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].
John M writes,
“It’s quite clear from the context of the quote that the intent was indeed to keep from the intended audience (policy makers) the fact that the instrumental record diverged from the proxy record.”
If the email had said instead, “We decided to show proxy-derived temperatures for older periods, where they have been well validated, but then show instrumental temperatures more recently where those are more accurate,”
it would have meant exactly the same thing. But without the magic word “hide,” and people stating as you did that “hide” connotes deception, there would be no outrage.
Sorry, it was Oliver R rather than John M who stated that “hide” connotes deception.
@Mr. Lynn says:
February 20, 2011 at 9:23 am
Thank you for the support of my proposal.
Unfortunately, the thread has been hijacked into a severe thread drift.
As I said in my post unless an engineering approach is taken to ‘BEST’ with a transparent QMS and the correct metric is measured, this is nothing but a highly publicized waste of time or worse, a simple trap for the unwary skeptics.
Perhaps we could have a post on enthalpy by a meteorologist and a metrologist and another on the problems of ‘averaging’ air temperatures at one site then averaging those averages over geographically separated sites to create a ‘global average’. Ideally, at each step highlighting the error bars in energy measurement generated by these approaches and the subsequent utility of the averages and whether fractions of a degree are justified mathematically or logical.
My experience so far is that nobody wants to listen.
Gneiss says:
February 20, 2011 at 1:50 pm
“It connotes no such thing. Computer programs offer “hide” options in a wide range of contexts, including the drawing of graphs.”
———————
Do you mean programs like CAD, where you can hide layers so you DON’T see them?
Can we agree that “hide” means “conceal”?
Then we can look at why one might choose to “conceal” something.
Or, would you like to suggest another meaning?
Where are we trying to conceal it? On a graph? How does it show up on that graph?
Would it have appeared as a big mess of ink that obscured the lines, or as a nice clean line going in an unsatisfactory direction? A downwards one, perhaps?
It’s cute that you cite a Google search and then speculate about what you might have found in the results. You could try another one with the word ‘decline’ and I’ll hazard a guess that outside of the UEA fiasco you won’t find an instance of “divergence” being offered as a synonym.
Gneiss,
The global Medieval Warming Period is one of the most settled questions in all of climate science. Michael Mann tried to erase it in MBH98/99 and was thoroughly debunked.
No credible scientist seriously questions that the MWP existed, or that its effect was world wide. Here are just a few of the numerous peer reviewed papers and other resources confirming the MWP:
click1
click2 [interactive map of various studies]
click3
click4
click5 [Willis Eschenbach article & comments]
click6 [JoNova article & comments]
click7
click8
click9
click10
If the MWP was erased, then the falsified CO2=CAGW conjecture and Mann’s debunked Hockey Stick could regain their lost credibility. Click10 above shows the failed efforts to re-write climate history.
How well validated were they for the period prior to 1800? Why “hide” from policy makers the fact that the divergence occured at all?
I suspect the second question is related to the first.
Smokey writes,
“No credible scientist seriously questions that the MWP existed, or that its effect was world wide.”
Actually, there are credible scientists who seriously question that there was a worldwide, simultaneous MWP. A regional MWP shows up in several datasets I work with, however, so I’m OK with the general idea. The timing is sometimes off by centuries, however.
What I asked for above was for the “best case” for proxy data showing a large-scale MWP that was warmer than today. Can you pick out a favorite study or two, citing the actual research?
Oliver R writes,
“It’s cute that you cite a Google search and then speculate about what you might have found in the results.”
Well, I actually looked through the first half-dozen pages, and it appeared all the citations that far used “hide” the same way my graphics software does. So it wasn’t quite as cute as speculation. Perhaps you
“Can we agree that “hide” means “conceal”?”
Sure.
“Then we can look at why one might choose to “conceal” something.”
In this case, because showing it gives a misleading impression. That temperatures declined, when they didn’t.
“You could try another one with the word ‘decline’ and I’ll hazard a guess that outside of the UEA fiasco you won’t find an instance of “divergence” being offered as a synonym.”
Now we’re both cute.
Maybe it’s time to form a union of non-tax-funded scientists, with standards of honesty and a way to enforce them. It could become a model for certain other organizations.
John Finn writes,
“Presumably you also accept that the neither the MWP nor LIA existed since that is what is “hinted” in the proxy record.”
There’s no reason to presume that.
The proxy records do more than hint about these periods. For instance, Mann et al. (2009) clearly show the LIA, and also a period they term the MCA which more or less corresponds to the MWP. Mann’s MCA covers warm periods in the N Atlantic and PDO regions, but anomalous cool temps in El Nino 3 region for those centuries.
Moberg’s (2005) reconstruction shows a Northern Hemisphere warm period that starts earlier than Mann’s does, and a LIA that seems to start later. GISP2 suggests a Greenland MWP that starts earlier and ends earlier than Mann (2009), and a LIA that starts earlier too.
Anyway, there’s much information on these topics in various proxy datasets, and extensive discussion in the scientific literature about them.
Gneiss says:
February 20, 2011 at 4:27 pm
John Finn writes,
“Presumably you also accept that the neither the MWP nor LIA existed since that is what is “hinted” in the proxy record.”
There’s no reason to presume that.
The proxy records do more than hint about these periods. For instance, Mann et al. (2009) clearly show the LIA, and also a period they term the MCA which more or less corresponds to the MWP. Mann’s MCA covers warm periods in the N Atlantic and PDO regions, but anomalous cool temps in El Nino 3 region for those centuries.
Mann et al (2009) is not under discussion wrt to the “hide the decline” trick. I’m not sure why you would mention it oer any other study which did not use the trick.
@ur momisugly Gneiss,
I’ll agree that we’re both cute and that “hide” means “hide”.
You said:
“If the email had said instead, “We decided to show proxy-derived temperatures for older periods, where they have been well validated, but then show instrumental temperatures more recently where those are more accurate,”
———-
Well, he DID say that in the same e-mail.
We don’t think he was trying to HIDE anything from Ray, Mike and Malcolm, the recipients of the e-mail. He was talking to them about hiding some decline or other from somebody else.
When I phone up my fellow bank-robbers and say “I’ve hidden the money under my mattress,” that doesn’t constitute a confession to the police. Unless they’ve got my phone tapped.
P. Solar: hey! what happenned to my last post? I spent a while correcting “Doctor” Fred Singers specious rubbish and it seems to have got dumped.
Why do you quote the word “Doctor”? According to Wikipedia, Singer holds a Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University, Wheeler was his supervisor, and Oppenheimer and Bohr were on his thesis committee.
007:
Smoking Frog,
If we could trust the instrumental temperature record, there would be no need for this project. But we can’t….
I didn’t say we could trust it. My point was that Dr. Singer’s remarks were about what Phil Jones said, so they stand or fall depending on what Jones meant. I say that Jones did not mean that the trick was hiding a decline of temperatures, and this is practically beyond disputing. So Singer’s remarks on this point are wrong. However, I doubt that Singer meant them the way they sound. I think he was talking about temperatures derived from the proxies. At least, I hope so.
Gneiss says:
February 20, 2011 at 1:27 pm
Dave Wendt, I checked out the first Northern Hemisphere example on the “CO2 Science” website you cited. It’s Moberg et al. (2005), a well-respected alternative to Mann’s reconstruction. But the Moberg data don’t support any claim that the MWP was warmer than today. Their proxy series ends in 1979. The Moberg article itself contains a graph matching proxy with instrumental records, which have risen substantially since 1979. They draw a conclusion opposite to yours:
“We find no evidence for any earlier periods in the last two millennia with warmer conditions than the post-1990 period—in agreement with previous similar studies1, 2, 3, 4, 7.”
CO2 science skips the substance and draws their own version of this graph. But when they write that their version is “adapted from Moberg et al. 2005,” what that means is they left off instrumental data in order to hide the incline.
Are there other examples better than this?
Appending instrumental records to proxy data is not in my opinion a legitimate technique , but a “trick”, for reasons which have been delineated quite thoroughly more times than I’d care to count. If you are still unable to comprehend that notion I fear it is beyond my capability to enlighten you. If paleo-proxies have any value, and personally I don’t lend any of them much credence especially any with tree in the description, it is to provide fairly rough scale indications of relative values over time.
Though Moberg does terminate in 1979, it does cover the early 20th century peak in the 30s, which until it was beat down by a couple decades of none to random adjustments, was thought to be as warm or warmer than the present. The graph indicates the MWP was marginally warmer than that peak, though the Idsos being more even minded than I call it a wash
“Using data provided by the authors, we have produced a graph of average decadal temperature anomalies, shown below, in which the Medieval Warm Period peaks just prior to AD 900 and is strongly expressed between about AD 650 and 1250. Peak temperatures during this time period are about 0.22°C higher than those at the end of the Moberg et al. record. Instrumental data suggest significant subsequent warming; but the directly-measured temperatures cannot be validly compared with the reconstructed ones. Hence, it is not possible to determine if current temperatures have eclipsed those of a thousand years ago or whether they still fall below them; and the fairest thing to do, in our estimation, is to tentatively conclude (for this data set only) that the peak temperatures of both periods are approximately equivalent.”
The link I provided contains quite a large number of citations. Many support the notion of of a warmer MWP, some do not. Unlike some in the climate community, the Idsos let you see everything they find and let you draw your own inferences.
Your challenge to Doug was a little imprecise and I hadn’t realized I’d need to lead you by the nose through such an accessible archive. I could go through and assemble a call out list for you but, from the tenor of your comments, I suspect you’d manage to find something to justify your disregarding them all and life is too short.
Dave Wendt writes,
“If you are still unable to comprehend that notion I fear it is beyond my capability to enlighten you. ”
You wrote a long note and you’re right I can’t follow your thinking. Something about the invalidity of comparing proxies with instrumental records, followed by a claim that the 1930s are equivalent to the present. No example, though, of a study that showed large-scale MWP temperatures warmer than today.
Gneiss says, conversing with Oliver Ramsay:
February 20, 2011 at 4:10 pm
“Can we agree that “hide” means “conceal”?”
Sure.
“Then we can look at why one might choose to “conceal” something.”
In this case, because showing it gives a misleading impression. That temperatures declined, when they didn’t.
Gneiss, if Briffa’s “hide the decline”, intentionally truncated tree-ring series was not indicating a temperature course, why would showing the decline mislead or confuse things? But why would any plot in question, such as the TAR’s figure 2-21, be labeled as only ‘temperature anomaly vs time’ if its curves weren’t all alleging to show “temperatures”?
In other words, why is Briffa’s data even shown there, if its not to assess temperatures? But since it is shown there, why is it truncated if not to intentionally mislead concerning temperatures vs time? Bottom line, if it doesn’t correctly show or track temperatures in the instrumental period, why is it left there to give any impression whatsoever?
Here my post that you first responded too
Dave Wendt says:
February 20, 2011 at 10:43 am
Gneiss says:
February 20, 2011 at 10:04 am
Doug Badgero writes,
“I could just as easily point to other proxies from other regions that show the MWP was warmer.”
I’m sure it happened somewhere, but which proxies do you have in mind, showing the MWP warmer than today?
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php
Doug suggested the existence of regional proxies that verify that the MWP was warmer than the present and you seemed to express a desire to see some of them. I responded by providing a link to an archive that contains numerous examples of such proxies. You responded by referring to one of the studies which was somewhat equivocal and indicated it could be made to show the present climate to be warmer by the simple expedient of attaching instrumental data to the proxy data. My response to that indicated my personal objection, and afaik the objection of most of the world outside of Mr. Mann’s small circle of friends, to the legitimacy of APPENDING instrumental data to proxy data. That’s appending, not comparing
ap·pend (-pnd)
tr.v. ap·pend·ed, ap·pend·ing, ap·pends
1. To add as a supplement or appendix: appended a list of errors to the report.
2. To fix to; attach: append a charm to the bracelet.
[Latin appendere, to hang upon : ad-, ad- + pendere, to hang; see (s)pen- in Indo-European roots.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
I closed my response with a statement that life is too short. Although it’s perhaps to subtle for you, implicit in that statement is an extension which continues “to argue with someone who is not amenable to rational persuasion”. If you consider that statement as a hypothesis, I would have to say that your last response is QED.
Smoking Frog says:
February 20, 2011 at 5:19 pm
[snip . . ad hom ]
Gneiss:
Googling “microsoft word hide” just now got me 5 million hits. I doubt that most have anything to do with deception.
Googling “bullshit any word you like” gets – About 6,760,000 results (0.18 seconds)
So what?
Both Mann in the original “trick” and P. Jones’ in his even more blattent fraud where trying to hide the part of the data that clearly showed that the proxies they were using as the basis for thier argument were not reliable proxies at all.
The fact that Jones produced his graphic for the cover of a WMO report shows his clear intent to decieve the world.
Robert E. Phelan says:
February 19, 2011 at 12:42 pm
Tallbloke:
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.
Yes.
Much as I hate to, I agree with sharper00 on this point: Dr. Singer, at best, misspoke. Whether the instrumental record is in fact reliable is still another question. My own semi-educated guess is that it is not, but the evidence is still not in. It would be really ironic if the treemometers really were accurate proxies for temperature…
Little chance of that. Treemometers are affected by too many other variables. Regarding Singer being ‘misspoke’. On further reflection, I admit I don’t know whether he is ignorant or whether he is being deliberately ambiguous for dramatic effect or pure mischief . I find it difficult to believe the former, but belief doesn’t make anything true.
The compromised surface-temperature stations — now greatly reduced in number — give NOAA NCDS and NASA GISS all kinds of opportunities to manipulate the data through homogenization, interpolation and “adjustments” that either ignore or fail to accurately account for the urban heat island (UHI) effect. The current network of reporting stations is beyond redemption. We should stick with the satellite data, and call it a day.
“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?”- Anopheles
How does such a ridiculous comment belong in this article? I agree with Anopheles, it doesn’t and you should take another look at your own built in bias.
Pat Frank: “Fred Singer was dead-on right. He just wasn’t entirely explicit, contextually, thereby leaving a specious opening for diversionary dust-raisers.”
Tallbloke: “On further reflection, I admit I don’t know whether he is ignorant or whether he is being deliberately ambiguous for dramatic effect or pure mischief.”
I’ve just been pointed to this thread from Keith Kloor’s site, as an example of sceptical ignorance. It is VERY clear that whatever cause/reasoning lies behind Fred’s miscommunication, his uncorrected assertion is exceedingly unhelpful and will remain so until the ambiguity is resolved.
It is hard enough to fight the obfuscations and straw man arguments that drip from the fingers of the mts and Lamberts of this world without this kind of output from Fred, air-dropping free cannon fodder on the alarmists’ positions.
The thing I enjoy most about arguing the sceptical corner is that I don’t HAVE to rely on obfuscation, carefully constructed and caveat-laden points in order to defeat the ridiculous and indefensible drivel spewed forth by the alarmists. All I have to do is point out those things in their arguments before driving my own points home. Fred’s output in this piece, whether because he wants to ruddle the bucket or because he actually believes what he wrote as simply as he wrote it, is at the VERY best complicating things. How can we criticise the “opposition” for their round and vehement defence of lousy practices if we turn a blind eye to the same within our own ranks?
It’s about time the selection of temperature measurement stations and data sets, and the methodology of processing that data be taken away from Dr. James “Thumbs On The Temperature Scale” Hansen and his band of agenda-driven “homogenizers” and given to a transparent agency eager to deal with challenge of developing a reliable temperature history and willing to work with all scientists to that end.