Excerpts from the Daily Mail article here:
Head of ‘Climategate’ research unit admits he hid data – because it was ‘standard practice’
The scientist at the heart of the ‘Climategate’ row over global warming hid data ‘because it was standard practice’, it emerged today.
Professor Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia’s prestigious climatic research unit, today admitted to MPs that the centre withheld raw station data about global temperatures from around the world.
The world-renowned research unit has been under fire since private emails, which sceptics claimed showed evidence of scientists manipulating climate data, were hacked from the university’s server and posted online.
Now, an independent probe is examining allegations stemming from the emails that scientists hid, manipulated or deleted data to exaggerate the case for man-made global warming.
Prof Jones today said it was not ‘standard practice’ in climate science to release data and methodology for scientific findings so that other scientists could check and challenge the research.
He also said the scientific journals which had published his papers had never asked to see it.
Appearing before the committee’s hearing into the disclosure of data from the CRU alongside Prof Jones, the university’s vice chancellor Prof Edward Acton said he had not seen any evidence of flaws in the overall science of climate change – but said he was planning this week to announce the chair of a second independent inquiry, which will look into the science produced at CRU.
h/t to WUWT reader Richard Lawson
UPDATE: Steven Mosher writes in comments about some relevant history that disproves Dr. Jones claim of “standard practice”:
==========================
OK. Everybody write the UEA committee.
Jones says its standard practice NOT to share data.
1. in 2002 PRIOR to the publication of MM2003 Jones shared
data with Mcintyre. Jones was aware of confidentiality agreements.
“Dear Steve,
Attached are the two similar files [normup6190, cruwld.dat] to those I sent before which should be for the 1994 version. This is still the current version until the paper appears for the new one. As before the stations with normal values do not get used.
I’ll bear your comments in mind when possibly releasing the station data for the new version (comments wrt annual temperatures as well as the monthly). One problem with this is then deciding how many months are needed to constitute an annual average. With monthly data I can use even one value for a station in a year (for the month concerned), but for annual data I would have to decide on something like 8-11 months being needed for an annual average. With fewer than 12 I then have to decide what to insert for missing data. Problem also applies to the grid box dataset but is slightly less of an issue.
I say possibly releasing above, as I don’t want to run into the issues that GHCN have come across with some European countries objecting to data being freely available. I would like to see more countries make their data freely available (and although these monthly averages should be according to GCOS rules for GAA-operational Met. Service.
Cheers
Phil Jones”
http://climateaudit.org/2009/08/06/a-2002-request-to-cru/
2. After the publication of MM03 he refused to share that data with Hughes in Feb 2005:a month after MM05 was published and a month after Wigly and he discussed ways to avoid FOIA. He refused
again with Mcintyre in 2007, citing confidentiality agreements.
3. Fully aware of the confidentiality agreements Jones shared the data
with Webster and with Rutherford.
His standard practice was this.
If Jones had no reason to suspect you as an individual he would violate confidentiality agreements and send you data. If jones didn’t like your results or your treatment of his co author Dr. Mann, then he would refuse you data.
There is nothing standard about this practice.
===================================
It appears once Dr. Jones learned that Steve McIntyre had skeptical views, his unwillingness to share data became “standard practice”. – Anthony
Anyone else notice that in the picture he is, quite obviously throwing a West Side gang sign. As a representative of the University of East Anglia, who should be reprasentin’ the East Side and this can only be seen as a ‘dis’ (short for disrespect) against either the West Anglians, the Welsh or, more likely, his former colleagues in America that have distanced (also another form of ‘dissing’) themselves from him in recent months.
What comes next will be no surprise for those in the know, a cross-Atlantic Rap-Science Battle is brewing.
Peace out,
His Pimptasticness: U-P-G-R-A-Y-E-D-D
Manna from Heaven! Haul these fraudsters in front of government committees and let them talk.
Yes I can see it the importance of it now.
The world, our reality, the human race, will end in 90 years time, unless you pay me at least $1000 per person per year for…. ever.
You want to see my data? Screw you you [snip]-heretic!!!
If you were publishing original research in a journal you would not expect to be asked for your raw data for the publication. However, if you were working in the public sector, and did not need to keep data confidential for commercial reasons, you should have no objection to handing over files of raw data if asked by another researcher in the field.
I cannot see any viable reason why a country should consider their temperature data copyright, for sole use or otherwise. Copyright covers original ideas such as literature, art and music, where there is a prohibition on plagiarism and a royalty due to the originator. I cannot see how that applies to temperature data that is publicly funded and carries no fee. Can anyone explain?
I’ll resist the temptation to suggest that copyright applies because the data is a work of fiction, that would be childish.
@Phil Clarke (13:33:17)
That’s a level of nuance reserved for spinners and partisans. The court of public opinion could care a wit about this technicality when the phrase NOT SHARING is associated with it.
“He also said the scientific journals which had published his papers had never asked to see it.”
I weep.
” Home | Al Gore 2008 Draft Campaign **
Will Al Gore Run in 2008? … Sea levels are rising, fires are raging, storms are stronger.
http://www.algore.org”
Run, Al, run.
…-
“2010 Brings First Tornado-Free February
While the so-called Snowmageddon and Snowicane tm blizzards that book-ended the month got much of the nation’s attention, not a single tornado was reported in the United States during February 2010.
According to the Storm Prediction Center (SPC), no tornadoes were reported last month.
“It’s a phenomenal feat that we went a month without a tornado,” said AccuWeather.com Expert Senior Meteorologist Henry Margusity.
If the statistic stands, it would be the first tornado-free February in at least 60 years.
February typically has 22 tornadoes on average, based on reports dating back to 1950 from the SPC.”
http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/25571/2010-brings-first-tornadofree.asp
What’s with the hand signals. Did he do all his responces as a RAP?
The pity me/victim card didn’t work so he’s back to his usual self. His displays of arrogance show no signs of ever being suicidal or depressed as his buddies in the media tried to make the public believe.
PaulT (12:00:25) :
Canadian climate data is available online. See link below:
http://climat.meteo.gc.ca/prods_servs/index_e.html
As far as I can see there are no restrictions on the redistribution of Canadian data in the context of the uses (research) being discussed. See item 2 below. I think that the claim from Edward Acton is worthy of further research.
======
I’m not sure Acton said there were restrictions on the redistribution of Canadian data. Jones said Canada wanted request for their data to made to them.
If you can get it from them, why ask Jones for it anyway?
” Nick (12:29:22) :
Not many scientists here, are there?
Standard practice is to outline the initial hypothesis, assumptions, and data, provide a guide of methodology, and conclusions. It is not to provide all of the interim and explicit calculations and values. You don’t release tables of processed data and explicit code.
”
Actually, I am a scientist, or I was until made redundant last year. I worked in the Pharmaceutical industry. Our peer reviewers are the FDA and European regulatory bodies who have the power to shut research sites down / levy huge fines if they find anything amiss in new drug submissions. So yes, in the industry I worked in we had to be prepared to provide, reports, data, and give access if required right back to the raw data, from the lab book and printouts from scientific instruments.
Anything less than this level of disclosure and openness is just bad science. And how come the Pharmaceutical industry gets a bad name wheras the global warming industry was the darling of governments??? Well, it is all about to change!
Al Gore’s Holy Hologram (14:27:49)
Maybe he’s off his meds
One thing Jones’s defenders ignore is that NONE of the data was created through experimentation by Jones and his associates. The raw data all came from various meteorological organisations. It is unthinkable that a genuine scientist involved in what is claimed by them to be world shattering research, with implications for every single one of us, would not automatically make ALL his work available so that someone could prove him wrong, as they all say they want to be wrong, don’t they? Doubly so for a scientist whose output is then used by other researchers to “prove” his claims.
“Cadae (13:45:57) :
In a normal science, the most powerful test of an hypothesis and its evidence is via experimental replication. In comparison, peer review is a poor second cousin of experimental replication.”
No, not at all! Peer Review is just to weed out weak papers and give the auhor of the paper hints as to where he better strengthen his argument. Experimental replication is completely independent of this!
I like the gangsta sign Jones is making. I wonder if he bought some gold chains with taxpayer’s money to go with his climate gangsta attitude.
Sounds to me like the fix is in.
Nick — Peer review doesn’t work by taking all of a scientist’s numbers ‘along the way’ and running them yourself – you aren’t testing their methodology, you’re simply doing what they did over again.
No, pal, it is *you* who fails to comprehend. There’s a great deal more than mere peer review to consider.
If I pay tax so the state can build a road, I don’t need to file a FIOA request to drive on it.
If I vote part of my tax burden is to pay for result compilation. I don’t need to file a FIOA request to see election results.
And so on.
This is taxpayer paid data, hence I own it. It is mine.
Sure, there’s some data witheld in some taxpayer funded cases because it’s probably not a good idea to put nuke info in the hands of bad guys. But we’re talking temperatures here, not weapons tech.
Plus, I’m also looking at politicians trying to use this data that I’m not allowed to see to affect my life.
Furthermore.
In some fields of science, looking at numbers and how they are derived is the crux of a paper and therefore the only relevant mechanism available.
e.g. a simple school-level experiment, looking at lemons acting as batteries. Is it necessary to see the figures showing the current of each lemon if the purpose is to look at electrode composition? Not really. On the other hand, if the entire point of the experiment is to see what variety produces the most current, then this raw current data is what’s relevant.
In climate science, the production of a hockey stick is utterly dependent on the math used to create it, since apparently the stick doesn’t exist outside the formulae used. Of course looking at the code is relevant; it’s the sole point of the paper.
And of course… I paid for it. It’s mine. Hand it over.
Having listened to a recent interview with Mann, and watched Prof, Alley’s talk to the American Geophysical Union, I’m pretty convinced that these people (and probably Jones too) are sincere. They believe the AGW hypothesis. They see the sceptic weblogs as wanton spoilers; they seem to believe that the battle of ideas is skewed by sceptics’ vast financial resource dwarfing that of the warmists(!!!). This is not irony – listen to Mann at: http://www.pointofinquiry.org/michael_mann_unprecedented_attacks_on_climate_research/ He feels like the little guy in a David v Goliath struggle; the tiny Copenhagen meeting (was it in the back room of a pub?) unable to compete with the massive sceptic spin-machine. I kid you not: listen to his voice and look for a crafty twinkle in his eye – you’ll find none.
This Great Debate will be resolved by actual data refuting the AGW hypothesis; but the two warring factions need to agree a mutually-acceptable dataset with no funny business, and to agree on ‘falsifiability’ criteria, the point at which the Hockey Team can declare, “OK, we were wrong”. Following their recent humiliation, the Hockey Team may dig in all the more. Their psychology is as self-confirming as any religious zealot’s.
Yes, the likes of Steve McIntyre have had to fight like hell for disclosure, and had he been less pugnacious he’d have got nowhere. But now that we have the momentum, a little tact and diplomacy are called for. Rub their noses in it, and they’ll never capitulate: they can hold out for decades saying, “The recent cold spell is merely a pause in global warming.”
We need the modern-day equivalent of Einstein’s eclipse. Only if there is bilateral agreement of the pass/fail criteria can we prevent this poppycock lasting decades. Jaysus, I don’t want to have to send my ghost back to ask, “Hey, what was the score?”
The thing that sounds the worst to me is that he appears to think that it is acceptable not to go into too much detail on the method. In many fields of science it is possible to summarise a method which is reproducible and unambiguous in about half a page. In the methodology section there should be surfeiting information for the work to be reproduced so that if the work is correct then the conclusions should not change. In climate science however the method is a lot more involved than in many other areas of science, the many aspects of which can have significant effects on the conclusion. Any paper on temperature reconstructions then would be expected to be at least half filled with detailing, justifying, discussing and testing the robustness of the methodology. Robust means that the conclusions can withstand changes to areas of ambiguity in the procedure. If you haven’t accurately described or disclosed your procedure then you are not entitled to claim that your conclusions are robust.
I’ve listened to Dr Jones speak. I can assure you all he’s not a witch – although I suppose that kind of fairly close contact might make me one?
If you don’t show how you got your results, how can you claim to be doing ‘science’?
Phil seems to see others doing other things with others sets of data but getting the same results as equal to replication. To verify the CRU work others need:
The raw data or pointing to the sources of the raw data.
Details of the adjustment and homogenisation processes.
The computer code for the climate projections.
They need to repeat what CRU did not just get the same result.
…in other words, you got your paper peer-reviewed, fine, the jury about the correctness of your science is still out. Nobody expects the peer “judges” to catch every flaw. Most of the times they can’t do that due to lack of time, lab equipment, money, staff etc. It would also be expecting too much of the judges.
Peer review is and always has been an editorial process. Replication of the scientific results and independent evaluation is much more costly and needs to be done IN ADDITION to the peer review/whatever else was done in publishing to find out whether the science is substantial. Or let’s say maybe it should have been done before governments decided it would be a great idea to transform the entire economy using underdeveloped technoly combined wih billion dollar tax hikes.
Phil Clarke — Jones is explaining that it is not standard practice to release computer software as part of publishing a paper. Which is no more or less than the truth.
If there’s no other way to see how the numbers were generated, then this isn’t science — of course the code is to be released.
Especially if we’re paying for it.
Am I the only one here who has a problem with the apparent fact that what we have here is people employed on our backs and then refusing to let us examine — in any level of detail we like — what we paid for?
Wren (14:29:08) :
If you can get it from them, why ask Jones for it anyway?
Nobody knew what subset of date he was using. This is about as good as when, I believe, around last August-September timeframe he pointed to GHCN and said, more or less, most of it’s in there.
Regardless of the constantly shifting claims, his temperature reconstruction was and still is for all intents and purposes a black box for everyone – including him if he really did lose his unadjusted RAW data.
Some days I almost feel sorry for him on the chance that this wasn’t intentional, other days I would like to see him publicly shamed and defrocked… but there is absolutely no excusing his behavior as acceptable. He is either inept or a fraudulent.
Sorry. Bad notebook keyboard. technoly -> technology; wih –> with.