CRU to have old papers peer reviewed again
When you’ve worked in radio and television news for 30 years as I have, you get an eye for spotting rubbish. My rubbish detector went full tilt when I read this press release (see below) from UEA announcing they were going to have an “independent external reappraisal” of their peer reviewed publications.
I suppose that they think this move will be a “double plus good” public relations win for their work and for the organization. Perhaps it will be seen that way by a select few. But, review by the Royal Society, which has in the past done little if any significant questioning of its own about climate research, and in fact has a web page full of statements that are in line with the findings of many CRU papers, suggests that the Royal Society cannot be objective in this matter. It suggests that the investigation’s outcome is predetermined and only an exercise for the benefit of bolstering the appearance of high scientific standards via name dropping. It suggests a whitewash. I hope I’m wrong.
UEA/CRU would have gained much more public trust and avoided criticsms like this by choosing a truly independent review organization that has not made any public statements about their position on climate change.
Here’s what the Royal Society Climate Change web page has on it:
Debunking climate change myths
Scientists give their personal opinions on climate change
For example, the Royal Society has this on their web page under the heading: Misleading Arguments.
Misleading argument 4: ’Temperature observations don’t support the theory’
The central issue about CRU which led to the Climategate affair, which has led to this supposedly independent investigation, is that CRU wouldn’t share the temperature data and took illegal steps to suppress FOI requests from those who wanted to replicate the work to determine whether or not “Temperature observations don’t support the theory”. In fact if you follow that link at the Royal Society, they don’t question surface measurements at all, but discuss instead why satellite measurements don’t agree with surface measurements. The message is that the Royal Society does not question the surface record.
With Royal Society having statements like that on their web page which already don’t question the central issue from which the investigation arose, I suspect the outcome statement will be something like this:
“While it is clear that requests for data sharing and FOI requests were handled improperly, our independent review team found that the research conducted by CRU has been done properly, within correct standards consistent with the scientific practices recognized by the Royal Society, and the conclusions are robust”.
Meanwhile, we still don’t have what has been asked for in the first place: full data, procedures, and code. You won’t find a release like that on the UEA press page.
From the University of East Anglia press office:
New scientific assessment of climatic research publications announced
Thu, 11 Feb 2010
An independent external reappraisal of the science in the Climatic Research Unit’s (CRU) key publications has been announced by the University of East Anglia.
The Royal Society will assist the University in identifying assessors with the requisite expertise, standing and independence.
“Published papers from CRU have gone through the rigorous and intensive peer review process which is the keystone for maintaining the integrity of scientific research,” said Professor Trevor Davies, the University’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, Enterprise and Engagement. “That process and the findings of our researchers have been the subject of significant debate in recent months. Colleagues in CRU have strenuously defended their conduct and the published work and we believe it is in the interests of all concerned that there should be an additional assessment considering the science itself.”
The independent reassessment will complement Sir Muir Russell’s Review of the key allegations about the handling of data arising from the publication of a series of e-mails hacked from CRU. Sir Muir’s Review is expected to announce its finding in Spring 2010.
The reassessment of CRU’s key publications will be completed at the earliest date the assessors can manage. The findings will be made public
Marvin,
I suggest you ask Gavin Schmidt to point you to the released CRU software code that calculates their global temperature index. Also be a dear please and ask him where the data have been released that CRU inputs into their software code.
The issue isn’t whether or not Gavin Schmidt has released Model-E code. Anyone that suggests that is the issue is a prevaricator par excellence. The issue is whether CRU has appropriately supplied requested data and code that they are obliged to under good scientific practice as well as required by law.
REPLY: It appears there may be some confusion. Gavin is with GISS, not CRU. – Anthony
Henry chance (09:38:10):
“It is a legal ethics failure for a CPA to both prepare financials and to audit them.”
Really? That’s just what Bernie Madoff did…
…oh, wait…
Marvin (09:15:23) :
I read from realclimate that all the data and source code is completely released from Gavin Schmidt (from his own modelling which correlates with the IPCC).
Have you read any of the leaked emails, Don`t believe Gavin or skeptics, just read the emails and google climategate.
Isnt it about time both sides of the argument stop trading blows about whether or not the temperature data is correct or whether or not its validation or its homogenisation gives a misleading result because it really does not matter. Anthropogenic Co2 in our atmosphere amounts to 0.117%, now if that is causing a problem so what. John Christy figures that even if the USA builds 1000 nuclear power stations between now and 2020 and has them all operational at that time this will reduce the global temperature by seven hundredths of 1 deg C and by 2100 by fifteen hundredths of 1 deg C so if the CRU and Al Gore are correct we are all stuffed in any case.
There are bald figures here and one of them is what precisely constitutes science, is recording and analysing data science or statistics, is recording changes in our climate science or statistics is the coincidential relationship between a rise in Co2 and a supposed rise in temperature and that thought that there must be a relationship even though there is still no evidence that Co2 at its current level in the atmosphere or that the small proportion that is manmade causing the warming and is that warming causing climate change or would our climate change anyway as it has done for the last 4.5 billion years.
Whatever there is clearly naff all that we can do about it other than committ mass extermination so why doesnt everyone involved just go home get a good nights sleep and enjoy what years you have left surely you have something more interesting to do that argue the toss with oafs like Gore and Hansen.
David Wells
Henry’s right.
That means it was Ken Lay of Enron fame that set up the carbon trading scheme.
Doesn’t that just give you all the confidence in the world? *snigger*
Meanwhile, the “independent” investigation which was supposed to investigate the emails has annouced to the world that it is a sham with no interest in getting to the truth by appointing panel members which are already on record saying there is nothing of significance in the emails.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/2/11/russell-review-under-way.html
To add insult to injury, panel includes an editor from Nature magazine who after taking a break writing rants about deniers will be have the task of objectively [sic] assessing whether ‘Mike’s Nature Trick’ was dishonest or not.
Ummmmm –
Wasn’t it the Royal Society that got CRU data released thru the back door?
So, wouldn’t there be some appreciation for that?
And, I hasten to remind folks, the Royal Society is the gold standard.
Sighhhh.
Bishop Hill had a post about the Royal Society and a GW FAQ they produced. He has a long list of members that shouldn’t be part of any review. If they are, you know the fix is in.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/27/the-royal-society-and-global-warming.html
Just to make sure the Royal Society is focussed [which it hasn’t been for years] I am sending them a bag of my tame organic seaweed, using my last Carbon Credits.
Now I can sleep knowing the nearest climate tipping point is further away!
zzzzzzzzzzzz
Anything with the word Royal in it is no good… with the exception, of course, of Crown Royal scotch, a fine Canadian scotch>
Crown Royal isn’t scotch, it is rye whiskey. I have a bottle here and it says right on it in fine print…. oh,it says blended in fine print. OK, what does blended mean? Well the fine fine print says…
It doesn’t matter. I don’t like scotch but I do like rye whiskey. I like Crown Royal so it obviously is not scotch. I can advise that with a sufficient quantity of imbibed Crown Royal, the global warming theories become inconclusive. However, when I sober up, they’re just plain wrong again. There seems to be some chemical in the Crown Royal that causes facts to beome diffused from reality. My understanding is that IPCC meetings feature large quantities of similar but higher priced beverages. Is this affecting the reports or are the authors simply addicted to the supply and writing reports to ensure its continuation?
1. If CRU lost much of the original data, how will the RS verify it?
2. Now that FOI requests are belatedly on the governments radar, is anyone sending more requests for that data and code?
Re: Marvin (Feb 11 09:15),
What can be confusing is that the data used to calculate the CRU temps is not the raw data sent to them by the weather services of various countries. Instead it is a set of data which has had many adjustments made to it. CRU has refused to release such raw data; first being just plain obstinate, secondly by claiming they had privacy agreements with some of these bodies, (but they’ve only come up with three or four of them but still refuse data from the others claiming either they don’t know for certain that there weren’t such agreements that they’ve lost), and as a last resort have claimed that they deleted such raw data since they didn’t have enough computer backup storage back thenin the 1980s. I could go on, but the raw data, as used, has never been released.
Now go back to Real Climate and see what happens when you ask them about it. BTW, it they claim it’s all there in some repository, ask them for a list of the stations used. I’m sure the vast majority of the data is available, but CRU just refuses to give a listing of what data was/is actually used.
Anthony,
Sorry if I seemed confused in my response to Marvin. I know darned well that Gavin works for GISS. That’s why it is irrelevant in this instance what Gavin says regarding GISS release of data or code. It is yet another Gavin Schmidt strawman to deflect attention from the fact that CRU has behaved abysmally.
Thanks to Earle Williams (09:40:28) : and Rob (09:44:23) : for responses.
I wasn’t getting into the FOIA requests at this moment I was just referring to the seeming conflict that the adjusted data has not been released as well as computer code etc. Where Gavin had in fact stated he released all his code and his data (not worried about previous failure). I want to know from this point if his code is valid or not as he says it correlates well with the current IPCC reports. Also, what is not given, is all the requested data from East Anglia still under lock and key? What is being held which is required to be able to test properly the statistics calculating average temperatures?
Yes I also read alot of the Harry Read Me and the climategate emails I downloaded and flicked through. It was mostly very boring but it puts a fantastic wedge in the peer review process. I would like to see that change, however that’s not relevant to my current questions.
It just appears to me that even if skeptics all consolidated themselves into a collective and tried to get on board with CAGW it would not even matter. It would be too late and we could do nothing about the consequences. It’s laughable because we have no real control (anymore) of the developing nations either.
And of course we can safely ignore the Royal Societies findings. Posed in a certain light, its a bit like, never ask a question you don’t know the answer to. Or, never have a review by a society you don’t have intertwined commitments with. The review is as flawed as the legislation regarding FOIA requests and the legal system which should prosecute the failings. It’s just exposing the systemic necrotic decay of accountability.
But back to my queries, does anyone know what data is still being hidden and what is required to perform the same calculations the climate modellers performed? Is Gavin’s enough for the meantime to do some checking on the accuracy?
Just so you know I read basically every single article on this site because it is excellent.
So . . . I suppose that since Tom Sawyer is a fictional character the fence isn’t real either. So it’s a whitewash on a fiction. Hmmm.
Grumpy Old man (09:22:15) :
Royal Society? Newton, where are you now?
Newton? , now out of his tomb, haunting all the Holoscience/Thunderbolts people and their Electric Universe who have just extracted the 39th root of his force of gravity and now it is tending to zero!
What the heck did they do to MY APPLE!
************
John Egan (09:54:26) :
Ummmmm –
Wasn’t it the Royal Society that got CRU data released thru the back door?
So, wouldn’t there be some appreciation for that?
And, I hasten to remind folks, the Royal Society is the gold standard.
Sighhhh.
************
As I recall it was the RS what made Briffa release his Yamal data. At least they enforced their own publication policy at least once.
“The Royal Society will assist the University in identifying assessors with the requisite expertise, standing and independence.”
Wow, now I’m all excited about who the assessors will be, and whether their identities will be secret, or subject to FOI requests. I can think of a few good ones; Mike Mann, Gavin Schmidt, Caspar Ammann, Eugene Wahl, Ray Bradley, Rasmus Benestad, Stefan Rahmstorf, Grant Foster, William Connolley…
Grumpy Old man (09:22:15) :
“Royal Society? Newton, where are you now?”
The Royal Society was rotten and corrupt in Newton’s day. In recent years it has added to its corruption by morphing into a crude advocacy organization. The current presidential incumbent, Martin Rees, also Astronomer Royal, is IMHO one of the most corrupt scientists in the UK.
The Royal Society bitterly pursued a complaint against to Ofcom about the screening of ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ in which Lindzen, Christy, Reiter, Stott, Singer, and many other prominent ‘sceptics’ appeared. Ofcom, apart from a few minor technicalities, rejected the Royal Society’s position by asserting that the material was not ‘dangerous’, and that it was Channel Four’s responsibility under its charter to screen minority reports. Next morning, Rees, who is not used to not getting his own way and has damaged many a career and science itself in the process of getting up the greasy pole, was bleating on the radio the following morning that Ofcom were wrong – it WAS ‘dangerous’ because it might influence people into thinking that there was some uncertainty about the AGW mantra.
Not only was this a crass ‘begging the question’ argument, it was an attempt to shut down the airing of sceptical views and outright censorship of the media by (in the Royal Society’s case) a corrupt elite.
While there are some who would never join any “society”, that would have them as a member; the world is full of folks who would. It is like collecting credit cards in your wallet; the more cards you have the better debtor you obviously are.
The Royal Society, is somewhat like the American National Academy of Sciences, in that they each select their own membership. So there is no credential milestone one has to reach; you just have to get approved by the ones who are already approved; well if they approve of you and your ideas of course.
The NAS apparently never issues any “Minority Reports”. Dissenters who somehow sneaked in under the tent can get heard, but their minority views, will not make it into the final report, which is delivered to the President, or the Congress. So it is a natural Conga dance, with everyone patting the chap in front of them on the back.
Of course even if the UEA’s CRU surface data was cleaned up, and made respectable, it amounts to little more than a statistical machination on the local telephone directory numbers.
There’s no simple physical relationship, between Temperature, and energy flux. Oh there may be a relationship; it’s that word “Simple”.
The thermal processes and energy flows, over a tropical Ocean, are quite different from those over say a high desert area like in Antarctica, or say the Gobi. And those in turn are different from the energy dynamics over a tropical rain forest, or an arboreal forest.
So the surface temperature records; homogenized over the whole planet; or that tiny part of it that is actually sampled; still do not give any useful information about whether the energy flow is net into the earth or out of it.
And those graphed, and running smoothings of the laboriously gathered real data; don’t give any hint to the physical processes that determine, whether any real tipping processes are operating, or whether the whole thing is bound in a stable feedback loop; aka “It’s the Water. Stupid !”.
But the RS will serve to divert the attention from what is going on behind the curtains.
davidmhoffer (10:08:14) :
“Anything with the word Royal in it is no good…”
What about Royal Flush? You’d think that was a pretty good hand, wouldn’t you?
The problem is that all national scientific societies support AGW. difficult to find one that is not “in line” with the CRU then.
“Crown Royal isn’t scotch, it is rye whiskey.”
That’s a bit of a misnomer. Rye Whiskey is actually made mostly from…..you guessed it….CORN!
“…in some cases the corn-to-rye ratio may be as high as 9:1…most contemporary Canadian whiskies contain only a fraction of rye, with the exception of Alberta Premium which is one of the very few whiskies made from 100% rye mash.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rye_whiskey#Canadian_rye_whisky
[snip]…WE’RE BEING CONNED ON JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING!
lol.
Well, at least the Royal Sock Puppets have the good sense to say up-front that their arguments are misleading (and they certainly are!). Points for honesty.
Wow Post Normal Science in action.