UPDATE: A prescient comment from Willis Eschenbach has been added to the body of the story, see below.
There’ an article in Nature Magazine which is an interview with Phil Jones of the CRU regarding his role in Climategate and what has happened in the past year. It seems to be mostly a sappy rehabilitation piece where Dr. Jones gets to play the victim and the reporter is fully sympathetic. Even more troublesome, Dr. Jones seems to have fully rationalized everything that has happened in the past year.
For example, we all vividly remember this email:
From: Michael Mann mann@xxxxx.xxx To: Phil Jones p.jones@xxxxx.xxx Subject: Re: IPCC & FOI Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 08:12:02 -0400 Reply-to: mann@xxxxx.xxx Hi Phil, laughable that CA would claim to have discovered the problem. They would have run off to the Wall Street Journal for an exclusive were that to have been true. I'll contact Gene about this ASAP. His new email is: generwahl@xxxxxx.xxx talk to you later, mike Phil Jones wrote: > >> Mike, > Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? > Keith will do likewise. He's not in at the moment - minor family crisis. > > Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don't > have his new email address. > > We will be getting Caspar to do likewise. > > I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature > paper!! > > Cheers > Phil > > Prof. Phil Jones > Climatic Research Unit Telephone [removed] > School of Environmental Sciences Fax [removed] > University of East Anglia > Norwich Email p.jones@xxxxx.xxx > NR4 7TJ > UK
Look at what he says now about email deletion in the context of the ongoing FOI requests:
“We just thought if they’re going to ask for more, we might as well not have them.”
Regarding the Chinese Weather Station fiasco:
Jones said in a separate interview with Nature2 that he was considering a correction. He now says such a step is unnecessary and that he stands by the claims in the paper. He was on medication during the previous interview, he says, and felt under pressure then to publicly concede that he had made mistakes. He says the description of weather-station
movement “has been completely misinterpreted”.
The set of 84 Chinese stations referred to in the paper were drawn from a larger group of 265, for which the Chinese had location histories. Jones and his colleagues did not claim
that none of the selected stations had moved, only that they picked out ones that had moved the least, he says.
Such shifts do not significantly affect results, Jones says, because there was no general pattern to the station relocation: on average, ones moving to colder places were balanced by ones moving to warmer spots. But the Chinese scientist who supplied the station information has now retired and the authorities there have not released the full station-history data — making it impossible for Jones, he says, to provide the evidence to support the statement.
Okaaaayyyy. I call BS on this, because 20 years later, NCDC’s Dr. Matt Menne developed USHCN2, with a change point detection algorithm in it specifically to detect and correct change points in temperature data resulting from station moves. If station moves “don’t significantly affect results”, why did NCDC dedicate so much time and effort to develop such an algorithm? Either Dr. Jones is in CYA mode, uninformed, or both.
Professor Jones apparently hasn’t learned anything except this:
“I’m a little more guarded about what I say in e-mails now,” he says. “One thing in particular I’m doing is not responding so quickly. I might have got an e-mail in the past and responded with an instant thought in the next 10 to 15 minutes, whereas now I might leave it a day.”
In a time-line of the career of Professor Jones, the November 2010 entry is interesting:
Jones tells Nature he is on the mend, but still fears more e-mails could be released in the future.
“Jones and others connected to the CRU fear the hackers may be sitting on more stolen e-mails, but Jones feels confident the worst is behind him.”
Hmmm…
Here’s the article in Nature Magazine (PDF)
h/t to Shub Niggurath
UPDATE: I’ve added this from comments as it is very germane to the story”
I enjoyed this from the Nature article:
The e-mails also triggered several official investigations, including one by the UK Parliament, which ultimately determined that Jones had not committed any serious offences. Case closed.
As my daughter says, “In your dreams, Dad”.
They were more subtle in their timeline, lying by omission.
2005 Britain introduces the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, giving critics a legal route to demand data from Jones and the CRU (above).
July 2009 The CRU receives 58 FOI requests in under a week as part of a blog campaign.
Makes it sound like things were going swimmingly, then suddenly the CRU is bombed with FOI requests.
In fact, I made the first request in (IIRC) 2006 for the CRU data. It was turned down. Other requests were made. We got the list of stations but not the data. They claimed there were secrecy agreements. We said OK, show us the agreements. They refused. We filed FOI requests for specific countries, about six countries at a time. That was to avoid any one of them being rejected because they entailed too much work.
That’s how we got to 58 requests in a week. Because they had blown off all of our FOI requests that had gone in one by one.
You don’t want to get 58 FOI requests, Phil?
Try answering the first one. If he had answered my initial FOI request, that would have been it for requests for the data. He could have avoided a host of grief.
Of course, the emails about the IPCC subversion were a different matter. Those are the ones that mysteriously vanished … Phil says he didn’t delete them, but somehow, they’re still gone.
Curiously, I find I feel sorry for him. He was caught in a paradigm shift, where suddenly his scientific work was being used to justify billions of dollars in expenditures. His knowledge and standards of data handling and documentation were insufficient, perhaps even wildly insufficient, to the task. They were fine when it was just him in his office fiddling with the global temperature. But …
For example, when I asked Phil for the data, I assumed it would be like almost every other database of climate information I’d dealt with. It would be in one single block, with the rows representing years and columns for station identification, monthly data, and the like. I thought it would be easy for him to email me that single block of data.
Instead, as the CRU HARRY_READ_ME file showed, there were hundreds and hundreds of individual data files. In addition, there were often identically named files that were for different stations, there was no semblance of version control, and no overall record of what files were, or where they might be located.
I was astounded when I read that. Everybody puts their data in a single block, with perhaps a second block for metadata … everybody but CRU, it seems …
That’s what I mean about how his skills and knowledge weren’t up to the task.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
“Such shifts do not significantly affect results, Jones says”. I see this defence all the time from Warmists – our methods are vindicated because it did not affect the results / pour friends got similar results. They did it with Anthony’s UHI data, they did it with Hockey stick – allegedly vindicated by subsequent studies showing similar results, they did it with lost CRU data adjustments – did not matter because other datasets agree – and we seem to let them get away with this.
If the methodology was wrong, the results are rubbish and they should accept the criticism, repeat the study correctly and learn. There is no vindication or rehabilitation of the badly derived data by claiming others got similar results. The ‘others’ are rarely truly independent (as with Hockey Team) and recalculations are subject to confirmation bias.
“The Real Issue” – it is going to be much worse than we all thought.
http://blogs.shell.com/climatechange/2010/10/the-real-issue/
Is there any news on the Norfolk police’s investigation,last i read was that they had the servers and were trying to find out who leaked the emails.Why has a year nearly passed and no news from the police investigation team? is it still classed as an on going investigation.
On the subject of Jones & CRU fearing another release of further emails,did not some state that only a small % of the file leaked was actually released?the term” more jam tomorrow” comes to mind.Maybe this time the policy makers,and mainstream media will actually act and report to the public what has being going on with public money
spent by these universities and scientists..
Haha it is almost impossible to know who’s deleted what and when. Who’s running their IT department? Haven’t they heard of log files or have they taking the “precaution” of choosing not to log files and file activity? And by the by undeleting files or even more advanced file and data recovery cost all about free-beer these days and are advanced enough to bring back pretty much everything that has ever been on a storage device.
Pardon my ignorance but, where is the outrage and explanation of the “harry read me txt”
I read through each page and it got progressively worse.
It was like reading Harry’s nightmare.
I can’t believe there’s no story. Where did it go?
wuwt?
Mike
The Jones Saga reminds of a quote from B Russell:
“The influence of wishes upon our beliefs is a matter of common knowledge and observation, yet the nature of this influence is generally misconceived. It is customary to suppose that the bulk of our beliefs are derived from some rational ground, and that desire is only an occasional disturbing force. The exact opposite of this would be nearer the truth: the great mass of beliefs by which we are supported in our daily life is merely the bodying forth of desire, corrected here and there, at isolated points, by the rude shock of fact. Man is essentially a dreamer, wakened for a moment by some peculiarly obtrusive element in the outer world, but lapsing again quickly into the happy somnolence of imagination”
Of course Jones rationalized it. He got away with it. So far.
He phonies up relics for the glory of the true faith. Evil vile denialist scum found out and dared raise a ruckus. The faithful were not amused. The AGW promoters were amused even less. They need their relics: The relics are lucrative. The relics keep the masses in line. The relics help maintain the power of AGW. Now Jones is going to brag about it and protect his status by pretending to be a victim of the evil vile denialist scum. So he he shares his sadness and re-emphasizes his strong faith in an official mouthpiece of the faith.
“12 months ago, Phil Jones was a productive, if not particularly outspoken, climate scientist.”
Uhhhh….yeah, right. Whatever you say, Nature…
I suppose now Nature will begin work on rehabbing Ben Santer. Maybe Ben’s taken some Kung Fu lessons so he really kick all the butts that he wanted to kick in those e-mails…
He will never recover from this. He can’t undfudge the numbers and delet e-mails that are now public.
Had he kept cleaner work and complied with FOIA requests, he and only he could have reduced the damage.
booo hooo, feel sorry for me, NOT !
so, when the bully is caught red handed, he is a victim?
Two comments. First, body language in the picture is suggestive. Crossed arms, unsmiling set features, not looking at the camera. All that’s missing is the number across his chest.
Second, I can’t make sense of his explanation about the Chinese weather station data. He asserts that the moves “cancelled out,” because for every station moving to a “hotter” location, there was another that went to a cooler spot. That assertion must rest on data, right down to the history of each location (pre- and post-move), so that the trend in hotter/cooler could be ascertained. That’s how I see it, anyway. If so, he must have the data. If he doesn’t have the data, and instead wants to say “the dog ate it,” then he should stop offering self-justifying stories like this. And the reporter should stop accepting them. I used to think “Nature” was a first-tier publication. Maybe on non-political topics it still is. But on “climate science”? Nope.
Jones deleted these emails, to “simplify his life”, by “not having them”, if they were requested by people “in the future”
This is an explanation, Nature magazine attempts to clumsily put together for Jones – which he denies….but he does
– “want his emails under control”,
– “not have emails which ‘they’ wanted”,
– and did not feel he was breaking the law if emails were deleted “ahead of time”.
It is a mish-mash of excuses and rationalizations.
Jones can simply say – we did not want to give any emails or data to the ‘CA gang’.
Jones can simply say – we did not want to give emails to David Holland.
http://nigguraths.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/the-recovery-of-phil-jones-back-to-the-future/
The CRU and Phil Jones.
The sad thing is he did good work before global warming became the fad. Now the CRU temperature set is becoming a joke. My latest global temp update shows just how far out of whack the CRU data is from the rest of them. There is a cumulative difference of 50 °C since 1985 from the Hadley data at the monthly level.
The past year has clearly not been hard enough on him…
John Kehr
I wonder what would happen if the media just told the truth? Interesting thought.
Well written, Anthony, good you remember the contexts!!
K.R. Frank Lansner
Prof Jones’ big enemy, the one that torments him, is reality. Tough when it collides with your one big theory, your raison d’etre. Delete reality, delete, delete.
John R. Walker says: It’s not over yet – this is the lull before the storm…
Yes, exactly right. Several real investigations are about to get going and they will be run under AMERICANS, who will EXPOSE the truth rather than all the BRITISH inquiries which set out to BURY the truth, DECEIVE the public and declare that the GUILTY were actually INNOCENT all along.
There are three versions of what happened:
1.) The account given by Jones at the time.
2.)The account given by Jones now.
3.)The account of what actually happened.
These three versions don’t match. So yes, this is a brief calm before the Americans start picking apart Jones’ story and digging up the truth – so efficiently buried by the British Establishment.
MARKS & SPENCERS ANNOUNCEMENT:
‘Any semblance to any garment on sale at Marks and Sparks and modelled by
Phil Jones is pure coincidence’
Organization not his forte. Computer database maintenance not his forte. Complying with basic Scientific methodology not his forte. Modelling not his forte.
You see, dressing up in Pseudo science will always make you look……dishevelled.
Gee, what would it take to hack into a network, somehow knowing, of course, that there is a central email archive? I’m guessing it might not too easy.
What seems a lot more likely to me is this:
1) Pesky requests for emails
2) Desire to delete emails, but
3) Fear of losing something important, so
4) Gather emails into archive then delete local copies and
5) Claim the emails have been deleted, which is half true, but
6) Shocking to some decent staff member, who
7) Leaks the email archive
This is what happens when you have old British “light-bearing fellow travelers” in Power in the U.K. They subscribe to the ideas of Big Government control, High Taxation, and Fabian economic theory because it benefits them. Forcing many that Global warming is happening, guns need to be banned, and security cameras on every corner of town are a “good thing”. A GOOD THING for the powers that be. The U.K. or “Old Britain” has been doing this since the old monarchies, and the proletariat have been going along with it as willfully & easily convinced slaves for years. Except for maybe one pausation, that whole Pilgrimage to America thing. It’s really a “Brave New World” of control. In conclusion, I’m not surprised that the UK government did not fire Mr.Jones. One should not find it surprising that Al Gore’s debunked movie is being played in school’s either. These all play into the agenda and propaganda of those who control the U.K. It’s to bad those in the Mid/Low Socioeconomic Status in Great Britain believe Big Government is the solution. The serfs are clueless and stuck in 1st strata political thinking. That’s why these people have been so easily hood-winked by England’s version of the Hegelian Dialectic. 1. Create/Use a Problem 2. Wait for the Reaction by the impulsive dumbed down masses. 3. Have a “convenient solution” already rendered by the “Powers That Be” upon the people who are not questioning their leaders Machiavellian/self-serving true intent.
So he’s a little more guarded in what he says in his emails? He should have talked to Carol Browner of the EPA (who was once listed on Socialist International’s web site), she could have instructed him on how to erase his digital trail.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/24/climate-czar-left-no-electronic-trail/#comments
The saddest thing is that Nature used to have science in it.
Seriously……….he was on medication during his first interview and misspoke?
Of all the cockamammie BS I have ever heard.
Pray tell the malady that afflicted you poor Jones. Pray tell the medication to relieve such malady that would have affected your answers in such a way that you would recant nearly a year later. Does poor Jones have a wittle bitty doctors note to prove his wittle concoction?
Since poor Jones was acting in an official capacity and was giving answers to questions, the magnitude of which could easily add up to ten trillion dollars over the coming years—for Britain alone—is it possible to FOI his medical records to find for certain the truth of this reflection of his?
While we wait, before Cancun, the next “Climate Gate, V.2.1″, we hear J.”Trains” H. singing….
Me and Mr Jones, we got a thing going on
We both know that it´s wrong
But it´s much too strong to let it go now
We meet ev´ry day at the same cafe
Six-thirty I know he´ll be there
Holding hands, making all kinds of plans
While the jukebox plays our favorite song
Me and Mr, Mr Jones, Mr Jones, Mr Jones
We got a thing going on
We both know that it´s wrong
But it´s much too strong to let it go now
We gotta be extra careful
That we don´t build our hopes too high
Cause he´s got her own obligations and so do I
Me, me and Mr, Mr Jones, Mr Jones, Mr Jones
Well, it´s time for us to be leaving
And it hurts so much, it hurts so much inside
And now he´ll go his way, I´ll go mine
But tomorrow we´ll meet at the same place, the same time
Me and Mr Jones, Mr Jones, Mr Jones
🙂
Wasn’t Mann investigated by AMERICANS?