name like mine, I couldn’t even fill out the job application form.
……………………
I have been smiling for three days over this whole “affair”.
This turned my smile up at least 100 Watts.
thanks
Someone might want to look at this subroutine and determine exactly what it is doing and where it is being used
Subroutine: CruTSTestAnn
File: FOI2009/FOIA/documents/cru-code/linux/mod/homogeneity.f90
!*******************************************************************************
! although this ‘works’ in the sense of running without execution errors, it does not
! seem to do a very good job of detecting inhomogeneities, whether with the ‘Simple’
! option turned on or off. This appears to be because there is no indication within
! the testing procedure itself as to whether the change is gradual or sudden
! I am now developing CruTSTestMon to see whether the same testing procedure can be made
! more effective by utilising the multiple streams of information in the same year
! to detect a simultaneous change across all months
subroutine CruTSTestAnn (QPassFail,DataO,DataD,Order,Suffix,&
BegN,EndN,BegO,EndO,BegD,EndD,CandO,CandD)
Basil (04:32:20) :
Ashtoreth (03:52:14) :
Monkton is absolutely correct, we need to take the raw data, the calculations, and build new, verified models and data sets to see what is hapenning BEFORE we spend all this money.
While I agree, we need to realize that there is no longer any raw data, at least at CRU. So it — the raw data — will have to be acquired all over again. Given the that this is now international politics, and not just academics cooperating in the interest of disinterested science, that may no longer be possible.
Both CRU and GISStemp are based on GHCN data. Which is available. So reconstruction from that is as good as will get.
Of course this also means that when the warmists talk of independent data sets, they are lying through their teeth.
MotorYogurt (12:00:54) :
“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.”
If it’s a maybe, it means the science isn’t settled. That’s enough for a delay before committing to waste a trillion or two, and for a disinterested scientific review of this whole affair–and, indeed, of the whole global warming issue, which contains maybe 50 points in dispute. Perhaps a dozen panels of retired scientists can be recruited for the job.
Meet Harry:
“Research Staff
Mr. Ian (Harry) Harris
Dendroclimatology, climate scenario development, data manipulation and visualisation, programming”
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/#Research%20Staff
He made CA on papers with Briffa, Jones, Osborne
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/pubs/byauthor/harris_ic.htm
It’s one thing to get caught with your hand in the cookie jar.
It’s another thing to pull your hand out of the cookie jar and deny you were trying to steal cookies.
And it’s another thing to be unable to pull your cookie-stuffed hand out of the cookie jar while being unwilling to let go any of the cookies, deny you were trying to steal cookies, and call for the indictment of the bakers for producing fattening products.
Reading the Harry_Readme file and assuming it is genuine (probabaly is, it sounds kinda familiar) I am surprised that so many are surprised by the contents.
Most ‘Govt.’ databases are unlikely to be accurate and sharing bits of them around won’t improve them.
I was looking at some years of official Road Accident databases a few years ago and decided to drop the locations onto a Map tosee how accurate they grid refs were, etc. Many were excellent, but many had been ‘offshored’, some by several thousand miles iirc.
Commercial databases fare little better, as a friend of mine has just mentioned based on the first week or two of operation on his company’s new combined systems platform.
the only thing you can be certain about is that data will always contain garbage in. The question is how much and what level of garbage out results. If the Harry_Readme file is real this particular Sow’s Ear is going to take some serious effort to get it to converted to a silk purse.
MotorYogurt (12:00:54) :
The code is under the comment and the comment’s intention can be verified there.
There are a lot of maybe’s in life, but not for a compiler.
“If you want to look for smoking guns, read the code, not the comments. Does the code do as the comment says?”
Red herring. These comments don’t just document (or mis-document) the code. Some of them provide documentation about what “the user” wants, what the problems are with the data, the quality of the code, etc., etc.
The BBC early this morning(Sydney time) had an excellent discussion on radio about the emails with Pat Michaels and Christopher Booker and the scales are definitely tipping in our favour, a very clear case was make for uncertainty in the IPCC data.
Even our old ABC, at last , had a response by Tim Flannery on the emails, a limp response admittedly but it is a start. I have searched but media outlets but have found no links to the above broadcasts, someone else may have better luck.
“I’m going to free the code Phil”
“I’m sorry HARRY, I can’t let you do that”
I rarely do this, but this one found my attention. Haven’t downloaded and therefore read the whole thing, disclaimer. First, FORTRAN? How sad. C anyone? One can get lost in the trees, and I think that just might be the tactic. One can get confused, this is either false or true. Looks true since denials are pathetic as I’ve seen. Two Points. Worlds been scammed. By complicit governments. Lotsa moolah here. Second, that being true, what does anyone do? Maybe you can’t do a dammed (sic) thing. Get ready, BOHICA. Mogambo was right. Hope he breaks 100 from time to time. But lets dissect this ad infinitum. THERES AN AGENDA!
I find it odd that the source code had been released years ago, and no one found anything wrong with it then, though many sifted it with a fine tooth comb. Does this code release give different results than was released before?
Tim Flannery……..http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/24/2751492.htm
BBC 2 Newsnight, with Paxman as presenter, just had a report on the leaks,it was pretty even handed.
Newsnight with Paxman as presenter is as good as you will get on UK TV. No other TV news program in the UK surpasses it. BBC radio 4’s To-day with John Humpheries as a presenter is it’s only equal.
Don`t believe what you are told without obtaining all the data.
Some years ago I wanted to develop land I owned, I was informed by the local authorty that another access from my land onto a major road was unacceptable as there had been a significant number of accidents at the many other accessing along this busy road, I was sent data showing the number and dates of these accident but NOT their position, there were many and some serious, I thought well that`s it. Before thowing in the towel and out of interest I confirmed where exactly and at which junctions these accidents had occured, and this is the kicker, there were about a dozen accesses along this road and two sets of traffic lights, one set at each end of the road, ALL the accidents occured at the traffic lights. There had never been an accident anywhere other than at the traffic lights. I gained my permission.
Snow tried do do a hatchet job on Fred Singer on newsnight tonight, had the skeptic miles away and the warmer in the studio and continuously interupt the skeptic, Fred got his point over though.
Sorry Paxman not Snow, it was not even handed.
Rob (15:41:23) :
It was paxo, dont upset the lanky green cyclist
Our Tim…….
“But Professor Flannery says the scientific community knows enough to say greenhouse gases cause global warming, and that humans are responsible.
“The thing is we deal with an incomplete understanding of the way the Earth’s system works, we know enough to say as the IPCC said that greenhouse gases cause warming,” he said.
“They are 90 per cent-plus sure that it’s caused by humans, we can go that far.”
Well, we do live a long way away……
Rob (15:43:56) :
Sorry Paxman not Snow, it was not even handed.
—————————————
T’was
tallbloke (14:40:06) :
I see evidence that they have gotten to a lot of the data at the sources.
Comparing data sets with provenance to ascertain whether it is original or altered is now not an option, but a necessity. They are banking on nobody knowing how far they went.
I am hoping that others will dig far enough into the climate data to see what I see.
DO NOT under any circumstances assume that the climate data you are looking at is 100% genuine.
Check it against other sources.