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.
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A note to commenters:
Replying to Mike Roddy is a waste of time, he’s an incorrigibly drive by commenter and has no interest in anything we have to say, unless he can get some snark mileage from it.
He’s one of the lost, best to simply ignore him.
This article and discussion reminds of the song and, especially, the refrain in the song, Ballad of a Thin Man, by Bob Dylan:
Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?
Not Republicans.
The end of popular science
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/11/end-of-popular-science.html
ZT says:
November 16, 2010 at 7:52 am
The shoe hasn’t dropped yet, as the ‘internal leaker’ is doing one of the following:
1.) Making sure that certain climatologists walk a straight line
2.) Is writing a book or has a book deal
3.) Is out to see who is dumb or arrogant enough to go out on a rotten limb
4.) Has certain people permanently indebted.
5.) Is presently taking a break from obedience training the Climatologists.
6.) Is deriving intense pleasure from making certain people squirm over the uncertainly of how much he knows.
It could even be that the ‘leaker’ is a foreign agent engaged in ‘outing’ the Climatologists.
What would make the Warmist Climatologist the most nervous?
That someone has it in for them, and the suspense is deadly.
Since you excercise full editorial control on this website and obviously “snip” commenters not following your guidlines, you must approve of the comments above were Jones is being defamed.
This puts you in direct firing line of any actin taken by UEA. Good Luck!
A full copy of this post is available to any requesting it!
[Please read the site Policy. Comments belong to the commentators, not the moderators, who are unpaid volunteers. Each has his/her own style. Moderation is therefore somewhat subjective. ~dbs, mod.]
Back to his old self, bless him.
Yes, it seems a real possibility to me that there is more waiting to be released. The e-mails released initially were not a wholesale dump, but a select few over a time period. Other e-mails referred to were not found. This indicates that the cracker/leaker had some understanding of the situation they were poking into. If it was a true internet white-knight cracker, then he/she likely wasn’t limited in what was obtainable, and could very likely have “acquired” copies of other team members e-mail boxes around the same time frame. If it was simply an insider leaker, then it’s more likely we wont see any more releases.
Insider leakers, btw, would likely not have been so knowledgeable on covering their tracks for this long. The leaker hasn’t been revealed yet a year later. That may be because no one has put funds towards tracking them down, but it’s more likely that the person was simply internet-saavy enough to cover their trail.
So, imo, it’s likely that the leaker/cracker was indeed some form of ‘white-knight’ who wanted to release information that they felt needed to come out. To me that means there’s likely more out there waiting to be released. I could continue speculating but I think I would just be polluting the board.
Jones is small fry in the AGW scam. We all know that the Americans – Hollywood – are the main AGW drivers.
The Hockey Stick Mann and Al Gore are the lead players, and they are free to roam and to continue pushing the inconvenient truth.
So please, until you cowboys do a proper roundup and get your own outlaws behind bars, tried, and strung-up, leave the subjects of Her Royal Highness alone.
Some “massaging” makes rehab easier. 🙂
A commenter at Bishop Hill’s blog calling himself ‘dave adam’ says he is the author of the Nature Magazine interview of Jones. He says he has a very reliable source who told him the UEA/CRU emails were hacked.
‘dave adam’ says, “On the ‘nature understands’ thing about the CRU hack — I understand that is annoying, but I was told something that has been discovered and clearly indicates an outside hack from a very reliable source, but to say what it was would almost certainly give them away. Is there still a public interest in reporting it? I think so ”
david
Nov 16, 2010 at 10:39 AM | david adam
John
R. de Haan says:
November 16, 2010 at 11:54 am
Funnily the signature is totally inclined to the LEFT ! 🙂
I certainly do hope so. If it’s anything worse than Climategate I heads must roll.
I think the Jones photo was designed to show his toughness and resilience, but it’s kind of hard to look tough in a knit sweater with elbow patches. Just sayin’. The delusion continues. Carry on.
If a second miracle were to occur, would it be appropriate to build a small shrine at UEA?
Where the general public could give thanks for their deliverance from the terrible mental affliction that is climatology and its army in human form – The Climatologists….
Mr (I refuse to give him the Dr or Prof honorific any more) claims that “on average, ones moving to colder places were balanced by ones moving to warmer spots.
If I have my feet in the refrigerator and my head in the stove, on average, I will be feeling pretty comfortable.
This is the level of his ‘science’ that the politicians are listening to.
This sounds more like a relapse then a rehabilitation for Jones.
He reminds me of the alcoholic who says ‘ it’s okay I’ll just have a few social drinks’
Jones complains about Google saying that “People will potentially get the misinformation first”. Wasn’t that the precise job of William Connolley? Google “global warming” and the first hit is wikipedia. His hypothesis is correct on that one.
walt man says:
November 16, 2010 at 12:24 pm
……… you must approve of the comments above were Jones is being defamed.
This puts you in direct firing line of any actin taken by UEA. Good Luck!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Please put my name on the list of people approving of the content on this thread. By the way, it isn’t defamation to simply reprint and repeat what was wrote and stated, exposing obvious criminal behavior and intent.
James Sexton
Whoops! I am getting my Jones interviews mixed up;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8136088/Climategate-scientist-insists-sceptics-will-accept-global-warming-when-Arctic-ice-melts.html
Jones & Mann are certainly getting out & about of late.
Anthony say
——–
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?
———–
We’ll I can make a suggestion.
Writing Data Analysis software is subject to 90:10 rule. 10% of the code will get 90% of the quality required.
If I decide to check my assumptions by adding some extra algorithms I am likely to get a small improvement in accuracy but which will not significantly affect the conclusions.
It seems likely this happened here, so based on the information you provided the reasoning is flawed. The important test is to do the sums, turn off the algorithm, do the sums again, see if the change matters.
Phil Jones
Liar, liar pants on fire. :o)
How do they set up pics of him looking into the distance, looking sad. I mean you’d have to specifically pose for these.
James Sexton says: November 16, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Obviously, as a starting point those who post defamatory comments are the true defamers but as the editors/publishers/broadcasters of a blog, the blogger is risking liability for their comments. As a result ….Now after the inteim decision in Kaschke v Gray & Anor (‘the Labourhome decision’ [2010] EWHC 690 (QB) (29 March 2010), we have yet more evidence that bloggers can be liable for comments posted on the websites they control.
http://elleeseymour.com/2010/04/11/what-bloggers-need-to-know-about-defamation/
If a Network host is notified of a blog that is defaming, and they do not remove the page – are they liable? Or, are they “innocent bystanders”?
The failure of a network host to remove a defamatory blog promptly when notified leaves it in real danger of losing its statutory defence of ’secondary responsibility’ under section 1 of the Defamation Act 1996 and the Electronic Commerce (E.C. Directive) Regulations 2002 (SI 2002/2013 as implemented).
http://www.weblaw.co.uk/articles/blogs-the-legal-issues/
For example, the limitation period for bringing an action for defamation is 12 months from the date of publication, although a fresh cause of action arises each time the defamatory statement is republished. However, where a defamatory statement is published online and maintained in an archive, the republication is deemed to occur each time a reader accesses the article. Potentially, therefore, the limitation period for online publications is ongoing [see Loutchansky v Times Newspapers [2001]).’
…
Hurst says: ‘If companies don’t monitor their forums and just respond to complaints they may have a defence of innocent dissemination. Under section 1 of the Defamation Act, a website operator may have a defence if it did not publish the defamatory statement itself and did not know that its website was facilitating the publication of a defamatory statement from one of its users.
‘Retailers, for example, may want to monitor the discussions on their websites to maintain their integrity and ensure users are not causing any damage to the brand. But by monitoring, website operators are unlikely to be able to rely on the section 1 defence, as they would struggle to show they were not aware that it was facilitating publication.’
http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/features/how-internet-has-changed-role-media-lawyers
Be aware that repeating a statement makes you liable for it. It is no defense to libel that one was merely repeating the statements of another—this is the repetition rule. In addition, the republication rule means you can be liable for damages for all foreseeable republications by others who repeat it. This stems from the fact that every of a libel is a new libel, and each publisher is answerable for his act to the same extent as if it originated with him.
Once the Claimant has proved the above, the burden shifts to the Defendant to establish one of 3 primary defenses:
• Truth (justification)
• Fair Comment (honest opinion based on true facts)
• Privilege.
If the Defendant cannot make out a defense, the Claimant will succeed and the defamatory statement, if written becomes a Libel, and if oral, a Slander. The Claimant is then entitled as of right, to an award of general damages without need for proof of damage because it is presumed that some damage will flow from the invasion of the right to reputation.
The real defense is privilege. The others are too onerous.
http://mbites.com/2008/04/18/libel_and_defamation_law_for_bloggers/
===============
As the final quote says as a defendant you must PROVE your innocence!
Note that my former post puts WordPress and Watts on notice of defamatory posting
walt man,
Time for you to go away with your impotent threats. Unlike the UK, in the U.S.A. we still have freedom of speech.
I don’t much care for Obama, but he did the right thing here.
That means you, walt man.