SEPP SCIENCE EDITORIAL #21-2010 (July 10, 2010)
By S. Fred Singer, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project
Climategate: The Muir-Russell report: Some initial comments
http://www.cce-review.org/pdf/FINAL%20REPORT.pdf
In contrast to the Oxburgh report, the Muir-Russell (MR) report is quite substantive (160 pp, incl 8 appendices) and very professionally produced. MR members held some dozen meetings (presumably in Edinburgh), conducted many interviews at UAE, and accepted some 100 submissions (all unpublished). [A very few of these came from recognizable skeptics; none from Douglass, Christy or Singer, although our work is referred to on pp 148-149 — as a threat to Jones?]
I have several major criticisms, mostly connected to the fact that the MR team had no in-house competence in the relevant science (atmospheric physics and meteorology). Prof Geoffrey Boulton is a geologist, Prof Peter Clarke is a particle physicist, and Professor James Norton seems to be a general expert on engineering and business. Sir Muir Russell himself once got a degree in natural philosophy (physics). As far as one can tell, they consulted only supporters of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), i.e., supporters of the IPCC.
As a result, they could not really judge whether Phil Jones (head of the Climate Research Unit at UEA) manipulated the post-1980 temperature data, both by selection of weather stations and by applying certain corrections to individual records. Had they spoken to Joe D’Aleo or to Anthony Watts, they might have gotten a different slant on the CRU’s handling of station data.
The MR Team concentrates much of the report on the ‘hockey stick,’ and on whether the 20th century was the warmest in the past 1000 years (as claimed by Michael Mann and also by IPCC-3, relying mainly on tree-ring data,). But that issue is really irrelevant and a distraction from the main question (which is never addressed): is the warming of the past 50 years mainly anthropogenic (as claimed by IPCC-4) or natural (as asserted by NIPCC and some other IPCC critics)?
In pursuing the question, the Team must realize that the CRU deals only with land data (covering, imperfectly, only 30% of the Earth’s surface) and that sea-surface temperatures (SST) are really more important. Weather stations and trees tend to be land-based.
Also, the Team never bothers to inquire about the atmospheric temperature record from satellites, the only high-quality and truly global record in existence. They seem unaware of the substantial disparity between satellites and the CRU record.
In defense of the MR Team, they consider science to be outside of their charter and within the remit of the Oxburgh team. [See Item 5 on p.10] (Having seen the Oxburgh report, however, some might consider this a joke.) Yet the Team feels empowered to speak with authority about conclusions that depend on climate science. In fact, none of the investigations so far have had a serious look at the crucial science issues.
As a result, the Team doesn’t seem to realize [p.23 and 32] that “hide the decline” and “Mike’s [Michael Mann] ‘trick” refers to a cover-up. Mann’s 1000-yr temperature record (from proxies) suddenly stops at 1980 – not because there are no suitable post-1980 proxy data (as Mann has claimed in e-mails that responded to inquiries), but because they do not show the dramatic temperature rise of Jones’ thermometer data.
This problem recurs again with Fig 6.2 (which is Fig 3.1 from IPCC-4) and involves misuse of the ‘smoothing’ procedure, i.e., replacing annual temperatures with a ‘running average’ of (usually) five years and sometimes longer. [I discussed the matter in some detail in my Science Editorial 8-09 (2-28-2009)]. As can be seen by inspection, there is little rise in temperature between 1980 and 1996, until the ‘super-El-Nino’ of 1998 (which has nothing to do with GH gases or AGW). The satellite record shows more clearly the absence of any significant temperature rise between 1979 and 1997.
It is ironic then that the real post-1980 global temperatures may be closer to the proxy record than to the thermometer record. We will find out when we learn what data Michael Mann discarded.
In this connection, the legal demand for all of Mann’s data by Virginia’s Attorney-General Ken Cuccinelli assumes additional significance. Based on his own statements, one suspects that Jones has deleted some crucial e-mails. It is likely that these may be discovered among Mann’s e-mails, now held by the University of Virginia. It might put a new light on the whole Climategate affair.
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Had they spoken to Joe D’Aleo or to Anthony Watts, they might have gotten a different slant on the CRU’s handling of station data.
I know many readers have never seen Anthony Watts. Here he is in 2 parts:
“Anthony Watts, PART 1, all points bulletin on the data”
“Anthony Watts, PART 2, all points bulletin on the data”
Rattus Norvegicus says:
July 10, 2010 at 10:27 pm
Of course Anthony, you don’t apply the same standards to those who post content free comments which support you.
An interesting exchange. By your logic then, anonymity to the general public should be lifted on the blog, if posts with offensive anonymous allegations are banned?
Consider that
1) the blog owner is liable to law suits of libel,
2)many people contributing do not want to compromise their position versus grants and posts, given the highly biased gate keeping favoring AGW, as evinced in the infamous e-mails, .
3) the blog owner knows the IP addresses and e-mails of the contributors.
All three of the recent major inquiries on the behaviour of CRU were UK-based with UK people. The UK government and most significant institutions, universities, school curriculums, all seem to accept AGW with no doubts. I’ve not studied the public surveys, but from conversations a large number of UK citizens accept AGW as “fact” on the basis that a) the government and institutions say so, b) “I’ve seen the pictures” of melting glaciers in Greenland and ice in the Arctic, c) it’s clear the world is warming, d) there can be no other explanation, e) we have to do something and we can change the climate. Sigh. The UK inquiries can hardly be expected to think, analyse, and report differently than they have.
“… the Team doesn’t seem to realize [p.23 and 32] that “hide the decline” and “Mike’s [Michael Mann] ‘trick” refers to a cover-up…”
I must question the appropriateness of the pejorative term “cover-up”. In its most frequent usage “cover-up” is used to describe activities undertaken to prevent discovery of previous misbehaviour.
The Climategate emails might or might not disclose criminal activity or previous misbehaviour, it’s not for me to say, but using “Mike’s Nature trick” to “hide the decline” does not fall into that category. What was done was nothing to do with trying to evade exposure of previous bad behaviour, it was all about finding a way for the figures to continue to promote the position to which the team was (and, no doubt, still is) dedicated.
They might be right or they might be wrong in their dedication to that position, no one can tell because sufficient empirical evidence to prove or disprove their theory / hypothesis / assumption has not yet emerged. Their method might or might not turn out to be accurate, no one can tell because sufficient empirical evidence to prove or disprove their theory / hypothesis / assumption has not yet emerged.
What is certain is that they were wrong to create a single graph in which proxy and actual data were spliced together without explaining: (i) how it was created and (ii) that the proxy data presented as fact prior to the date of splice must be treated with a degree of caution because identically calculated proxy data did not match actual measurements after the splice.
It is easy to make allegations of bad faith, especially to an audience that is particularly receptive to such allegations. It is far better to ask “what did they do?” rather than to ask “why did they do it?”
The former requires objective analysis of evidence and, therefore, will advance learning – however imperfect the sum of knowledge will remain at the end of the exercise. The latter encourages prurient speculation as to motive regardless of whether the results of the exercise are accurate.
Knowledge is not advanced by “you shouldn’t believe them because they have an agenda” any more than it is advanced by “you should believe us because 2,500 scientists agree with us”.
The real problem with “hide the decline” is not one of motive but of analysis. It is a simple point, a very simple point. If proxy data match observational evidence for one period but not for another, something is wrong with the proxy and/or the observation. The question, therefore, is not why those who spliced them chose to do so but whether they are really comparable – are they apples and apples or apples an oranges?
I am a bit puzzled by Dr. Singer’s comments:
“….they could not really judge whether Phil Jones (head of the Climate Research Unit at UEA) manipulated the post-1980 temperature data, both by selection of weather stations and by applying certain corrections to individual records….”
and:
“…..the Team doesn’t seem to realize [p.23 and 32] that “hide the decline” and “Mike’s [Michael Mann] ‘trick” refers to a cover-up. Mann’s 1000-yr temperature record (from proxies) suddenly stops at 1980…. because they do not show the dramatic temperature rise of Jones’ thermometer data….”
HADCRUT3 and UAH noticeably diverge between 1980 and 1997 which is mysteriously corrected post 1997:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1980/to:1997/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1997/trend/offset:-0.19/plot/uah/from:1980/to:1997/trend/offset:0.1/plot/uah/from:1997/trend/offset:-0.07
I may be misunderstanding his point here.
Is he alluding to the probability that the CRU record 1980 – 1997 (where it overlaps with the satellite record) continues pre-1980 practices which, if extrapolated (if that’s the correct term) back in time, would suggest that CRU (and others) by ‘adjustments’ have exaggerated the warming trends and, in particular, minimized the cooling trend c. 1945 – 1975, as disclosed here many times for individual surface stations data and suggested by the proxies?
Mr. Sully,
Raw (non-manipulated) temperature data doesn’t show anything remotely resembling manipulated results “achieved” in the University of East Anglia. Therefore, any “replication” that agrees with latter results must be an equally shameless manipulation of data. Everything else is obfuscation.
Like draws to like the whole world over.
Can someone please explain to me what is the concern regarding temperature data?
The Muir Russel report covers this in section 6 and Appendix 7. The point they are making has been very effectively summarized by the BBC correspondent Richard Black who writes as follows:-
“The Muir Russell team investigated this by just about the simplest method you could think of. They downloaded the temperature data themselves from public databases, and wrote a computer program that would combine the datapoints into a temperature record for the instrumental period.
The entire process took less than two days. All the data they needed was freely available, writing the code was a cinch, and it produced a curve similar to the ones produced by CRU and its counterparts in the US and Japan.
Anyone competent in the field could do the same, the inquiry team elaborated. You can take out data points you don’t like, you can apply whatever correction factors you want (such as the one that Nasa’s GISTEMP series uses to compensate for the dearth of measuring stations across the Arctic), and you can therefore end up with a temperature curve that might look a little different: but don’t say it can’t be done, because it can.”
If it is that simple why has someone not done it?
Why are we putting in all these Freedom of Information requests if the data is freely available?
Will someone please explain?
Rattus Norvegicus says:
July 10, 2010 at 10:48 pm
It seems that there were some problems with the earlier data set because it did not agree well with other efforts as it did not seem to reflect long term variability properly. The new methodology did handle this properly.
On the subject of Briffa’s methodology, if you think giving undue prominence to a single tree (the bewitched larch of Yamal) with a ~8 standard deviation anomaly with respect to the rest of the (small) dataset used is ‘handling the data properly’, then I’m not surprised you don’t think there is anything to see here.
@rms says: July 10, 2010 at 11:27 pm
As a UK citizen I have to agree. The loonies are certainly in charge of the asylum here. But increasingly people with no interest in “Climate Science” are getting more sceptical at the oversold alarmist claims and can see their tax bills and energy costs shooting up.
There is still a mountain to climb.
But I look forward to the day of reckoning when the peasants with lighted torches and pitchforks converge on the ivory AGW towers.
Alexander, you are quite wrong. Look at the graphs produced in the report. It is right there. Several blog based analysis using raw data have shown that the raw warming trend is GREATER than the trend shown with the adjusted data.
Anna V: I merely ask for the same standard to be applied to all. Just because I call S. Fred on his BS, why should I be held to a higher standard than those who are willing to call Jones, Mann or whoever frauds… I merely called S. Fred delusional.
Muir Russell was just another management consultant brought in to write the report the management instructed him to.
Neil Hampshire said:
“If it is that simple why has someone not done it? Why are we putting in all these Freedom of Information requests if the data is freely available? Will someone please explain?”
You’re right of course, Steve or Ross or David simply didn’t think to download this readily available information. What fools they must think themselves now they realise there was such an easy way to get the data they required. Thank goodness we have such indepedent experts as Muir Russell and his team to point out our collective stupidity. 🙂
Tonyb
John, I applaud your courage in posting your name and address. Please be careful with that kind of thing because it can have risks. I do the same from time to time but I usually regret having done so.
The issue here for me is not so much in the minutia of these reports but in the political corruption that surrounds this scam they’ve called “global warming”. You get a guy, riding around on a cheery picker, on a Hollywood sound stage, yelling “the science is settled”, meanwhile he’s positioning himself to make billions in carbon trading schemes. I mean, come on. Many of us here have been around the block a few times and have been burned by these kinds of snake oil salesmen. We may have even tried to market a little snake oil ourselves in another life and found out the hard way that crime never pays. The guys at the center of this scam are financial crooks. The bit players around the edges are just going along with the ruse to keep their research money coming in and perhaps really do believe in Agenda 21. Either way, the jig is up.
Christopher Hanley says:
July 10, 2010 at 11:31 pm
HADCRUT3 and UAH noticeably diverge between 1980 and 1997 which is mysteriously corrected post 1997:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1980/to:1997/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1997/trend/offset:-0.19/plot/uah/from:1980/to:1997/trend/offset:0.1/plot/uah/from:1997/trend/offset:-0.07
Interesting graph Chris. I have a different answer you may be interested in:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/07/11/divergence-and-reconvergence-of-uah-and-hadcru/
Rattus Norvegicus says:
July 10, 2010 at 10:48 pm
David44,
You have this wrong in the details.
Don’t think so. My point was that it wasn’t Mann’s data that was the subject of the “hide the decline” controversy, but Briffa’s. And that Mann’s role in the controversy – as is seen in the emails – was to pressure Briffa, who actually believed (believes) that the Medeval Warm was as warm as today, to suppress his concerns because including all of his data would have given a less favorable picture in portraying the hockey team’s preferred political view that the MWP either didn’t happen or wasn’t as hot. (A view which is not supported by most other studies.)
Tallbloke,
I think that Briffa dealt with this adequately in his response to McIntyre. You can find a reference to it here: http://www.cce-review.org/evidence/Responses_salient_points_April9.pdf
An important thing to realize is that the (manufactured) controversy over the Yamal series has nothing to do with the divergence problem or with the TAR figure. I know Steve doesn’t like the Yamal series — simply because he substituted data he liked for data he didn’t lie — but what he did was the very definition of cherry picking. My own reading of the foundational Briffa papers seemed to make it clear that what Steve did was invalid, Briffa’s comments in the above linked document shows (at least to me) that this was an appropriate response.
Both you and the MR report seem to have a skill for interpreting what the complaint is in the most advantageous way for CRU and then going to great efforts to convince yourself and others that nothing has gone awry. Instead of stating a complaint (or what they thought was a complaint) why not ask those involved directly? Probably too difficult for consensus thinkers like you and the MR team. People might actually disagree.
Your comment about the Land temps matching the satellite temps is a hoot. They agree to within what? A degree C over the last 30 years? Yes, I suppose with a consensus sheep like yourself, actually thinking about anything in a non-conformist manner is extremely difficult. Don’t attempt it. Keep on bleating to the tune of the warmists and don’t stray away from the shepherds. There are mental wolves out there who’d tear you to shreds.
What’s really infuriating the warmers will toss radiosonde with less than an ~8 standard deviation if it’s headed in the other direction, for example in the Angell et al , then without batting an eye have their henchmen (pdf) turn around and declare the resulting inhomogenities, that their deletion of data caused, as reason to discount more careful research, such as McLean et al (pdf).
Neil Hampshire
“If it is that simple why has someone not done it?”
They have done it. Codes have been posted.
Neil Hampshire,
It is simple and easy to explain, the data is homogenized, pasteurized, value added and politically correct, thus the warming. Recent cooling will continue to such an extent that the most biased thermometers will be forced kicking and screaming to tell the truth. The coming decades will prove to be rather unkind to all of us, unless the sun can be tempted to awaken from its slumber.
Rattus Norvegicus says:
July 11, 2010 at 12:11 am (Edit)
Tallbloke,
An important thing to realize is that the (manufactured) controversy over the Yamal series has nothing to do with the divergence problem or with the TAR figure.
On the contrary, I think the Yamal series was all about trying to overcome the divergence problem so that a new hockey stick could be presented with a fanfare saying,
“look! we were right all along and didn’t need the temp data splice.”
Anyway, I’m done with the hockey jockeys. I’ve found much more interesting proxies to play with, which give better results.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/my-simple-solar-planetary-energy-model/
Mr. Sully,
Muir Russell report doesn’t contain any raw data. It contains manipulated (computer-processed) graphs only. The original raw data used by the University of East Anglia con artists are largely unavailable (they refuse to disclose it despite multiple lawful requests — which alone is a condemning evidence).
Publicly available raw temperature records do not support any but very small, statistically insignificant warming during the last century, and that quite consistent with the long-term temperature fluctuations.
As to why, exactly, you prefer to fool yourself on this subject, you, and only you, can find an answer.
Is there ANY way to download NON-HOMOGENIZED data?
Because downloading homogenized data is like asking the fox how the hens are doing…
Rattus Norvegicus:
I will take issue with your assertion that M-R replicated more than 25 years of Professor Jones’ work, including the collection of data and the writing of code, in ~2 days. One can not replicate work without the exact same data as was used the first time. Jones said that it was thrown away at the time of the move into the new facilities and was not recoverable. Also thrown away and not recoverable was the original code by which the data was massaged in order to allow Jones to draw his conclusions.
The best you can say is that by throwing some numbers together and writing the necessary code, that the writer can torture the numbers and make them say anything the writer wants.
If all this can be done in 2 days, then a whole lot of time and money was wasted on Professor Jones’ previous work.