I was working on another project related to the CRU emails and came across this email from Dr.Phil Jones. I was stunned, not only because he was dissing another dataset, but mostly because that dissing hit many of the points about problems with the NASA GISS products we’ve covered here on WUWT and at Climate Audit.
Here’s the email with my highlights added. Email addresses have been partially redacted.
The original email can be seen at this link:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1042&filename=1254850534.txt
Here’s the thing, we’ve seen the problems with CRU’s temperature series in the code already. If Dr. Jones is aware of those problems, and he thinks GISS is inferior, well then, wow, just how bad is GISS?
I thought this statement was quite telling:
Their non-use of a base period (GISS using something very odd and NCDC first differences) means they can use
very short series that we can’t (as they don’t have base periods) but with short series it is impossible to assess for homogeneity.
One thing about GISS that has bothered a lot of people – the base period they use for calculating temperature anomaly is for 1951-1980. See it listed here on the GISTEMP page. No other data sets use that period. Critics (including myself) have said that by using that period, it makes this graph’s trend look steeper than it would if the current 30 year period was used.
In the past couple of years we’ve seen two significant errors with NASA GISS that had to be corrected after they were discovered through the work done here at at WUWT and Climate audit. Public errors have not been found in CRU products during that time, because the data an code have been withheld.
To the credit of NASA GISS, they have been more transparent than CRU on data, stations used, and code.
Here are some of the relevant posts on WUWT where we address issues found with the NASA GISS temperature products:
How bad is the global temperature data?
And now, the most influential station in the GISS record is …
NASA GISS: adjustments galore, rewriting U.S. climate history
Absence makes the chart grow fonder
A comphrehensive comparison of GISS and UAH global Temperature data
Getting crabby – another missing NASA GISS station found, thanks to a TV show
More on NOAA’s FUBAR Honolulu “record highs” ASOS debacle, PLUS finding a long lost GISS station
Weather Station Data: raw or adjusted?
GISS Divergence with satellite temperatures since the start of 2003
Divergence Between GISS and UAH since 1980
GISS’s Gavin Schmidt credits WUWT community with spotting the error
GISS, NOAA, GHCN and the odd Russian temperature anomaly – “It’s all pipes!”
Corrected NASA GISTEMP data has been posted
A new view on GISS data, per Lucia
The Accidental Tourist (aka The GISS World Tour)
Rewriting History, Time and Time Again
Why Does NASA GISS Oppose Satellites?
How not to measure temperature, part 52: Another UFA sighted in Arizona
How not to measure temperature, part 51.
NASA’s Hansen Frees the Code !
Does Hansen’s Error “Matter”? – guest post by Steve McIntyre
1998 no longer the hottest year on record in USA
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
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O.T. but no one should miss this from the business pages of the UK Daily Telegaph. See what happens in a carbon trading block and to whom the already incredible profits of this as yet nascent market accrue!
And where you may ask does this money come from? Well, in the UK it comes from a levy of 9% on the price per unit of gas, electricity etc which is not itemised but hidden in the unit cost prior to it’s multiplication by the unit usage number.
Here in the UK we are already factored in by law to an incease of this by 1% per annum for the next eleven years. No prizes for guessing where most of that impost will end up if you read the Telegaph article.
This is why nations with no Carbon Trading regime at present should fight tooth and nail against it’s imposition.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/businesslatestnews/6686057/European-Climate-Exchange-chief-Patrick-Birley-defends-the-carbon-trading-system.html
You might want to leave an enlightening comment here…..
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-how-global-warming-is-having-an-impact-1831332.html
I’m afraid I must agree with Mattb (23:53:57) :
“But you guys already know CRU is corrupt, so you can take from this that GISS is better. Or is Phil’s opinion suitable when it suits you?”
Even a blind pig can find an acorn once in awhile. When he does, Farmer Brown does not rush into print with the “shocking” news of that accomplishment.
CH
“They also impose some urbanization adjustment which is based on population/night lights which I don’t think is very good.”
Better than nothing at all, which is what Jones does. However nightlight adjustment is just for the US. The rest of the GISS urban adjustments are VERY fishy.
However, let’s take Jone’s assertion at face value:
“I think you can say that GISS is inferior to CRUTEM3.”
So let’s see what that means:
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/wp-images/cherry-pick_fig2.JPG
Of the Surface datasets, ONLY Hadley/CRU shows no warming for twelve years. If they are the best dataset, which Jones believes apparently, then the last twelve years of no warming pretty much blows the models out of the water.
I’m finding this whole MSM la-la-can’t-hear-you really quite sinister now.
I assumed it was caution – the BBC in particular as notorious for hanging back and then reporting on what some other outlet has said.
But we’re what 10 days in and I tripped across an article in Pravda that it was more informative than anything I’ve seen on the BBC’s own website. It even had a right rant at the end about how outrageous it all was.
I know it’s not the journal it once was but it’s very strange that Russian cable TV and websites are giving it more coverage…
I stuck in on my blog if you want to read it.
What strikes me is how recent this e-mail from PJ to Tom “Wiggles” Wigley and Ben “The Hit Man” Santer was: October 6th, 2009.
There’s more shocking (well not really shocking so much as appalling) earlier in the exchanges. At the same page Anthony links to, we find this gem from Jones, also:
“Phil Jones wrote:
Tom,
I don’t think AR4 (Ch 3) went into the TLT/surface amplification issue. You can get the pdf of the chapter from here [1]http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html . This amplification issue is only addressed in some recent papers – mainly Ben’s. The timescale argument is quite convincing. It is a pity that there is only Pinatubo that you can test it on. El Chichon ought to work but it is confused by ENSO. Does the amplification work well for the 1997/98 El Nino? Did you pick up that Thompson et al paper due out in J. Climate soon? Factoring out ENSO and volcanoes might help in isolating this.
[2]http://www.atmos.colostate.edu/faculty/thompson.php
where there is a link to the paper and also the data
[3]http://www.atmos.colostate.edu/~davet/ThompsonWallaceJonesKennedy/
It seems as though you can get all the extraction parts. No need for the dynamic bit. Anyway my thought is as Pinatubo gives the amplification then ENSO ought to as well. A thought might be to take Dave Thompson’s ENSO and volcanic subtraction series, then scale them by thermodynamic theory value then subtract these from RSS and UAH. Small issue of base periods to sort out and assume there is no lag. Need to do this with NCDC surface as well – have to use Dave T’s numbers here. This can’t do the 20N-20S – just the globe. It would of course, at this and any other time, be very nice to show that UAH is wrong. A couple of minor things in the paper- the amplification should work for a cooling as well – not just warming trends? In Fig 5 in your legend LOUAH should be UAHLO. This is in Fig 4 as well. By the way – meant to add this to the earlier email. NCDC ERSST3 side does talk about missing data, so any of this would mean the (NH+SH)/2 won’t equal the global average that NCDC calculate. I recall you asking about GISS. One thing I have learned about GISS is that they have a cut off date of the 8th of each month. After this date nothing is changed for the previous month and nothing earlier either. This means they never incorporate any back data and they don’t get the second tranche of CLIMAT data which comes about the 16th of the following month. Countries like Paraguay and Bolivia mostly come in this way, plus some in Africa. I’ll see Tom Peterson later in the week. I’ll ask him about their cut offs. I think they don’t change a month later. This won’t lose you much data though. It was Tom who told me about the data they can’t use.
Cheers
Phil”
OT just noticed the widget shows a drop in CO2 for Oct.
Lack of industry worldwide due to our depression?
Spring algae blooms SH oceans? Grass growing in rainy little NZ?
The whole world holding their breath over Climategate and Copenhagen?
AHA! Cash for Clunkers effects finally recorded!
…meanwhile, back at the camp, the sun lingers on… with Zero sunspots…
WUWT has had a very rapid 5 million hits over the last few weeks but good ol’ Sol keeps on rollin’ along…
A welcome to all the newcomers here, and may I extend my gratitide, on behalf of all, to our gracious host, Anthony “The Reverend” Watts and his superb “Team” of moderators.
‘Fantasist, self-publicist and Walter Mitty character’.These and many other labels could never be attached to Lord Monckton.As Gore’s a wrong-un,the next best thing is to have Ronald McDonald as a sceptic figurehead.
“after hearing Gavin’s “we dont know” answer about whether the climate is chaotic it has reinforced my sceptism.”
———————————————–
Is this what they really mean by scientific consensus? I mean, if they don’t know if the climate really is a chaotic system or not? How the heck can they know anything about it for sure? So is there now consensus that they do not know, so they need the research grants to keep rolling in?
Plato,
The coverage from the BBC has been pathetically weak. However they will still say that they have covered crugate, which is true BUT when you look at the coverage its pretty rubbish.
One would think that with a near £4billion budget that the BBC would have the resources at its disposal to look extremely deeply in to crugate…well that is until one realises that the BBC has invested significant amounts of time and effort in to pushing global warming ™.
For me, I believe the real issue here is that so many people and so many organisations have invested so much time, effort and money in to global warming ™ that something as inconvenient as this leak will not stop them getting their “fair world government” in place!
After all, to the left…the Wests power and wealth is disgusting. So anything to rectify this balance is fair game…its just that these lefties have cottoned on to global warming as their vehicle to achieve this new “fair” system of wealth distribution.
Mailman
jones is not talking about the 1951-1990 base period and the fact that it differs from the 60-90. he is talking about the combining process of smaller segments into longer segments. The reference station method ( easterling I recall ) of NCDC.
Jones and brohan require that a station have data during their base period ( 60-90) which is WHY in other mails jones fights against changing this period to something more modern
” Plato Says (06:23:33) : But we’re what 10 days in and I tripped across an article in Pravda that it was more informative than anything I’ve seen on the BBC’s own website.”
But just look at this BBC ‘have your say ‘ comments, things are changing
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&forumID=7283&edition=1&ttl=20091130150834&#paginator
Bob Tisdale (01:11:59) :
tallbloke: I find the end of the third sentence in the quote to be the most telling part of Jones’s argument. “They also impose some urbanization adjustment which is based on population/night lights WHICH I DON’T THINK IS VERY GOOD.” Is this climate science at its best”
It is about feelings. Don’t hold them back or supress them.
It must not be about facts or data.
Joe Romm uses an expression. anti-science
That fits here.
@Mattb:
You wrote, “But you guys already know CRU is corrupt, so you can take from this that GISS is better. Or is Phil’s opinion suitable when it suits you?”
———————————————–
Just because CRU is better than GISS, does not make CRU any good. It just creates the possiblity that the CRU data, albeit appallingly bad, is nonetheless, better than a truly atrocious set of data from GISS.
IF the GISS data really is, as Jones states, worse than CRU, then the GISS data must be utterly useless.
This climategate really is the gift that just keeps on giving. I don’t need Christmas presents after all this 😀
Tnaks to TonyB! Much appreciated. AtB
Tony, sorry that of course should read, “Thanks”!
Andrew Orlowski has an article up on The Register about ClimateGate. As usual, he provides an intelligent and insightful analysis.
Regarding the allegedly dumped data, couldn’t a FOIA be filed to get a copy of all the related paperwork authorizing the destruction of this key data? If they can’t show paperwork from the time that authorized this destruction of one of their crown jewels that would point to them lying about it being destroyed in the 1980s due to the move, while on the other hand if they do present docs, those could be forgeries.
One climatologist I am in touch with and who is defending CRU, asserts that
CRU was not the repository for the data they destroyed, and that they did not in fact disappear irreplaceable data.
Is there any evidence of this either way?
I still think some people are expecting unreasonable speed from the MSM. If you want to write a story, rather than just an *alleged* story, you need to file FOI requests and obtain the original information, then follow the paper trail. That’s probably going to take at least a month. Much longer if the institution tries to stonewall.
I expect in the future there will probably be some documentaries covering the issue, like a follow up to the “Great Global Warming Swindle” for instance.
A little OT, and Anthony is probably already on this, but here’s UNEP’s plan for the future of us all. A plan for world government based around environmental laws, etc. I think it’s almost soup.
A couple excerpts follow.
—new environmental rules, regulations and standards, and the linking of existing environmental agreements, in a stronger global lattice-work of environmental law, with stronger authority to command national governments. The Swiss paper calls it a series of “ambitious yet incremental adjustments” to international environmental governance. Indeed, the document says, UNEP’s “role is to ‘tee up’ the next generation of such rules.”
—an extensive propagandizing role for UNEP that reaches beyond its member governments and traditional environmental institutions to “children and youth” as well as business and political groups, to support UNEP strategic objectives.
Link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,577827,00.html
son of mulder – holy cow, thanks for the link.
Sky reported on their blog that they’d had a shed load of emails saying [snip], you are even mentioning it as a growing story in your regular internet story slot’
The reply was – nah, its all nonsense – look the IPCC can’t be wrong…
http://blogs.news.sky.com/theweathergirls/Post:35c7a6d4-9e59-4208-9703-34d64bd6d7fd
What needs to be done here is to have an independent comparison of the analysis methods used by the three major players that report monthly “global temperature” metrics (CRU, NOAA, GISS). The assumption is that they all start with essentially the same “raw” data. The adjustments that are performed would differ depending on the particular group’s analysis. We know what GISS does (vis GISTEMP), and we know it is bad (see E.M. Smith’s extensive analysis of GISTEMP’s methods at http://chiefio.wordpress.com/). NOAA (via NCDC) won’t release their methods software (source code), and I’m not sure what has been released from CRU.