Guest post by Christopher Horner, Planet Gore at National Review Online
One thing about “ClimateGate” nagging at the back of my mind is the absence of any discussion by ringleader Phil Jones (or others) of the remarkable, shocking discovery that Jones now claims he had that his precedessor destroyed the raw data in the 1980s.
That is the data that scientists have for years been seeking from Jones under the UK’s freedom of information law. Against numerous such requests he offered equally numerous excuses for refusing access culminating with the September 2009 claim — when it looked like he’d been cornered and had no excuses not to provide it to Prof. Ross McKitrick who met all of his long-stated qualifications — that in fact he’d lost it.
First, it does seem odd that Jones would so firmly and crisply articulate his many, very specific excuses for so many years about why he could not provide something that in fact they had, as he now tells it, lost. His refusals all clearly imply that a belief that he had it.
But where are the emails putting out the word, oh, snap, you guys aren’t gonna believe this?
Among all that has been revealed, there does not appear to be one. Let alone a chain discussing the importance of not at long last actually having the raw, how this loss might relate to the scores of emails they wrote about whether to release the data and how to avoid releasing the data and how they’d rather destroy it (I don’t know, “pretend to have lost it”) than give it to the folks who seem to be on to them.
This seems like a big email, and a chain of discussions that would pervade that which has been revealed. It doesn’t.
To the contrary, we have numerous emails from Jones explaining how turning over the raw data is one option, but he’d much rather destroy it than let the intrepid start pawing over it which could only lead, as he admits in one email, to figuring out what CRU et al did to said raw data in order to come up with their alarming claims.
So there is a reasonable conclusion, and it is not that the data was lost or destroyed twenty years ago.
But who knows, maybe Jones wrote James Hansen at NASA, or Gavin Schmidt — for so long a taxpayer-funded activist for Environmental Media Services’ RealClimate.blog and now implicated as a major player in these emails (Capo number 6 according to this analysis). Those should turn up when the courts help NASA figure out how to come into compliance with their legal obligations and provide me similar data and correspondence that they have been, similarly and by chance, refusing me for over two years.
Christopher C. Horner Senior Fellow Competitive Enterprise Institute 1899 L. St, NW 12th Floor Washington, DC, 20036 +1.202.331.2260 (O)
Author of the newly released: Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed http://www.amazon.com/Red-Hot-Lies-Alarmists-Misinformed/dp/1596985380/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231180047&sr=8-1
Author of The New York Times Bestselling The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism) http://www.amazon.com/Politically-Incorrect-Global-Warming-Environmentalism/dp/1596985011
The document “HARRY_READ_ME.txt” appears to discussing the problems of merging the earlier data set with new data. This, according to a header in the file, covered the period 2006 to 2009.
On the CRU web site there is someone referred to “Mr Ian ‘Harry’ Harris” whose tasks include programming. Could he be the ‘Harry’?
UN body probes climate e-mail row
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8394483.stm
Will the lame stream media finally report on climategate now?
Many commenters are asking why not go back to the original observation records to retrieve the original raw surface air temperature observations?
In the United States, for one example, the Federal records retention period for the WBAN Form 10 paper records and their synoptic surface weather observations was limited to 5 years. Other weather station products such as forecasts and charts were limited to a records retention cycle of 14 days. Skew-T analysis charts and other products were limited to a 6 month retention cycle. Upon the expiration of the records retention cycle, the records were either transferred to another organization for further handling, or they were destroyed at the local organization. Paper form records of surface weather observations are generally transfered for further handling. Ultimately, the NCDC (National Climatic Data Center) has been charged with the responsibility for archiving Weather Bureau, Air Force, Navy, and other data for purposes of “climate” studies.
The NCDC makes the archived surface weather observations obtained from the digital data communications networks and from records forms in a variety of datasets, which readers can research on the NCDC Website. See also:
Two of the datasets at the center of the AGW controversies are Dataset 9100: Global Historical Climatology Network and Dataset 6900: U.S. Historical Climatological Network – Daily Temperature, Precipitation, Snow Depth, Sunshine and Cloud Data. Their usefulness has been compromised by the adjustments to the raw observational data which are at the heart of past and current controversies.
Other datasets such as the ASOS and AWOS automatic observational records have their own controversies regarding observational errors in whole degress Celsius and questions about adjustments to the data in analysis products.
One of the few NCDC products which appears to point to the original paper records is:
From the main pages of this morning’s (4th Dec) BBC website……..
“UN body probes climate e-mail row”
“The United Nations panel on climate change is to probe claims UK scientists manipulated global warming data to boost the argument that it is man-made.
The organisation’s chairman Dr Rajendra Pachauri told BBC Radio 4’s The Report programme the claims were serious and he wants them investigated.
“We will certainly go into the whole lot and then we will take a position on it,” he said.
“We certainly don’t want to brush anything under the carpet. This is a serious issue and we will look into it in detail.” ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8394483.stm
Maybe they are waiting for public interest to be evidenced via phone, snail-mail (and e-mail?) … anybody in the 202 area code/or with nation-wide cellular plan make a few phone calls?
.
.
Whoever perpetrated the feat of extracting and then promulgating that immense wad of incriminating evidence should *not* be prosecuted (though the Authorities surely won’t relent, as their turf has been transgressed).
He/she/it deserves a commemoratory plaque, if not a great bronze statue. Preferably located outside the CRU building….!
I suggest establishing a fund for such plaque/statue/whatever.
Put me down for $50.00 in soon-to-decline spondulix!
The more I research CCS, the more I see it’s mostly about taking money from you and me to pay for it and making a select few very rich.
California utilities push for solar, wind and carbon-capture projects
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2009/12/solar-power-in-space.html
Henry chance (13:48:20) “The urgency to fund climate science is over.”
Careful here.
Put aside all the GHG nonsense and just think of the costs of natural weather & climate. The effects ripple through the entire economy.
Oh, here’s another CCS story. Now I know why some of the the Aussie greedy freaks wanted a carbon tax so bad.
Global CCS Institute To Launch A$50 Million Funding Round Monday
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200912032223DOWJONESDJONLINE000759_FORTUNE5.htm
Lets understand this…. “Ian Harris did it in the conservatory”, then if he wanted to remain anonomous, he goofed up.
I think the name “Harry read me” might have been changed if the Ian as the whistleblower (WB) didn’t want to be revealed. ergo, i doubt Ian was the man.
As noted before, it might have been stupidity, but i would expect if the WB had the data for a month+, then it might be worth editing one file name to save your skin.
The person(s) hasnt been revealed, and they are investigating internally. If it was Harry, one might expect Harry to already be under some .. investigation. The CRU crowd and UK Police probably reads the blogs, as we do get some insights, and publish them on the web. If we fingered the name as amatuer detectives, then you might think they would too.
My suspicion, its someone else, and they have more data to be held ‘ransom’ and if they get taken, then there is some kind of ‘release this’ instruction for a trusted person or a semi-automated script program. They might even have the raw data that was ‘lost’ and they have been building a treasure trove of other stuff.
If the moving story with ‘lost cabinets’ was true, then who was the moving company, and who worked for them in that time frame?
The initial posting was ambigious, but there is some underlying seething frustration in that writing.
CCS technology is just plain stupid. The biosphere loves CO2.
NICE work if you can get it; don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it …
Hey – I didn’t invent a gullible public! Don’t blame me if your brethren
are easily sold snake oil; figure it’s a ‘cheap lesson’ in a life-track (for them) to eventual wisdom. One needs to have their fiscal finger burned a few times to realize who *isn’t* their friend (and I’ll gladly take the 10 or 20% off the top while doing so!)
KIDDING, just kidding …
.
.
RE: JimInIndy (18:26:02) :
“I concur. The probability of total loss of data files in the 80s is near zero. It struck me as highly improbable when I first saw the report.”
Face it… this ranks right up there with “The dog ate my homework.”
Science is dead.
Jim,
I’m going to tell Alex Jones about this CCS angle, he’ll ride the topic for all it’s worth.
hi anthony,
finaly climategate makes the news and newspapers over here in Holland. Today a newsarticle in de Telegraaf says: Climateclown needs to go to pianolesson. Thats according to PVV parlement member De Mos. VVD member Nepperus is baffeld and dissapointed in KNMI who sees no importance in the leaked climategate emails and feel sorry for Jones..
Some dudes wrote up a paper showing a correlation between historical climate data and war casualties in Africa, and claiming this proved that many more war deaths in Africa would follow from Global Warming. And… this got published in PNAS.
Details here:
http://spinstrangenesscharm.wordpress.com/2009/12/04/the-elephant-and-global-warming/
Regarding CRU’s assertion that they did not keep the raw data, I can only say that stranger things have happened. NASA recorded over the original Apollo moon landing tapes.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6717221.ece
Appropriate quote from that article: “We should have had a historian running around saying ‘I don’t care if you want to use the tapes for something else, we’ve got to keep them’.”
Regarding reading some of the old tape formats, where there’s a will, there’s a way as described in this earlier post:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/31/using-old-nasa-imagery-to-look-at-antarctic-ice-in-the-1960s/
I read and I cannot remember where,
a scientist who had asked via FOI, got a reply saying thye had lost the data as it was destroyed when they moved locations…and this was WEEKS ago!
well before the shite hit the blades.
he was justifiably angry, and was venting at the obfuscation , as he did not believe they had, that it was a
lie to stop people seeing and re checking….
iCRU? went on to say it didnt matter- as they had their compiled data or something to that effect.
it was a blog page, I really am racking my brains.
I thought unbelievable myself at the time..as who? ever moves a big science dept to a Smaller lab?
and the real original data should STILL be wherever it was amassed anyway. just a bastard to have to go get it all again. more delay.
Indeed see NCDC dataset id C00144…
I have been a scientist for 20 years. In my experience bad science isn’t the very rare exception but almost the norm. Sloppy work, poor experimental design, incorrect technique, uncalibrated equipment and incorrect statistical analysis are normal. Even outright creation of results without performing experiments occurs.
Scientists know there is no real danger of being caught cheating because it is rare to exactly repeat other peoples experiments (analytical chemistry is a notable exception) . Those who are caught out usually just blame faulty equipment or the technique of those attempting to repeat the experiment.
I once provided technical advice on a chemical analysis method used by a very large company.The method was very tedious and used very toxic chemicals. I explained to the Technical Manager that the method could not possibly work because they had incorrectly altered the approved method. He replied that his technicians were already getting excellent results. I told him the only way they could have got “correct” results by using an incorrect method was by making them up. He just went into angry denial and refused to discuss it further.
In the mid 1990s CSIRO the Australian Government’s premier research agency performed a study. They randomly selected 700 papers from 150 randomly selected journals and performed a statistical analysis of the results. It was found that the conclusions of 94% of the papers were statistically meaningless (mostly due to small sample sizes).
Regarding old media–I still have a PC (operable, not currently up) that has a 5 1/4 drive.
8 iunch is tougher.
A year or so ago, I was slightly involved in (successful, it appears) attempts to get an old Ampex video recdorder running to read some old thought-lost tapes from the moon missions.
I have not seen a 11 inch NARTB hub machine ib years, and not at 256 BPI, 7 trk.
The whitewash has started!
I have just found out that the man appointed to head the inquiry into Jones et al. at the UEA, Sir Muir Russell; is part of the green energy rack.. (sorry, industry) in Scotland. He was supposed to be someone completely independent. If that is possible.
See http://www.greenjobs.com/Public/newsitems/news00685.htm
Mike–an alternative plan.
Don’t spend anoter dime anywhere on “climate change” for two years.
Walk out side (with any instruments of your choice) every few hours.
Note (record) any interesting observations.
Repeat. This time try making predictions as to what the interesting observations will in the near future be.
Repeat, developing hypotheses to be tested as to why predictions were or were not correct.
Repeat, testing the hypotheses, and perhaps adjust them.
And so on.
Document in indelible media every fact or hypothesis and test results.
200 comments. And it is now several items deep. I’ll have to spend some time catching up on the news.
But there is one really good thing coming (to me personally) out of all of this.
The part of my library where the Ayn Rand and similar books are is getting dusted for the first time in years.
Now the Alan Sokal section is.
“Mike–an alternative plan.
Don’t spend anoter dime anywhere on “climate change” for two years.
Walk out side (with any instruments of your choice) every few hours.
Note (record) any interesting observations.
Repeat. This time try making predictions as to what the interesting observations will in the near future be.
Repeat, developing hypotheses to be tested as to why predictions were or were not correct.
Repeat, testing the hypotheses, and perhaps adjust them.
And so on.
Document in indelible media every fact or hypothesis and test results.”
Sorry- that’s a completely invalid approach. Don’t you know that no-one is qualified to do that sort of thing unless they know the Climatologist Club Handshake and possess a Secret Climatologist Decoder Ring?