Yet, news stories covering it are dropping at the same time.
I got an email from Ahrvid Engholm, an IT journalist in Stockholm, Sweden who was concerned about the “autosuggest” for the word “climategate” in Google disappearing. He was concerned about the post November 25th trend and invited me to take a look at a tool I was unfamiliar with called “Google Trends”. He writes:
Go to Google Trends – www.google.com/trends – write “climategate” and something very interesting will appear in front of your eyes. Select “The last 30 days” to the right.
I did just that, and here is the resulting graph, edited a bit to fit in the WUWT blog space, but you can see for yourself at the link provided.
Link: http://trends.google.com/trends?q=climategate&date=mtd&geo=all&ctab=0&sort=0&sa=N
Note that the trend graph is 4 days behind in data, which is apparently normal. But, there’s some interesting things happening.
Many people outside of the USA may not be aware of why there was a drop around November 25th in the Search Volume Index.
It is likely caused by the second largest US American Holiday called “Thanksgiving” which was on Thursday, November 26th. The drop starts on Nov 25th as people start their travel plans and leave the office and schools early.
Then the upwards trend resumes on November 28th when people in the USA return from that holiday.
No nefarious Google motives here. But with the rising search popularity, it does make a fly in the ointment for why Google’s “autosuggest” function in the search box is no longer suggesting “climategate” as it once was..
Does Al Gore’s position on Google’s senior advisory board have any bearing? In Al’s bio at http://www.algore.com/about.html he says:
“A member of the Board of Directors of Apple Computer, Inc. and a Senior Advisor to Google, Inc. Gore is also Visiting Professor at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.”
It seems he has done some “advising” of Google’s search quality in the past. Here’s a story from the New Yorker via Newsbusters about that very subject. There is some history there that has some bearing on the current situation.
In the case of “Climategate”, Mr. Gore’s ability to continue his current speaking engagements might be hampered. Thus, there could well be a motive for him doing some “advising” in this case. A phone call might be all it took.
Word from some others doing investigations say Google senior staff has told them the removal of “Climategate” from the autosuggest in web searches is algorithm based.
But the Google trends data suggest otherwise, particularly since it was restored and operating in Googles autosuggest feature back on November 28th, as documented here on WUWT.
Now it is gone again. Did the removal of “climategate” from the autosuggest feature make recent Google Trends data lower that the peak on November 29th? Only time will tell us.
In the meantime, I’m switching my default search engine to Bing, which doesn’t have such problems and doesn’t have Al Gore as an “advisor”.
Bing on November 28th:
click for larger imageUPDATE:
10 minutes later…
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I tried a comparison of ‘climategate’, ‘climate-gate’ and ‘climate gate’
http://www.google.com/trends?q=climategate%2Cclimate-gate%2Cclimate+gate&ctab=0&geo=all&date=mtd&sort=0
‘climategate’ seems the most popular by far.
Keith Minto (13:03:16) :
Perhaps we should go back and change all the refereces from Watergate to Water-gate.
Seems rather silly.
What kind of a statement are Google and Bing trying to make here?
I’ve now swapped to Lycos. It’s quick, and you only need to type ‘cl’ to get a suggested search.
Seems Google are in the pocket of the AGW conspiritors, as per the rest of the MSM???
Anthony, just looking at this post about google, and the last about the Science museum, it seems to me that there is one thing that we (“we” meaning -anyone who likes their science to be truthful + verifiable.) really need is a source/website online, which plots on a worldwide map exactly where and what organisations/individuals are linked to which MMGW falsehood, trick, exaggeration, or omission (like google’s autosuggest) etc,.
The Man made Global Warming fraud has been targeted specifically at children and ordinary people, and is far too wide reaching for most people to grasp, especially with the MSM media still largely determined to promote it. We need to make the ability to grasp and understand the fraud simple – a child/idiot friendly thing.
We need a colourful, click on visual one-stop-shop, map that makes the huge size and scope of this worldwide fraud immediately visible and understandable. There is a real need to show how all these frauds and interconnections (especially the scientists, politicians and media groups) feed off each other and control what we are supposed to think and do. I lack the resources and knowledge of the perpetrators involved to create such a thing, but maybe another of your readers could create one? Wouldn’t a fraudmap be an invaluable tool to everyone fighting this monstrosity?
-Joe. (Please delete this if such a thing already exists or you feel this request is inappropriate.)
it’s worse than just the autosuggest problem.
i do daily searches for various topics + youtube and, until climategate, google will show multiple youtube videos at the top of the results.
for days now google shows no youtube videos at the top of the results (unlike bing, for example, which has a few); instread, google has been having some ‘rare’ corpmedia piece, more likely a blog than an actual article, downplaying the significance of climategate.
when u do go to a youtube climategate video from further down in the results, u get the oddest collection of videos, nothing whatsoever like u would get in the past. all that shows in one youtube page today is 29 videos -with multiple videos by two persons who many people would consider extreme rightwingers or ‘conspiracy theorists’. it is so manipulated i can barely believe my eyes.
when trying to bring up ordinary individuals who are no doubt making thousands of climategate videos, the best i can find by further linking, is the song ‘hide the decline’.
as someone who goes to youtube very often, i can only tell u it is UTTERLY COMPROMISED on the climategate issue.
and who owns youtube…….no prizes for saying GOOGLE.
Steve Schapel:
Here is the link to the original video:
Like most of the Bay Area, I’m sure Google is comprised of an overwhelming majority of liberals. This whole climategate thing has to be a real sore point for most of the looney lefties who work there. Clearly, climategate as an autosuggest has been overridden by someone in a position of authority there. Given all the crazy crap that arises as autosuggests ( see gtards.tumblr.com for evidence of this), it’s impossible to believe that someone didn’t override this.
I tested this on Metacrawler. It did not recognise climategate for automatic suggestion but found about 20 search engines with articles: which it lists.
It did suggest the alternate two word and i tried this with no result: likewise using a hyphen. Zilch.
So Climategate is out there, you just have to look a little harder.
Kindest Regards
Cover up of biblical proportions seems to be unfolding.
REPLY: I don’t know that it is a cover up, particularly with the millions of web page hits now available, but it is interesting. I think “cover up” is overreaching. -A
Is there an email address at google where we can voice our opinion on them removing Climategate from the autosuggestions?
Check out a Popular Mechanics Article from April 1950 that I found titled “Grandma’s right about the weather”. It described a “warm-up cycle” that began in 1920 and peaked in 1940 but that there was a general warming trend since 1912.
Link at: http://books.google.com/books?id=6NkDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA126&lpg=PA126&dq=popular+mechanics+1950+US+temperature&source=bl&ots=4iQAfv6cNV&sig=oogZzxMSnRX0K7jctLtUWlwub1E&hl=en&ei=GcoWS8ymDZGKNL3i1KcG&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CA4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Notable Quotes include (my comments are bolded and in italics):
“All over the world glaciers are receding. Professor Kimble points out that some are melting so fast that they will disappear in a few more decades under present conditions”. (I guess that means they should all be gone by now since it’s been six decades)
The article goes on
“What does this all mean?… According to Dr. Clarence A Mills of the University of Cincinnati, the period of rising temperatures may result in smaller adults in the US, reversing a trend that has continued for centuries. There may also be a retardation of mental keenness and the rate of development.” (We can definitely say that those predictions have come true. In the 21st Century people will believe anything a scientist tells them)
“However, there is a note of caution in Professor Kimble’s book. Some portion of these changes may be due to man-made conditions. To some extent, higher temperatures in towns and cities may result from the loss of heat by buildings. Heat engineers estimate that in a city the size of Montreal, the amount of man-made heat escaping into the lower atmosphere on a day when there is a good inversion could raise temperatures three or four degrees.” (Amazing that 60 years ago people understood the UHI effect better than we do today)
“The Canadian Geographer hastens to add that our weather records go back only a short distance into history-actually only seconds on the clock of the earth’s life span”
“The severe winter of 1948-1949 which will probably be remembered in some parts of the US as the year of the Great Blizzard, provides some evidence of an impending temperature recession. However, one year’s evidence is not enough to support a prediction of a reversal in the generation-old trend toward warmer weather”
Thanks
Ed
Climategate and “climate change” both give 21.7million hits on google now.
That’s it. I’m ditching Google as my home page. Morons.
Let’s all switch Google off. Period.
An excerpt from: http://ace.mu.nu/
Iowahawk Explains the Cult of the Virgin Gaia
Plus: Lots of Updates Including Mark Steyn
—Ace
Now, if you’ve been following this, Mann’s entire temperature reconstruction method rests on knowing (observing) recent periodic global temperatures, y. Quibbling about principle components aside, that’s the dependent variable in the backcasts. But as is now becoming increasingly plain, y was constructed from an undocumented process that took raw ground station data and ran it through a black box that included smoothing, filtering, inference, manipulation, baling wire, glue and the juice of one whole lemon. This is what the CRU people are calling “valued added homogenized data.” Or what normal people call “made up horseshit.” It’s also the temperature data that dozens, if not hundreds of AGW studies are based on.
Try IXQUICK, no auto suggest. Me thinks Google and Bing to powerful. If you can`t search it you can`t see it.
Guys, I think you’re expecting more determinacy than Google provides, or something. “Climategate” is the first hit for “c l i m a t e g” for me.
McKitrick interviewed on UK’s Channel 4 news earlier (not sure if it’s available in all regions)
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/science_technology/hacked+emails+revive+climate+debate/3447647
I’ve been playing with the Google Trends and have found some interesting things about some of the other keywords. I’ve posted these results here:
http://pathstoknowledge.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/shaping-the-news-a-conspiracy-of-values-a-conspiracy-of-belief-in-agw
Pat Michaels (CATO) was just on Cavuto (Fox) and ripped ’em a new one – Jones, et al. Made mention of the Google hits on Climategate. Also made a few points regarding the political end of this with the upcoming elections, etc. next Nov. Altogether an excellent interview. Should be available on the net soon.
I just tried and I am not getting anything for climategate or climate-gate on google, although when I search either, they both give more results than global warming or climate change. Huh
The search engines actually are Al Gore-ithm based.
BTW to answer your search question: I use Clusty – http://clusty.com/ . An excellent search and clustering engine. You should try it out.
In my Google Chrome Browser window, when I type in “clima” it does auto suggest “climategate”. I’m not sure if that’s a reflection of my own activity or if it takes it’s cues from Google’s algorithms.
Yahoo.com – autosuggest has “climate gate” – selecting that one, the first entry listed is about the Bush administration in 2003 denying global warming.
I would not change Google for Bing if I could drive my car from Holland to the UK over a frozen North-Sea to protest at the CRU building in Norwich. Antony as a writer of one of the best science blogs why don’t you just ask them what is happening here?