Quite a bit different from their November 24th statement, which you can read here. For those that still think Climategate has no significant impact on climate science, this revelation tells another story.
Met Office to re-examine 160 years of climate data
The new analysis of the data will take three years, meaning that the Met Office will not be able to state with absolute confidence the extent of the warming trend until the end of 2012.
The Met Office database is one of three main sources of temperature data analysis on which the UN’s main climate change science body relies for its assessment that global warming is a serious danger to the world. This assessment is the basis for next week’s climate change talks in Copenhagen aimed at cutting CO2 emissions.
The Government is attempting to stop the Met Office from carrying out the re-examination, arguing that it would be seized upon by climate change sceptics.
The Met Office works closely with the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU), which is being investigated after e-mails written by its director, Phil Jones, appeared to show an attempt to manipulate temperature data and block alternative scientific views.
The Met Office’s published data showing a warming trend draws heavily on CRU analysis. CRU supplied all the land temperature data to the Met Office, which added this to its own analysis of sea temperature data.
Since the stolen e-mails were published, the chief executive of the Met Office has written to national meteorological offices in 188 countries asking their permission to release the raw data that they collected from their weather stations.
The Met Office is confident that its analysis will eventually be shown to be correct. However, it says it wants to create a new and fully open method of analysing temperature data.
The development will add to fears that influential sceptics in other countries, including the US and Australia, are using the controversy to put pressure on leaders to resist making ambitious deals for cutting CO2.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change admitted yesterday that it needed to consider the full implications of the e-mails and whether they cast doubt on any of the evidence for man-made global warming.
========
“influential sceptics in other countries” I wonder who that could be?
I applaud the open process though.
Follow the money. Follow the money. I wish I was a forensic accountant. I could have a lot of fun with this. We’re talking billions, maybe trillions of dollars at stake worldwide. Climategate has only begun to shave off a little bit of the iceberg, but getting the mainstream media in this country to get into the act would help to put a few more cracks in it. Last I heard, it was 14 days and counting and no reports on the morning or evening newscasts on NBC, ABC, or CBS. Albore continues to pontificate as he hides from potential embarassment. Follow the money, someone, please!
each site will have to be history corrected for equipment modifications and area build changes
Oh, forget it. USHCN can’t even get its station moves right. Anywhere near right. Much less anything resembling a decent SHAP!
I’ve spent many hours poring over their pathetic station records and it never fails to horrify. There is no way on the green hills of god’s green earth that CRU will get the Station History anywhere near correct, even if they could–which they can’t.
As best as I can tell, there ought to have been strong cooling adjustments going forward from 1900 and progressing. Instead, NOAA had warming adjustments the whole way, exaggerating USHCN station measurement from +0.14C/century to +0.59 (ave. per station).
Yeah, I’m betting that the raw data will be near flat and yet it will somehow come out the other end of Hadley’s stars-upon-thars machine warmer than it did with HadCRUt3.
Fine, but this time NO “fudge factor,” dammit!
It may take 3 years to finish, but we will know far sooner if it is actually open (and points to them if it is). Assuming it is, it will take far less time than three years to know if the land based temperature sets are corrupt. I guess we know that already to a certain extent, but it would be great to know more details there.
It will also take a short time to know if they are open like the IPCC or open like science is supposed to be (benefit of the doubt given for sure). If the data is open and they aren’t, that usually results in what is known as a ‘fork’ in the open source world (a parallel effort with slightly different goals). For forks of this kind (towards less friction), the open fork almost always swallows the original project.
It is a very positive step I think. Sounds like it is coming from grassroots within too, certainly not top down from the gov’t at least. Even better. Most people have class if they are allowed to unhook from the machine.
Those on the inside are reading unreleased e-mails. Me thinks they came across some more seriously damaging crap they are not telling us about. Maybe they alerted BO about this and that being the reason for the delay to Cophenhagen.
Not only do those 188 countries need to be open and transparent with their data, they need to make an open and transparent survey of all their contributing stations, so that an appropriate correction can be placed on the data. Poor station produce poor data. You can imagine what the condition of the rest of the worlds stations are in, when you consider that the USA stations are supposed to be the best in the world and about 90% of the surveyed stations are either in a poor state of disrepair, or are poorly placed. See Anthony Watts station survey link: http://www.surfacestations.org/
The statement, about the Government trying to stop the re-examination, is the ultimate insult to human intelligence. If data, or information can’t stand up to skeptics, than it is of no scientific value. Only when it can stand up to skeptics, does it have value and becomes useful. The leaked emails are the epitome of an insult to the scientific method! Only in a religious context are we justified in accepting a belief on blind faith. While politicians would like us to accept everything on blind faith, it is not appropriate in science.
Stephen
Expect counter-attacks sounding like this:
“We have no reason to believe they were substantially wrong. And we can not delay, drastic action is needed now. We have less than XX months.”
signed,
Al Gore and,
United Nations Agency For Polar Bears, (of All Colors and Creeds.)”
Of course we know the earth acts just like a greenhouse. After all, its in a crystal sphere surrounded by heaven. Nothing can get in or out. (I think those points of light outside are the angels)
I have no doubt whatsoever that the raw data will be recovered. I also have no doubt that it will NOT be accomplished by any government entity. It will be accomplished by real scientists that do not get funding only from any government or any other organization that stands to gain from the knowledge. This effort must be funded with ONE infusion of cash from the beginning from a combination of government and private funding…. the only guideline, truth… a three year study by the foremost physicists of our time, with the understanding that there will be no further funds available after that three period. The task must be accomplished with all available data… real scientists above reproach selected by a committee comprised of physicist who are also above reproach. All CO2 studies, procedures and protocols will also be examined… let’s put truth on the table…
It needs to be completely re-done by independent scientists. And all of it needs to be done completely in the open. There should be no need for FOIAs.
All stations should be reviewed to see if they comply with siting standards. If they don’t comply they don’t get used.
All corrections for time of observation, type of instrument etc must be agreed upon ahead of time and be made fully public. In my opinion UHI cannot be accurately corrected for, so only rural stations should be used. But that’s just my opinion. The scientists should figure it out. But the means of making the adjustment must be analytically determined and be made public.
The longer it all takes, the better. The actual weather is casting doubts, the emails only help to reinforce the doubts. It is snowing tonight in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Seattle is expecting snow and is experiencing ice. We have reached a tipping point, but not in the way the warmists predicted.
This is pure speculation, but one has to wonder if there has been some quiet scrutiny of the data and processing methods going on behind the scenes. If the scientists and technical people involved in processing the data set had confidence that the current code and data product could be independantly verified and validated, then why would they undertake such a radical step?
So if the Hadley data is out cold for 3 years at least, NASA data under investigation, BOM data shown to be doctored also, satellite data showing a cooling trend, solar slumber continues on – then where will our governments go from here?
I just looked at the B91 forms for my local site (concord wwtp) and found many missing pages and a non recorded location change. The station was at the Concord Waste Water Treatment Plant until 1972. Station data starts in 1971 and goes to Dec 1972 listing Concord Wastewater Plant as the Station, then picks up again (with gaps) in Aug 77 listing CCCSD Treatment Plant as the Statin. In 1976 the construction of the Central Contra Costa Sanitary District (CCCSD) Waste Water Treatment Plant was finished and the Concord WWTP was converted into a pump station. The station was apparently moved to the new CCCSD WWTP . The CCCSD WWTP is 1.8 miles north of the Concord WWTP and has much more of a marine affect as it is 4 miles from the Suisun Bay instead of 6 miles for the old Concord WWTP. I have lived in this are since 1960 (and remember the very cold 1970s) and am an engineer at the CCCSD WWTP.
If this poor consistency of data gathering and lack of station move information is typical then the couple of degrees F increase that we are supposed to have had since the 1800s is impossible to document.
The promise of openness and transparency sounds great. The first litmus test will be the structure, process and findings of the UEA CRU investigation. There maybe a lot of Alka Seltzer consumed over the next few weeks by certain individuals! Of course, Steve, Anthony et al may also need it but for a different reason. 😉
Perhaps some of you more climate-trained folks can enlighten me. I’ve followed the various comments here for a few years, but one thing strikes me as problematic. Given a series of temperature readings, expressed as a range of numbers over time, is there ANY generally-accepted procedure that EVERYONE would agree to, as to how to process that data?
It occurs to me that if I tossed a data set of temperatures over time to 1,000 different climate statisticians with the challenge “plot the smoothed average over time,” I would get 1,000 different answers. It’s almost as if, in my field of expertise, there was no agreement of what “one volt” meant. How can there be any agreement over anything if no one agrees on a measurement standard?
As long as we’re going to start all over again, will there be some sort of generally-accepted standard used to massage the data?
REPLY – Short answer: No. (Long answer: Hell, no!) ~ Evan
The voting public needs a list of all the politicians who are on the record for supporting man-made gloabl warming and vote them out of office. The Australians know how to do it. Let’s follow their lead.
@Dave Wendt (20:19:20)
Your wish has been granted as of Dec 4th.
The NBC Nightly news covered Climategate and was then roundly trashed by Media Matters of America:
http://mediamatters.org/research/200912040052
But wait that’s not all!
MSNBC cover it as well and (gasp) even went after a warmer:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitlock/2009/12/04/msnbc-s-dylan-ratigan-slams-climategate-fakery-when-will-nbc-do-same
I know you have be asking yorself if you fell down the rabbit hole behind Alice
OR
Could it be the sale of NBC to Comcast (Comcast now owns 51% of NBC/MSNBC/CNBC) on Dec 3rd had a slight change in editorial control.
Tom in Texas (20:32:12) :
BTW, I have verified that it is raw by comparing it to B91 forms. Missing data indicates also that it is truly raw. (Looked at a lot of B91’s).
What was you experience when you saw that both the raw data and the B91 forms are missing, but you have a station file list that says there was an observer for the missing period?
a jones (20:43:12) :
I agree with you. Now if GISS, NASA and NOAA would be so forthcoming.
Where are the trolls?
Send in the trolls!
Let us make sport!
twawki (20:02:09) :
How could our governments make any policy on climate alarmism when so much has been revealed.
ANS: Cuz it’s all about Power and NOTHING to do with Climate. PERIOD. It never was about Climate, geeze. How come this is so difficult to understand?
Here Comes Everybody.
It will not be a private investigation. Here we are., and we are not going away.
Please turn this physics paper over in your minds,if you can.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v4.pdf
After reading that, HOURS, I’m trying to get my family scientists to read it but I can’t! They are busy.
It convinced me that this is not even based in chemistry and physics. (Then it isn’t science).
Its computer pseudo-science, nothing better than tabloid crap.
Even the greenhouse effect is a complete myth.
I thought the ”tipping point” on ClimateGate might not come until and unless the BASIC countries walked out of COP15; or some later event if they didn’t walk. I may have to ”revise and extend my remarks”:
If the Met Office has officially announed they will ”re-examine 160 years of temperature data”, seems like we’re tipping pretty hard already (at least I sure hope so).
And if at COP15 a real journalist has the guts to ask various leaders:
”What about the Met Office saying they are going to re-examine all 160 years worth of data: Shouldn’t you wait to see those results before you kill the world economy ?”
. . . . Well, it will be interesting to see what kind of answers the AGW acolytes reach for; i.e.: In the MSM they might get away with trying to dismiss a lot of people as ”skeptics”, but dismissing the Met Office should be considerably harder.
SIDEBAR: Meanwhile, back at google.com/trends :
Besides the continuing growth of raw hits on ClimateGate, the most interesting stat is the sharp and continuing steady rise in NEWS REFERENCE volume for ClimateGate since 29 November; after being largely flat for a week. Darn: Almost looks like another Hockey Stick. ;-]
FOOTNOTE: ClimateGate now @ur momisugly 31,700K raw hits on Google; while ”Climate Change” is still stuck down in the 22,200K range. Not even a contest anymore.
Well, to me, this sounds too good to be true. And when something sounds too good to be true it usually isn’t good at all. Smoke, mirrors and Chinese handshakes is all I see.
But what I am surprised (Well, OK, not actually) about is the number of pro_AGW supporters now labeling sceptics as “flat earthers”. Gordon Brown’s use of thr term in particular surprised me. What are they affraid of, the truth?