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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Ron, thanks for speaking out. No doubt it was not easy. I hear what you are saying. Many records had to be paid for. Many records already had problems. It is a laborious and thankless task.
However, against that, which I can agree with, I have to set other issues. (1) the records about such an important issue have got to be in the public domain, in a form where they can be checked. Government can and should fund costs and should have been asked to do so. (2) there are already enough GISS records in the public domain that give the lie to unnatural global warming if you use them intelligently. Have a look at this brilliant, simple video on UHI that compares pairs of neighbouring US GISS records, one rural, one urban. A project a schoolchild could do! Have a look too at John Daly What the Stations Say – almost all GISS records.
From: Phil (CRU Crew)
To: Mike (Hockey Team)
Subject: CRU Fridge
This Data is moldy, and it stinks. I’m throwing it out.
Stephen Wilde (04:24:55) :
“A relatively small number of individuals from varying disciplines got together in an immature area of science and misbehaved. They allowed imagination and personal ambition to supplant scientific judgement and they did not allow proper use of the scientific method to rein back their imaginings.
“………………….”
Magisterial! Anthony, please post his whole comment as an article. And please tell the media they can quote the whole thing freely.
It’s a slow day today on the subject of climategate.
How do they judge “inferior” when all they are talking about is fudged data?
When the media money strings realize they can’t sell thier AGW stories any more, the gears will shift to leveling broadsides at the sinking ship of Climate Change.
Alexander Harvey (09:21:48) :
There is plenty of raw instrumental readings in the US and elsewhere that can be dug up to get a near 150 yr. record. Climate is quite regional, and keeping the record regional can help greatly in identifying when many regions acted sympathy, instead of in opposition.
Bill Radcliffe (04:03:50) :
An aside really but I can’t help being amused by the number of emails from this individual that contain the message that “I’ll be away at….” Fill in the blanks yourself. What’s the collective noun for profesors? Answer “An absence”.
Gee, non-PC me thought Answer: “An Abcess.”
Present company excluded of course.
Incidently, arguing that any particular series is probably better on the basis of what we now about glaciers or solar output is flaky indeed. Glacier mass balance is driven by the difference mainly in winter accumulation and summer ablation , filtered in a complex non-linear way to give variously lagged tongue advance/retreat .Simple inference on the precidence of modern day snout positions does not translate easily into absolute (or relative) temperature levels now or in the past.
I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’ but in reality the situation is not quite so simple. We don’t have a lot of proxies that come right up to date and those that do (at least a significant number of tree proxies ) some unexpected changes in response that do not match the recent warming.
A proxy diagram of temperature change is a clear favourite for the Policy Makers summary. But the current diagram with the tree ring only data somewhat contradicts the multiproxy curve and dilutes the message rather significantly. We want the truth. [!] Mike thinks it lies nearer his result (which seems in accord with what we know about worldwide mountain glaciers and, less clearly, suspect about solar variations).
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=136&filename=938018124.txt
SteveS (02:43:07
That kind of protest is a little too strong for me.
But I guess both sides have a fringe element.
Sorry for length, but it is good:
OT i know but google fudging again…
Results 1 – 10 of about 12,100,000 for climategate. (0.07 seconds)
Like a flippin yo-yo they are…..
“” Carrick (07:54:22) :
One thing about GISS that has bothered a lot of people – the base period they use for calculating temperature anomaly is for 1951-1980.
That is probably the best choice, because temperature was relatively stable from 1950-1980.””
That hasn’t always been the case, if you find an article from 20 years ago with the average temperature anomaly plotted you would see a drop of ~0.2C between 1950 and 1980.
Lucy from your web site:
VJones inspired me to look into the UK records more closely. She says “We’re up against 0.6 deg warming/Century. If we can reduce that to 0.3 degrees, it is not ‘unprecedented’. I believe removing only a few real howlers, can have a dramatic effect. Look at Gardermoen: 3.73 degrees/century. There are sites like that one all over. ….
Do you not see that this statement is exactly what you accuse GISS CRU Pen Haddow of. You state that your aim is to prove that warmingh is .3degC/C . You are starting from a position of bias! – Not scientific
“Bill Radcliffe (04:03:50) : What’s the collective noun for profesors?”
For warmist professors what about “A Deletion” or “A Decline” – note the double meaning. Or “A Splice”.
The Scientists Involved in Deliberately Deceiving the World on Climate
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/17364
hunter (7:59:24) :
As with many who are trying to whitewash this affair , n g relys entirely on the emails , and concentrates on the more innocuous ones . While the emails , especially the ones he has purportedly read , make no out and out admissions what they imply is pretty serious . What is more damaging are the Harry files , which most op-ed types have thus far ignored .
Curiousgeorge – Goldwater was right .
glen martin:
Well, let me just say, with the “best knowledge” we have today it was relatively stable. (If my memory serves me in the older temperature series, the 0.2C drop occurred between 1940 and 1950, but perhaps you can dig up a reference and show me wrong. This is regardless, because “as far as we know now” GMT was more or less constant over that interval.)
Shocking indeed! But what I found truly outrageous is the startling revelation that NASA cherry-picked the baseline for their time series to maximise the planetary warming trend.
I am shocked I tell you. To the very core of my being.
This report in English says the Arctic will cool. Don’t let the headline fool you.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4921542,00.html
Above link h/t to: http://www.klimanotizen.de/index.html
“http://www.klimanotizen.de/index.html
“Makarevich expects a normalization of Arctic temperatures in the coming years. This view appears to have the support of a growing number of Russian scientists.”
Off Topic – but I have a quesstion.
I found this on the Science Museum website under “evidence”, yep from the PROVE It poll.
“Scientists can tell the extra carbon dioxide around the Earth comes from fossil fuels by looking at the type of carbon. The carbon atoms in fossil fuels are lighter, on average, than those in air. Scientists can measure increasing numbers of lighter carbon atoms in the atmosphere over time. So we know the extra carbon dioxide comes from fossil fuels.”
Could somebody help me with a link to study that proves this? I’m looking to expand my knowledge. Thanks in advance.
If this is true, is anyone tracking this percentage difference at any frequency?
“But according to Babich, the situation is changing. The Arctic, he says, is already cooling, not warming. And the Russian government is attentively listening to those scientists who, like Babich, are predicting a cold spell.”
Carrick (11:23:32) :
There is a plot in this article from 1991, before the data had ‘value added’, which shows the decline from 1940 -1970 ( displayed as averages over solar cycles instead of annually ), guess my memory wasn’t quite accurate.
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/files/documents/Solar%20Cycle%20-%20Friis-Chr_Lassen-.pdf
I remember reading somewhere a few years back (can’t remember who, when or where) that, in the mid- to late ’70s (I think), there was a step-change (upwards) of about 0.5C in the temperature record – which apparently went unnoticed.
Can anyone shed some light on this?
Ben (09:08:52) : Need some help. One of the WUWT items included a brief statement which was an very short, but a very excellent list of the punch points of Climate Gate. I believe it was written by an Australian Professor from the University of Western…
How about this:
Mike’s Nature TrickRobert M. (14:15:43 on 20 Nov.) : So, What we have here is evidence that the team has engaged in:
1. Conspiracy
2. Government Fraud
3. Computer Fraud
4. Obstruction of Justice
5. Environmental Law Violations (Falsifying lab data pertaining to environmental regulations) (snicker)
6. Suppression of evidence
7. Tampering with evidence
8. Public Corruption
9. Bribery