Note: I spent the day with the BEST team yesterday at Lawrence Livermore Berkeley Laboratories and I’ll have a report on it soon, but here in the meantime is what Fred Singer has to say about it, via Climate Realists. – Anthony
By Dr. Fred Singer
The e-mails leaked from the University of East Anglia in November 2009 produced what is popularly called “Climategate.” They exposed the thoroughly unethical behavior of a group of climate scientists, mainly in the UK and US, involved in producing the global surface temperature record used and relied on by governments.
Not only did these climate scientists hide their raw data and their methodology of selection and adjustment of temperature data, but they fought hard against all attempts by independent outside scientists to replicate their results. They also undermined the peer-review system and tried to make it impossible for skeptical scientists to publish their work in scientific journals. There is voluminous evidence in the e-mails to this effect. In the process, they damaged not only the science enterprise — full publication of data and methods, replication of results, open debate, etc — but they also undermined the public credibility of all scientists.
However, the most serious revelation from the e-mails is that they tried to “hide the decline” in temperatures, using various “tricks” in order to keep alive a myth of rising temperatures in support of the dogma of anthropogenic global warming. There have now been a number of investigations of the activities of this group, mainly in the UK. These have all turned out to be complete whitewashes, aimed to exonerate the scientists involved. None of these investigations has even attempted to learn how and in what way the data might have been manipulated.
Much of this is described in the “Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the corruption of science” by A. W. Montford. Meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo and others have made a commendable effort to show how data might have been altered. But an independent effort to reconstruct the global temperature results of the past century really demands a dedicated project with proper resources.
The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) Project aims to do what needs to be done: That is, to develop an independent analysis of the data from land stations, which would include many more stations than had been considered by the Global Historic Climatology Network. The Project is in the hands of a group of recognized scientists, who are not at all “climate skeptics” — which should enhance their credibility. The Project is mainly directed by physicists, chaired by Professor Richard Muller (UC Berkeley), with a steering group that includes Professor Judith Curry (Georgia Tech) and Arthur Rosenfeld (UC Santa Barbara and Georgia Tech).
I applaud and support what is being done by the Project — a very difficult but important undertaking. I personally have little faith in the quality of the surface data, having been exposed to the revealing work by Anthony Watts and others. However, I have an open mind on the issue and look forward to seeing the results of the Project in their forthcoming publications.
As far as I know, no government or industry funds are involved — at least at this stage. According to the Project’s website www.berkeleyearth.org, support comes mostly from a group of charitable foundations.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia and former director of the US weather satellite service. He is a Senior Fellow of the Independent Institute and the Heartland Institute. He is the author or co-author of Unstoppable Global Warming [2007], Nature not Human Activity Rules the Climate [2008], and Climate Change Reconsidered [2009].
A word or two on Singer saying “using various “tricks” in order to keep alive a myth of rising temperatures in support of the dogma of anthropogenic global warming”.
Before the emails came to light, Steve Mac had raised issues with the truncation of a series of labelled “Briffa” in two IPCC reports. This falls within the scope of Singer’s choice of words.
walt man says: “The HIDE part refers to a leaflet written by the WMO where a graph was provided that appended the valid thermometer readings to the possibly valid tree readings calculated berfore the 60s. The decline in tree temperatures were therefore hidden.”
OK – that’s another example.
If there were any attempts to manipulate peer review with regard to relevant analysis, these could also fall within the scope of Singer’s choice of words.
walt man needs to do more work to support his assertion that Singer has distorted reality.
Yes, yes, yes, the decline that Jones and Mann were hiding was for treemometers, but that is only half of the trick. The other half is adding thermometer graph to the treemometer graph is the first place.
Are their scales equivalent? Are their errors equivalent? Absolutely not! Those of us who have practiced real science know that Mann’s trick is very wrong. If I put such a graph in one of my reports or papers, I would trashed by my colleagues – and rightly so!
The whole concept of Mann’s trick was to make modern warming “look” unprecedented. The trick was apparently quite successful too. So successful, that people not trained in the sciences still argue about whether and how it was done.
Heh, funny, I spent the day today at Lawrence Berkeley while you were at Lawrence Livermore.
It’s simple, really.
Convince people that their human activities are ruining the planet, and you can then tax, regulate, and guilt-trip them into doing anything you like.
And if that fails, you can shoot them as enemies of Gaia.
Dr. Singer said: “However, the most serious revelation from the e-mails is that they tried to “hide the decline” in temperatures, using various “tricks” in order to keep alive a myth of rising temperatures in support of the dogma of anthropogenic global warming. ”
Taken in the context of what was happening at the time, his statement is a close approximation of the truth. Here’s why:
I used to believe in AWG. One day a guest blogger on boingboing posted a clearly reasoned, cogent argument that the hockey stick was flawed because it erased the medieval warm period. That got my attention. I had studied the European settlement of Greenland (as a hobby). The historical evidence indicated that the settlement of Greenland ended when the climate got too cold to support farming.
The editors at boingboing posted a counter article in which they pointed to a link and said something like: “See there, the hockey stick does too exist.” Neither the article nor the link it pointed to passed the smell test. Some time later, both articles disappeared. The result was that I now became interested in AGW and started paying some serious attention to it.
I have spent a large part of my career in both scientific and engineering environments and am acutely aware of the difference. The job of scientists is to speculate. Engineers, on the other hand, require something like certainty. The basic legal requirement for Engineering is that people can bet their lives on your work. If scientists had to work to that standard, they would never discover anything. My initial ‘smell test’ reaction was much better stated by Burt Rutan: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/03/aviation-pioneer-and-master-engineer-burt-rutan-on-global-warming/
Dr. Singer states the truth. ‘The Team’ bent over backward to attempt to erase the Medieval Warm Period. Splicing thermometer readings to the proxy readings to ‘hide the decline’ was far from the only trick they tried. IMHO, Singer may be too polite to ‘The Team’. If they were engineers, not scientists, they would lose their licenses.
How about “. The Project is in the hands of a group of recognized scientists, who are not at all “climate skeptics” — which should enhance their credibility. ”
When interpretation of temp records was in the hands of a group containing no skeptics at all, was that be more credible?
As so many have stated above “if tree rings were not accurate proxies after 1960 why should we believe they were accurate before 1960”? It defies logic that when tested against thermometers they failed but were still considered reliable as proxies. How can anyone claiming to be a scientist be so deceived?
I am but a simple farmer yet I know that growing any crop requires a multitude of inputs all of which are necessary in the correct amounts at the correct time to ensure successful production. It takes just one input to be sub-optimum to cause production loss or in some cases complete failure. The most obvious is a lack of water at critical times. Trees are just another crop and react in much the same way as corn or lucerne.
In my opinion it is worse if Fred Singer knowingly attempted to falsify the record on “hide the decline” than if he didn’t know he was making a mistake. Just because he may say lots of things you (and I) agree with, it does not mean we should excuse other things he says that are wrong. The statement is not correct and he should be notified and asked to correct it.
@tallbloke
“The point is that the decline in tree ring proxy temperature was hidden by overlaying a thick red instrumental temperature curve. “
That isn’t Singer’s point.
This post is about instrumental records and Fred Singer used the “Hide the decline” line to suggest that the other instrumental records were hiding a real decline in temperatures which this new one will presumably correct.
“Singer knows all this”
Does he?
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6640
“The UEA e-mails tell us of attempts to “hide the decline” (of temperature) using “Mike [Mann]’s Nature trick.” It is important now to discover the truth, either from e-mail evidence or by direct testimony. Unfortunately, none of the investigations so far have delved into this matter, but instead have produced what amounts to a series of whitewashes. “
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/10/fred-singer-on-the-muir-russel-report/
“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.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/the_end_of_the_ipcc.html
“We learn from the e-mails that the ClimateGate gang was able to “hide the decline” [of global temperature] by applying what they termed as “tricks,” and that they intimidated editors and forced out those judged to be “uncooperative.” No doubt, thorough investigations, now in progress or planned, will disclose the full range of their nefarious activities. “
It’s clear that Singer believes “hide the decline” refers to a real decline in temperatures which have been covered up, not the ad-hoc explanation you just invented about not having the space to be vaguely accurate.
“Seems to work too.”
Apparently it only works on people who care about accuracy. Others seem to be more skilled at reversing the clear meaning of others to make it whatever they need it to be.
I would like to see a metrological analysis of the methods of temperature measurements. This is to detemine the precision to which this such measurements are valid. I suspect that global warming is a “rounding error”.
bob paglee says
Global temperature measurements made by satellites for the past 30 years or so cover almost the entire globe including the oceans, are not affected by poor siting conditions and rapidly growing urban heat islands. Just junk the hopelessly polluted surface data and look at what the satellites are reporting — lots of noise in the data, but no signal to validate the IPCC’s AGW buggy-whip.
I totally agree. Why on earth try to make a new record of a very dubious record. The satellite record is the best so far so why not stick with it? Rehashing the land temp record is no different to going back to ships taking temps from buckets and ignoring ARGO. Wasted effort. Just make sure the IPCC can’t adjust the satellite and ARGO data.
What is particularly striking about the `decline’ in the tree ring proxy temp is that we had every reason to expect to see the exact opposite.
Higher CO_2 levels should have resulted in more vigorous tree growth making the tree ring proxy temp appear to accellerate ahead of the measured temperatures. The world as a whole has become SIGNIFICANTLY greener over the last two decades most likely due to the CO_2 fertilisation effect.
But that didn’t happen. The alpine tree or trees being used to construct the proxy instead grew more slowly. The reasons for this still havn’t been explained to my satisfaction. However whatever other factors caused this (Sunlight hours? Wind strength? Snow depth? Moisture? Disease? Insects?) were sufficiently powerful to outweigh not only a measured increase in temperature but also the fertilisation effect of CO_2.
I guess what I’m saying here is that not only are tree rings a lousy proxy for temperature, they are even worse than we thought!
K says:
February 19, 2011 at 2:06 pm
I propose that WWF, Greenpeace, The Sierra Club, Al Gore, and the like be deemed part of a group called the World Temperature Federation. Think about it (but not too long).
8^D
sharper00 says:
February 19, 2011 at 3:24 pm
Sharper: Which do you think is more egregious, the Team’s hiding of the decline, or Singer’s characterisation of it?
walt man says: February 19, 2011 at 2:02 pm
Wrote a poorly constructed explanation of a completly different program.
I don’t expect that Walt was the author of the response.
briffa_sep98_e.pro
Line 4:
—
; Reads Harry’s regional timeseries and outputs the 1600-1992 portion
— Poor Harry, we know about his story..
Line 10:
—
valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,$
2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
—
Lines 53-70
—
; APPLY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION
;
yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,x)
densall=densall+yearlyadj
;
; Now plot them
;
filter_cru,20,tsin=densall,tslow=tslow,/nan
cpl_barts,x,densall,title=’Age-banded MXD from all sites’,$
xrange=[1399.5,1994.5],xtitle=’Year’,/xstyle,$
zeroline=tslow,yrange=[-7,3]
oplot,x,tslow,thick=3
oplot,!x.crange,[0.,0.],linestyle=1
;
endfor
;
; Restore the Hugershoff NHD1 (see Nature paper 2)
;
—
valadj is Not Altered between lines 10 and 53.
Line 67 is the last statement in the primary processsing for loop (endfor)
Each series in the loop is altered using valadj via yearlyadj immediately before plotting.
None of this is commented out.
Perhaps you are looking at an ‘adjusted’ version of the source code.
Try this:
http://ukginger.net/FOI2009/FOIA/documents/harris-tree/briffa_sep98_e.pro
PS:
The lines from your post:
; ‘Northern Hemisphere MXD’,$
; ‘Northern Hemisphere MXD corrected for decline’],$
Do NOT appear in the code (briffa_sep98_e.pro), in fact most of wat you posted is NOT in the code.
The code you used was from briffa_sep98_d.pro, the Prior version the program.
The last version know is briffa_sep98_e.pro.
You are being deceptive or you are being decieved.
Nice try, but you fail.
I feel that briffa_sep98_e.pro is the encoding of a lie.
Robert E. Phelan
“You know perfectly well that the “hide the decline” scandal was to hide the lack of agreement since 1960 between the proxies and the instrumental temperature record, calling into question the use of these proxies to depict the temperatures before the instrumental era. ”
You just stated indirectly that the hide the decline was just that to hide the declining temperatures, so the original author sung a pretty darn accurate tune just like what a very tall bloke explained about the whole sung also did.
Or do you mean to say that you think the “team” used temperature proxies not to mean temperatures even though they used the same temperature proxies as temperatures in their computer models and conclusions and what not?
@tallbloke
“Sharper: Which do you think is more egregious, the Team’s hiding of the decline, or Singer’s characterisation of it?”
We’re talking about what Fred Singer said on the post in which Fred Singer said it and you want to talk about “the team”. Says a lot really.
I wonder what Singer will say if the new temperature record agrees with the existing ones and whether his comments will be better than teenage acne or worse than teenage acne. If better we can presumably give him a pass.
Until they properly address the actual required method for averaging temperatures
There is no need to average temperatures.
If a reliable database is constructed, with no amendments, then other methods can be used.
I would do it via an index system. Each record is “indexed” to a baseline value and only compared to itself. As records enter the system, they do so at the current overall base value. Each record is weighted somewhat, according to the area it covers, so that the US and European records don’t swamp the rest.
That, more or less, is how stock markets are tracked. Cost of living indexes too. Items come and go from the index, at various weightings.
Once again, you need to watch the pea under the thimble. Few would disagree that the earth has warmed a little in the past 150 years. So what are this fine folk gonna do, confirm it, or tell us is was worse than we thought? We are all missing the point, it is the CAUSE of the change in temperatures which is the prime consideration, and I doubt that a trace gas, about 0.039% of the earths atmosphere is the reason. We have had some serious cooling in the past three years, and I wouldn’t believe a word what any group of thermometer stats say. They are wasting their and our time trying to tell us that it is warmer/colder/the same. We need to know WHY! Watch the pea.
walt man says:
February 19, 2011 at 2:02 pm
Andrew30 says: February 19, 2011 at 1:35 pm
…
Walt, you might want to look at the infection in the code that caused the graph to rise.
The code (FOI2009/FOIA/documents/harris-tree/briffa_sep98_e.pro) did Exactly what the author intended. It drove the MWP down and the industrial era up.
Lets look at a bit more of that code:
Walt – do what Andrew30 suggests – analyse briffa_sep98_e.pro – you have analysed the wrong file – you are looking at briffa_sep98_d.pro. While the fudge calculation is commented out in briffa_sep98_d.pro, it is clearly used in briffa_sep98_e.pro.
You will readily recognise briffa_sep98_e.pro by the following clear comment at the beginning of the file:
;****** APPLIES A VERY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION FOR DECLINE*********
Walt;
One more thing.
I expect that the code that follows the
; Restore the Hugershoff NHD1 (see Nature paper 2)
Comment is reproduction of ‘Mikes nature trick’, you can look at the code and if you understand it it will be clear. Here are the highlights.
restore,filename=’../tree5/densadj_MEAN.idlsave’
; Extract the post 1600 part
..
densadj=densadj+yearlyadj
…
; Now overplot their bidecadal components
…
; Now overplot their 50-yr components
…
; Now compute the full, high and low pass correlations between the two
; series
;
perst=1400.
peren=1992.
…
ts1=densadj(klh)
[Walt remember where densadj came from; yearlyadj which includes valadj (the fudge)]
…
printf,1,’Age-banded vs. Hugershoff-standardised’
…
—
That print statment does not seem to transarently explain the fudge.
You could have put a straight line (segment) through this thing and you would have got a hockey stick out. No other outcome was possible.
[snip ]
sharper00 says:
February 19, 2011 at 4:04 pm
We’re talking about what Fred Singer said on the post in which Fred Singer said it and you want to talk about “the team”. Says a lot really.
Well duh. What Fred Singer said on the post That *you* wanted to talk about was his characterisation of the decline the Team hid.
And the proxy is a *temperature* proxy. So the team were hiding a decline in temperature. If you say otherwise, then what the heck were the team splicing instrumental records to and why??
Let’s see what Richard Muller, Chair of the New Berkley BEST team study, thinks about “hide the decline” and the “team”.
Scan the video to 8:00 and play. At 9:55 his thoughts on the “team”.
Wow, he won’t even read their papers anymore!
I wonder if we’ll get back the local temperature anomaly formally known as the MWP.
re. Kramer’s comment:
“What worries me about this project is that it’s being done at UC Berkeley. That town is practically Moscow west.”
I suggest that one views the web site of Professor Muller, a key member of the team, and physics professor. He teaches the course “Physics for Future Presidents” and has an excellent book out on the subject. His lectures are on the web for all to see. Below is his web address. I suggest we all listen/view lecture 28, especially the beginning. His beginnings are fifteen minutes of answers and comments on any questions from the class. The beginning of lecture 28 is about the “Hockey Stick,” and the time of the particular class is about one week before Copenhagen.
I believe you will find him to be objective and truthful and not afraid to speak out.
http://muller.lbl.gov/teaching/Physics10/PffP.html