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.
ScientistForTruth (03:31:07) : Your comment is awaiting moderation
ScientistForTruth (03:41:44) : Your comment is awaiting moderation
Is there some problem with the comments that’s making them have to wait?
John (02:43:36) :
I’m wondering how good are the ground weather stations in the UK and has anyone done an independant survey of those?? Do we even know where they are??
John,
I checked the sites on the Met Office site – dig about a bit; it takes some finding. I have also asked Anthony this question but he says that so many of them are at airports that the possibility of a survey had to be abandoned for security reasons. I can just imagine us all being arrested with our cameras out – perhaps we should do it anyway and claim we are journalists or tourists, not terrorists.
I was interested because one of the stations near me is Hurn/Hern (can never remeber the correct spelling) but now known more importantly as Bournemouth International Airport, so I would expect there to be a similar heat island effect as the airport has expanded over recent years. It reminded me of Stansted Airport before that was developed into London’s Third Airport. It used to be a potty little airport, only there because the americans had built the long runway during the war. Now look at it!
Scientist,
No there is no problem. All posts have to be reviewed before publishing to remove ad hominems and other offensive comments. Its normal.
RayG (05:41:56) :
-Well things could get a lot hotter for the warmists in UK MSM if, as Delingpole reports, he becomes the Independent’s environment correspondent…
That is a spoof, of course: look who he puts in charge of the other departments!
Delingpole as the Indy’s Environment correspondent? Now I know pigs may fly…
I was about to make the same point aobut central heating in both London and other UK cities. After leavign Bristol – we all live din big Georgian huses with no heating – I lived for all the 70s in a large house on the Chelsea/Fulham borders with no heating – I had to heat the one room I was using, and worked in bed a lot. Btw, I’m back to doing that now, on my pension, as heating bills this winter are almost 50% of my disposable income thanks to green taxes! There was an orgy of gentification in London thru the 80s, and of office building and general redevelopment, and infilling of any availble building space. All redevelopment and new building was at a much higher occupation density than before
From earlier:
“I have now read 2 versions of the Fred Pierce Guardian story. In the more recent 2nd version, he states that none of the irregularities around the 1990 paper ‘undermine the case that humans are causing climate change.’ In a version online a couple hours ago, he went on at greater length saying in spite of all of this, there is no doubt that global warming still exists, everyone agrees about that, etc.”
I wonder if the person who tipped off Anthony was Pearce, or some junior journo who knew the story would get substantially spun when the powers that be saw it? I think the current Guardian manoevering is just that: spin to ensure they don’t lose too much face while trying to shore up the narrative
“Is there some problem with the comments that’s making them have to wait?”
Yes, surely, the sheer numbers! WUWT has now become essential reading worldwide – and many more people are commenting. Watch the hit counter – it’s astonishing
This is what Mr.Brown said, after the Copenhagen fiasco: LONDON (Reuters) – A handful of countries blocked a legally binding deal on climate change in Copenhagen and the talks process needs urgent reform to prevent something similar happening again, Britain’s prime minister said on Monday
Regarding surface stations, I read a couple of months back that the only station with a continuous record from a device which had neither been changed nor moved since records began in the 1850s, is in Armargh (Northern Ireland). Iirc, it shows a cyclical oscillation but no overall warming…
Can anyone supply a url / graph? I’ve tried to find the site I read this on, but I can’t
(and I *have* to get some work done – Climategate is such a drug…)
Anthony I too would be prepared to help with a UK surface station project. Have camera, do travel… and I know a large network of sports photographrs who do likewise
So Wang claims that if the stations were moved, then it was only a few meters and they ‘corrected’ for the moves.
Well, what would be the point of moving the stations only a few meters? And how were corrections calculated?
If stations really were moved only a few meters, then they would have done so to be better sited, validating UHI. And if UHI isn’t much of an effect, why correct the data?
Obviously, the stations were moved a considerable distance, if the stations existed at all. And, most likely, the stations were moved from rural to urban areas.
RDay (20:54:54) :
“Hmmm, what does the Guardian have up its sleeve? Why are they so, so, so journalistic all of a sudden? The um, skeptic in me is well, skeptical.”
It’s like a woman catching her husband in a lie, as opposed to a woman catching Billy Joe Bob of Billy Joe Bob’s Auto Emporium in a lie.
She never trusted Billy Joe Bob to begin with.
Being an unrepentant/unreconstructed temporarily expatriate colonial living in England, I find the the idea of taking seriously the huffing and puffing of Sir David King, former UK science supremo, who told the Independent that ‘ Russian spies or possibly a wealthy American ‘denier” stealing emails from UEA to be absolutely hilarious. Sadly, the class-indoctrinated Brits think the ‘K’ and his former status have prevented Sir David from becoming a victim of senile dementia. Having read something of his background, I realise he has a history of being made a fool of by the Russians and this obviously stings, but a time arrives when his outburst would be better left unsaid for his sake.
One can see the same awe of status and title in the adulation the irrational and devious Lord Stern is held in by the political class.
(Yahoo) Armagh Observatory
I’ve been a closet AGW sceptic ever since I first saw Al Gore’s ludicrous GW presentation, but was unable to reconsile my limited knowledge and gut feelings on the subject with the “concensus of 3000 scientists” working for the IPCC. Then, during the big freeze of last Christmas, I read “The Real Global Warming Disaster” by Christopher Booker, which not only puts the whole GW farse into perspective, but also intoduced me to Anthony’s excellent WUWT blog. I have for the past few weeks become an avid follower of his tireless work and the comments by all of you sceptical warriors. I only wish I had joined you much sooner; I feel as though I am joining the frey just as the battle is about to be won (let’s hope so!).
Now that The Guardian and The Independant are begining to sense that AGW is mostly a fairy tale, the Washington Post and NY Times must surely soon realise that something is seriously amiss with this unproven theory.
Yesterday (1 Feb), in New Zealand, it was disclosed that there has been unwarranted modifying of the national raw weather data. The actual records, over a period of 150 years, shows little variation in SL temperatures and no upward trend!
Finally, one for Anthony: Phil Jones’s figures for UHI-affected weather stations cf “real climate change” suggests the following:
Temp Change during 1951/2004 = 0.81 – 0.1 * (2004 – 1951)/10
= 0.81 – 0.53 = 0.28 degC#
# 0.28degC is the same figure for the GW Anomily show on the “World Climate Widget” – is this an “Inconvenient” coincidence or am I onto something?!?
“REPLY: Yes that’s right, and you know what else is amazing? The Guardian authors emailed me this afternoon to make sure I knew about this story. I’ve never been given a tip from the Guardian staff before, evar. – Anthony”
When I first read this artical, I though that I might have had my UK Rag taxonomy mixed up. Guess I did’nt. The Guardian and Independent are both Chiroptera lunae latrans.
What is going on? Is the world ending? Is this one of the signs of the Apocalypse?
And …
In the US, the band continued to play …
@Alexander (07:46:01) : “the class-indoctrinated Brits think the ‘K’ and his former status have prevented Sir David from becoming a victim of senile dementia”
Hold hard Alex! Speaking as a Brit (and a republican sensu stricto), I certainly don’t assume the K, or peerages for that matter, are a nostrum against senility and silliness amongst our government. Large portions of the House of Lords benches are crammed solid with the mentally challenged, as is the case for the Commons too.
We here are cynically very used to the idea that scum rises to the surface of the pot, particularly where the government, civil service and the nobility are concerned. But be fair, old chap, we do have the Noble Lord Lawson as our Inhofe equivalent and another aristocrat, Monckton, in the vanguard of the charge against the AGW scam – and even the bloody Guardian seems to be getting a bit of common sense these days (which is quite mindboggling of itself).
The Contrary View:
Frank Luntz on FOX News – Climate Change – 12-14-2009
[Author of “What Americans Really Want…Really”]
He appears to be advising politicians “The public has now come to a conclusion that Climate Change is real …Don’t fight over the Science…Focus on what the American People want done…Let’s make the change right now — let’s not wait”
So when will Amerika reach the tipping point? Will they have to find a doofuss for a scapegoat first? It does seem Jones is the scapegoat in the U.K.
Should this board nominate a scapegoat so the Media can save some time?
I see our scapegoat candidates are into writing science fiction books and trying to ramp up an alternative income stream. Romm is out soon with a new book as is Hansen. We need a lot of books to read while waiting for 3 hour battery recharges at the electric meter.
Joe Romm is so slow it takes him 2 hours to watch 60 minutes.
The press in Britain and America know about each other…
(I’m sure the American press is following what the British press is doing.)
The recent British press attention might be a test case for the American press.
Don’t be too surprised (depending on the reaction of the British citizens: do they buy more newspapers, do they vote against AGW political candidates) if this Spring, with Winter hanging on, then the American press finally starts to run with the story.
If not, then you know they’re really drunk with the Kool-Aid.
Poor Philip Campbell, editor of Nature. In
addition to presiding over one alleged daisy chain of
peer-reviewers for climate related research articles, a second
claim in an unrelated, billion dollar/pound area arises:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8490291.stm
Will there be another Nature editorial defending the
sanctity of Nature’s peer-review process ? What terminology
can Campbell apply to the new complainers that won’t sound
like a repeat of his beat-down of climate deniers ?
If you’re bringing the popcorn, I’ll bring nachos & cheese…
Nigel S (03:05:04) : ..and, in a few years, there won’t be any source of heat but windmills on a deserted land…all londoners should have emigrated by then .
The former proud empire turned into devasted and forgotten ruins.
UEA has replied:
http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/guardianstatement
I don’t know enough about the ins and outs of this to comment about the veracity of the statements regarding releasing data to Keenan in 2007.
oops the link is not correct. Try this:
http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/guardianstatement
It seems that the last few letters from the URL are being truncated. It should read /guardianstatement
Donald (Australia) 5:59:10:
Hallo, Don,
Prince Charles is advised by Jonathon Porritt, probably Britain’s best known Green, (extremely Green). He’s in Wikipedia. He is the son of a former Governor-General of New Zealand, so you can blame them. (That should please a fair dinkum Aussie!)