UPDATE: UEA/CRU has responded!
http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/guardianstatement
Looks like a homogenized data comparison. h/t to WUWT reader “splice”
==============================
It looks like Doug Keenan has been right all along. He must feel vindicated tonight. See more about Doug’s long road here in an earlier WUWT report.
Excerpts from the Independent and the Guardian
Climategate scientist ‘hid flaws in data’, say sceptics
Professor in leaked email scandal tried to hide fact that numbers he used were wrong
The “climategate” controversy intensified last night when the senior British scientist at its centre, Professor Phil Jones, faced fresh accusations that he attempted to withhold data that could cast doubt on evidence for rising world temperatures.
…
But the new allegations go beyond refusing FOI requests and concern data that Professor Jones and other scientists have used to support a record of recent world temperatures that shows an upward trend.
Climate sceptics have suggested that some of the higher readings may be due not to a warmer atmosphere, but to the so-called “urban heat island effect”, where cities become reservoirs of heat and are warmer than the surrounding countryside, especially during the night hours.
Professor Jones and a colleague, Professor Wei-Chyung Wang of the State University of New York at Albany suggested in an influential 1990 paper in the journal Nature that the urban heat island effect was minimal – and cited as supporting evidence a long series of temperature measurements from Chinese weather stations, half in the countryside and half in cities, supplied by Professor Wei-Chyung. The Nature paper was used as evidence in the most recent report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
However, it has been reported that when climate sceptics asked for the precise locations of the 84 stations, Professor Jones at first declined to release the details. And when eventually he did release them, it was found that for the ones supposed to be in the countryside, there was no location given.
Climate sceptics have demanded the two professors now withdraw their heat island paper. Professor Wei-Chyung was investigated by his university, but exonerated, but the emails indicate there was also concern among Professor Jones’ s colleagues at UEA, including from Dr Tom Wigley, his predecessor as head of the CRU, about the Chinese weather station data and Professor Jones’s continuing reliance on it.
From The Guardian:
Leaked climate change emails scientist ‘hid’ data flaws
Exclusive: Key study by East Anglia professor Phil Jones was based on suspect figures
By Fred Pearce
Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based.
A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia’s climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced.
Jones and a collaborator have been accused by a climate change sceptic and researcher of scientific fraud for attempting to suppress data that could cast doubt on a key 1990 study on the effect of cities on warming – a hotly contested issue.
Today the Guardian reveals how Jones withheld the information requested under freedom of information laws. Subsequently a senior colleague told him he feared that Jones’s collaborator, Wei-Chyung Wang of the University at Albany, had “screwed up”.
…
The apparent attempts to cover up problems with temperature data from the Chinese weather stations provide the first link between the email scandal and the UN’s embattled climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as a paper based on the measurements was used to bolster IPCC statements about rapid global warming in recent decades.
Wang was cleared of scientific fraud by his university, but new information brought to light today indicates at least one senior colleague had serious concerns about the affair.
It also emerges that documents which Wang claimed would exonerate him and Jones did not exist.
The revelations come at a torrid time for climate science, with the IPPC suffering heavy criticism for its use of information that had not been rigorously checked – in particular a false claim that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035 – and UEA having been criticised last week by the deputy information commissioner for refusing valid requests for data under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Guardian has learned that of 105 freedom of information requests to the university concerning the climatic research unit (CRU), which Jones headed up to the end of December, only 10 had been released in full.
The temperature data from the Chinese weather stations measured the warming there over the past half century and appeared in a 1990 paper in the prestigious journal Nature, which was cited by the IPCC’s latest report in 2007.
Climate change sceptics asked the UEA, via FOI requests, for location data for the 84 weather stations in eastern China, half of which were urban and half rural.
The history of where the weather stations were sited was crucial to Jones and Wang’s 1990 study, as it concluded the rising temperatures recorded in China were the result of global climate changes rather the warming effects of expanding cities.
The IPCC’s 2007 report used the study to justify the claim that “any urban-related trend” in global temperatures was small. Jones was one of two “coordinating lead authors” for the relevant chapter.
The leaked emails from the CRU reveal that the former director of the unit, Tom Wigley, harboured grave doubts about the cover-up of the shortcomings in Jones and Wang’s work. Wigley was in charge of CRU when the original paper was published. “Were you taking W-CW [Wang] on trust?” he asked Jones. He continued: “Why, why, why did you and W-CW not simply say this right at the start?”
Read the complete report at the Guardian here
See also this story from the Guardian:
• How the location of weather stations in China undermines data
As I’ve been saying for a long time, the dodgy surface data is the key and UHI is a real issue. The Menne et al 2010 preemptive strike against my surfacestations work (using my own early data they purloined) shows just how desperate NCDC’s Tom Karl is becoming.
What I find most interesting though is that Phil Jones appeared to have a crisis of conscience, because in 2007 he authored a paper that appeared in JGR without much notice (but known now thanks to Warwick Hughes).
The paper is titled: Urbanization effects in large-scale temperature records, with an emphasis on China
In it, Jones identifies an urban warming signal in China of 0.1 degrees C per decade. Or, if you prefer, 1 degree C per century. Not negligible by any means. Here is the abstract:
Global surface temperature trends, based on land and marine data, show warming of about 0.8°C over the last 100 years. This rate of warming is sometimes questioned because of the existence of well-known Urban Heat Islands (UHIs). We show examples of the UHIs at London and Vienna, where city center sites are warmer than surrounding rural locations. Both of these UHIs however do not contribute to warming trends over the 20th century because the influences of the cities on surface temperatures have not changed over this time. In the main part of the paper, for China, we compare a new homogenized station data set with gridded temperature products and attempt to assess possible urban influences using sea surface temperature (SST) data sets for the area east of the Chinese mainland. We show that all the land-based data sets for China agree exceptionally well and that their residual warming compared to the SST series since 1951 is relatively small compared to the large-scale warming. Urban-related warming over China is shown to be about 0.1°C decade−1 over the period 1951–2004, with true climatic warming accounting for 0.81°C over this period.
Even though Jones tries to minimize the UHI effect elsewhere, saying the UHI trends don’t contribute to warming in London and Vienna, what is notable about the paper is that Jones has been minimizing the UHI issues for years and now does an about face on China.
It was almost as if Jones was trying to appease his own conscience by publishing a paper that supported a UHI effect in China.
But then we see in his comments about my praise of the paper and WUWT commenters as a “load of plonkers”
http://eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=965&filename=1237474374.txt
From: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, “Michael E. Mann” <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: FYI
Date: Thu Mar 19 10:52:54 2009
Gavin, Mike,
See the link below! Don’t alert anyone up to this for a while. See if they figure it out for themselves.
I’ve sent this to the Chief Exec of the RMS, who said he was considering changing data policy with the RMS journals. He’s away till next week. I just wanted him to see what a load of plonkers he’s dealing with! I’m hoping someone will pick this up and put it somewhere more prominently.
The responses are even worse than you get on CA. I’ve written up the London paper for the RMS journal Weather, but having trouble with their new editor. He’s coming up with the same naive comments that these responders are. He can’t understand
that London has a UHI of X, but that X has got no bigger since 1900.
I’m away all next week.
Cheers
Phil
“Phil Jones, the director of the Hadley Climate Center in the UK.”
—
Thomas C. Peterson, Ph.D.
NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center
151 Patton Avenue
Asheville, NC 28801
Voice: +1-828-271-4287
Fax: +1-828-271-4876
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK
Too funny. “X” got no bigger since 1900.
We’ll see when this all gets sorted out who is a “load of plonkers” and who isn’t.
Wow! In the UK it is absolutely amazing to see ANY even slightly sceptical comment from the BBC, Independent or Guardian (I have had to give up talking about climate change with my brother who reads the Independent because he accepts all the alarms and we argue too much).
I recently wrote to the BBC Trust about the review of their scientific coverage (which I found out about here from a WUWT comment). Their reply – although saying that they were “sorry to hear that you feel the BBC has become a byword for sloppy and biased coverage of certain scientific issues” (i.e. AGW) – then just quoted excerpts from Richard Tait, the Chair the Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee, finishing with “The BBC has a well-earned reputation for the quality of its science reporting, but it is also important that we look at it afresh to ensure that it is adhering to the very high standards that licence fee payers expect”. I suggested some debates/programs they could broadcast – like a debate between Lord Monckton and someone chosen by the Met Office – but I doubt whether my letter will reach the investigation as I requested.
As a long-time sceptic (I was in University computer science for many years and know only too well how models can say almost anything you want) I used to think Christopher Booker was the only bright spot in the UK MSM. I found WUWT through him and have the greatest admiration for the work of all who contribute to this blog and can only thank Anthony (and Steve M and others) for their persistence and their part in finally bringing some of this scandal to a wider audience.
I hope you don’t mind, but I posted this summary of the UHI issue on the comments to the Guardian article :-
“I believe the Guardian got this story from the Watts up with that website.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
Anthony Watts is a former US meteorologist and weather man and he has dedicated his website to exposing flaws in the global warming/ CO2 theory. One of his main themes is the surface stations project. http://surfacestations.org/
Watts and his team found that the weather station network in the USA from which temperature data concerning climate change was collected is deeply flawed. Only 1-2% of stations so far surveyed met the set criteria and the rest are innapropriately sited, for example on the roof of a building near an air conditioning vent or at an airport near to the exhaust emmissions from jets. Therefore, some or even much of the temperature rise of the past 100 years can be attributed not to real climate change but to increased urbanisation (more local heat over time from more buildings, increased car and air traffic, even barbe-q’s sited near to weather stations). Over time, near to these poorly sited weather stations an apparent warming will be seen. The so called “Urban heat island effect”. This is due to local warming from urban sources and not due to real climate change. An issue of measurement and not a real climate problem.
Watts is still researching this, however, initial results show that global warming over the last 100 years may be less than thought. Panic over!”
Check the sea surface and atmospheric temps yourself.
Looks like Jan 2010 is warmer than 2009.
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
Gillian Lord
Peter Scott (21.57.33)
In December John P. Costella wrote (SPPI):
Why Climategate is so distressing to scientists
by John P. Costella | December 10, 2009
The most difficult thing for a scientist in the era of Climategate is trying to explain to family and friends why it is so distressing to scientists. Most people don’t know how science really works: there are no popular television shows, movies, or books that really depict the everyday lives of real scientists; it just isn’t exciting enough. I’m not talking here about the major discoveries of sciencewhich are well-described in documentaries, popular science series, and magazinesbut rather how the process of science (often called the “scientific method”) actually works.
The best analogy that I have been able to come up with, in recent weeks, is the criminal justice systemwhich is (rightly or wrongly) abundantly depicted in the popular media. Everyone knows what happens if police obtain evidence by illegal means: the evidence is ruled inadmissible; and, if a case rests on that tainted evidence, it is thrown out of court. The justice system is not saying that the accused is necessarily innocent; rather, that determining the truth is impossible if evidence is not protected from tampering or fabrication.
The same is true in science: scientists assume that the rules of the scientific method have been followed, at least in any discipline that publishes its results for public consumption. It is that trust in the process that allows me, for example, to believe that the human genome has been mappeddespite my knowing nothing about that field of science at all. That same trust has allowed scientists at large to similarly believe in the results of climate science.
Until now.
———-
This seems to be a good way of putting it.
“PeterB (02:46:36) :
Looks like they’re stacking fuel under a scapegoat, so that those that remain will appear cleansed.”
Isn’t that a bit of a mixed metaphor? On the Day of Atonement there were two goats: one was sacrificed as a propitiation and the other (the scapegoat) had the sins of the people prayed over it and was taken to the wilderness and let go as an atonement. The man who took the scapegoat there was ritually unclean and had to be purified.
Maybe we’ll see a few sacrificial offerings to propitiate public disgust, and a few scapegoats led out into the wilderness bearing the shame of the sins of the scientific community.
Maybe spoke too soon on Fred Pearce. He seems to be Mr FacingBothWays. Here is his other piece on the Guardian website yesterday
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/climate-emails-sceptics
It’s entitled: “How the ‘climategate’ scandal is bogus and based on climate sceptics’ lies – Claims based on email soundbites are demonstrably false – there is manifestly no evidence of clandestine data manipulation”
Oh, I see, Climategate is utterly false, but the same emails support Pearce’s ‘scoop’ in the Guardian that Phil Jones deliberately suppressed information?
This is just hubris. Smarting from the exposure by ‘climate sceptics’ that Pearce had a hand in the ridiculous 2035 Glaciergate lie, he doesn’t want them to get any credit for blowing the whistle on Climategate. But when he uses the same emails to prove his point, then he presents himself to the Guardian readership as a brilliant investigative journalist. That’s sick.
A note of caution from the UK. This may be the start of a new crisis management strategy from the uber-alarmists. Often called the masochism strategy, you pick your red lines and your sacrificial lambs and take back dominance of the news agenda. Then over time you use the continual exposure to rebuild confidence in a repositioned agenda. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the so called ‘relentless irreversible warming trend’ is being hidden by natural variability and that we should trust the “science” and not necessarily the unreliable and patchy temperature data. We should probably avoid the smug ‘I told you so response’. Instead we should focus on the weakness of the scientific models and their inability to simulate even the reliable parts of the climate record. DavidS
Keep on plonking….
The Guardian!!!! and especially The Independent!!!!
The UK’s two leading eco warriors changing sides, has the world come to an end? Their poor readers will be in a state of shock.
He, The Guardian and Independent are both AGWer propaganda sheets; you know you’re out of favour with the green left when they diss you.
To see this published in the Guardian is amazing. True, many of us here have known about this scientific misconduct for some years, but it’s very, very good news that it’s finally appearing in the main stream. I believe the Guardian is – or has been – the most alarmist UK newspaper.
Its author, Fred Pearce, has written frequently for New Scientist. I’m pleased that Pearce used the term ‘climate change sceptic’ rather than ‘climate change denier’. From his tone he doesn’t appear to be attacking sceptics at all, which is a welcome change. Maybe Fred is starting to see the light….
At this rate it will soon be Gore, Hansen, Mann and Jones who are the sceptics!
Chris
Interesting post. I would just like to make a few observations.
1. Hopefully, this will be put before the select committee in the UK who are examining the issues arising out of the leaked e-mails from CRU. why the HADCRU temperature record may need review. If anyone is making submissions to the UK select commission, I suggest that these exchanges be used as evidence relevant to issues 1 (manipulation of data) and 2 (compliance with best scientific practice) and hence why the HADCRU temperature record may need review
2. As previous posters have pointed out 60% of the ‘observed’ warming can be accounted for by UHI. Of the remaining 40%, there is a strong probability that a significant percentage of this can be attributed to whatever process caused the warming trend from the early 1800s since there is no reason to believe that whatever process brought about that warming is no longer active.
3. With respect to Jones, only a fool would cite 1900 as a date. London spread into the suburbs in the 1930s and again in the 1950s. Indeed, the airports surrounding London were not even built in 1900. There can be no doubt that the area over which ‘X’ is observed is far greater today than it was in 1900 such that some stations that were rural/partially urban in 1900 are now fully urban and are therefore now subject to ‘T + X’. I could accept that had he suggested 1960 or 1970 as the date, an argument could be made reasonably supporting the view.
4. Whilst I suspect that once an area has become urbanised the UHI effect is seen immediately, this may not be the case with a city that has continued to grow upwards as well as sideways. In the case of London, upwards building, in the main, dates back to the 1960s. In the case of urbanisations which have developed upwards as well as sideways in some areas of the urban conurbation ‘X’ will have become ‘Y’
The U.S. Media will likely not take their blinders off and “discover” this story until they get out of bed with the Obama administration. The global warming / carbon tax is too embedded in the Obama administration programs to allow them to pull the rug out from under him.
The newly released budget was originally supposed to include funding they expected to receive from the carbon tax revenue now they have dropped that estimated income.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6101VB20100201
Until the U.S. MSM loses its infatuation with the current administration it will not allow open debate on issues that would directly impact his agenda in a negative way. That is in my view one of the reasons the administration tried to declare war on Fox. They were the only mass media outlet with significant market share, that had the balls to tell the truth or even ask the right questions.
Larry
“The revelations on the inadequacies of the 1990 paper do not undermine the case that humans are causing climate change, and other studies have produced similar findings. But they do call into question the probity of some climate change science.”
The thing is… if the data DIDN’T undermine the case that humans are causing climate change, why would CRU need to “lose” or refuse to release it? This has to be a “no smoke without fire” scenario. Otherwise why the subterfuge?
And as for London’s UHI effect not changing since 1900 – well, we all know that Edwardian Brits had computers, central heating, 2 cars per household, air con, washing machines, floodlighting, skyscraper office blocks, diesel engined double decker buses, and Heathrow airport, don’t we?
John:
I volunteer to photograph some of the UK surface stations – there’s enough Brits reading this to make it happen. Anthony, give us our mission brief!
Ben (23:12:52) :
I seeboth stories there. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment has the former as the lead story and #1 read over the last 24 hours. The latter is #2.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/leaked-emails-climate-jones-chinese
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/dispute-weather-fraud
While the latter says:
A review of recent studies published online in December by David Parker of the Met Office concludes that, even allowing for Jones’s new data, “global near-surface temperature trends have not been greatly affected by urban warming trends.”
Note that it comes from the Met. Is there anyone left in Britain who takes the Met seriously?
Rob R (02:15:24) :
I agree, though more for thinking -gate should be used for historic events. Climategate is okay. NGOgate?
A more trendy word that deserves to be over used and hence added to the junk bin of contemporary slang is the suffix -fail. While it lacks a proper scientific detachment, one can argue that UEA/CRU also lacks a proper scientific detachment.
Therefore, and incorporating the also trendy middleCaps:
I like the ring of PhilFail, but not its ad hominem feature. OTOH, at this point, he may deserve it.
The dominos keep falling!!
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/dominic-lawson/dominic-lawson-so-all-these-climate-revelations-were-a-dastardly-foreign-plot-1886149.html
In the Independent:
“After non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the British Government now wants to terrify us – and the world – with scaremongering about “man-made” weather of mass destruction. That’s the scandal – not whether someone has hacked into an East Anglian computer.
BTW, h/t to Benny Peiser for the above link.
Re the London UHI effect.
North American readers may not be aware of how relatively rare, even in the 1960s and 70s central heating was in the UK. Air-conditioning, outside of brand new office blocks was virtually unheard of outside of American films. As new office blocks replaced earlier, low rise Victorian buildings and newly-converted up-market dwellings with both central heating and air-conditioning were developed the effect must have been significant.
Well things could get a lot hotter for the warmists in UK MSM if, as Delingpole reports, he becomes the Independent’s environment correspondent http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100021983/delingpole-to-be-appointed-independents-environment-correspondent/
Let’s hope and pray he has not jumped the gun in announcing his appointment.
THE INDEPENDENT.
Global warming and higher levels of CO2 makes trees grow at fastest rate for 200 years
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
The trees appear to have accelerated growth rates due to longer growing seasons and higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Scientists have documented the changes to the growth of 55 plots of mixed hardwood forest over a period of 22 years, and have concluded that they are probably growing faster now than they have done at any time in the past 225 years – the age of the oldest trees in the study.
Higher concentrations of carbon dioxide and extended growing seasons could be favourable for agriculture in some parts of the world, mainly in the NORTHERN HEMISPHERE.
SO WARMER AND ENRICHED CO2 ONLY EFFECTS HALF OF THE PLANET, WOW.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/global-warming-makes-trees-grow-at-fastest-rate-for-200-years-1886342.html
.
>> was reminded of Comical Ali speaking during the
>>Iraq invasion: while the bombs were going off behind
>>him he continued to state that there was “nothing to
>>see here”.
And remember that it was the Western media (incl the BBC and CNN) who kowtowed to Comical Ali, broadcasting his every report as though he were an oracle of truth and veracity.
I’m not sure who was more surprised when the bombs began falling in the background – Comical Ali, in full denialist flow, or the Western media, who were equally gullible and culpable.
.
We really need to sort our MSM media out, especially when it comes to science reports. Every report I see in my field is absolute tosh – do they never ask or research before writing?. Adrian Berry of the Telegraph used to be a national embarrassment – is he still there? Hanlon in the Mail is not much better, enthusing about the paranormal and fringe conspiracies. Really, we need to sack every science reporter who does not have a degree in science/engineering and 10-years experience in the field.
.
Did Prince Charles recently give comfort and succour to these ratbags?
Who is advising HRH, the illustrious Phil Jones perhaps?
O.T. ….. But:
When are we going to get a WUWT for the UK education system???
Hands up, someone…
The UK education system has a hockey-stick graph of results and an establishment who are collectively 2km east of Giza (In De-Nial). 😉
Sound familiar??
.
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