UPDATED: related FOIA documents are now posted at the end of this story.
Posted on the American Spectator:
“Climate Gate” Development: CEI Files Notice of Intent to Sue NASA
By Chris Horner on 11.24.09 @ 9:46AM
Today, on behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, I filed three Notices of Intent to File Suit against NASA and its Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), for those bodies’ refusal – for nearly three years – to provide documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act.
The information sought is directly relevant to the exploding “ClimateGate” scandal revealing document destruction, coordinated efforts in the U.S. and UK to avoid complying with both countries’ freedom of information laws, and apparent and widespread intent to defraud at the highest levels of international climate science bodies. Numerous informed commenters had alleged such behavior for years, all of which appears to be affirmed by leaked emails, computer codes and other data from the Climatic Research Unit of the UK’s East Anglia University.
All of that material and that sought for years by CEI go to the heart of the scientific claims and campaign underpinning the Kyoto Protocol, its planned successor treaty, “cap-and-trade” legislation and the EPA’s threatened regulatory campaign to impose similar measures through the back door.
CEI sought the following documents, among others, NASA’s failure to provide which within thirty days will prompt CEI to file suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia:
– internal discussions about NASA’s quiet correction of its false historical U.S. temperature records after two Canadian researchers discovered a key statistical error, specifically discussion about whether and why to correct certain records, how to do so, the impact or wisdom or potential (or real) fallout therefrom or reaction to doing so (requested August 2007);
– internal discussions relating to the emails sent to James Hansen and/or Reto A. Ruedy from Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre calling their attention to the errors in NASA/GISS online temperature data (August 2007);
– those relating to the content, importance or propriety of workday-hour posts or entries by GISS/NASA employee Gavin A. Schmidt on the weblog or “blog” RealClimate, which is owned by the advocacy Environmental Media Services and was started as an effort to defend the debunked “Hockey Stick” that is so central to the CRU files. RealClimate.org is implicated in the leaked files, expressly offered as a tool to be used “in any way you think would be helpful” to a certain advocacy campaign, including an assertion of Schmidt’s active involvement in, e.g., delaying and/or screening out unhelpful input by “skeptics” attempting to comment on claims made on the website.
This and the related political activism engaged in are inappropriate behavior for a taxpayer-funded employee, particularly on taxpayer time. These documents were requested in January 2007 and NASA/GISS have refused to date to comply with their legal obligation to produce responsive documents.
RELATED DOCUMENTS (PDF)
Hansen GISS Correction FOI Request
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CEI’s timing suggests a very transparent case of vexatious litigation. Will CEI release the emails in which the timeline and timing of their ‘case’ is formulated and discussed?
Communications between ‘climate realists’ on strategy are germane,too. Let’s have it all in the open.
John Lish – an entirely do-able effort, in terms of the (relatively modest) amount of data involved and the tools needed to manage it.
The key is buy-in from those working with the numbers.
Done properly, it takes the Phil Jones/Ben Santer “it’s too much work to handle this FOIA nonsense” pretty much out of the equation. It’s just all there.
If Mr Santer doesn’t want to defend the accuracy of his work then perhaps he should be involved in a branch of research that doesn’t have policy implications. As far as I’m concerned he’s more than welcome to follow through on his threat to pursue other employment.
Pamela Gray (10:44:50) :
Hell, I got chips, dips, beer, and chilli on the cookstove!
Great! Us “howling wolves” gets hungry now and then. Sure there’s no rubber in that chili?
The war has begun.
http://www.twawki.wordpress.com
Demonstrations starting in Sydney today as leader of the opposition last night rolls the party and the Australian people over climate change.
When I first used to come on WUWT I would read comments referring to AGW scientists and Pro AGW politicians as “liars”, “power grabbers” etc. I used to think such comments were over the top and most probably not true as I wrongly thought these people weren’t evil, just wrong.
Now I think differently. My advice is for those with the resources is strike while the iron is hot.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. These scientists were like kids in a sweetshop.
Channel 4 News Item:
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/uk/climate+change+email+claims+8216rubbish8217/3436407
Meh. I’m one of “them FORTRAN dinosaurs” too. Just in case you ever wondered why “scientific types” use FORTRAN in all of its disguises: There was no other high level language when we started way-back-when in the sixties. You had toy languages such as ALGOL which didn’t even have an I/O module (you had to code your own). BASIC was still al gleam in the eyes of Kemeny and Kurtz, and Pascal and C didn’t exist.
Thus FORTRAN became the language of choice of scientists. What other language should we have used? COBOL? Adding to the fray was the existence of the NAG (National Algorithms Group) library of mathematical and statistical functions (written exclusively in FORTRAN) and the question is: Why not?
The deeper problem is not that we used FORTRAN, but that we could not code a [selfsnip]. So you end up with a routine spanning 12 pages of dense code, and just one comment in the header “this is the OPO49 skew filter”. As they say: “clear as mud, but it covered the ground.”
You can obfuscate in any language, even those who are designed to prevent this such as MODULA2. I’ve seen such atrocities as premature loop ending by setting the loop counter to its max value inside the loop.
I’m old enough to have started coding before Edsger W Dykstra’s “Goto considered harmful” paper saw the light of day, and believe me, it was even worse than you can imagine.
This specific case that using FORTRAN for textprocessing may be stupid, well, maybe. FII didn’t have text variables at all, F66 did not have text processing (yes, you had the capability to store characters in numeric variables and print them using the A format descriptor), but F77 *had* build-in text capabilities way ahead of C (which, in my opinion is a glorified assembly language with data typing) and F90 added to that.
So yes, maybe they should have used awk, but alas, there *was* no awk in those days. So we did it in FORTRAN, it being the only tool available. An we kept coding in FORTRAN using the motto: “stick to the devil you know”.
Remember: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”: Do not hammer the language, concentrate on the bad coding and not using a CMS.
Pjotr
So the summary is:
+ We reject the ad hominems used by Mann, Jones et al against people like Pielke and McIntyre. That said, we will use those same attacks against anyone floating any theory even remotely in support of AGW.
+ All Warmers are name callers and should be called Warmers as a result.
Here is the thing folks – it is about both science and politics. The ground looks like this – people identified as scientists are telling politicians that there is an existential threat. Politicians at first ignore it but when the media amplifies the assertion of the threat the public gets nervous. The politicians then respond and now refer to the scientists with a great deal of defference, as does the media.
You now have a situation where the assertion of the existential threat is called into question because of the ethics of some of those leading scientists. Perhaps you think that the existential threat is overblown or you think it doesn’t exist in the first place. Your options are: (1) freak out and endorse any and all assertions made in any and all places that attacks any and all of the scientists; or (2) insist that the scientists play by the rules of the game called “science” instead of the game called “”public relations.” Insist on audits of climate records and insist that all publishing journals in the field of climatology insist on absolute public transparency and availability of both source and intermediate data.
If you do option (1) then you will allow the PR playing scientists to continue playing PR and they will beat you. If you do option (2) and AGW is indeed a fraud (arguable in my opinion, but so what?) then that fraud will most certainly be exposed.
FWIW, I think option (2) is the better one.
Another fine post:
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/
Yonason:
http://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/umwelt/article5313419/Klima-aendert-sich-noch-drastischer-als-gedacht.html
It’s actually at the top of their homepage.
And their is a report that appeared in Der Spiegel.
You can find the link.
22 million listeners,
many of whom are going to look at this for the first time, get angry, and call their pol. rep.
That’s good!
Henry chance (11:36:34) – Don’t know about the co2 in Pamela’s chili , but you might want to watch out for the methane . No offence intended , Pamela . The highest quality chili should produce any number of eruptions . IMHO .
@JP (10:18:32) re: Filename: 1048799107.txt & Earth Government & And why were they reading their newsletter?
——
Hi JP,
I’ve no idea about the specific group that sent the newsletter to CRU ‘team,’ but would have to say that its likely meaningless. Anyone can send email to organizations and individuals if they can find the appropriate email addresses. Just receiving such a newsletter doesn’t necessarily indicate that those receiving it have any interest or association with those who sent it.
As to what the whole ‘earth governement’ thing is…. for decades (perhaps even longer?) there have been various groups that push very hard for a ‘one world government’ and/or a ‘new world order.’ There are all sorts of phrases along those lines associated with this push. I’m sure there are any number of variations on the agenda and ideas for how something along these lines ‘ought’ to be implemented.
This isn’t just some insignificant utterly fringe push, unfortunately, as there are some extremely wealthy and powerful individuals and groups behind such ideas and related activities. Even issues such as the push for international courts (which supersede national sovereignty) are thought by many to be attempts to force the world into some sort of one world government scheme. Supposedly Hilary Clinton and a number of other notables ascribe to the idea of a global governing body being somehow better for humanity.
I’m sure you can see the ramifications and problems with such an idea – its difficult enough to govern a nation such as the USA and have representative government let alone try to reconcile the various radically different beliefs of what constitutes an acceptable governing framework that exists throughout the world. We can’t even resolve the Israel/Palestine issue, let alone the ideas of radical Islam and things like shia (sp?) law vs. ideas of western nations.
If you google it, you can find very recent youtube and transcripts of Lord Monckton on how Obama is set to cede our national soverignity to the new proposed Kyoto treaty – which calls for ‘climate justice’ and a worldwide carbon tax. All of which is a huge wealth redistribution scheme to take from the more developed and wealthy nations and give to the less developed and poorer nations. From just a quick google grabbing the first couple of results without double checking content:
Anthony has done one or more posts here about it:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/16/obama-poised-to-cede-us-sovereignty-in-copenhagen-claims-british-lord-monckton/
or one on youtube:
or Canada Free Press about the issue:
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/15816
or if you look into recent calls for a new reserve currency for the world rather than the dollar….
The whole ‘one world government’ thing is something that initially sounds like some ridiculous conspiracy theory or utopian dream that sounds good on first blush but on deeper examination would be an utter disaster (at least to our idea of freedom, human rights, standards of living, etc.). Its also something that many far left liberals/progressives in the USA support.
Anyhow, when you start looking into it, you find that the ‘one world government’ idea is far more pervasive, long standing, and supported by many with tremendous power and resources — and then the whole thing becomes much more worrisome.
That newsletter, however, sounds to me like some relatively fringe group pushing their idea of how it should work, and thinking or hoping that they’ll find a sympathetic ear at the CRU (and probably any other group that iare hard core AGW believers). Its the sort of newsletter that may very well get sent out fairly widely to anyone who could possibly be sympathetic as almost virtual spam.
Hope this helps answer your question.
pjotrk – agreed. We cannot get hung up on little ‘gotchas’ – every coder has thrown his share of exasperated comments around from time to time – the real answers will come from walking through the code and figuring out (a) what it’s supposed to be doing (b) whether it in fact does that.
McIntyre catches Jones scoring yet another own goal.
http://camirror.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/denying-email-deletion/
It’s all about realclimate.org, they only debate the easy targets on their website. They ask for proof from “denialists” as they like to put it, and they censor your comment for providing factual information lol. Just a bunch of word acrobatics over there.
Pjotr — Exactly. Fortran runs thousands of factories and chemical plants and refineries today – because there is no economic incentive to re-code millions of lines of perfectly good code into a more “modern” language. Nothing at all wrong with Fortran, provided it is used properly (design, test, document, comments, flowsheets, etc). A bad programmer can screw up any programming language.
Henry chance (12:17:18) :
For the young entrepreneurs, how about inventing a foot peddle powered shredder. We can’t waste electricity generated by “dirty coal”
The benefits
1 Building up the thighs so they can jemp to conclusions more swiftly
2 It is sustainable if they compost the shredded cellulose or send it to the cellulose driven ethanol plants
3 No aerosols produced
4 No contribution to garbage dump methane.
Since paper comes from trees, is burning it considered “biomass” energy?
In fact coal comes from plants. Is that biomass as well? Heck, plants use sunlight for photosynthesis, so isn’t coal just stored sunlight? Isn’t coal really a form of solar power?
Also, if your shredder is human-powered, is running it considered a green job? Many of the green jobs in the future may be just manual labor. Talk about shovel-ready!
Frank K. (12:22:00)
Thanks for the link but I was referring to internal documentation being revealed which shows the same level of internal knowledge of the problematic coding/data/methodology as the HARRY_READ_ME.txt does.
JEM – I agree its doable as a project, its the willingness to have a transparent process which I doubt.
@ur momisugly Adam Sullivan (11:14:10) : -SNIP- This is laughable. CRU has what kind of budget? -SNIP-
Adam, I’m going from recollection of other folks posts, but apparently one or more of the released documents covers, at least to some extent, the amount of grant funding Phil Jones has gotten over the years for his climate research. Believe the figure quoted was 25 MILLION (pounds? dollars?).
The funding and how its been used is another bomb in the release – there are emails by some talking about sending grant funding $$ to private accounts to avoid taxes ‘so more is available for research’ and various questionable things along those lines.
Funding to each of the individuals in these emails and their organizatons and its appropriate or inappropriate (or illegal) use is just one more area that needs a thorough airing and legal examination.
“you’re up against some tough minded ideologues who have no problem (and continually do) herding all critics into a single group and then pointing to assertions made by the likes of Beck as being irrational. That plays well to those who might otherwise ask critical questions of the alarmists.”
It’s often the case that the more extreme opinionators are the trailblazers in making a fuss about a potential scandal. It’s a natural sequence, in both left and right. In some recent past scandals that have gone against the left, Limbaugh & co. were the first to jump in. (Or the pajama types of the blogosphere.) Once the mainstream follows, their pioneering no longer taints the case. The mainstream is drawn into paying attention because it doesn’t want to lose credibility by seeming to ignore the matter. So it’s necessary that far-out types make a fuss first.
PS: I’d be surprised if Limbaugh were any sort of creationist–he doesn’t seem the type. Beck is one only (I think) because he’s a Mormon and it’s part of the package. (I don’t follow his shows–or Limbaugh’s.)
@ur momisugly Lucy Skywalker (11:15:50) :
Lucy, there has been some push back regarding the legitimacy of temperature reconstructions using ice core data. You may be interested in this piece by Prof. Zbigniew Jaworowski.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/
Statement written for the Hearing before the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Climate Change: Incorrect information on pre-industrial CO2
March 19, 2004
Statement of Prof. Zbigniew Jaworowski
Chairman, Scientific Council of Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection
Warsaw, Poland
I am a Professor at the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection (CLOR) in Warsaw, Poland, a governmental institution, involved in environmental studies. CLOR has a “Special Liaison” relationship with the US National Council on Radiological Protection and Measurements (NCRP). In the past, for about ten years, CLOR closely cooperated with the US Environmental Protection Agency, in research on the influence of industry and nuclear explosions on pollution of the global environment and population. I published about 280 scientific papers, among them about 20 on climatic problems. I am the representative of Poland in the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), and in 1980 – 1982 I was the chairman of this Committee.
For the past 40 years I was involved in glacier studies, using snow and ice as a matrix for reconstruction of history of man-made pollution of the global atmosphere. A part of these studies was related to the climatic issues. Ice core records of CO2 have been widely used as a proof that, due to man’s activity the current atmospheric level of CO2 is about 25% higher than in the pre-industrial period. These records became the basic input parameters in the models of the global carbon cycle and a cornerstone of the man-made climatic warming hypothesis. These records do not represent the atmospheric reality, as I will try to demonstrate in my statement. [emphasis added]
-SNIP- (continued at link provided above)
Roger Harrabin comments at the
BBC…
From Bishop Hill post on HADCRUT code.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/23/the-code.html
He asked for help in scouring the files for interesting bits.
Informative comments from posters:
Mark in the comments notices a file called resid-fudge.dat, which he says contains, believe it or not, fudged residuals figures!
Mark in the comments notes a program comment: “Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!! followed by the words `fudge factor’ ” See briffa_sep98_d.pro.
From the programming file combined_wavelet.pro, another comment, presumably referring to the famous Briffa truncation: “Remove missing data from start & end (end in 1960 due to decline)”.
From the file pl_decline.pro”: “Now apply a completely artificial adjustment for the decline only where coefficient is positive!)”
From the file data4alps.pro: “IMPORTANT NOTE: The data after 1960 should not be used. The tree-ring density’ records tend to show a decline after 1960 relative to the summer temperature in many high-latitude locations. In this data set this “decline” has been artificially removed in an ad-hoc way, and this means that data after 1960 no longer represent tree-ring density variations, but have been modified to look more like the observed temperatures.”
If these are true and accurate…..!
I doubt the State Run Media will gives this story the ink it deserves. I’ve been E-mailing stories to contacts on my list to spread the story.
Obama’s Science Czar John Holdren involved in unwinding “Climategate” scandal
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/17183
Just a short other comment:
The fact that in
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/0,1518,663045,00.html
Hans von Storch, not really a sceptic, but well known scientific, criticizes the report rather drastically shows that it has been issued faster than planned and under pressure (from CRU).
He calls it counterproductive which is certainly is!