I’ve mentioned more than once in the past how the Tom Karl managed National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) team has taken to using my data without my permission. They even ignored my letter sent direct to Tom Karl. I’d written to him to explain how Menne et al took that data, against my protestations of it being incomplete and not yet quality controlled, but planned on using it to write a paper refuting my work anyway. This was done before I could even get the surfacestations project survey completed. The goal of course was to preemptively refute what I and the volunteers had exposed: the pathetic condition of the USHCN climate observation network in the USA where only 1 in 10 stations meet the NOAA’s basic 100 foot exposure rule.
When you are faced with budget killing criticisms, I guess in their view playing dirty pool doesn’t seem so bad. Dr. Roger Pielke Senior voiced some similar criticisms of this amateurish behavior on the part of NCDC, Karl, and Menne, saying it amounted to professional discourtesy. Even NCDC GHCN guru Tom Peterson got into the act early on, writing a ghost authored “talking points” memo about the surfacestations project. Dr. Pielke weighed in on that too. Forgetting to clear his PDF editor document properties, Peterson was promptly busted for writing a ghost paper:
Here is a screencap:
Remember, these are the same people who use photoshopped flooded houses in government reports:
Image above taken directly from the NCDC authored CCSP report.
Recently, there was a grand meeting in Exeter to “reinvent” the surface data in the wake of Climategate. Many big names were invited, including the NCDC team. Of course people like Dr. Roger Pielke, who has been publishing on surfacestations metadata issues and myself were not invited. But, some of our work made it to the meeting.
Have a look at Menne’s powerpoint presentation here. Here’s a backup location in case it disappears down a rabbit hole: 7_1Wed_exeter-menne
I was a bit taken aback by the cover image (left, from NCDC’s Exter presentation), because it was straight from our surfacestations project (right, click image for gallery), but there was no attribution that I could find.
Russ Steele, the volunteer who took the photo of the Colfax, CA USHCN station, writes to me to say:
I was shocked twice, once when discovering a photo that I had take was on the cover of a scientific brochure, and shocked again when I discovered that professionals who value their reputations and demand credit for their academic work did not provide a credit line for the photo. Do these professionals not have scruples?
Is it really so hard for NCDC to follow the terms of service rules? They can read, apparently.
Q: I’d like to use some of the photographs and data on this website, can I do that, and what credits/citations must I give?
A: For mass media publications or for scientific research the policy is simple. A citation should be given both to the website/project designer and to the person doing the site survey. Our Rules page outlines the license terms user have made when submitting surveys and photos. Each station should have a site survey form which indicates the photographer by name.
A sample photo credit/citation would look like this: Photo courtesy of Anthony Watts, www.surfacestations.org and [photographer name in survey form]
But I wasn’t the only one to notice….Verity Jones writes:
Don’t mention it – you’re welcome!
By Verity Jones and KevinUK
There’s a lot of information available from the climate bun feast in Exeter at the beginning of September about restructuring climate science and developing a new climate databank and process (Climate Perestroika?) . In the new spirit of embracing openness and transparency (Climate Glasnost?), it is all on the web, but it is frustratingly like watching silent movies – you get the picture but the detail is lost with the sound. However, there are a few bits that are refreshingly familiar….First, the name of their new website (www.surfacetemperatures.org). It is so similar that I originally misread it, mistaking it for Anthony Watts’ www.surfacestations.org. NOAA/ NCDC even used a picture from the Surface Stations Gallery for the title slide of a presentation (as quickly spotted by Anthony himself):
Title Slide from Menne et al presentation at Exeter
Colfax General View of Site (Photo: Russ Steele; Link: http://gallery.surfacestations.org/main.php?g2_itemId=300)
This graph seemed really familiar too…
Slide 12
It is of course so much more scientific looking than my version. And I thought I just had a quirky way of looking at data 
Distribution of data trends of raw data vs adjusted data. Original Here: http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2010/01/27/adjustment-effects-on-temperature-trends-part-1/
They’ve come up with some nice new ways – non-gridded, non-anomalised ways – of presenting the temperature trends of individual stations on maps too…
Slide 19
Oh wait, that is familiar as well…
Original here: http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/mapping-global-warming/
And there is more. Kevin has been working on the GHCNV3 Beta data release (ghcn-v3-beta-part-1-a-first-look-at-station-inventory-data) and, gratifyingly it seems as if many of the stations with ‘problems’ as uncovered by bloggers such as Willis Eschenbach (Darwin), and posts here (Edson, Guam) are now ‘fixed’.
Say, you don’t think….? No, no way, they couldn’t have been reading this small sceptic blog surely. It is probably just that great minds think alike, as they say, (but fools…)
But then, one of Dr Menne’s conclusions, reported by Dr. Roger Pielke Senior (here) was:
“Critiques of surface temperature data and processing methods are increasingly coming from non traditional scientific sources (non peer reviewed) and the issue raised may be too numerous and too frequent for a small group of traditional scientists to address” Lessons learnt from US Historical Climate Network and Global Historical Climate Network most recent homogenisation cycle – Matt Menne
And climate blogs are mentioned…
Slide 33
Steven Mosher’s blog is mentioned TWICE and Zeke Hausfather is even lauded with a whole slide summarising his posts (on Slide 34).
It is good to see the efforts of bloggers (what Matt Menne calls ‘non traditional scientific sources’) have had some impact, even if it is not acknowledged. Well this is climate science I suppose so never mind. It’s always good to be in the company of people like Roger Pielke Snr who also didn’t get an invite to the Exeter workshop!
Imitation is supposed to be the sincerest form of flattery, but sometimes that’s all you get, not even an acknowledgment. However we like to be polite, so on behalf of many unsung heroes of the skeptical blogging community – THANK YOU for knowing a good idea when you see it on the web (Please keep looking!) We enjoy showing you new ways of doing things and delivering you new challenges.
Skeptic Blogs – Keeping Climate Scientists on their Toes Since 2005*
(*Climate Audit was started on Jan 31, 2005)
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Here is a comment that is attributed:
‘Russia’s Putin shoots the breeze.
‘The Russian prime minister has said that nuclear energy is the only
alternative to traditional energy sources. As energy demand
increases, energy consumption patterns will only undergo minor
changes, he said. “You couldn’t transfer large electric power stations
to wind energy, however much you wanted to. In the next few
decades, it will be impossible.” Nuclear energy is the only “real and
powerful alternative” he asserted, calling other approaches to meeting
future electricity demand simply “claptrap.”
Russia relies on gas for half of its electricity and has a policy of
replacing gas-fired generating plant with nuclear as fast as possible so
as to be able to export more gas to Europe. Its latest projection is to
increase nuclear capacity from 24 to 43 GWe by 2020, and is on track
for that.’
World Nuclear News, 7/9/10.
WNN asks for acknowledgement of quotations from it.
This might also help Chuck says: September 23, 2010 at 7:58 pm
Ron Broberg says
Gee Ron, the whole Exeter meeting was entirely about Anthony’s surfacestations project, Pielke Snr’s critiques of the surface records and other’s in the blogosphere who have been turned away over the years by this bunch. They finally acknowledge that their network is a sorry excuse for data on climate but they are too petulant and unprofessional to simply give proper attribution to those they have disparaged over the years. Even the acknowledgement was forced on them by an order from (a House Committee?) the government to relook at the temp network. The oblique reference to >non traditional (non peer reviewed) critiques” that poor overworked gov and other gravy train scientists have to deal with is a pernicious swipe at some of the brightest and most creative scientists involved in climate science who happen to be on the opposite side of the “debate”. I’m waiting for the whitewash of the network that will come out of this exercise – this last year has been a desperate year of the whitewash since Climategate. Don’t they realize this is dangerously increasing the albedo of the planet.
Seriously Anthony, you have to get your stuff out there before it becomes all rationalized away in advance.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention Anthony.
There is such a wealth of information on the internet that it is of huge benefit to many of us that you take the time and effort to produce WUWT, for which my heartfelt thanks.
It is therefore, somewhat ironic that some of those in the AGW camp who are paid to advise on scientific matters cannot be bothered with originality, and plagiarise not their like-minded fellows’ work, but yours!
Not surprised really that they knocked-off your stuff Anthony. They are as just as careless about attribution as they are about the surface station network and data. The arrogance of these [snip] has no limits.
NCDC = No Consideration, Data Crap
I don’t expect any miracles from the new improve larger organisation, as it looks like Tom Karl will be at the helm of this proposed $400m white elephant:-
NOAA readies request to create new climate service agency
“The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is preparing a request to redirect several hundred million dollars in its fiscal 2011 budget proposal for the creation of a national climate service.
“…We’re trying to get it through the system as quickly as possible to Congress,” NOAA spokesman Brady Phillips said. He declined to specify an amount, but said it would be less than the $435 million in the original budget proposal for climate-related services.
The Commerce Department, which includes NOAA, formally unveiled plans for the climate service in February as a means of providing “relevant and timely” information about climate change to government officials and the public. Under NOAA’s blueprint, the planned center would consolidate the National Climatic Data Center, the Earth System Research Lab and other NOAA operations under one organizational umbrella. Tom Karl, who heads the data center, is acting as transitional director for the proposed climate service. Earlier this month, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke named six regional climate service directors…”
Full article here:-
http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20100923/AGENCY01/9230303/
Great work Anthony
Good to see that even good natured folk like Ron B check in to see the truth on almost a daily basis.
Use of the photo or anything else that involves copying of an “author’s” original expression without permission is copyright infringement, except as allowed by the fair use provisions of copyright law.
Use of others’ work without proper attribution is plagiarism and is unethical and unprofessional.
there must be a pony around here somewhere.
ah yes, slide 24.
Dear NCDC scientists
Next time feel an urge to steal IP from Anthony’s websites why don’t you stay awhile and browse around WUWT. You will learn much about the scientific field you have all chosen.
Yours sincerely
James Allison
Not only did they steal the photos and the data, and write smarmy “papers” misusing the purloined materials, they did it all on the taxpayers’ dime. While aggrandizing themselves and sucking up big salaries. After Anthony and the Surface Station volunteers did NCDC’s jobs for them, for free. And NCDC just requested another $100 million to fix the problems that at one time they denied even existed but cannot anymore due to the work of Watts et al.
Their behavior is so cheesy, and so expensive, and so worthless that “criminal” hardly expresses it.
Congress should disband NCDC and give the $500 million, or whatever their budget is, to Watts and the Surface Station Project. Reward the honest people who have demonstrated the necessary expertise, and throw the bounders out.
If I had taken the photo that Russ Steele took, which was used without permission or attribution, I would present them with a bill for $50,000 and file a federal copyright infringement lawsuit if I didn’t have payment in thirty days.
A letter from a legal eagle demanding credit and attribution is a good idea, but I think Anthony should be very wary of going to court. These charlatans have deep pockets and good connections, and there’s nothing they’d like to do more than to waste Anthony’s time by tying him up in legal knots for the next 10 years. I think they’ve done this deliberately and provocatively to distract attention from the real issues.
If you want to avoid having to give awkward answers, keep ’em asking the wrong questions…
Skeptic Blogs – Keeping Climate Scientists on their Toes Since 2005
Skeptic Blogs – Keeping Climate Scientists HONEST Since 2005
But not honest enough to credit the ‘amateurs’ they have been doing their day job for them.
This is truly disgusting behaviour. They have no shame and no professionalism
Shame its not in France. Here the loser pays all costs. And lose theymost surely will.
Hey, what about old Bromberg, what planet is he on? Oh I know, planet Zod along with all the other climate analysts who call themselves scientists. It can’t be Earth their measurements don’t make sense.
“Critiques of surface temperature data and processing methods are increasingly coming from non traditional scientific sources (non peer reviewed) and the issue raised may be too numerous and too frequent for a small group of traditional scientists to address”
It’s kind of a stretch to call the climate community traditional, in that they don’t follow the scientific method, neither gathering their own data, nor performing experiments to test their hypotheses.
The lay community collectively has far greater expertise in the climate arena than the professionals. I don’t recall a single peer-reviewed paper the pros have published that hasn’t quickly been taken apart in one manner or another by the amateurs. MBH98, the IPCC assessment reports, Steig’s Antarctica, all riddled to tatters after a cruise thru WUWT and the other blogs.
Tens of billions of
taxpayergovernment dollars spent to prove CAGW, and it’s still just a matter of faith. Michelson-Morley used to be the most consequential failed experiment in history, but I think it pales beside the current effort.Anthony
You haven’t a chance to sue them for breach of copyright so why not invoice them for the work they have plagiarised instead?
As you may know I live near the Met office so if you would like to prepare an itemised invoice I will put it in an envelope, write on it ‘delivered by hand,’ address it to Julia Slingo and physically take it to the Met office.
At the leat it will show that we are watching them watching us, at best you might get some money. Now if this should then somehow get into the newspapers…
I have made the same offer to my colleague Verity. Mind you it was interesting to see the Met Office work on ‘cooling trends’ seemed to be similar to our recent post here.
Tonyb
Many people are mentioning plagiarism. This is NOT the same. Plagiarism is passing someone else’s work off as your own. It is quite different to produce your own slightly different version of it, or to use their method and refine it. Scientists do this all the time, it is a good thing and shows work is repeatable. What they usually do out of professional courtesy is attribute their source. This is certainly expected in formal publications and conference presentations. I think it even more courteous to do so in a informal meeting. Perhaps (and this is no excuse) Dr Menne and colleagues felt the informality of the meeting excused them in some way from doing so. Anthony certainly has a gripe (for copyright at least).
My observations are just that – in fact it might seem arrogant that Kevin and I even imagine they copied us – which is why I have made light of it, kept it humourous (or tried to). We don’t know, we can’t know. Actually if there is even a remote chance they have got any ideas from us I would feel more flattered than litiginous. BUT, what REALLY ANNOYS, is that bloggers are somehow looked down upon and that our work is second class, not peer reviewed. I take this presentation as complete vindication that many of us are doing something right.
It is very different to be paid to do something thoroughly and publish it. I had a brief life as a scientist and peer-reviewed publications to my name – I know what it takes. I am still occasionally asked to review journal papers prior to publication (two in the last year, actually), mostly because of my business perspective and cross discipline knowledge. I am still capable of the same rigour – there is just no need and no time for it in my current professional life. OK rant over, but please stop calling this plagiarism – it isn’t!
My 16 year old son has just started at our local Sixth Form College (is this senior high in the States?). The student handbook makes it very clear that if anyone lifts other people’s work without attribution or citation and includes it in their own, that will be regarded as plagiarism and renders them liable to summary ejection. Much the same applies at the university where I work. Ordinary people like me would call it theft.
My comments this week are one word answers, so the comment to this is ‘Shameless’.
Cor, having read through all the slides, I would have loved to have been there to have heard the commentary that went with them. And the reaction from the audience.
I am sure the Met Office will use/has used all this fuss to try to ensure that they don’t have any cuts in their funding too. All areas of public spending in the UK are leaping up and down claiming that the end of the world will come if their funding is cut, so the Met Office has to do so too. If we cut all climate change funding in the UK I’m sure it would have a massive impact on our budget deficit. Trouble is, we are the daftest country in the world for claiming to be leaders in imposing such stringent targets in reducing CO2 emissions. We think we are showing the way; the rest of the world must be laughing its socks off.
I second verity in regard to the fact that this is not plagiarism but just a complete lack of professionalism. But as Steve M says “This is climate science”.
Now here is a challange for anyone (Ron B, Nick S, Mosh and fellow apologists for CAGW climate scientists over at Lucia’s Blackboard). Could you please do some googling and find evidence of any work prior to what Verity and I have done over at DITC in which someone else has taken the raw monthly temperature, fitted linear trends to each separate station for different time periods within that dataset and have created colour coded global maps that show the trends in the data in an easy to digest form.
Now there’s always a possibility that Matt Menne thought of a way of doing this before we did and if so then I’m sure he’ll be happy to come forth with a reference prior to December 2009 in which he has applied this very same technique/method. Note these maps aren’t the usual colour contour anomaly maps but rather show the individual station warming/cooling trend for a given time period (in NCDC case 1950 to 2009, in our case sveral different time periods including 1910 to 1940 and 1970 to 2010 so that the two warming trend periods can be contrasted).
Verity Jones says:
September 24, 2010 at 3:17 am
Many people are mentioning plagiarism. This is NOT the same. Plagiarism is passing someone else’s work off as your own. It is quite different to produce your own slightly different version of it, or to use their method and refine it. Scientists do this all the time, it is a good thing and shows work is repeatable. What they usually do out of professional courtesy is attribute their source.
It might not be plagiarism but it is more than courtesy that requires reference to prior and similar work . In my field, particle physics, a publication would not pass peer review if it did nor reference preexisting similar analysis, and that was at a time one had to spend hours in the library to dig out references. In the present computer age where everything is a click away it is inexcusable boorishness even in an informal presentation.
Sure this is plagarism, ladies and gentlemen. And for someone to lift an idea, an approach, or even a photo from someone else’s work and NOT attribute it IS ABSOLUTELY PLAGIARISM!
To whit:
To avoid plagiarism, you must give credit whenever you use
•another person’s idea, opinion, or theory;
•any facts, statistics, graphs, drawings—any pieces of information—that are not common knowledge;
•quotations of another person’s actual spoken or written words; or
•paraphrase of another person’s spoken or written words.
These guidelines are taken from the Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities, and Conduct.
http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml
See? I noted the URL where I got the definition.
So where oh where did you people ever go to school? Maybe that’s why “Climate Science” is in the toilet?
I’ve got some bad news for government run science, NCDC, NOAA, et al.: Today NASA is a muslim outreach. We are $1.6 Trillion underwater this year alone. They intend to reduce our entitlements and our paychecks.
Where do you think that leaves you? Buh bye.
Verity,
If they didn’t cite the source, it may be copyright infringement, and plagiarism. My point is they work for the government, the government does have rules and definitions that apply.
Did I really invent skeptic climate blogs?
One of my key inspirations for Climate Audit (other than the astroturfing RealClimate.org) was the pioneering blog of the late John Daly (Still Waiting for Greenhouse).
I didn’t agree with everything John Daly wrote, but his blog informed and irritated the IPCC and its cheerleaders in a way that stands the test of time. It was John Daly who brought my attention to the extraordinary efforts being made by James Hansen to alter the USHCN temperature record by stealth and it was also John Daly who produced the first solid critique of the then new IPCC-approved Mann Hockey Stick.
Practically the whole skeptic blogosphere owes much of its inspiration to John Daly, a fact that should make his widow and children proud.
My attitude to all climate blogs is Voltairean: I might not like all that they say, but I defend their right to say it.
John A
“the pioneering blog of the late John Daly (Still Waiting for Greenhouse).”
You know when I wrote that strapline at the bottom of the post ( it was quite early in the thought process that that came to me) I was actually thinking of John Daly’s site as well as Climate Audit. By the time I wrote and finished it, and had to decide on a date it was late and I was tired and I only thought to look up Climate Audit. John Daly’s work certainly pushes the date back.