Climate sceptic wins landmark data victory ‘for price of a stamp’
Belfast ecologist forced to hand over tree-ring data describes order from information commission as a ‘staggering injustice’
by Fred Pearce The Guardian, Tuesday 20 April 2010
The Queen’s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland, must hand over 40 years’ worth of data on 7,000 years of Irish tree rings. Photograph: Ron Sachs / Rex Features/Rex Features
An arch-critic of climate scientists has won a major victory in his campaign to win access to British university data that could reveal details of Europe’s past climate.
In a landmark ruling, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office has ruled that Queen’s University Belfast must hand over data obtained during 40 years of research into 7,000 years of Irish tree rings to a City banker and part-time climate analyst, Doug Keenan.
This week, the Belfast ecologist who collected most of the data, Professor Mike Baillie, described the ruling as “a staggering injustice … We are the ones who trudged miles over bogs and fields carrying chain saws. We prepared the samples and – using quite a lot of expertise and judgment – we measured the ring patterns. Each ring pattern therefore has strong claims to be our copyright. Now, for the price of a stamp, Keenan feels he is entitled to be given all this data.”
Keenan revealed this week that he is launching a new assault. On Monday, he demanded the university also hand over emails that could reveal a three-year conspiracy to block his data request.
Keenan has become notorious for pursuing a series of vitriolic disputes with British academics over climate data. Two years ago, he accused Phil Jones of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia of “fraud” over his analysis of data from weather stations in China. Jones recently conceded he may have to revise the paper concerned.
The latest ruling comes from Graham Smith, deputy information commissioner, who in January said information requests to CRU from climate sceptics were “not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation.” In the Belfast case, as well as insisting the university hand over the data, Smith has accused the university authorities of “a number of procedural breaches.”
The case goes back to April 2007, when Keenan asked Queen’s University for all data from tree-ring studies by Baillie and others. The data covers more than 7,000 years. They contain upwards of 1m measurements from 11,000 tree samples, mostly of oak. The university turned down Keenan’s request, citing a range of exemptions allowed under both the Freedom of Information Act and the European Union’s environmental information regulations. Keenan appealed to the information commissioner.
more at the Guardian
It will be interesting to see what independent analysis shows.
copyright protects original works of the imagination. Let’s hope the tree rings are not that. besides, the work I do belongs to the company which pays me. Baillie’s work belongs to the British people, as it was done in a Northern Irish University.
Chris V (12:49:21),
I’ll take that bet. Does five thousand USD sound OK?
Why couldn’t the chain saw serial murderer argue that “I’m the one who trudged miles over bogs and fields carrying chain saws. I tied up the victims – using quite a lot of expertise and judgment – I measured the neck and limb lengths. Each cut therefore has strong claims to be my copyright. Now, for the price of an indictment, the DA feels he is entitled to be given all the videos.”
Chris V
Flights (when the volcano lets up) to Belfast from my nearest airport at Exeter £49. 1 Night at a travel lodge £49. So for less than £100 I can ensure Doug does some meaningful work. Hey Smokey, best increase your bet as it looks like we have just found an even more generous funder of climate research than the UK govt 🙂
Tonyb
The topic title should be “Doug Keenan may finally get
the tree data”.
Here’s how the BBC is pitching the story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8623417.stm
Why don’t we try to be more ecofriendly guys? and apply exactly what ecology science teaches: All species must be in equilibrium in the environment, thus, if the global warmers’ species is growing too much in numbers we should put a relative increased number of predators in the environment to level their numbers according to law, otherwise, they could become a menace for the rest of the ecological system.
Note:This is pure science not PNS here whatsoever.
I for one am looking forward to seeing what Keenan does with the data!
Smokey (12:55:46) :
“Chris V (12:49:21),
I’ll take that bet. Does five thousand USD sound OK?”
Me too. Count me in.
Chris V (12:49:21) :they don’t know what to do with it!
Do you?…I bet you don’t
There needs to a movement in the world of science generally, and science publishing especially, to scorn and shame any who would publish scientific articles without making available their raw data. All of the major scientific associations should agree on this principle: No data, no publication.
Universities should require this standard of their science faculty. Organizations should ban from leadership positions any scientist who withholds his data (after initial publication).
KW
Chris V
What, don’t you read Watts!
Another cover-up pursued by Dr Keenan: click
Reported here also: click
My thanks to Mr Keenan for his clarifications above.
I would like to underline the point he made that the data is decades old and that Baillie is an emeritus professor, thus no longer actively engaged in research. This means that he presumably was not intending to use the data any further. Thus he was intending to deprive the world of its use. If there are any staggering injustices in this sorry tale, it is that this man would deliberately withhold data that has potential value to mankind. He should be ashamed.
Keith Briffa is a climate scientist who is also a dendrochronologist. As far as I know Baillie is a dendrochronologist from before the discipline of climate science was invented. Hence, the Belfast chronology is concerned with why tree rings were first used by science – a dating methodology. Baillie has been retired for a number of years but he is also a bit of a maverick, the author of several books that most definitely are not about climate change. He is not an establishment figure. Why Keenan was refused I don’t know but it may have something to do with him being forced to come out of retirement in order to pass over the information required. Nevertheless, it is also true that the Belfast dendrochronology has never been published, as it is, for independent people to analyse (tree rings are useful for people interested in dating events) and in that respect Keenan has done everyone a service – but only if other people with other interests are also able to view the data. It is also true that Baillie was assisted by others in the compilation of the dendrochronology – possibly in the kind of mathematics that Keenan is interested in. His closest associate, and the one with the maths skill, left Belfast years ago and went to the US to work. I always found Baillie replied to emails and letters (unlike most academics) and freely passed over information or sent photo copies of articles on the queries I posed. He is definitely not your average climate scientist – and that tag is probably quite improper. However, I admit I do not understand why he was opposed to handing the information over to Keenan as he has no axe to grind as far as temperature is concerned or global warming (which is something that came very late in his career and was probably of little interest to him). Keenan may therefore find out things other than climate in his trawl through the trees – which might be very interesting
carol smith (13:32:59):
“Keenan has done everyone a service – but only if other people with other interests are also able to view the data.”
Dr Keenan has been published regarding carbon dating, so his request is connected to his specialty: click
I assume the information requested will be available to anyone who asks, based on this decision. My only concern is that there will be a lot of pressure to support Baillie’s appeal.
It is pretty clear that there were a lot of shenanigans going on with more than a few researchers, when they thought they were safe from scrutiny. CRU isn’t an isolated example. Where there is a lot of grant money flowing, the facts tend to get hammered into the shape the funding entities want.
What if the trouble is there are not any logs left because they were used to make professor Mike Baillie’s new furniture? ☺
@ur momisugly JIm (11:08:04) :
“Someone wake me up– I feel as though we are as copernicus, DARING to question the Catholic Church.
Outrageous.”
In 1533, Johann Albrecht Widmannstetter delivered a series of lectures in Rome outlining Copernicus’ theory. Pope Clement VII and several Catholic cardinals heard the lectures and were interested in the theory. On 1 November 1536, Cardinal Nikolaus von Schönberg, Archbishop of Capua, wrote to Copernicus from Rome:
“Some years ago word reached me concerning your proficiency, of which everybody constantly spoke. At that time I began to have a very high regard for you… For I had learned that you had not merely mastered the discoveries of the ancient astronomers uncommonly well but had also formulated a new cosmology. In it you maintain that the earth moves; that the sun occupies the lowest, and thus the central, place in the universe… Therefore with the utmost earnestness I entreat you, most learned sir, unless I inconvenience you, to communicate this discovery of yours to scholars, and at the earliest possible moment to send me your writings on the sphere of the universe together with the tables and whatever else you have that is relevant to this subject …”
While I agree that AGWers’ rewriting of history is outrageous, it is equally outrageous to also perpetuate this “scientific” mythology. Copernicus wasn’t afraid of the Catholic church, he was afraid of the reaction of his fellow academics.
I’m not a scientist, but for over two years I have been following Dr. Keenan’s crusade for data that may uncover the truth behind climate change. I just wanted to say, congratulations! Here’s hoping they actually comply with the ruling and release it now.
Apparently Baillie agrees that most of the tree rings he studied are not very reflective of temperature.
Now I need some help here. Do trees not basically grow in the same way wherever they are situated, albeit with reflection of the local conditions? So how come a few BCPs, appropiated by Mann, were supposedly indicative of worldwide temperature conditions?
Ballie believes he has a copyright on his interpretation of the tree rings?
“Each ring pattern therefore has strong claims to be our copyright.”
The rings are natural, not someones intelluctual property. His own words infer his interpretation is novel. I imply from this that it is not simply the data he is concerned with. The data is the data. He is being evasive on the way he “picked and chose” the data. Can anyone say strip bark?
I guess “recognized dendrochronologists” already have the information and probably have been corrupted. Probably we will have to have new scientists trained in the craft. Surely measuring thicknesses of rings can’t be the only thing one would do with the trees. What about measuring variations in nutrients, oxygen isotopes… hey, mass spec each ring – maybe we can determine if the plant has been engulfed in volcanic smoke, forest fire smoke, been bombarded variably by cosmic rays, ultraviolet, cosmic microwave background… lets get this 19th Century botanists pursuit up to speed!
frederik wisse: “The Dutch parliament opened an investigation into the correctness of the IPCC data and related theories . Some prominent scientists declared the whole AGW – CO2 theory a lot of baloney wherefor the empirical proof was missing and which was contradicted by laws governing thermodynamics.”
Frederik, governments are primarily responsible for creating this global warming monster out of their own greed to appear to be green without the cost of doing the basic scientific measurement like accurate temperature recording or even decently manned research institutes who understand things like basic statistics.
And the media and colluded with the politicians to feed this global warming monster and grow it to a massive massive size where it now demands exponentially increasing sacrifices to feed its insatiable hunger.
It now exists irrespective of the science because the “standards” have been so bastardised in this “science” that global warming is “true” irrespective of whether there is the slightest evidence to support it.
It is like the proverbial foreign invasive species (rabbits in Australia, giant hogweed, etc.) — it seemed a good idea when it was nice to look at and was helping politicians get elected, but now it has gained a life of its own “in the wild”, it is a species with no natural opposition to its rapid unopposed growth.
We have allowed the climate “scientists” to be their own judge, jury, funding committee, standards committee, data review, etc. etc. They have actively sought to destroy all possible checks on their control of the “science” so that none of the normal checks on academics have any effect on this monster.
Hobby sites like “WattsUpWithThat” are a start to effective opposition, but to be honest it really is time that the fossil fuel industry who so many believers think are funding the sceptics, got off their backsides, put their hands in their pockets and did the decent thing to fund the professional science “opposition” which is needed to force the climategate forecasters to stop feeding this monster with their PR and start to try to justify the existence of their monster based on real science in the face of real decently financed opposition and not part-time unpaid people like us here.
The Guardian article links to the commissioner’s report. If anything, the Guardian sugar coated QUB dealings. After asserting it would take them 1 full man year to comply, the commission went on a field trip to see the data for himself and found:
“43. QUB had stated that there were approximately 150 disks of
data, but at the inspection of 26 February 2009 the
Commissioner noted that there were in fact only 67 disks,
which contained 150 folders of relevant data. The
Commissioner examined a sample of the disks, and
established that the raw data, approximately 11,000 tree
measurement samples, was held electronically in an average
of 20-60 folders per floppy disk.
44. Although QUB had argued that copying this information would
be extremely time consuming, the Commissioner established
during the inspection that on average it would take
approximately 5 minutes to transfer the data folder to folder
using Notepad. Accordingly, the Commissioner estimated that
it would take approximately 12.5 hours to complete the
transfer of all disks and make a copy. The Commissioner is of
the view that this would not constitute a significant burden on
QUB.”
Found Hide the decline again!
Puh. Evening saved.
In practice Baillee will not be bothered. He is retired. And the university has the data. But Baillie may be the only one who understands how it is stored and cataloged.
If he does not want to participate in the process sending a copy to Keenan then I doubt anyone will force him to do so.