From the “he who must not be named” department, comes this sure to be future McI-fodder.
UEA/CRU responds in a press release, authored by Tim Osborn, an excerpt:
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Tim Osborn comments on “Yamal, Polar Urals and Muir-Russell”
Recent accusations (here, leading to embellishment across parts of the blogosphere, e.g. here) that the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) promoted tree-ring results that fit some preconceived view (e.g. of modern temperatures exceeding those during Medieval times) or curtailed other work because it did not support such a view, and that CRU deceived the Muir-Russell inquiry about its work in this area, are all false. (emphasis is Osborn’s)
Two key points to begin:
1. The raw tree-ring data used in our published work are available; anyone is free to use them in any way they wish.
2. We already responded in detail to criticisms concerning the Yamal chronology. The figure on that webpage (reproduced at the end of this document) shows the impact of including additional tree-ring data (black line) compared to our previously published data (blue and red lines). The impact is relatively small, though note the caveats in the text on that webpage. We are currently working towards a new paper that incorporates additional tree-ring data from the Yamal and Polar Urals region.
…
It is misleading, therefore, to imply that because we have not yet published all of our work in this area, we are somehow restricting the advance of scientific knowledge in this area. A recommendation of the Muir Russell report that is directly relevant to the issue of scientific advancement and to the current accusations is: (bold mine)
We note that much of the challenge to CRU’s work has not always followed the conventional scientific method of checking and seeking to falsify conclusions or offering alternative hypotheses for peer review and publication. We believe this is necessary if science is to move on, and we hope that all those involved on all sides of the climate science debate will adopt this approach.
Full press release is here: http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/rebuttalsandcorrections/yamal
ALTERNATE LINK: http://www.webcitation.org/681asTi21
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…much of the challenge to CRU’s work has not always followed the conventional scientific method…
Oh, well that makes it OK then. /sarc What a laughable defense to cite now. What greater condemnation of CRU’s methods could be written? Do these guys understand what they are doing when they cite things like this? I think not.
Recall the bullying of CRU’s Phil Jones regarding the “scientific method” and peer review:
In July 2004, referring to Climate Research having published a paper by “MM”, thought to be Ross McKitrick and Pat Michaels, and another paper by Eugenia Kalnay and Ming Cai, Jones emailed his colleagues saying,
“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin [TRENBERTH] and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”
Source: Wikpedia on the CRU emails – Alleged exclusion of papers from IPCC report
This episode reminds me of a famous movie line:
“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” – General Yamamoto in the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!,
Maybe the coded battle message now will be Yamal! Yamal! Yamal!
I’ve been trying for two hours to access the UEA PR link. You’d think a university would have sufficient bandwidth and connections available to avoid such a problem.
I see Bishop Hill commenter Martin A has thoughtfully provided an alternate link to their PR here.
http://www.webcitation.org/681asTi21
I am encouraged to see implausible PR releases like Osborn’s at the UEA/CRU website and Allen’s less than honest looking mis-selling of Climategate’s meaning in comments on skeptic blogs. With each of the climategate Team’s and their apologist’s iterations of the story (and I do mean story in the fiction sense), the worthy investigators at skeptical blogs find many more contradictions and false representations appearing; with each of CG2 & CG2 participant’s iterations of the story (and I do mean story in the fiction sense) the pattern of their lack of integrity becomes clearer.
Open dialog is very useful in getting at the underlying truth about what I consider the key question; Did those involved in the CG1 & CG2 related events intentionally destroy normal scientific processes to achieve their ideologically predetermined ‘a piori’ ends?
My assessment is tending toward the view that many independent investigators are closing in, in parallel, on an affirmative response. It looks to me like a truly sad day for the physical sciences supporting climate science . . . but . . . . . optimistically . . . . I also think science is sort of like the mythical phoenix . . . . it can destroy itself, then self-correct and be born again unaffected from its own ashes.
I hope to be able to continue to be optimistic about science’s ability to self-correct and be reborn from the anti-science shown in the CG1 and CG2 related events.
John
Osborn specifically do NOT write “all data available to recreate the calculations”, he is only claiming “all raw tree-ring data” to be freely available. He does not mention meta-data, nor code. This is important to a person such as McI since he wants to audit their work, not create new scientific interpretations from raw data. Basically, they are still hiding their methods such as intermediate analysis and exact tools to achieve the graphs and results they claim.
I also suspect that what’s meant with the statement that their “challengers” are not following established scientific methods is simply that the criticism is published in open and free discussions on blogs – not through (controllable) journal editors.
The press release precised
“If you won’t play our way. we won’t play with you”.
Gee, all McIntyre had to do was ask? The Yamal data is all available to anyone. No wonder CRU is miffed at the criticisms. They added a quote from watchdog Muir Russell to underscore the high standard they are held to. sarc off/
“People want to know whether their CRU are crooks. We are not crooks.” Said with a Richard Nixon flap of the jowls.
Anthony,
I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong.
When I click on the above link to:
http://www.cru.uae.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/yamal2009
I get a “The page you requested could not be loaded” diagnostic.
Whrn I run a traceroute to http://www.cru.uae.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/yamal2009
(IP 139.222.128.62)
The trace dies on the 11th hop from home at 80.91.246.69 which is
ldn-bb1-link.telia.net … one of the big servers in London.
Similarly, when I try for the other link to the press release at
http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/rebuttalsandcorrections/yamal
(IP 139.222.128.219)
I again get “The page you requested could not be loaded…” .
On the 11th hop the trace dies at 213.248.65.207 ldn-bb2-link.telia.net
This has gone on for almost 45 minutes.
WUWT ?
REPLY: try this http://www.webcitation.org/681asTi21
That bottom graph on Osborne’s statement is hilarious.
The entire “blade” of the hockeystick is inversely proportional to the number of data points (cores). When the accusation is cherry picking, is it really the best argument a close up of a big red juicy cherry?
I think Osborne is tugging on SuperMc’s cape. I am looking forward to the consequences.
Lets face it Tim knows he has no choice but to go all in on this , admit they got it wrong and CRU is effectively screwed. Bang goes all the grant money and with students failing to sign on bang goes a host of jobs, particularly professorships.
CRU has had years of constant growth and easy grant money out of the AGW scare, that has seen it go from a obscure ,being subject most students had never even heard off, uncared for area at a minor unversity, to a big time player able to get the attention of the press and politicians by clicking its fingers .
So its all in for Tim and the CRU gang for thy simply have no choice , they smart enough to know that their academic careers are effectively over if they lose this fight so the lie must go on for they left themselves no fullback position thanks to their own arrogance. Which is why the fall will be even sweeter as they total deserve anything they get .
Rhoda R says:
May 29, 2012 at 12:41 pm
Phil, I’m not a fan of deleting outlier data ….
__________________________________________
And that sums up the whole of “CLIMATE PSYCIENCE” from the get go. “Selection” of data, deleting of “outliers”
The entire science is based on cherry picking. You can start with Callander in 1938. In order to revive Arrhenius theory of greenhouse warming due to man he had to select low values of CO2 from the available data to show CO2 rose from 292 ppm in the 19th century to 325 by 1956. link and link
This “selection process” continues today at Mauna Loa Observatory.
This comment by Ernest Beck is well worth rereading
Cherry picked CO2 measurements, Cherry Picked Temperature measurements and unexplained adjustments. Yamal is quite at home with the rest of the Team’s “CLIMATE PSYCIENCE” It is no wonder Climate Psychientists and their buddies seem to be speaking a different language. To them Lysenkoism IS science because that is what they have been taught. Pick the conclusion and work backwards.
A sampling of articles on the thermometer mess:
http://a-sceptical-mind.com/the-strange-death-of-the-themometers
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/10/messages-from-the-global-raw-rural-data-warnings-gotchas-and-tree-ring-divergence-explained/ (Includes info on tree rings thermometers)
http://notrickszone.com/2012/03/01/data-tamperin-giss-caught-red-handed-manipulaing-data-to-produce-arctic-climate-history-revision/
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/03/australian-temperature-records-shoddy-inaccurate-unreliable-surprise/
http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2010/02/breaking-news-niwa-reveals-nz-original-climate-data-missing.html
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/11420
Anthony,
Many thanks.
http://www.webcitation.org/681asTi21 worked like a charm.
As Jeez notes above, the second panel graph in the PDF is absolute, undeniable
documentation that the “reworked” Briffa, et al 2008 (blue line) ends around
1997-8 and involves not more than eight trees (grey shaded area) in the sample
to top off the Hockey Stick blade !
No wonder they call Steve McIntyre “unscientific” when he uses a lot more
trees from the Russian data to continue the graph… and then compares that
result with the abberviated material (and weird statisitcal sampeling decisions)
employed by Briffa, Mann, Jones, Osborne, et al.
No wonder they hate the exposure of some of the conversations among the
“Team” members that floated to the surface in ClimateGate releases 1 & 2.
Carrick, Your post at 10.16 is spot on.
CRU is a travesty of a scientific establishment in the University of East Anglia which is a travesty of a university in a fine Cathedral city. Norwich hangs its head in shame.
Thanks Firey.
However, Phil C will no doubt point out that I repeated “after” and “of”, one place each in that comment (in need of a full time proof-reader, must be willing to travel), and… that and the fact his hair is a bird invalidates my argument. 😉
Gail Combs, thanks, you’ve said what I wanted to but much more effectively.
Love that YAD061 is shown on the movie poster. It is YAD061, isn’t it?
Why can’t these people (“The Team”) learn that it is always best to play a straight bat (sorry, I can’t think of a baseball equivalent)? Altogether too much ducking and weaving going on.
Did CRU follow this conventional scientific method? Why should anyone do what CRU refuses to adhere to.
CRU uses pal review, not peer review.
CRU obstructs, ignores or denies any research that corrects or contradicts CRU findings.
CRU does not share their code
CRU does not share their selection rationale
CRU… This list goes on and on. CRU announcing the above rejection of the latest public concerns and questions about their reconstructions, is just the pot calling the kettle burnt. The truth is that climate science is horribly degraded because of CRU and their pals breaches of conventional scientific method that the best science is now reached in the open blogosphere. CRU’s version of peer review published papers is how science should NOT be done, perhaps even one of the worst ways to pretend to conduct science.
I like Omnologos and Richards statements too. I think Anthony was correct in his initial thread listing, since CRU refuses proper science in their own practices.
I like the Yamal Yamal Yamal! I hope I can afford the mug when it comes out.
As a long time lurker who stands in awe of so many of the amazing posts and comments on this site, I never thought I would have the expertise to actually make a correction. It is the nittiest of picks but Yamamo was an admiral, not a general. Anthony, thank you for everything you do.
I’m getting a bit confused.
Originally, I understood that the hockey stick was an artifact of Yamal. But then I read that Yamal was not used in Mann’s work, rather, it was Tiljander that was the source of the questionable data. But now it seems that Yamal is the source. But this isn’t discussing Mann.
Obviously, I’m mixing up my tree-rings & how they were used. Is there a simple primer somewhere that can help me get it clear?
TonyG, there are several Hockey Sticks produced by the Team. MBH98 was the first. All use Mann’s short centered PCA. The short centered PCA method will mine for hockey stick shapes in the constituent data series and will then assign those shapes undue weight — virtually ensuring that the result of the PCA is a hockey stick.. So to manufacture hockey sticks, all the Team needs are a few (sometimes just one) series that exhibit the right shape. Bristle cone pines are used as the “active ingredient” in some of the hockey sticks, Tiljander in used in another, and Yamal is used in others.
Tom Osborn pointing to Muir Russel report: “We note that much of the challenge to CRU’s work has not always followed the conventional scientific method of checking and seeking to falsify conclusions or offering alternative hypotheses for peer review and publication.”
Pot meet Kettle -or- Do as we say, not as we do.
Tom Osbron – “The raw tree-ring data used in our published work are available; anyone is free to use them in any way they wish.”
More misdirection. To analyze said published work, the specific tree-ring data used in the work and how it was processed also needs to be made readily available. Leaving people to guess what particular data was used and how the data was processed is not science.
Enough with these word and mind games. Publish the data specifically used, publish how you selected the data, publish how you processed the selected raw data into the data as used.
Professor to college freshman: Fail to show your work, you fail.
TonyG – “I’m getting a bit confused.”
Obfuscation is one of the goals of AGW cabal. Paraphrasing Fields: If you can’t provide them with facts, baffle them with bull excrement. The AGW cabal do not want people to know and understand, otherwise the AGW Gig is up.
Darren Potter: The confusion in my case comes from trying to keep track of the obfuscation and fabrication. Just trying to tie the right one to the related result.
“It is misleading, therefore, to imply that because we have not yet published all of our work in this area, we are somehow restricting the advance of scientific knowledge in this area.”
More like delaying the inevitable rubbishing or their earlier work.
I see a quote has been provided regarding gatekeeping which comes from Jones.
This comes from Tim Osborn himself, a must read:
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=1199999668.txt