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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Peter (12:00:25) :
There have probably been lots of these. Which record do you mean? Scafetta maintains there are stepwise problems with the satellite data. Many stations show sudden step changes, usually associated with being moved, lots documented in Anthony’s Surface Stations project. Around 1990 there was a sudden loss of stations globally which corresponds to a step increase in global temperatures at that time – most of the stations lost were rural. Hans Erren documented either here or at CA an apparent GISS programme for stepwise adjustments to the DeBilt records over a period of decades – that piece of work deserves to surface again soon!
re: timetochooseagain – “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.”
Roger Pielke Sr. had a guest Weblog By William DiPuccio “The Global Warming Hypothesis” that proposed just that scenario (http://climatesci.org/2009/05/05/have-changes-in-ocean-heat-falsified-the-global-warming-hypothesis-a-guest-weblog-by-william-dipuccio/):
“On the other hand, the current lapse in heat accumulation demonstrates a complete failure of the AGW hypothesis to account for natural climate variability, especially as it relates to ocean cycles (PDO, AMO, etc.). If anthropogenic forcing from GHG can be overwhelmed by natural fluctuations (which themselves are not fully understood), or even by other types of anthropogenic forcing, then it is not unreasonable to conclude that the IPCC models have little or no skill in projecting global and regional climate change on a multi-decadal scale. Dire warnings about “runaway warming” and climate “tipping points” cannot be taken seriously. A complete rejection of the hypothesis, in its current form, would certainly be warranted if the ocean continues to cool (or fails to warm) for the next few years.”
Ooh this hurts
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100018373/climategate-the-phil-jones-university-could-break-into-childrens-television-big-time/
Anthony comments on Roundtable
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/11/29/week-discusses-climategate-obamas-copenhagen-trip
Plato Says (12:45:17) :
Ooh this hurts
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100018373/climategate-the-phil-jones-university-could-break-into-childrens-television-big-time/
Thanks Plato for linking to probably the funniest take on AGW to date.
Absolutely priceless!
Can Kevin and Tom be on the Phil and Michael show? How about Kevin and Ray and Malcolm and Gavin and…
It’s because CRU has superior tree-thermometers!
Humour, however it is spelt, can often do more to sway attitudes than cold facts alone. There are serious times ahead and our futures depend on what happens next. A little light relief can lift spirits and improve morale.
Would Anthony consider starting a thread devoted to the humerous side of the AGW debate.
If that is possible may I nominate the telegraph warner link submitted by Plato Says as an entry?
Back to my ignorant layman persona (it’s what I do best!)
I came across this quote in John Brignell’s Number Watch:
“If you remove the corrections the effect disappears. Therefore the corrections are the effect. Furthermore, the stationary nature of the raw data does not indicate any requirement for corrections.”
Which seems eminently logical to this simple mind.
I then read here about doubts about using 51-80 as the base period for calculating because everyone else uses 61-90 (or 71-00 in some reports I’ve seen), and I ask myself, “why are we talking about ‘base periods’ and ‘anomalies’ and getting all worked up about the steepness or otherwise of graphs?”
“Why are we not using real numbers, as in: if the average annual temperatures in (say) the 1950s were 14.5, 14.7, 14.6, 14.5, 14.7, 14.8, 14.7, 14.8, 14.9, 14.9 then we have some figures that real people can understand and can say, “what the hell are we worrying about?” Or if the figures tell a different story we can all at least see what that story is.
Joe Public does not in general understand ‘anomalies’. If you want him to understand you have to give him something he’s familiar with.
Most people know about the various warm and cold periods that have occurred over recorded time, especially the Minoan, Roman, and Medieval Warm Periods and the mini ice ages that have happened in between but have been flummoxed by the scientists with their tree rings and ice cores into either believing that these things didn’t happen or that “this time it’s different” (why??).
Which is why I repeat my time-worn mantra: it’s never been about the science; it’s always been about the politics. And I wonder if the skeptics make things any better by not speaking language that the layman (who is the one who votes the politicians out) can relate to.
Just a thought!
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?
One uses a good magician or con man to spot a poorer one… They are better at spotting the errors of the “play” than the innocents watching the show…
Wayne Findley (00:09:03) :
That’s how real science happens.
Thank you! The highest complement possible, IMHO.
FWIW, I’m close to figuring out how this whole circle of deception runs. NCDC via the GHCN data product cooks the thermometer record by deleting recent warm locations, but leaving in cold locations during the major ‘climate history’ data products ‘baseline’ intervals. But they can claim innocense since all they do is provide temperatures and times. CRUt and GIStemp then take GHCN and do some minor re-imaginings and then point at each other and at NCDC / GHCN and say “See! We are all independent and agree so we must be right!”. All being, at core, minor rehash of the same cooked thermometer history. They then use thier “eminance” to establish control of the “peer review” process and lock down the ownership of “their version of truth”…
Nice little “3 way” they have going on. And you can’t attack any of it without having the other 2 legs of the stool beat you over the head with the “Peer Review” stick. Nice. Tidy. Evil. (IMHO, of course.)
But I’ve shown GHCN is cooked with thermomter delitions at altititude and latitudes toward the poles. (and a finer finesse in some places like Mexico). And GIStemp is just dreck as a code base. And now CRUt is caught with their winky in the wringer…
IMHO, the place needing the most chopping next is the NCDC / GHCN that has an incestuous relationship with GISS via G.S. Flight Center and shared personelle. To claim this two are independent peers is a flat out deception.
bill (11:11:01) :
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”
========
It’s OK to start from a position of bias: that’s postulating a hypothesis. What’s not scientific is to end there, ignoring disconfirming evidence or alternative hypotheses that work better.
Ron (08:13:04) : I’m going to stick my neck out defend the guys who produced those long-term climate records. As I understand it they use three different approaches:
– CRU tries to use a sub-set of stations (c 4000) with long records.
– NCDC uses a larger number of stations (c 7000), some of which have shorter records, to estimate grid temperatures.
– GISS also uses a large number of records but works on difference over time, assuming that stations in or close a particular grid will all warm or cool at a similar rate.
Um, CRU has claimed they can recreate the lost data from GHCN data. That says they use GHCN. What part they throw out is the only real open issue (per their statements).
GISS uses primarily GHCN. They sporadically merge, blend, average the GHCN copy of the USA data with the USHCN copy of the USA data, but that is only for the 2% of the world that is the USA and they didn’t bother doing it from May 2007 until a week or so ago. They are substantially GHCN rebaked (or half baked).
That leaves NCDC. As near as I can tell, they are the orginators of GHCN and that is what folks mean when they talk about NCDC temperature data. (They have a lot of data series, if you mean some other series, please identifify it.)
The major difference between GIStemp and NCDC / GHCN is that GIStemp chops off the stuff older than 1880 and then does some splicing of records for locations, some computed infilling, and some (IMHO broken UHI adjustments).
If these three methods give similar results for underlying trends that in itself gives the results a degree of confidence.
If these three methods give similar results for underlaying trends this in itself gives the results a high degree of suspicion as they are all based on the GHCN data series that has had major deletions of cold location thermometer records, but only AFTER the baseline periods…
Keep the cold locations in the baseline periods. Toss them since about 1990. Yeah, I’d call that “suspicious”. That all 3 use this data and all 3 agree means one thing:
All Three Are Broken
Roger Knights: “It’ll develop along the lines of Watergate, with the public getting hooked on their weekly scandal…”
I doubt it. Remember that the central media drama of Watergate was the gradual exposure of conspiracy and cover-up, and the nightly revelations that followed.
In the current situation, no such conspiracy and cover-up has been alleged or shown, nor even any compelling evidence of wrongdoing. Given the timing of the hack/leak, what we have seen is probably the leaker’s best shot, and there’s unlikely to be much in the way of additional material to maintain a media drip-feed.
Just as importantly from a media perspective, the material is being used to support a pre-existing narrative, that climate scientists have engaged in corruption and fraud. That is probably one reason why the wider media is treating the issue with caution.
It’s also doubtful that many other whistle-blowers are waiting in the wings. Over the years there has been ample encouragement, and opportunity and outlets, for people to spill their beans, so anyone who has wanted to speak up has most likely done so.
My prediction is that some people will be chastened by this experience, knuckles may be wrapped, careers possibly hurt, data made more readily available. Some of these outcomes may even be desirable.
That last line of my prior comment was a Klingon…
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.
Yes, quite definitely the best cherry pick possible from the available choices.
See:
http://www.smhi.se/sgn0102/n0205/upps_www.pdf
I defy you to pick a better bottom.
What do you suppose would happen if some hapless soul at the CRU were to unthinkingly hum the tune to Tommy James “Draggin’ the Line” within earshot of Phil Jones? Sorry; just an errant thought.
There’s a mathematical misunderstanding here. By itself, the base-period simply sets the zero-level for anomalies. It cannot affect their trend. A poor choice relative to the long-term mean, however, introduces a bias. GISS’ base period covers the entire period of the 50’s and 60’s, when temperatures were declining from their earlier peaks. Thus GISS anomalies consistently show higher values than other indices. Although this discrepancy can be minimized by re-centering, the psychological effect of showing persistently high positive anomalies is difficult to eradicate in public perception.
That’s actually the problem, not the trend itself, and few actually misunderstand this. In spite of Anthony’s statement in the OP, I would venture that’s really what he means, i.e., seeing an anomaly of 0.8 seems like a higher trend than one of 0.5 (for example), not because the slope is steeper, but because the anomaly is larger. Certainly people that construct the graphs know this, too.
Mark
Plato Says (12:45:17) :
Ooh this hurts
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100018373/climategate-the-phil-jones-university-could-break-into-childrens-television-big-time/
Thanks Plato for linking to probably the funniest take on AGW to date.
Absolutely priceless!
Yes this is the type of story we really need to make the rounds. Be sure to send it to all your friends. ROTFLMAO
SCIENCE MADE STUPID
All contents � Copyright 1985 Tom Weller
http://sms.mike.neir.org/sms.htm
Has an absolutely great section on the scientific method. There are two types he spells out, the inductive and the deductive. The inductive fits CRU to a T
#1. formulate hypothesis, #2. apply for grant… #4 alter data to fit hypothesis …..
Anthony perhaps you can get permission to reprint it here
Brendan H (15:52:09) :
“Given the timing of the hack/leak, what we have seen is probably the leaker’s best shot, and there’s unlikely to be much in the way of additional material to maintain a media drip-feed.”
I wouldn’t be too sure. Additional e-mails involving the team will be subpoenaed by Inhofe’s committee. There’s likely to be embarrassing material in them that will titillate the public, and whet their blood-lust for more.
“Remember that the central media drama of Watergate was the gradual exposure of conspiracy and cover-up, and the nightly revelations that followed. In the current situation, no such conspiracy and cover-up has been alleged [sure it has] or shown, nor even any compelling evidence of wrongdoing.”
Spoken like another Ron Zigler or Rabbi Korff (remember him?)! I hope you get interviewed as a CRUgate-defender on TV: there’s a need for someone to fill those roles, to heighten the absurdity of it all.
Unlike you, Monbiot has recognized that there is plenty of evidence of wrongdoing, collusion, and butt-covering among The Team, that the public is going to see it that way, and therefore that a timely abandonment of them and their indefensible activity is the only way for warmism to salvage some credibility from this train wreck. The truth of his insight should be obvious, but if you and your brethren would rather be oblivious, I’m fine with that. Don’t give up the [glug ….]!
“Just as importantly from a media perspective, the material is being used to support a pre-existing narrative, that climate scientists have engaged in corruption and fraud. That is probably one reason why the wider media is treating the issue with caution.”
Sure. But now some of them are beginning to think, “Maybe we were wrong to dismiss the pre-existing narrative. That’s what we did with Watergate. We ignored McGovern’s pre-election charges that the break-in had been orchestrated from above because it sounded partisan, outrageously unlikely, and would have brought down obloquy on us if we had entertained the possibility publicly. Mutatis mutandis …”
Now that there’s been some “hard” confirmation of outsiders’ charges of smug, thuggish groupthink that has been “leaning” on the peer review process, climate critics no longer can be dismissed as cranks. They are going to be given a respectful hearing, at least in a fair number of venues.
Similarly, scientific societies are going to have to take a serious second look at this controversy, instead of just rubber-stamping the “correct” opinion. Every time one of them distances itself from the consensus, it’ll be newsworthy. Every time a warmist becomes a turncoat, or even merely criticizes an outrageous defense of the Team (like the absurd defenses of Nixon that were offered), it’ll be newsworthy.
The dam is cracking, the increased waterflow will widen the cracks, the media will like the ratings the drama is getting, more blood will get into the water, the feeding frenzy will intensify, more countries will put a hold on their anti-carbon legislation, more prestigious scientific statesmen and popularizers will weigh in on the side of caution or contrarianism, more hapless/ludicrous defenses of the consensus will be made, and the whole world will grab some popcorn and watch with glee.
Over the next few years, the warmists will be in retreat and on the defensive, despite occasional blips. The warm has turned. All the sanctimonious viciousness and hypocrisy (“we’re doing real science”) of the enviro-nuts to date will make them wonderful targets for popular scorn and down-peg-pulling.
“Dr Phil Jones says this has been the worst week of his professional career.”
So far.
Lucy and EM Smith. Thanks for getting back to me.
I suppose what I am arguing is not that CRU and the others have got it right; clearly in some cases they certainly haven’t. What I am arguing is that they have developed the skills and have the resources to get it right and we should encourage this rather than forcing them into an corner.
We also have to recognise that the satellite data, for the last 3 decades, gives similar values to the observational record.
We also have to be consistent in our arguments. In 1998 the warmists claimed the high temperature was evidence of massive global warming and skeptics said it was an El Nino blip. Now it is the warmists who say it was a blip and skeptics who say it was genuine and since then the world has cooled.
A similar situation obtains in relation to phenomenological evidence. Skeptics say Medieval warming was real becasue of the extent of vinyards in England and evidence of a temperate climate in Greenland but reject similar arguments, increasing numbers of winyards in England and reduced Arctic ice, as evidence of 20th century warming. Warmists do the same in the other directions.
Solutions are simple when you use only a sub-set of the facts.
Roger Knights: “There’s likely to be embarrassing material in them that will titillate the public, and whet their blood-lust for more.”
Titillation is one thing, conspiracy another. To get a Watergate situation, you need actual scientific wrongdoing, strong evidence of fraud and collusion, and to date there’s been none of that, nor any reason to suspect any more such evidence in future.
“The dam is cracking, the increased waterflow will widen the cracks…”
At the beginning of 2009 a former NASA administrator came out in opposition to AGW, causing enormous excitement among sceptics. As one poster opined: “We are finally witnessing the last gasps of a dying theory.”
The death of AGW has been regularly predicted for a good while now. Certainly, this email leak is a more serious matter than the views of a retired scientist, and is a setback to climate science, but beware of confirmation bias. My suggestion is that celebration is premature, and may well lead to serious disappointment.
“Over the next few years, the warmists will be in retreat and on the defensive, despite occasional blips.”
You’re assuming that the CRU emails have disconfirmed AGW. But the current crop of climate scientists remain convinced that their science is correct. Whatever happens in the political sphere will not affect the scientific findings, nor, for that matter, the actual climate.
Ron (23:02:57) : says
“…A similar situation obtains in relation to phenomenological evidence. Skeptics say Medieval warming was real because of the extent of vineyards in England and evidence of a temperate climate in Greenland but reject similar arguments, increasing numbers of winyards in England and reduced Arctic ice, as evidence of 20th century warming. Warmists do the same in the other directions.
Solutions are simple when you use only a sub-set of the facts.
Ron, you keep missing the basic point. “Unprecedented Catastrophic Man-made Global Warming” is a hypothesis that has to be PROVEN true.
The basics needed to do so are:
1. man is causing the current increase in CO2. Therefore it must be shown industrial release of CO2 completely override the natural processes such as release of CO2 by the oceans and sequestering of CO2 by plant life and what ever else effects the carbon cycle.
2. CO2 has such a large impact on climate compared to other factors that it overrides any self-correcting feed back mechanisms. Feed back mechanisms such as the increase in temperature and the increase in CO2 increases the uptake of CO2 by plants, and increases transpiration in plants. Increases in temperature also increase evaporation and the combined result is MORE clouds and an increase in cloud albedo thereby lowering the temperature and increasing CO2 up take in the oceans….
3. CO2 increases must be coupled with an overall continuous rise in temperature. Temperature plateaus and downward trends of any length (ten years) will disprove the “Catastrophic” part and the “CO2 has such a large impact on climate” part.
4.Unprecedented means without previous instance; never before known or experienced; unparalleled: This is why it was absolutely necessary to get rid of the Medieval, Roman and other Warm periods. Vineyards in England, Farming in Greenland, Farmsteads found under glaciers, Roman seaports found a mile inland… all disprove the supposition that the currant warm period is “Unprecedented” and “Catastrophic”
One little fact is all it takes to kill any hypothesis. Critics do not have to provide alternate hypotheses, just unearth one fact that does not fit. Find one fact that casts doubt on the truth of the facts presented or the methods used.
These e-mails/codes shows CRU is well aware of what it takes to kill their hypothesis and were using underhanded means to prevent critics from disproving their hypothesis. Unfortunately that awareness has not trickled down to laymen yet but those with a science or engineering backgrounds have pretty much grasped the fact. ANY fudging in the data or methods used to present the data kills the hypothesis. Suppressing opposing views/hypotheses, circumventing the peer review process and the freedom of Information Act just underlines that “fudging” was taking place.
Gail, just because I am prepared to recognise that the work of the CRU and others has value does not mean that I am unaware of its shortcomings nor does it mean that I support the concept of “Unprecedented Catastrophic Man-made Global Warming”.
Looking carefully at the emails it is clear that most climate scientists did not support it either. The word ‘catastrophic’ is never used in relation to recent warming. Mike Hulme has publically condemned use of that work. The word ‘unprecedented’ does appear a few times: often in quote marks, Briffa argues against using it, Mann (who else) appears to be the principal advocate for its use.
Virtually all scientists accept that temperatures today are higher that they would have been had there been no man-made CO2 in the atmosphere; what they cannot agree on is by how much.
You are however completely right about one thing. Only ‘catastrophic man-made global warming’ justifies the Gore/Hansen conspiracy and the Copenhagen process and there is no evidence for that.
That said we should also recognise that sooner or later humans will have to learn to live without carbon based fuels and we should be planning to make the transition as painless as possible.