Amendment to NASA Bill Seeks to Ensure Climate Data Integrity after Climategate
Washington, D.C. –The House Science and Technology Committee today required NASA to provide more details on how much of its temperature record overlaps with data collected from the University of East Anglia’s (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU), the research body at the center of the ongoing Climategate scandal.
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., sponsor of the amendment to NASA authorization legislation (HR 5781), said the measure is needed to ensure the integrity of the agency’s temperature data following the scandal.
“Climategate revealed a pattern of suppression, manipulation and obstruction that pushed climate science towards predetermined outcomes in order to promote hysteria and, in my opinion, justify a heavy-handed regulatory response,” said Sensenbrenner, ranking Republican on the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.
“I think it is important that we clear the air on whether NASA records ended up being polluted as a result of the scandal.”
The amendment requires NASA to report to Congress on “the extent and degree to which NASA’s temperature records overlap with the records at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, the reasons for and sources of that overlap, and the possibility that NASA’s temperature records have been compromised.” It was approved by voice vote.
The Climategate scandal centered on 160 megabits of data containing over 1,000 e-mails and 2,000 other documents from the CRU, which is based in the U.K. Many of the e-mails and other documents raised questions about the integrity and accuracy of CRU’s climate data, which is one of three major climate databases and was extensively in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that advocated higher energy taxes and regulations to address global warming.
In one e-mail, a research talked of a “trick” to “hide the decline” in temperature data. Another e-mail shows a researcher seeking to sidestep freedom of information request and avoid fairly disclosing their government-funded data. In another example, a researcher lamented on his need to balance the needs of science and the politically-motivated IPCC.
“The scandal was not confined to the one British university, as it is widely-acknowledged that there is substantial overlap between the CRU’s temperature records and the temperature records at NASA. Therefore, if CRU’s records are suspect, NASA’s might very well be too,” Sensenbrenner said.
====================================================
The amendment is attached:
AMENDMENT OFFERED BY MR. SENSENBRENNER OF WISCONSIN
Page 9, after line 11, insert the following new paragraph:
NASA’s temperature records substantially overlap with the records of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia.
Page 62, after line 20, insert the following new section:
SEC. 304. REPORT ON TEMPERATURE RECORDS.
Not later than one year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Administrator shall issue a report to Congress detailing the extent and degree to which NASA’s temperature records overlap with the records at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, the reasons for and sources of that overlap, and the possibility that NASA’s temperature records have been compromised.
# # #
I have no time for people who do not vote,and then whine about government policies.If the presiding government is so bad then to not vote is to not care about your descendants,there is plenty of options,but to just give up is depressing.I read that 30 million Poles voted in the last election,that from a population of 38 million.Some people cherish the right to vote,especially when that right has been denied them for years.
What has ideology got to do with how a government is handling the economy?
Prosperity enables ideology.
johneb, I don’t go over there much, but thanks for the link. ROFLMAO!
I’m honestly in awe of the US effort that has occurred to pay for the consolidation of data to launch modeling.
I’m also old enough to remember when I was told to hide under my desk in 5th grade in case of an attack.
But, I honest LOVE the inspiration that is NASA.
NASA:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2000/ast20oct_1/
Bulldust says: July 22, 2010 at 8:53 pm
One thing about Australia —- Aussies don’t have much tolerance for the garbage that comes out of politicians at the best of times.
Case in point is Julia Gillard and speaking today on climate policy: She wants to randomly select 150 citizens to assess the climate science: “Labor’s climate change policy also includes the creation of a Citizens Assembly to forge a national consensus and a commission of experts.”
Online polls show about 90% of people think this is spin and hot air.
There is the answer to those who have given up voting in despair. An informed public that looks at politicians with a critical eye is needed. You not only vote the b—s out – you let them know why. Despite its faults, democracy at least gives you this opportunity. Well, the Aussies sure as hell do that! Maybe you Yanks should lake a leaf out of Bulldust’s book!
Doug
Wow!
The probable answer:
“We can’t tell. We tossed the original data set. But we’re sure everything is just fine. Trust us, we’re scientists.”
Cap and trade
Cap and trade
Labor’s plan – the emissions trading scheme (ETS) – would set a cap on pollution, then penalise businesses who broke that limits but reward those who stayed under.
Prices would rise because those charges would be passed on. And high-polluting industries would be compensated while they cleaned up their acts.
Julia Gillard urged Kevin Rudd to shelve the plan until 2012. She now says she wants a panel of 150 ordinary Australians to decide what happens next.
She says she will still push the merits of the ETS, but if she can’t convince the 150 then it won’t go any further. There’ll also be a Climate Commission to keep up to date with what’s happening overseas.
There’ll also be rewards for businesses who cut pollution in the meantime.
The Coalition say it’s all camouflage for a carbon tax. The Greens say the panel is a cynical waste of time. See more on their plans in the other parts of this tab
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/features/federal-election/julia-gillard-to-hand-over-climate-policy-to-citizens-assembly/story-e6frfllr-1225895870006#ixzz0uUeDNjbp
It’s a step forward if politicians now want to check the trustworthiness of the records, and are not satisfied to take them on trust any longer.
Next steps are to ensure that politicians’ checks include checking with those who have been challenging that trustworthiness, and with the basic scientific issues under dispute, as explained by the challengers.
I enjoyed the quote from Harry Reid in the “Time” article:
http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2010/07/22/cap-and-trade-is-dead-really-truly-im-not-kidding-whos-to-blame/?xid=rss-topstories
Reid reportedly said, “It’s easy to count to 60. I could do it by the time I was in eighth grade.”
Hmmm. Eighth grade? That explains a lot.
If you’re the type that’s interested in the intersection of Cap and Trade, financial fraud and geo-politics, Bob Chapman has a spine-shivering assessment here:
http://theinternationalforecaster.com/International_Forecaster_Weekly/The_Fed_Participates_In_The_Destruction_Of_The_Economy
It wasn’t so long ago that I used to discount all this stuff as conspiracy theory. I’m not quite so quick to judge these days.
Wasn’t “trick” to “hide the decline” in fact a reference to dealing with “the divergence” problem – ie, the divergence between the tempaerature and proxy record – rather than an attempt to hide a decline in temperatures?
Good move Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner!!
This is the “first step” i.e. legislation that will allow congressional examination of the work of NASA and the integrity of the data and temperature record. The second step is convening the congressional examinations to publicly subject the NASA records and processes to scrutiny to establish the degree of integrity in the compilation of the historical records and their suitability for purpose, be it data manipulation, modeling or predictive analysis.
The “proof” of congressional oversight will be the willingness to probe, and ask sceptical questions rather than blindly accept, science by authority and mythical consensus.
Please contact Jim Sensenbrenner directly, with comments and suggestions for an effective audit of the NASA GISS data base. Be a part of the solution!
http://sensenbrenner.house.gov/
Geoff Sherrington and others – Good comments! Please forward to Mr. Sensenbrenner. Remember – reference the legislation (HR 5781) and the relevant amendment. Keep your comments on topic and to the point.
It would be really great if Anthony’s post could be the genesis for injecting qualified participants from this web site into the audit committee! Go For It!
Cap And (Tax) Trade is NOT dead. It only went underground. It will return soon after the election is done in November.
Big Jim tries; got to admit he tries. But the problem is that NASA doesn’t listen to anyone but the President (sometimes) and the President –whoever that may be– doesn’t listen to anybody at all (usually). Nope! No hope! No change! No way! More important to rub noses with the Arabs. That’s where our future lies.
Lot’s of luck with that, Senator Sensenbrenner. Even if the bill passes, given the lawlessness of the present administration its mandate will be ignored.
John from CA says:
The article is from 2000, but it actually promotes real science (e.g., alternate hypotheses) to expain ice loss. Of course, a lot has happened since then.
From the article:
“The overall result: The ice sheet lost at least 51 cubic kilometers of volume during that five year period. Greenland appeared to be melting!
Many newspaper headlines cried the discovery as a sign of global warming — which most readers presumably took to mean “anthropogenic,” or human-caused, global warming.
But is that the right conclusion?
“What you can say is, yes, carbon dioxide (in the atmosphere) is at levels higher than ever before, and carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, so it’s reasonable to say that there’s warming associated with the increase of carbon dioxide,” said Dr. Waleed Abdalati, co-author of the paper that announced the Greenland discovery.
“But you can’t make the leap yet that all the cars in the world have led to what we’re observing in the thinning of the Greenland ice sheet,” Abdalati said.
If there’s one lesson to be learned from science, it’s that things are usually much more complex than they at first appear. The warming trend of the last century may seem to be the obvious explanation for the thinning seen on Greenland, but scientists are considering other possibilities.
“That’s what science is about,” said Dr. Ellen Mosley-Thompson, a research scientist at the Byrd Polar Research Center at The Ohio State University.
“Just because you have an hypothesis and immediately your experiment produces support for it, you can’t simply accept those results (without a degree of skepticism),” Mosley-Thompson said. “The whole idea is to play devil’s advocate on your own research before your colleagues do.”
Last century’s warming trend is not the only possible explanation for the thinning that Krabill’s team saw on Greenland.
In fact, ice cores taken as part of another NASA-funded study suggest that natural variation in snowfall may be partly to blame, Mosley-Thompson said.”
I feel the global cooling scare is coming back. It never ends with these people.
Noelrne says:
July 22, 2010 at 9:13 pm
I have no time for people who do not vote,and then whine about government …
What has ideology got to do with how a government is handling the economy?
Prosperity enables ideology.
_____________________________________________________
An awful lot when the prevailing ideology for the last forty years is as expressed by Obama’s Science Czar, John Holden:
In the 1973 book “Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions,”
“A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States. De-devolopment means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the global resource situation. Resources and energy must be diverted from frivolous and wasteful uses in overdeveloped countries to filling the genuine needs of underdeveloped countries.”
“The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge,” they wrote. “They must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential, if a decent life is to be provided for every human being.”
Since 1970 the US labor force with manufacturing jobs has decreased from 24% to 7.6%. Today the biggest job category in the USA is “sales clerk” (selling Chinese manufactured goods no doubt or flipping Brazilian slaughterhouse burgers)
Doug in Dunedin says:
July 22, 2010 at 9:53 pm
….There is the answer to those who have given up voting in despair. An informed public that looks at politicians with a critical eye is needed. You not only vote the b—s out – you let them know why. Despite its faults, democracy at least gives you this opportunity. Well, the Aussies sure as hell do that! Maybe you Yanks should lake a leaf out of Bulldust’s book!
Doug
_____________________________________________________________________
Most of us have a phone. It is a US election year. So pick up the phone call the office of each senator or Congressman and each candidate. Ask what is their stand on each key issue you are interested in and if they are mealy mouthed, can not answer , do the political two step, then BLAST them with both barrels. If you like a candidate offer your time or your money.
However the biggest key is to get rid of the Diebold “what vote do you want” machines.
Well I will be sending an email to Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner telling him he’s barking up the wrong tree. GISTEMP doesn’t rely on anything CRU can alter.
PaulH from Scotland says:
July 23, 2010 at 5:18 am
If you’re the type that’s interested in the intersection of Cap and Trade, financial fraud and geo-politics, Bob Chapman has a spine-shivering assessment here:
http://theinternationalforecaster.com/International_Forecaster_Weekly/The_Fed_Participates_In_The_Destruction_Of_The_Economy
It wasn’t so long ago that I used to discount all this stuff as conspiracy theory. I’m not quite so quick to judge these days.
____________________________________________________________________
The more I learn the less I discount because the more connections I find and it scares the heck out of me.
For the “economic/financially challenged” I would recommend the following:
A very short piece:
Money Is Created by Banks: Evidence Given by Graham Towers, Governor of the Central Bank of Canada
A very well written long piece. A Primer on Money is written for the complete novice and although long, it is very readable.
A Primer on Money: by the Sub-committee on Domestic Finance, House of Representatives, Committee on Banking and Currency
A short entertaining easy read:
A Talk by G. Edward Griffin
Author of The Creature from Jekyll Island
A very good history (long):
SECRETS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE: The London Connection by Eustace Mullins, former member of the staff of the Library of Congress
This is the origin of the “fractional reserve” a form of swindling, that has been robbing the masses for centuries. (If WE print money and use it to pay bills it is called counterfeiting and we go to jail if caught. If the BANKS print money it is called the “fractional reserve system” they do not go to jail instead they confiscate your wealth that is your labor and/or property.
The Origins of Fractional Reserve Banking
Chris1958 says: “Wasn’t ‘trick’ to ‘hide the decline’ in fact a reference to dealing with the divergence problem – ie, the divergence between the tempaerature and proxy record – rather than an attempt to hide a decline in temperatures?”
Yes, the trick was designed to hide just how useless treemometers are for reproducing historic temperatures. No scientist worth a Zimbabwean dollar would try to publish any of that rot.
Latest news from Chicago regarding the Chicago Climate Exchange & a newly formed competitor:
http://chicagobreakingbusiness.com/2010/07/cftc-approves-cmes-green-exchange.html
“Green exchange?” Yeah, they’ll take the green out of OUR pockets, and exchange it with the contents of THEIR empty pockets!!! Obviously, not everyone believes Cap & Trade is dead yet….
“Not later than one year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Administrator shall issue a report to Congress”
Does “the Administrator” have a name??