You’d think that after all the pain and suffering caused by Climategate to the University of East Anglia and the Climate Research Unit, these guys would have a clue. You’d think that they’d want to get the monkey off their backs, and move on to other research, other issues, instead of repeating the same behavior that got them into trouble in the first place. As the late great John Belushi might say: But nooooooooo!
Steve McIntyre sums it up succinctly:
The easiest way for the climate science to “move on” would be to voluntarily disclose the list of sites and the regional chronology rather than fighting FOI tooth-and-nail. This request is not going to disappear.
This in in response to his latest FOI request for tree ring data, which was denied.
He writes of the denial:
Not only did East Anglia refuse my request for the regional chronology, they even refused to identify the sites. The University claimed that even identifying the sites would result in “financial harm” to the university though an adverse impact on their “ability to attract research funding”. See [the refusal] here.
It’s hard to imagine an institution purporting to justify its conduct in such crass commercial terms.
I suppose this would be to point where we all go Michael Tobis on them and launch a fusillade, but it will accomplish nothing.
I’d like to point out what Steve wrote about Yamal and its role in Climategate:
Yamal was not an incidental issue in Climategate. As noted in my recent post, Phil Jones’ first reaction to Fred Pearce was that Climategate was about Yamal. Refusing essential documents on Yamal simply fuels suspicion.
The reason for that becomes clear in this climategate email from Monday Oct 5 2009 – email # 1254751382.txt written just over a month before Climategate happened. Colored text mine:
David Schnare wrote: [to Tom Wigley]
Tom:
Briffa has already made a preliminary response and he failed to explain his selection procedure. Further, he refused to give up the data for several years, and was forced to do so only when he submitted to a journal that demanded data archiving and actually enforced the practice.
More significantly, Briffa’s analysis is irrelevant. Dendrochonology is a bankrupt approach. They admit that they cannot distiguish causal elements contributing to tree ring size. Further, they rely on recent temperature data by which to select recent tree data (excluding other data) and then turn around and claim that the tree ring data explains the recent temperature data. If you can give a principled and reasoned defense of Briffa (see the discussion on Watt’s website) then go for it. I’d be fascinated, as would a rather large number of others.
None of this, of course, detracts for the need to do research on geoengineering. David Schnare
That’s pretty damning. Wigley responds:
At 02:59 05/10/2009, you wrote:
David,
This is entirely off the record, and I do not want this shared with
anyone. I hope you will respect this. This issue is not my problem, and I await further developments. However, Keith Briffa is in the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), and I was Director of CRU for many years so I am quite familiar with Keith and with his work. I have also done a lots of hands on tree ring work, both in the field and in developing and applying computer programs for climate reconstruction from tree rings. On the other hand, I have not been involved in any of this work since I left CRU in 1993 to move to NCAR. But I do think I can speak with some modicum of authority. You say, re dendoclimatologists, “they rely on recent temperature data by which to *select* recent tree data” (my emphasis). I don’t know where you get this idea, but I can assure you that it is entirely wrong. Further, I do not know the basis for your claim that “Dendrochonology is a bankrupt approach”. It is one of the few proxy data areas where rigorous multivariate statistical tools are used and where reconstructions are carefully tested on independent data. Finally, the fact that scientists (in any field) do not willingly share their hard-earned primary data implies that they have something to hide has no logical basis.
Tom.
Phil Jones responds:
From: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: [geo] Re: CCNet: A Scientific Scandal Unfolds
Date: Mon Oct 5 10:03:02 2009
Tom,
Thanks for trying to clear the air with a few people. Keith is still working on a response. Having to contact the Russians to get some more site details takes time. Several things in all this are ludicrous as you point out. Yamal is one site and isn’t
in most of the millennial reconstructions. It isn’t in MBH, Crowley, Moberg etc. Also picking trees for a temperature response is not done either. The other odd thing is that they seem to think that you can reconstruct the last millennium from a few proxies, yet you can’t do this from a few instrumental series for the last 150 years! Instrumental data are perfect proxies, after all.
[1]http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/un_climate_reports_they_lie.html
This one is wrong as well. IPCC (1995) didn’t use that silly curve that Chris Folland or Geoff Jenkins put together.
Cheers
Phil
Bollocks ! This point comes to mind: if you have nothing to hide, and the data provenance has “rigorous multivariate statistical tools are used and where reconstructions are carefully tested on independent data” then sharing it for replication shouldn’t be a problem at all. If this “science” can’t stand independent testing, then it isn’t science at all.
I think we need to help Steve get this data. For that, a website now exists to facilitate the submissions of FOI requests, and UEA has an entry:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/new/university_of_east_anglia
Read this before writing your Freedom of Information request
- Browse other requests to ‘University of East Anglia’ for examples of how to word your request.
- Write your request in simple, precise language.
- Ask for specific documents or information, this site is not suitable for general enquiries.
- Keep it focused, you’ll be more likely to get what you want (why?).
- This site is public. Everything you type and any response will be published.
Don’t make frivolous requests, keep it focused to the task at hand. Use Steve McIntyre’s submission here to formulate your request.
Reading the rejection may also prove useful.
CRU and their supporters won’t like this, and those submitting FOI requests for this data will once again be accused of “harassment” for asking for it repeatedly. CRU knows what they need to do, we just need to make sure they listen to themselves.
However, if this stonewalling keeps up, and CRU does not allow independent testing, I would not be at all surprised to find another batch of damning emails and documents, maybe even the data itself, anonymously dropped on the doorsteps of climate blogs worldwide by friends of “Setec Astronomy“.
Get a clue, CRU.
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The proper term is that “UEA and CRU are “acluestic” … that is, “one without a clue.”
Try to find out what UEA Chancellor Brandon Gough has been up to.
He is one of the main controllers of the AGW fraud.
http://www.stopcp.com/cpclimategate.php
Doesn’t the failure to allow for independent verification disqualify the research as scientific?
Love the Setec Astronomy. “We will change the world”
GPlant
At least in their eyes, this tactic has been working and a reversal would admit that previously it was wrong, encourage more FOI requests, and not gain them any good will. Their behavior is easy to understand even if it’s obviously a losing strategy.
“…monkey off their …”
Negative learning is the hallmark of the English-speaking elite. Normal organisms learn positively: once burned, twice shy. The ruling class of the Anglosphere appears to learn backwards: once burned, twice put your hand in the fire and leave it there.
In reality there is no feedback at all, thus no learning at all.
Securitization, globalization and tenure cause all error signals to be detoured. The elites continue doing monstrous things, and all the suffering and misery pours onto the plebeians, who are unseen by the elites.
Setec Astronomy? I prefer “Necessary Motto” and “Comatose Sentry.” http://wordsmith.org/anagram/
We are not going to disappear.
“Quote of the week?”
As “Climate Science” is the main topic of this blog, I feel it is rather presumptuous to declare “Quote of the week” on a Tuesday.
“… identifying the sites would result in “financial harm” to the university …”
UEA states that they’re dependent on the government money they receive for studying climate change. Yet we’re supposed to believe that the research they’re doing is *not* influenced by the need to keep that funding.
Why does Wigley say his reply is “entirely off the record”? Reading it I only see a natural defense of what he assumes to be valid science.
My wife deals with a lot of freedom of information requests and it is very clear that the ethos in here organisation is that such requests have to be dealt with seriously and appropriately (even if some are quite ridiculous).
I suspect that one of the main reasons she is becoming increasingly sceptical is because:
1. the UEA clearly broke the law by trying to hide FOI data
2. the UEA continue to disregard the FOI act
3. Basically because the UEA attitude on FOI completely stinks
AT WHICH POINT I’VE LITERALLY GOT AN EMAIL MARKED “FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST WHICH I SENT YESTERDAY ON A TOTALLY DIFFERENT SUBJECT
… How weird
AT WHICH POINT I GET A SECOND POP UP (forgot to send the text)
Wow!
“The University claimed that even identifying the sites would result in “financial harm” to the university though an adverse impact on their “ability to attract research funding””
That’s a euphemism for “We’re guilty as hell”
They have made their claims of warming and refuse to show their work. Considering their claim was to be used to tax and regulate major life style changes in the entire population showing the work should be mandatory. Yet politicians were content to act only on the claim.
If they fear disclosing the information could cause financial harm then the question has to be asked, why.
It’s obvious to me why they don’t want to disclose the list of sites. It would display their extreme cherry-picking. They have to choose the right series and give the proper trees within those series in order to achieve a hockey stick shape.
Yamal is the perfect example. One tree in the series displayed an HS shape. ONE. And that’s the science we end up with.
It is what they get the grant money for. They will not change their plans even though this plan is bankrupt. A case of Pavlov’s dogs. To get the grant you have to bark the same tune!
So, let me get this straight. Despite the fact that all the raw data are already available on line (see the CRU response for URLs), and despite the fact that the analysis McIntyre is asking for has not been published, you think that CRU should release all work-in-progress, draft analyses and preliminary results?
By that same logic, Roger Pielke Sr, who I suspect might have data related to your surface station project, and who is working at a state university, should have to hand over all preliminary data, analyses and preliminary results related to your paper before it is published? And while we are at it, perhaps all of the email correspondence you and he have shared via his UC email?
Hypocrisy, thy name is Anthony Watts.
REPLY: I think they should respond to the FOI request for the data associated with papers published. The issue is what data they chose. i.e YAD061. The difference here is that we will release all the data in an SI when out paper is published, as is common practice with respectable researchers. I’ve already shared my data with one researcher, Muller of BEST. CRU has neither published an SI or nor provided the data based on an FOI request.
Plus, I’m private, not public, I don’t have to do any of this if I don’t want to and could ignore FOI requests if I choose. Does your private company hand over documents and data to anyone who demands it? I don’t think so.
Your point is irrational – Anthony
“The University claimed that even identifying the sites would result in “financial harm” to the university though an adverse impact on their “ability to attract research funding”
You can’t really put it much clearer than that: “Our research funds are dependent on our ability to fudge results”
Did you mean Phil Jones… rather than Phil FONES… ?
REPLY: Fixed, head cold bleariness. Thanks – Anthony
I think they are right. If they hand over the data and everyone sees just what they have done, their funding will indeed be cutoff. At least, I certainly hope it would be.
Before the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein *acted* as if he had WMDs, even though it has since been confirmed that he did not. This was a deliberate piece of tactical ‘theater’ in which he sought to deceive his greatest enemy (Iran) by first deceiving third parties (the US, UN, and UK). According to Sun Tsu, all warfare is based on deception, and victory requires decieving your foe with respect to your strengths, weaknesses, location, and plans.
Having said that, the behaviour of UEA and the CRU is indistinguishable from that of someone with something to hide. If they *really* have nothing to hide (as was the case with Saddam Hussein in Iraq), then one must ask the question “Why are they acting as if they have something to hide, if they really do not? What are they trying to mislead us about, and why?”
Whether or not they really have something to hide, their behaviour is scientifically unprofessional, and their reports are not to be trusted.
Trust is like a bubble, prick it once and it is gone forever.
I’m guessing you’re the same FredT that’s posting the same drivel on CA.
Steve M already answered your question this IS in relation to a published paper. What part of that don’t you get?
As for all the raw data being online. That’s fine. Do you know their data selection process? Do you know which sites were actually used? No, you don’t (unless you’re one of the authors and are just trolling and disinforming).
As someone else said, “your point is irrational”.
I wondered how other fields approach the question of data disclosure when the cost of collecting the data is so prohibitive that no individual or small group could replicate the experiment to obtain their own data. The obvious comparators (to me) were the LHC and the Tevatron data sets.
Sure enough, it turns out they both withold data, sharing it only with “contributors”. A contributor is not merely someone who would be willing to contribute; it seems it is someone who has actually contributed (something).
This rather muddies the moral waters IMO. If other disciplines routinely withold expensively acquired data for the sole use of selected approved persons, then CRU’s behaviour meets the norms.
Of course neither LHC nor Tevatron are campaigning actively to restructure our economy and our way of life, so perhaps they are right to expect to be held to a lower standard.
Personally, I’m of the opinion that anyone who claims a subject to be “the greatest problem facing mankind” and for us all to “take immediate action” (not direct quotes), has by default defined their position as one where it is indefensible to withhold any information because it is the most important information in the world which is so important that no other issue take dominance.
In contrast, UEA are portraying this as such an unimportant issue that small commercial details override the public importance of this subject. Which is really saying that even they put global warming below day-to-day contractual terms.
So, on the one hand we are being told that everyone must sacrifice the very foundation of their economies to “solve the biggest problem in history”.
And there is this third rate university telling the world that minor issues over contractual details override concerns of global warming.
Contractual details of the UEA over ride “the greatest problem in human history” … which just about sums up the arrogant attitude of the UEA regarding their place in the world!
Anthony, you apparently haven’t even read the FOI request Steve made. It has nothing to do with any of the Yamal trees rings – they are already all online and have been since before Climategate.
He is asking for an unpublished analysis and preliminary results from a reconstruction that is work-in-progress and has not yet been published. Exactly the same as if was to ask Roger Pielke Sr for his unpublished research (note I specifically named RP Sr, not you, because he works in a state university). You have previously argued that no state entities should be exempt from FOI. If RP Sr is entitled to keep work-in-progress confidential until publication, then so are CRU. You can’t have it both ways.
REPLY: Apparently you haven’t read Steve’s post on the issue, note the title:
CRU Refuses FOI Request for Yamal Climategate Chronology
he writes:
It has everything to do with Yamal. – Anthony