Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Whoever took the Climategate emails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (UEA) are certainly playing the long game. Two whole years they waited before publishing the second group of 5,292 CRU emails, now known as Climategate 2.0. Impressive. I’m mentioned in 17 of the emails, because I made the first Freedom of Information Act (FOI) request to Phil Jones and the CRU to release his taxpayer-funded temperature data collection. Phil at the time was the head of the CRU. His data collection was and is the basis for one of the major global temperature records.
At the time they fobbed me off using a succession of excuses. They claimed the information was available on the web. But they were unable to say where. They put me off and put me off. My contemporaneous account of the CRU and the FOI lunacy is a posting on ClimateAudit entitled “Measuring Precipitation on Willis’ Boots“. (Not my title, that was Steve McIntyre’s). You should read it first for a concise background, it’s important for understanding the following story. I’ll wait here while you read it …
Eventually, after much time, long after I’d given up the chase as hopeless, the CRU folks admitted that the reason they didn’t release the data was that they didn’t have the data. Somewhere along the line, it had been lost.
Mr. David Palmer was the Freedom of Information Officer for the CRU at the time. In the newly released emails, he expresses his frustration with the whole procedure. I absolutely love his honesty at the time, but unfortunately, it’s a shame he didn’t say the same thing publicly. These latest emails fill in some very interesting holes in the story with new information that wasn’t revealed in the first set of Climategate emails.
From David Palmer to Phil Jones, regarding my FOI request, email #1184, April 2007 (emphasis mine):
Gents,
My head is beginning to spin here but I read this as meaning that he wants the raw station data; we don’t know which data belongs to which station, correct? Our letter stated:
“We can, however, send a list of all stations used, but without sources. This would include locations, names and lengths of record, although the latter are no guide as to the completeness of the series.”
Can we put this on the web? Perhaps I am being really thick here but I’m not sure if putting this on the web will actually satisfy Mr. Eschenbach – we’ve said we don’t have data sources, he says the external websites don’t have them, so who does? Are we back to the NMS’s? [National Meteorological Services -w.] I am happy to give this one more go, stating exactly what we are putting on the web and seeing if that suffices. Should Mr. Eschenbach still insist that we actually possess the information in the form he requests, I can then only give the file to Kitty Inglis for review and then we move on formally….
Cheers, Dave
Dave is right, there’s yer problem. “We don’t know which data belongs to which station, correct?”. That’s staggering, it’s gotta be in the running for some kind of truth in advertising award. Shame he wasn’t that honest with me. Instead, he worked hard to obscure that fact.
Phil Jones isn’t having any of it, though. He replies to David Palmer’s email on 23 April 2007 (emphasis again mine)
Dave,
…
I do not want to make the raw data available, as it will involve more and more requests. We make the gridded data available and that should be enough.
I think it would be worthwhile having a meeting involving a few more people in the light of the Keenan letter and what has been said on the Climate Audit website from Friday.
This to my mind is bullying and virtual harrasment. This is not for any reasonable scientific point. It is quite simply harrasment. These people are self appointed.
Cheers
Phil
My conclusion after all this time is that Phil truly didn’t get it. He actually didn’t understand. He was not the owner of private data. He was the curator of public data. He didn’t understand that FOI requests are legal documents. Throughout the whole episode he treated them as some kind of optional request to grant or not as he saw fit. In this he was aided and abetted by David Palmer.
Upon reading this email, I was very curious to find out what had gotten Phil’s knickers in a twist regarding “what has been said on the Climate Audit website from Friday”. Upon looking up the ClimateAudit post from Friday, April 20, 2007, I laughed when I found out that what Phil was referring to as “bullying and virtual harassment” was the post I cited above and requested that you read. I’m sure you picked up on how I was “bullying and virtually harassing” Professor Jones.
So that was what Phil was complaining about—me pointing out the foolishness of their various excuses. And on that basis he said that would not make the raw data available, as though me laughing at his transparent dodges were a valid exemption to an FOI request.
I note that over at RealClimate they are desperately trying to spin this as two-year-old turkey. However, it’s not just my case that has new information. Regarding a host of other issues, the recent emails contain much previously unrevealed evidence of the perfidy, subversion, misdirection, and malfeasance practiced by the Climategate un-indicted co-conspirators. Among many other things, they provide clear evidence of the destruction of incriminating emails. This was not just “boys will be boys”. This was the leading lights of the AGW supporting scientists, working together to deny access to publicly funded climate data, and twisting, bending and breaking the scientific norms, FOI regulations, and possibly the law in the process. And that’s just what they did in my case, that doesn’t even begin to touch their other misdeeds that they discuss in detail.
The discouraging part is that, to this day, not a person among them has admitted that they did anything incorrect in the slightest. Not one has acknowledged that they went a ways, not just a little ways, but a long ways over the line of ethics, morality, and honesty. No one has said they did a single thing wrong, no one has admitted they evaded an honest FOI request. Silence.
And silence, unfortunately, has also been the overwhelming response of the climate science community to their misdeeds. The miscreants say nothing, their supporters say nothing, they keep awarding each other honors and prizes, and they hope it will go away.
Ah, well. The saddest part is that the new revelations of the unthinking, off-hand venality of these main scientists of the AGW movement have lost their power to shock. That is a tragedy for climate science in particular and for science in general.
Finally, my particular thanks to Steve McIntyre for his part in all of this. Not that he advised me or told me to file the FOI in question, he didn’t do either. That was my own idea and choice. But his dogged persistence, his insistence on and demonstration of transparency of code and data, and his general Canadian generosity, honesty, and geniality have been an inspiration to me. His work is generally an example of the scientific method at its cleanest.
My best regards to all,
w.
PS—Interestingly, whoever released the emails also released a whole host of other CRU emails in a password protected archive. The purpose of this archive remains obscure, and the password has not been provided. At a minimum the publication of the archive ensures that the other emails will not be lost in a hard drive crash, or seized by the authorities. Whether it constitutes a warning or a message, and to whom it might be addressed, is unclear. Grab a beer and some popcorn, this story’s not over.
One old prosecutor trick is to confront the person with only a part of the evidence, let them get on record with their response, and then compare it to the balance of the evidence. Hence you expose them as a liar, making excuses for the entirety of the case transparent and unreliable.
Is it just me who’s assumed all along that David Palmer is actually on our side, going by the tone of some of the responses he’s had to write?
Anyone remember the bit in Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress where the computer is practically begging the humans to ask it the right question so it can tell them information it otherwise has to keep secret?
I wouldn’t be overly surprised to find out that Palmer’s the leaker/whistleblower.
(NB: this is pure speculation, I have no knowledge not widely available.)
My question to all the real scientists and researchers out there is – If the raw data supporting your research and conclusions is lost, how can those conclusions be considered valid without redoing everything? And if the lost original data invalidates the original research and conclusions, doesn’t it invalidate any subsequent research and conclusions based on the original?
And by the way, the U.S. IRS doesn’t buy the “I lost my original records” excuse. They just redo your tax form based on the information they have, meaning all your deductions disappear.
Correction Willis:
“… working together to deny access to publicly funded climate data, and twisting, bending and breaking the scientific norms, FOI regulations, and possibly the law in the process. …working together to deny access to publicly funded climate data, and twisting, bending and breaking the scientific norms, FOI regulations, and possibly the law in the process.”
FOI regulations are the law.
There is no “possibly” here. If they broke FOI regs, they broke the law. They certainly may have broken other laws as well, which was perhaps your point. But as stated, what you said actually reinforces Phil Jone’s and others’ notion that FOI laws are optional guidelines that may be disregarded at will.
Thanks for your dogged determination.
Just out:
>>Google pulls plug on renewable energy plan<>Search giant quitting non-core projects, including solar power<<
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45409951/
Could this ditching of RE projects by Google be a result of Climategate-Season 2?
I believe most of the criminal offenses are too old to bring charge for, but not so for civil case in civil court. Misappropriating public property and money isn’t exactly looked kindly upon in the EU.
It’s rather interesting to note that, the intricacies between the university/researcher groups who are mandated to pull this crap through and the NGOs (like Sierra Club, WWF and Greenpeace) and other corporations (like BP and csiro), it’s all seemingly noise to the real cause, it seems, to protect the unregulated lay of the land and the golden goose to the road to potentially tens of trillions of dollar in untapped world revenue streams. So it’s no wonder that middle management muppets at universities and NGOs all just are working (for their own respective ideas and agendas of why) out how to best scare people into believing in some crap or another just to pull through policies that keep end up costing tax payers even more parts of those potential unregulated tens of trillions of (tax)dollars.
Even the sketchy involvement of lefty news media seem to unravel too.
But it’s like they say in the emails pretty much, it has to create headlines otherwise it ain’t worth it.
“as though me laughing at his transparent dodges were a valid exemption to an FOI request.”
It is to a diagnosed psychopath. But Phil Jones isn’t one, is he? Or is he?
I disagree that there is silence. There is a lot of noise, mostly signifying nothing.
Before November 2009, the world saw the duck floating on the lake of climate science. Climategate I showed the legs of the duck. An ugly sight indeed. Climategate II has shown even more of the legs. There is a lot going on in climate science that indicates a cover up, a fraud, but most of all, fear. Fear that their incompetence will be exposed. Climategates I & II are doing just that.
They can’t. As you pointed out, many of these actions constitute criminal acts. Were they to admit guilt, to any degree, it would also be and admission of guilt to actionable criminal offenses. They now have no choice but to defend the indefensible.
Willis: “Whoever who…” in the lead sentence.
Thanks to you and all the unpaid seekers of truth. “Climate science” will one day be a case study of confirmation bias and the political corruption of science.
[Thanks, fixed -w.]
Can someone please answer this. Do they now know which data belongs to which station? How could apply corrective factors like Heat Island Effect if they don’t know where the data comes from? How is this even possible, and is it not totally a smoking gun?
Exactly, the person who released this data is waiting for them to say something (probably multiple somethings) that can be contradicted by the still undisclosed evidence.
In my field (drug development), inability or refusal to provide raw data and appropriate supporting documentation would result in complete failure of the project. No regulatory agency would even consider approving an application that lacked this kind of fundamental documentation. Falsification of these records can result in criminal convictions (and has in fact recently had that result). The AGW people cloak themselves in the mantle of scientific respectability while consistently failing to observe the basic practices of good science. They are pathetic.
The incremental release MIGHT be indicative of a passive-aggressive manipulation: Release some data, let those involved take a firm stand…then…after those positions are firmly locked in….release more that exposes contradictions.
If I was trying to maintain anonymity AND expose truth that’s how I’d go about it.
WHICH MEANS: if some do a thorough scrub of the data released, cross-referencing with prior releases & and the defenses/explanations those prompted, one is likely to find some very incriminating inconsistencies.
The value isn’t in any particular e-mails & associated attestations, its in the piecing together of the right puzzle pieces to expose a more significant picture.
Like finding needles in a haystack & then arranging them in their proper context. That’s better than finding gold, its more like finding the recipe for making gold…but a lot more work to sort out. I truly hope someone/some people have the patience & bookkeeping skills to tease out & compile the bigger pictures waiting to be found & exposed.
I found the following while looking for Email referencing John Daly. This only mentioned data from Daly’s website, but a couple unrelated excerpts on the quality of CRU’s data is quite relevant here.
I’ve only partially reformatted this, if it posts poorly I may redo it.
Excerpts from 3838.txt:
cc: Thomas C Peterson, David Easterling
date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 13:07:59 -0500
from: “Russell.Vose”
subject: Re: Climate Audit and Rewriting History!
to: Phil Jones
I saw the HCN bit this morning. These people have an obscure hobby — I certainly don’t give HCN thought in my spare time!
Matt Menne probably has a plot of v2 minus v1. He’s working on two papers, which should be done about end of March. We want to get things in the pipeline before the Peilke paper comes out.
Phil Jones wrote the following on 2/16/2007 12:05 PM:
Russ, Dave,
There is a new USHCN bit on the Climate Audit website. They have picked up some
series from John Daly’s website (the guy who died 2 years ago), differenced
them from your new one and produce a difference plot, then said this…
Now, guys I know we’re good…….. so they seem to believe you’ve adjusted your
new version to be like ours. This gets funnier and funnier……
I reckon Daly’s version, which is from Jim Hansen may be pre-v1.
By the way do you have a plot of v2 minus v1?
Is there a paper coming on v2?
Cheers
Phil
Phil Jones wrote the following on 2/16/2007 7:46 AM:
Occasionally I get to the end of a week and have a little spare
time. I then look at Real Climate and Climate Audit. Look at the
link above and the story about the USHCN. I began to look at
the comments and said to myself – how long will it be before the CRU
data are dragged into this. Answer – not long!
What Brohan et al were getting at was the issue you know well.
Country X or Scientist Y sends some data – saying its been homogenized.
We added this data to the database as it looks fine (after some checks).
Most of the data were for new stations. They may or may not contain
adjustments but we use them, and we don’t have the raw data, just what
we’ve been sent!
I bet you’ll get many more accusations of manipulating the data. The
skeptics don’t seem to want to accept that techniques get better and new
ideas come along.
Cheers
Phil
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit
School of Environmental Sciences
—
Russell S. Vose, Chief
Climate Analysis Branch
National Climatic Data Center
——
So – CRU data is “may or may not contain adjustments but we use them, and we don’t have the raw data, just what we’ve been sent!” Willis, just what were you hoping to get?
On top of the data lost in Phil’s office, they don’t know what they have in the first place.
Of course, after reading Harry’s README file from Climategate 2009, I’m not surprised….
Ken Hall says:
November 23, 2011 at 5:40 am
Ken, you credit this bunch with way too much intelligence!
What I’d like to know (among other things) is this: who thought up the notion that CO2 was responsible for AGW in the first place? I guess terrarium experiments in high school are no long in vogue.
“Admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattack.”
“I bet you’ll get many more accusations of manipulating the data. The
skeptics don’t seem to want to accept that techniques get better and new
ideas come along.”
Isn’t the burden of proof on the person who comes up with techniques (that) get better and new
ideas (that) come along? Instead of thinking about whether Steve McI is a shill, maybe that effort could go to meticulously detailing these techniques and ideas so that no arguments will hold up?
I would think that the worst critics of data, techniques, and “new ideas” would be those on the inside since they know it will be scrutinized, criticized and questioned. That is if you really wanted to shut down the “deniers”.
Somebody with too much time needs to compare the contents of the emails to what was given as evidence in the earlier “inquiry”.
It sounds to me more and more that the truth is as I have suspected all along since Climategate Mk 1. Long before the temperature series came into the public spotlight, Phil Jones (and others) muddled along very happily for years and years in their unremarkable backwater building their academic careers. In those days it simply didn’t matter whether they preserved the original raw station data (and meta data), or how they processed it, or how they re-tweaked it subsequently whenever any particularly embarrasing issues came up. It was just all part of the general muddle of acedemia with Phil Jones (and others) in charge and no one ever for one moment expecting anybody else to be in a position to gainsay them because they were, after all, the world authorities.
That this is a cockup rather than a conspiracy is evidenced by ‘Harry the programmer’ being so frustrated with the mess he was being asked to sort out. If Jones et. al. has been up to skulduggery from the beginning they would have surely been far more careful to cover their tracks against the day when outside people would inevitably start lifting a few stones and questioning their information processing methodology (or, as it transpires, lack of it).
I suspect Jones isn’t really scared about others getting hold of the raw data but he IS scared of people finding out how incompetently he tweaked it because he now realises just how sloppy, subjective and unscientific his procedures actually were. So he fights to withold (or make difficult to obtain) both station data and processing method to thwart people who suspect the veracity of his results and want to reproduce his calculations precisely.
The BEST obvious recourse therefore is to undertake the huge task of getting hold of all the raw temperature data (and metadata) and carrying out a complete reprocessing of it using an openly declared set of statistical processing rules and then publishing the whole thing on the web for all to see. Oh dear, I forgot. That’s already been recently tried and has failed entirely to resolve the matter.
If I were President of the US, I would request airtime for a Presidential Address, but I would not give the media a clue as to the nature/subject of the address.
I would then announce that in the wake of the Climategate 2.0 release which revealed the outright collusion of scientists and false, perhaps criminal behavior on their part, that the person(s) behind the release via “FOIA.org” would receive, in abscentia, the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom for services to the nation, and indeed the world, in the pursuit of truth.
I would then announce that the United States would immediately cease all funding to the UN IPCC, and freeze all existing grants/funding for AGW research to all institutions worldwide and cancel any pending awards.
I would then announce that I had directed the US Justice Department to add 1000 agents/investigators to fully investigate the conduct and research of all US scientists for potential criminal indictments.
Finally, I would announce that all funding within executive jurisdiction to or for green energy projects would be cancelled henceforth.
While the above is simply a feelgood wish for me, I sincerely hope that the republican presidential candidates will be made acutely aware of Climategate 2.0 and add these revelations into their campaign platforms and future debates.
God Bless FOIA.org
GW
Well done, Willis, for explaining the background on this.
As I commented on the original Climategate 2 post ing on WUWT, this guy could be playing a patient waiting game of softly, softly. The first tranche raised questions, although relatively easily blocked through inept & incompetent enquiries, very likely the good old Civil Service rule of “never have an enquiry unless you the know the outcome beforehand” routine! Which is what we got. Those invovled at Penn State & CRU/UEA were seriously rattled but the establishment stood by them. This second tranche seems far more detailed & should lead to more investigations. The final pasord protected maywell be the coup de grace, of undenyable luminousity that they will have to come clean in the end. I don’t know, but is seems that way to me, this is your second chance, the next shot will be right between the eyes!
I will contact my MP, one Mel Stride, & ask if he is going to rattle his sabre to push for a fuller enquiry into all this or not!
I’ve said my piece on Jones elsewhere – his ‘hard done by’ bullied attitude just won’t wash anymore. He is a manipulating charlatan member of the climate science mass idiots masquerading as scientists! HE is the SELF appointed one! HE is the one obfuscating the issues and breaking the law.
He can get down off his high horse now – he has demonstrated absolutely NO morals, NO scruples, NO scientific integrity and is of NO fecking scientific value – in my humble opinion…..
“I do not want to make the raw data available, as it will involve more and more requests.”
Even though once you make it ALL available, there will be nothing more to request?