Steve McIntyre has blogged an excellent must read technical explanation about IPCC and the “Trick” on the newly provisioned climateaudit.org now on WordPress.com. He provides the context that CRU says the emails lack. So, I thought this would be a good time to have a look at the word “trick” and how it was used in the leaked CRU emails.
A few days ago, I had an email exchange with NRO’s Planet Gore editor Chris Horner who wondered how often the word “trick” was used in the CRU emails. Of course the instance that everyone remembers is this email from November 16th, 1999:
I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.
The explanation for that use of the word came quickly from CRU director Dr. Phil Jones in his official announcement on November 23rd:
The word ‘trick’ was used here colloquially as in a clever thing to do. It is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward.
Well that certainly seems reasonable on the surface. For example, an American colloquialism is “that’ll do the trick”, when a solution to a problem is found. I hadn’t thought much more about it until I was reminded of this again this past week, when Dr. Michael Mann, in an interview with the State College, PA newspaper Centre Daily, defending himself and Dr. Jones about the language used in the emails.
Mann said Jones was using the word “trick” in the sense of “here’s the trick for solving that problem,” not to indicate anything inappropriate.
So if Dr. Jones uses such colloquialisms regularly, it stands to reason that we should find a number of similar instances of the word “trick” in the CRU emails over the decade that the emails spanned. I decided to find out.
I setup a file search program with a simple mission, scan the email folders for all file content with instances of the word “trick” used by itself, excluding other words like “Patrick” that would have “trick” embedded in it. Eight files were returned with that condition:
I was rather surprised that so few files met the condition, so I ran it again to be sure, same result. I took off the quotes to see just how many emails contained some permutation of the letters t r i c k.
The answer was 29 emails out of the 1079 emails in the FOIA2009.zip file:
So that we can all see how often these scientists used the work trick colloquially, and not part of another word, I’m showing the 8 instances of “trick” by itself highlighted in yellow below, plus another instance where “trick” is part of another word “tricky”:
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The CRU emails can be found at http://eastangliaemails.com/ if you care to look at the originals.
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So as you can see, we really have only one instance where Dr. Jones uses the word “trick” in reference to a procedure on data. There are other uses and variations of the word “trick” in other emails, but only this one instance attributed to Jones where he refers to this data issue.
As Dr. Jones put it: The word ‘trick’ was used here colloquially as in a clever thing to do.
Perhaps, but you’d think we’d see it in general use by Dr. Jones in other emails if it was indeed a colloquialism. In the thousand plus emails we have, there’s no other use of the word “trick” by Dr. Jones that I could find related to data truncation or otherwise, though there are other colloquial uses of the word by other authors.
Add the technical proof that Steve McIntyre has done today:
Which shows that CRU did indeed truncate tree ring data, so that the decline is not shown in the IPCC report as shown in the red line above.
And the fact that McIntyre brought this to their attention as an expert reviewer in the IPCC process:
To my knowledge, no one noticed or reported this truncation until my Climate Audit post in 2005 here. The deletion of the decline was repeated in the 2007 Assessment Report First Order and Second Order Drafts, once again without any disclosure. No dendrochronologist recorded any objection in the Review Comments to either draft. As a reviewer of the Second Order Draft, I asked the IPCC in the strongest possible terms to show the decline reported at CA here:
Show the Briffa et al reconstruction through to its end; don’t stop in 1960. Then comment and deal with the “divergence problem” if you need to. Don’t cover up the divergence by truncating this graphic. This was done in IPCC TAR; this was misleading. (Reviewer’s comment ID #: 309-18)]
They refused, stating that this would be “inappropriate”, though a short discussion on the divergence was added – a discussion that was itself never presented to external peer reviewers.
Add all these things up, and I’m ready to say PANTS ON FIRE! regarding Dr. Jones claim of “ It is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward.“
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The Same cherry picking of data can be observed in the Road safety Industry in the UK and probably the rest of the world.
The focus on ‘Speed’ and the money speeding fines generate, blinds them to all other causes and possible solutions.
No debate,massaged figures and well payed jobs for the believers.
What we have suspected and been confirmed by you honest scientists, shows that the Global warming industry is just as corrupt.
Off-topic
An interesting ‘AGW vs deniers’ debate on the BBC Politics Show last night
There need to be more pro-AGW advocates like Nick Cohen on TV – he comes across really well :0)
g kelly,
Interesting. “We do not find credible any suggestions that emails stolen from the University of East Anglia show that scientists set out to deceive the world about temperature rises…” Did they even read the emails??
Julien could at least have played the game better, and left it at: “We welcome the University of East Anglia’s Independent Review on this specific incident, which was announced by the University on 3 December 2009 and will report next spring.” But no, he had to go on and explain his personal view of reality, which is apparently far more ‘robust’ than any senior climatologist’s. And of course, the emails were ‘stolen’, not ‘copied’, nor posted publicly by someone inside with authorization. Case closed on that, too. The fact that it’s Julien’s baseless opinion apparently does not matter in the least.
The fix is in; the decision has already been made. That much is clear.
Onion (03:31:21) :
I saw that too – he is a numpty who infamously got sloshed at the Orwell Prize Awards [he was on the panel] and did an uber rant from the stage.
It was very funny – ever since Climategate broke, Andrew Neil [host of DP] has been right on the money [he pwned Watson over UHI before anyone else was even talking about the emails nevermind the data].
He mentioned having very good contacts with serious climate science players who think the books have been cooked/sceptics forced out. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he was a lurker here.
RE: Paul Thomas (22:31:00) :
Toronto (Downtown)
Latitude: 43o 40.200′ N Longitude: 79o 24.000’W Elevation: 112.50 m (369 ft)
Climate ID: 6158350 WMO ID: 71266 TC ID: XTO
Observations from 1840 to present
IE: Toronto records by decade
teens – 1
20’s – 0
30’s – 1
1840’s – 1
1940’s – 1
50’s – 2
60’s – 4
70’s – 1
80’s – 1
90’s – 0
2000’s – 0
It seems to me that the warmest decade is the 60’s, not the past 10!
At least for this station it is.
Now you’ve done it. You’ve got me looking at the emails… I was trying so hard not to (other folks were doing it, and I had some tech things I wanted to get done. But NoooOh. I’m looking at the emails and finding interesting answers to things. From 1248902393.txt where there is a letter from Phil Jones to Thomas Peterson quoting an earlier letter from Peterson to Phil. I was going to make this a long comment, but decided to stick it in a posting instead and save the moderators a bit.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/crut-email-1248902393-txt-ncdc-chums/
It basically has some interesting connections between NCDC and CRUt and between both of them and the IPCC (showing there is no independence there).
There is also a discussion of what data to not release (including the fact that in 2003 they had some data on their web server, but not all). And a discussion of who ought to do what for the IPCC and who ought to nominate whom.
And there is the rather interesting point that they were assembling a FOIA file on their web server (a different file) but it shows that the web server (that already leaked some temperature data) is where the leaked FOIA file would have been. And that it has had security failures in the past. And that is the same server that was shut down by UEA after the leak. I think this strongly points to a permissions failure (i.e. they published the data) rather than a hack.
I’ve tried desperately not to get sucked into the email files… Oh well, it’s such a treasure trove.
Doggy Geezer (02:06:52) :
Yes, they are acting politically and with a cause in mind, not caring whether their conclusions are valid or not. In effect, trick means using anything they can come up with to thwart the scientific process. They have both a method of operation and motive. That is enough to investigate for possible indictment. A lot of money is involved.
And to this very day, they are still at it defending the data as if the conclusions are pre-ordained, refusing to open up to scientific criticism and counter opinion, delving into the same monopolized paper finding stunts repackaged with a paint job. I see no sign of serious debate, and there never was one.
The media, which is to say, the few sources reporting this story, have seized upon the “trick” as the proof that the comments are out of context. As a programmer primarily concerned with isolating demographic data in multiple sets with diverse structures I have built up quite bag of program short cuts, call them “tricks”, that plow through the dross without compromising the output.
Call it a “trick”, I personally think of it as hard won experience. However, how precisely would one find a different context in the phrase “hide the decline”?
ok so turn attention to the tricks that Harry_read_me uses: this is a good synopsis
http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2009/11/data-horribilis-harryreadmetxt-file.html?
Harry finds theres no data integrity at all and fudges the data to up to 1C with the set’s inconsistencies
Just saw McIntyre on CNN. A puzzling performance. He seems unwilling to draw an obvious conclusion from his own work tending to establish the reality of the Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice Age. It’s fine to demand transparency and valid statistics, but why simulate President Truman’s economists? (Lay ’em all end to end and they won’t reach a conclusion.)
“Jim Steele (00:27:30) :
Who is Keenan?”
My guess is Anna Keenan, seemingly an over the-top-die-hard irrational AGW activist:
http://www.acfonline.org.au/articles/news.asp?news_id=1586
Mr Watts, this is appaling. I read this blog regularly; it’s usually of quality and suddenly you’re reduced to counting instances of a word?
(1) The fact that “trick” isn’t used in this context more than once means nothing. English is a rich, complex language. I have been in academia for a few years; I can easily imagine using a particular word like “trick” in the context of a “clever thing to do” just once in several years of emailing.
(2) If you’re going to use this argument, then surely of relevance is the fact that linguistically speaking, you haven’t found any more potential references to deceit anywhere in the data. All there is is “trick” and “hide the decline”. By your argument, if there was intention to deceive, there would be lots of uses of the word “trick”, “cover up”, “hide”, “distort” etc.
I’m far from an AGW believer. Do you know how much fuel something like this is going to give to those that are?
REPLY: Perhaps you missed the graph and other references I provided as support. The use of the word is one issue, but the data (or purposeful lack thereof) combined it that context paints a clear picture IMO. – A
Onion (03:31:21)
Well, so far all the AGW proponents seem in defence mode than discussion mode. Its interesting as when scandals are revealed about politicians fiddling expenses, they go into defence mode then regret mode. The latter because they are accountable to the public. None of this takes place in climate science, ie. it isn’t accountable, so they can rally, panic, fudge, express disapprobation until they are blue in the face, and carry out a PR exercise to try and convince us even more that we’re doomed. Science isn’t a PR exercise ultimately though – but witness Copenhagen. nothing but seduction. Science isn’t seduction either. This really shows how erratic and corrupted the scientific process has been rendered by political interference.
Dave UK (03:28:06) :
OT, but as an Advanced Motorist for 21 years, I can advise that the Department of Transport’s own figures show quite clearly that speed is only relavent in 12% of accidents. Inattention at the wheel (25%) & lack of forward observation being greater! I dare say they will be adjusted by the PC brigade to show otherwise!!!!!!!!!! (The firgures didn’t show what they expected them to show to reinforce the case for ever more speed cameras).
AtB
Some (maybe) boring yet not fully off topic facts:
Etymology of the word trick:
c.1412, “a cheat, a mean ruse,” from Old Norman French trique “trick, deceit, treachery, cheating,” from trikier “to deceive, to cheat,” variant of Old French trichier, probably from Vulgar Latin *triccare, from Latin tricari “be evasive, shuffle,” from tricæ “trifles, nonsense, a tangle of difficulties,” of unknown origin.
So, what Phil Jones did was actually nonsense, if one goes by the original meaning of the word trick.
Ignoring McIntyre’s definitive elaboration, ‘trick’ is obligate slang, always used colloquially, but the meaning suggested by Jones for his use in the second email above seems strained and would be most pedestrian vernacular in the event.
Jones’ occupation is turning tricks for the IPCC.
Re nick cohen on bbc politics show last night and I quote. ‘Um err um’. I thought andrew neil nailed him and portillo mentioned that the cru is ‘ a major part of a very slim pillar of evidence’. Cohen did concede that cru had behaved badly. IMO the three ‘and there is only 3) props of the whole agw argument are discredited. Darwin. Shows that GHCN numbers are suspect,we know cru are more than suspect and (according to jones) GISS is inferior to cru.
Forgive me if this video of the marvellous Monckton naming and shaming for the climategate affair at Copenhagen has already been posted, but I just watched it, loved it and had to share.
I don’t think it’s too far OT because it’s about more tricks… and who was involved in that and why.
The disproof of Jones’ and Mann’s assertion is in the original email. The purpose of “the trick” was to “hide the decline.” In other words, the trick was used to make something that the data said existed, disappear.
This is part of the classic magician’s repertoire, not a responsible adjustment made by a scientist with a responsibility to the public interest for truthful accounting of data. Houdini could make an Elephant disappear. The CRU team apparently made it a regular habit to perform lesser miracles. The only trouble is, that’s not what they were paid for.
Their own language betrays them. Read the whole email. The meaning is pretty clear; they were trying to figure out a way to deceive the public.
Here’s looking at various words starting with trick (in addition to excluding Patrick, there’s also a “few” references to McKitrick…).
Files using just trick:
$ grep -l ‘[^A-Za-z]trick[^A-Za-z]’ *.txt
0843161829.txt
0942777075.txt
1065206624.txt
1065636937.txt
1103236623.txt (There are two references here)
1179416790.txt
1188508827.txt
1200162026.txt
Counting files/references:
29/33 trick…
8/9 trick
1/2 tricks
19/20 tricky
1/1 trickier
1/1 trickery
Tricky is popular, here are the lines referring to it. I’m sure this is going to format horribly, perhaps if I bold the filenames it will be tolerable.
$ grep ‘[^A-Za-z]tricky’ *.txt
0853426848.txt:You’ve posed me a tricky one re. SCENGEN and my answer about it being
0907695513.txt:… mean chronology. The problem is tricky because the error is timescale [one line per paragraph]
0932773964.txt: that it works also for precipitation. The tricky thing for this
0959187643.txt:>It will be Trevor on the 19th for ESSO – too tricky for my schedule. I
1031923640.txt:have here. There are some tricky issues that need to be addressed.
1065785323.txt:>>The tricky part comes from the observation that, although we could see
1121869083.txt: composite is tricky – and no obviously “correct” way is apparent.
1135197791.txt:>other forcing). This last one is tricky, since no one at the TS mtg
1153233036.txt:>scale as observed temperature rather tricky!
1168014304.txt: in your time zones this will likely be a bit tricky and outside “normal” business hours for
1188508827.txt:facing a tricky person and group, and the only way to do it is to
1199325151.txt:As I’ve mentioned in previous emails, I think it’s a little tricky to
1209080077.txt:Estimating the order of a more complex AR model is a tricky business.
1216753979.txt: Hope you are well, Tim. Thanks for all your help with the tricky job of brokering the
1228249747.txt:The issue of auditing is a tricky one. The auditers must, themselves,
1248902393.txt: Data that we can’t release is a tricky thing here at NCDC. Periodically,
1249045162.txt: > > Data that we can’t release is a tricky thing here at NCDC.
1249045162.txt: > Data that we can’t release is a tricky thing here at NCDC.
1252164302.txt: #5 is tricky. Giving him the data would be good, but only if it is yours to give. You can’t
1254850534.txt: to revise and update these. It is tricky to get the regional volc
And special recognition goes to that one use of trickery. While it comes from Dr. Mann, let’s at least acknowledge the context extends well beyond the Email. This is a bit reformatted to please WordPress and doesn’t include what Mann is forwarding. One of the great themes in the letters is control of “proper” journals and hatred of the journals that will accept what The Team blocks elsewhere. If I didn’t know better, Mann might be railing against splicing tree ring temperature proxies with adjusted instrumental records. 🙂
$ cat 1067194064.txt
From: “Michael E. Mann”
To: 16 people (the Team) plus/including Tim_Profeta in Senator Lieberman’s office (who?)
Subject: CONFIDENTIAL Fwd:
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 13:47:44 -0500
Dear All,
This has been passed along to me by someone whose identity will remain in confidence. Who knows what trickery has been pulled or selective use of data made. Its clear that “Energy and Environment” is being run by the baddies–only a shill for industry would have republished the original Soon and Baliunas paper as submitted to “Climate Research” without even editing it. Now apparently they’re at it again…
My suggested response is:
1) to dismiss this as stunt, appearing in a so-called “journal” which is already known to have defied standard practices of peer-review. It is clear, for example, that nobody we know has been asked to “review” this so-called paper
2) to point out the claim is nonsense since the same basic result has been obtained by numerous other researchers, using different data, elementary compositing techniques, etc. Who knows what sleight of hand the authors of this thing have pulled. Of course, the usual suspects are going to try to peddle this crap. The important thing is to deny that this has any intellectual credibility whatsoever and, if contacted by any media, to dismiss this for the stunt that it is..
Thanks for your help,
mike
Think about the “hide the decline” plot from McIntyre above & if the historical temp record was hung off the red line – there would be absolutely nothing spectacular about present day temperatures at all – they would be similar to what they were in the 1400’s.
To anyone who says this “hide the decline” comment isnt significant, they dont get it – that one comment pretty much debunks AGW in conjunction with the McIntyre plot above. Has anyone re-hung the historical temp data off the red curve? It seems that would be very worthwhile to do & start that plot circulating in cyber space so people start to understand the significance of “hide the decline”
Two more things:
1) From Poor Harry’s Diary, not many refs:
$ grep trick HARRY_READ_ME.txt
though adding an ‘exit’ line to the batch file does the trick! Of course, there is no
Anyway the next items are the tricky saving of 2.5 and 0.5 binaries for 1961-1990, only
Had to briefly divert to trick makegridsauto into thinking it was in the middle of a full 1901-2006
2) It’s not the word “trick” that bothers me, it’s the phrase “hide the decline.” If I were clever, I’d write a song about that one. 🙂
I was fascinated to read the email of 17th May 2007 regarding the ‘New Scientist’ as that was the month I cancelled my subscription because I realised it had fallen into the trap of ‘consensus science’ and therefore had become more or less useless to me.
Something for everyone eh?
Leaving out the Briffa data is lying by omission – plain and simple. That would earn a “failure” grade on any college lab report.
At the 14:06 mark of the CBC Newsworld doc. on climate, Willie Soon says, while he is reviewing charts, “here’s another trick… this one is unbelievable, no one wants to catch this…”
Does anyone have an idea of what he may be referring too?
Here’s the link:
http://windfarms.wordpress.com/2008/03/03/cbc-global-warming-doomsday-called-off/