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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What a doozy of a line in the refusal letter “Creative work went into the selection of the site locations to include…,”
Creative work indeed! Pure fantasy, such imagination! What a wonderful work of fiction!
“rigorous multivariate statistical tools?” Those must be the ones that produce the “robust” lies they want to tell.
I’m not sure flooding UEA with FOI requests will accomplish anything other than giving them a putative basis for claiming that complying with the law is excessively onerous. If the entire population of the UK (except for the usual suspects) were to request the data, it would still not be forthcoming. Releasing the data would be suicide for the UEA. Besides, they consider themselves elites, and no one else matters to them. Their only viable course of action is to stonewall until the FOI Act is repealed.
Tilo Reber says: “Jones said here:
“Also picking trees for a temperature response is not done either.”
“Briffa and Osborn paper…discuss their method:
(d) We removed any series that was not positively correlated with its “local” temperature observations [yatta-yatta, yatta-yatta]”
Excellent. But knowing the specious mindset of dildoclimatologists, it’s likely that they consider picking series to be something different from picking trees.
Parroting Latimer Alder, but there is an EXTREMELY valid point there.
“This would seriously reduce the likelihood that any high impact journal would publish the results pertaining to this work”
In other words, it’s total B/S, so they won’t release it.
’nuff said.
Do they still have sympathetic ears at the FOI office?
Well if they have to reveal data a processes the prove they have been cooking the books all along it certainly “would result in “financial harm” to the university though an adverse impact on their “ability to attract research funding”.”
They built their grants on faulty science and they have to hide the decline in their credibility to keep the dollars and pounds flowing.
If I recieved a request for the “raw data” from my square-necked beetle pheromone trap tests, I would send a photocopy of the “raw data”, one bioassy tally sheet of the at a time.
It is very likely a principal investigator hasn’t a clue where the student or lab assistant put “the raw data”. In academia, the principal investigator usually never sees or checks the “raw data.”
“rigorous multivariate statistical tools?”
I believe that is an apt description of the entire “hockey team”.
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.
They did get a clue. They found that their activities were “licensed” and found themselves protected by all and sundry right into the British HoP. Given that experience, why on earth would they change anything?
i have been following this topic at Climate Audit; every legal mis-step the CRU and the UEA makes with regard to requests for publicly-owned data should drop those organisations deeper into a legal swamp. Thumbing their noses at Steve Mc does not, to normal people, make any kind of sense at all and I feel the Information Commissioner may be about to issue some sort of ruling. Hopefully, this will force the errant and arrogant institution to comply with the legislation and the assiduous Steve Mc will eventually provide clarity regarding exactly what the dendrowhatsits have done to further destroy their credibility.
And Fred, when all you achieve with your stubborn refusal to take sound advice is to dig yourself in deeper, stop digging!
The main point ought to be if the data isn’t public and the methods are not spelled out in detail the results are non reproducible and impossible to evaluate. Therefore by definition not science at all. Any data used in any published paper should be available to everyone to check. If UEA continues to do their usual and hide data, hide methods and on and on than nothing by anyone associated with them should ever be published by any serious journal. Most of this stuff about proprietary information is total smokescreen and is anti science.
I guess I am saying Fred that even if you were right in some technical sense, which it appears you are not, their actions would still be inappropriate both in terms of the definition of science and in terms of the responsibilities of a publicly funded project. How many times do you have to catch someone lying before you start to doubt them the next time they tell you an obvious whopper?
jorgekafkazar: “But knowing the specious mindset of dildoclimatologists, it’s likely that they consider picking series to be something different from picking trees.”
It is different in that it is picking groups of trees instead of individual trees. But since there are many series to choose from to create a proxy, the opportunity to cherry pick in order to get correlation still exists. Also, as Steve McIntyre has shown, sometimes a thin series can depend on a single tree for the majority of its trend representation.
In any case, this objection by David Schnare is completely valid:
“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.”
Paul in Sweden says:
April 26, 2011 at 6:42 am
“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.
As it is climate science you should realize that the initiators choose the start point of any series to suit their purpose. This is the quote of the week that started last Wednesday 🙂
Surely the reasonable response is to resort to legal redress for their unlawful refusal to grant a valid and legal FOIA request.
I do hope that they cannot get off on a time limited technicality again.
If our donors found out the kind of crap that passes as (climate) science at UEA, our money tree will die.
Reading Latimer Alder’s comment at 10.36am prompted a more mischievous analogy to my mind.
That of the manager of a stage magician who refuses to divulge details of the tricks he performs, on the grounds that to do so “would seriously reduce the likelihood that any” major variety theatre would book him in future.
Really… Is anybody here surprised at all? From what we saw of their operation before Climategate, from what Climategate revealed about them, and from how they whitewashed themselves afterward through inquiries that actually turned out to be complete shams–can anybody really say they’re SURPRISED?
I’m not surprised, not one little bit! Those guys were nefarious climsci scoundrels before, during, and now after their involuntary “outting”. Funny how villains, crooks and thieves never see themselves as problem people. Funny how they revert back to their same old modus operandi (or was there even the slightest reformation from whence they reverted?) Funny, but not at all surprising.
These guys were unrepentant before, during, and now after Climategate. Their actions shred the term “scientist” and their status quo remains.
I would believe this “editorial” with a date-line of 1 April 2011, but, that not being the case, it seems, rather, to be an ad for an opening for editorial writer at the Aurora Sentinel.
From the UofEA, Aurora Colorado Unit:
————————————————————–
Colorado rivers running with evidence of global warming
http://www.aurorasentinel.com/email_push/opinion/article_455ddb0c-6fba-11e0-9a27-001cc4c002e0.html?mode=print
Monday, April 25, 2011 10:03 pm
EDITORIAL: Colorado rivers running with evidence of global warming THE VOICE OF AURORA, The Aurora Sentinel Aurora Sentinel
Talk about old news. The Interior Department this week determined that global warming will reduce stream flows in wester river basins, reducing the water available to an already thirsty U.S. Southwest.
For years scientists have been issuing warnings like these, and for that same amount of time, the past administration and past congresses have not only ignored those warnings but enthusiastically worked to discredit them.
As the EPA has worked to take control of a country that refuses to believe what is impossible to deny, illogical and misguided deniers have worked hard to become their own undoing.
We are now at the crossroads of disaster. And even at this point, with heatwaves that kill thousands and with the arctic ices melting before our very eyes, former-Vice President Dick Cheney and his ilk scoff at reality and push for exploiting energies that threaten our very existence. Few things in American history parallel such a degree of greed and irresponsibility. Perhaps nothing will.
The newest evidence points out that the planet’s warmer temperatures will reduce stream flows from Colorado and other water-producing states by between 8 percent and 14 percent in a matter of decades, according to the Interior Department report. It’s not the first to predict this kind of trouble, and it probably won’t be the last.
Despite what history has already shown to be America’s embarrassing past on this issue, it’s encouraging that the government is now free to tell the world what it’s long known: global warming could kill millions, and the United States must act strongly to combat it.
While it’s painful to imagine how different things would be had this federal epiphany taken place 15 or 20 years ago, America must immediately imagine our lives without fossil fuels. It means huge change for American oil and coal companies — but it doesn’t mean their demise.
On the contrary, these very companies have the capital needed to develop and implement new energies, or at the very least to develop ways to use fossil fuels like coal without producing greenhouse gasses. Rather than see this as nothing more than an inconvenience and disruption to Big Oil profits, we can embrace this as an answer to our economic woes. We can end our debilitating dependence on foreign oil, not by drilling Alaska and our costal areas into oblivion, but by ending the need for foreign oil for good. The United States stands to become an exporter in energy technology instead of the reverse.
Global-warming scoffers must move out of the way. Congress has no more excuses to wait to act with meaningful legislation, and constituents should do all they can to demand federal lawmakers start now.
Worth mentioning that as well as worrying about their ‘research funding’, the UEA has confirmed that they intend to charge the maximum £9000/year student fees.
Which goes to confirm that they really do think they are among the ‘elite’…
So if you’re a student at UEA and are suspected of cheating and don’t want to co-operate with the investigation, all you have to do is say that doing so could potentially hurt you financially, and you’re off the hook, right?
@David
‘Worth mentioning that as well as worrying about their ‘research funding’, the UEA has confirmed that they intend to charge the maximum £9000/year student fees’
I can put my house on the market with an asking price three times over what the market will pay. Its whether anybody takes up the offer that counts. 27 Grand for three years just outside Norwich among the ugliest public architetcure of the last 100 years doesn’t sound liek much of a bargain to me.
Not even the chance of going to drinkies with Ed Acton and Trev Davies once a year would persuade me. Nor the opportunity to occasionally see PhilBoy scurrying into his data strewn office…….
Please, can some politician please stand up, and promise criminal charges against all those involved unless they hand the data over immediately.
Setec Astronomy? I prefer “Necessary Motto” and “Comatose Sentry.” http://wordsmith.org/anagram/
Too many secrets…
Great movie, BTW.
I loooove that Anagrammatizer.
Cremates Snooty
Steamer Tycoons
Monetary Cosset
Smarten Coyotes
Amnesty Scooter
Tearoom Encysts
Steamy Coronets
Moots Try Seance
Moony Tesseract
An Ecosystem Rot
Yes Monster Coat
Testy Morons’ Ace
Menaces Try Soot
Oysters Came Not
“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 statement alone is probably not enough to dry up all their “Big Oil” funds that build some of their buildings courtesy of Shell Oil but it should be enough so US tax payers quit funding them.