They played fast and loose with the figures -NOAA whistleblower
The Mail on Sunday today reveals astonishing evidence that the organisation that is the world’s leading source of climate data rushed to publish a landmark paper that exaggerated global warming and was timed to influence the historic Paris Agreement on climate change.
A high-level whistleblower has told this newspaper that America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) breached its own rules on scientific integrity when it published the sensational but flawed report, aimed at making the maximum possible impact on world leaders including Barack Obama and David Cameron at the UN climate conference in Paris in 2015.
The report claimed that the ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown’ in global warming in the period since 1998 – revealed by UN scientists in 2013 – never existed, and that world temperatures had been rising faster than scientists expected. Launched by NOAA with a public relations fanfare, it was splashed across the world’s media, and cited repeatedly by politicians and policy makers.
But the whistleblower, Dr John Bates, a top NOAA scientist with an impeccable reputation, has shown The Mail on Sunday irrefutable evidence that the paper was based on misleading, ‘unverified’ data.
It was never subjected to NOAA’s rigorous internal evaluation process – which Dr Bates devised.
His vehement objections to the publication of the faulty data were overridden by his NOAA superiors in what he describes as a ‘blatant attempt to intensify the impact’ of what became known as the Pausebuster paper.
His disclosures are likely to stiffen President Trump’s determination to enact his pledges to reverse his predecessor’s ‘green’ policies, and to withdraw from the Paris deal – so triggering an intense political row.
,,,
In an exclusive interview, Dr Bates accused the lead author of the paper, Thomas Karl, who was until last year director of the NOAA section that produces climate data – the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) – of ‘insisting on decisions and scientific choices that maximised warming and minimised documentation… in an effort to discredit the notion of a global warming pause, rushed so that he could time publication to influence national and international deliberations on climate policy’.
Dr Bates was one of two Principal Scientists at NCEI, based in Asheville, North Carolina.
Official delegations from America, Britain and the EU were strongly influenced by the flawed NOAA study as they hammered out the Paris Agreement – and committed advanced nations to sweeping reductions in their use of fossil fuel and to spending £80 billion every year on new, climate-related aid projects.
The scandal has disturbing echoes of the ‘Climategate’ affair which broke shortly before the UN climate summit in 2009, when the leak of thousands of emails between climate scientists suggested they had manipulated and hidden data. Some were British experts at the influential Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.
…
Dr Bates retired from NOAA at the end of last year after a 40-year career in meteorology and climate science. As recently as 2014, the Obama administration awarded him a special gold medal for his work in setting new, supposedly binding standards ‘to produce and preserve climate data records’.
Yet when it came to the paper timed to influence the Paris conference, Dr Bates said, these standards were flagrantly ignored.
The paper was published in June 2015 by the journal Science. Entitled ‘Possible artifacts of data biases in the recent global surface warming
…
In the weeks after the Pausebuster paper was published, Dr Bates conducted a one-man investigation into this. His findings were extraordinary. Not only had Mr Karl and his colleagues failed to follow any of the formal procedures required to approve and archive their data, they had used a ‘highly experimental early run’ of a programme that tried to combine two previously separate sets of records.
This had undergone the critical process known as ‘pairwise homogeneity adjustment’, a method of spotting ‘rogue’ readings from individual weather stations by comparing them with others nearby.
However, this process requires extensive, careful checking which was only just beginning, so that the data was not ready for operational use. Now, more than two years after the Pausebuster paper was submitted to Science, the new version of GHCN is still undergoing testing.
Moreover, the GHCN software was afflicted by serious bugs. They caused it to become so ‘unstable’ that every time the raw temperature readings were run through the computer, it gave different results. The new, bug-free version of GHCN has still not been approved and issued. It is, Dr Bates said, ‘significantly different’ from that used by Mr Karl and his co-authors.
Dr Bates revealed that the failure to archive and make available fully documented data not only violated NOAA rules, but also those set down by Science. Before he retired last year, he continued to raise the issue internally. Then came the final bombshell. Dr Bates said: ‘I learned that the computer used to process the software had suffered a complete failure.’
The reason for the failure is unknown, but it means the Pausebuster paper can never be replicated or verified by other scientists.
…
…
He said he decided to speak out after seeing reports in papers including the Washington Post and Forbes magazine claiming that scientists feared the Trump administration would fail to maintain and preserve NOAA’s climate records.
Dr Bates said: ‘How ironic it is that there is now this idea that Trump is going to trash climate data, when key decisions were earlier taken by someone whose responsibility it was to maintain its integrity – and failed.’
NOAA not only failed, but it effectively mounted a cover-up when challenged over its data. After the paper was published, the US House of Representatives Science Committee launched an inquiry into its Pausebuster claims. NOAA refused to comply with subpoenas demanding internal emails from the committee chairman, the Texas Republican Lamar Smith, and falsely claimed that no one had raised concerns about the paper internally.
Last night Mr Smith thanked Dr Bates ‘for courageously stepping forward to tell the truth about NOAA’s senior officials playing fast and loose with the data in order to meet a politically predetermined conclusion’. He added: ‘The Karl study used flawed data, was rushed to publication in an effort to support the President’s climate change agenda, and ignored NOAA’s own standards for scientific study.’
Last night Mr Karl admitted the data had not been archived when the paper was published. Asked why he had not waited, he said: ‘John Bates is talking about a formal process that takes a long time.’ He denied he was rushing to get the paper out in time for Paris, saying: ‘There was no discussion about Paris.’
Read the entire extraordinary expose by David Rose here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4192182/World-leaders-duped-manipulated-global-warming-data.html#ixzz4XlWgDL48
If Rep. Smith reissues his subpoena for emails its a fair bet that the new administration will comply. Wonder where the Karl emails would be now. And has a data and commincations preservation order been issued. Dr. Bates begins his article by noting the hyporacsey of scientists expressing concern about data security. Some speaking out may be very busy cleaning up their tracks.
The,preserve records order to NOAA was issued prior to the Subpoena. And as the committee’s website made clear earlier today, that subpoena has not been withdrawn. A lot of action from Congress on SuperSunday. Implies much more to come.
First, NOAA’s Thomas R Karl (Director NCEI/NCDC) calls himself a scientist and second, he is the lead author of the paper ‘Karl et al Science Magazine 2015′.
My assessment of NOAA’s Karl in creating Karl et al 2015 is that Karl has created a piece of pseudo-science. My assessment of Karl being a pseudo-scientist while creating Karl et al 2015 is based on John Bates’ investigations of Karl’s efforts to create Karl et al 2015. Bates says his investigation of Karl was conducted by himself while he was an employee at NOAA (since then he retired in November 2016).
Pseudo-science is simply to masquerade as science purposely to receive all the benefits of scientific trust. Noble laureate Feynman talked about the nature of pseudo-science in his ‘Cargo Cult Science’ essay.
Science work products can honestly be wrong or bad. Pseudo-science has intent to hide non-scientific behavior while purposely giving the outside appearance of scientific behavior.
John
I somehow doubt this will be taken up by the mainstream media. If not it’s another nail in their coffin. I know of many people who doubt the MSM yet, because of its availability, still watch it. Perhaps the MSM thus believes they can be trusted though many doubting Thomases link to them simply for convenience or availability (they do cover a lot of stories where their narrative can be useful such as the nefarious actions of Putin or Kim of North Korea).
MOD, Is this a “top post”? I’m OK with that but I noticed another later post under under it.
Usually a “Top Post” is announced as such.
(Maybe I was still “on” when the transition was made?)
Hello ristvan,
What is this SuperSunday you refer to?
Seriously. I’m British and honestly don’t know what this is.
Is it a media thing or a constitutional thing, post-inauguration?
American Football.
Tonight the best two of the US’s professional football teams will play against each other. The ‘Super Bowl”.
(I assume ristrvan wasn’t referring to the rerun marathons of old shows all the other channels will be airing.)
“Comet” channel is running a marathon of “Mystery Science Theater 3000!”
(Probably would have been called a “webinar” under Obama’s team.)
Oh right.
Thanks.
it’s on the BBC too, apparently.
Animal Planet has run their Puppy Bowl concurrently with the Super Bowl for 13 years running, complete with a Kitten Halftime Show. While the little guys obviously have no idea how to play American football, the game isn’t really the point (all of the participants are available for adoption).
That should be referring to the last game of the American pro football season, called the Super Bowl. (Number 51 this year.) Its the day American males actually go to the grocery stores to stock up on beer, chicken wings, beer, snacks, beer, and pizza. The game starts at 1830 EST, less than an hour from now.
The US crime rate measurably drops during the game, then “fans” supporting both the winners and losers may wind up rioting and generally trashing the area. Others are in bed before it ends. Still others tune just for the commercials.
Ric, you never said on http://wermenh.com/wuwt/index.html how to make a “8-)” triple size.
(Unless the Bengals are playing, I usually watch the “talked about” commercials on YouTube afterword. It’s been awhile since I saw them live.8-( )
As an observer it seems that the modern scientific method is to
A. Find the answer you want
B. Find a way to produce it
C. Apply for huge funding to keep proving your answer is correct.
D. Make sure it cannot be tested by a third party by “losing the data”
A critical correction.
You said,
“A. Find the answer you want”
Make that,
“A. Find the answer they want”
Then C and D are assured.
(No need to expend much effort on B. Charts to the MSM would suffice. If it looks like a dropped hockey stick, then only one is needed.)
“The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models.”
– Prof. Chris Folland, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research.
We can split up the dishonest from the duped by what they say after this revelation. Some have already (unwisely) shown their colours.
Let’s look at the totality:
The “science” of Anthropogenic Warming Studies” has been totally discredited by Climate-Gate and now NOAA-Gate. The jig is up!
No-one with 1/2 a brain (except the brainwashed and/or conniving and Clown Prince Charley-boy) believes these Snake-Oil Sales(wo)men any longer. They have thrown their lot in with the politicians to access funding. ‘He who pays the Piper, Calls the Tune!” As to credibility, BAD MOVE! — who believes politicians any more in this Post-Truth Society. And so, who believes sycophantic, sinecure-seeking, ‘data-mannipulating’, so-called Climate Scientists any more? What makes your version of “Truth” believeable? Nothing, whatever you say, ‘cos we proles see “Truth” as self-serving ‘shifting-sand’ to suit the manta-of-the-week/day/hour.
GET THE MESSAGE?? YOUR CREDIBILITY IS TOTALLY SHOT, and you are no longer believable or relevant or worth MY TAX-PAYER’S MONEY.
OOOOPS! typo: “mantra” not “manta”
Bates’ revelations are like a manta ray stinger in the heart of the CACA c0nspiracy:
http://cdn.natgeotv.com.au/factsheets/thumbnails/MantaMysteryEducationWorksheet_mantaray.jpg?v=18&azure=false&scale=both&width=1600&height=900&mode=crop
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiAjJy-n_rRAhXMDpAKHXcjD8gQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalgeographic.com.au%2Ftv%2Fmanta-mystery%2F&psig=AFQjCNFPdOjZLk8z2BjNI5us33vCSGewbA&ust=1486428406828959
Congratulations Anthony, Legal Insurrection has linked to this item and quoted you extensively.
A quick glance at this post suggests that David Rose has produced yet another embarrassing (for CAGW sceptics) contribution to the climate change debate. Nothing has been presented which refutes Karl et al.
Whether or not there are technicalities regarding a failure to archive data, is irrelevant to this conclusion.
From the graph showing plots of the “flawed” data and “verified” data it’s pretty obvious that the trends are virtually identical. It just looks as though the 2 plots are using anomalies based on a different time period. Indeed I now notice that Bindidon and Nick Stokes have made this same point in above comments.
For crying out loud – can we please stop grabbing at every meaningless piece of trumped up nonsense to support the case against CAGW. The Daily Mail is not a reliable source of information.
From the Karl et al. Abstract: ‘… here, we present an updated global surface temperature analysis that reveals that global trends are higher than those reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, especially in recent decades, and that the central estimate for the rate of warming during the first 15 years of the 21st century is at least as great as the last half of the 20th century. These results do not support the notion of a “slowdown” in the increase of global surface temperature’.
The NCDC anomaly graph shows the result, from ‘slowdown’ no ‘slowdown’:
http://www.climate4you.com/images/NCDC%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1979%20With37monthRunningAverage%20With201505reference.gif
I think the fuss is all about how and when this all came about.
John Finn on February 5, 2017 at 4:30 pm
It just looks as though the 2 plots are using anomalies based on a different time period.
Exactly.
But that’s an insignificant detail in comparison with the paper written by Hausfather & alii:
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1601207.full
A bit hard to read, I agree, but at the end you understand that Bates’ critique on project data management and Rose’s bare propaganda both don’t have anything in common with science.
As for any political gains from this – it is flogging a dead horse. You need a flanking move – and a dead horse isn’t cutting it.
This is simple enough. Did I go overboard on the title? 🙂
https://watertechbyrie.com/2017/02/06/2141/
“BOMBSHELL”. Hardly. Who is surprised?
I’ve been out looking around a little. The other side (there is one) is busy generating a counterattack. If “past is prologue” we can expect the MSM to follow that lead. But it may not work so well this time. The current administration is packed with skeptics from top down. They now have the levers of power which were previously held by extreme warmists. I’m sure our friends around the world have seen a willingness to pull those levers that has not existed since the Reagan administration. Actually Reagan was tame compared to these people. Doctors Bates and Curry have handed us a powerful light. This administration and Congress will use it.
+1
Wow, 613 thoughts & comments!
Anthony, is that any sort of a record?
No, Climategate trumps all. 1616 comments at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/19/breaking-news-story-hadley-cru-has-apparently-been-hacked-hundreds-of-files-released/
Thanks (-:
There is a high degree of correlation between the two sets of data. The cooler data follows the ups and downs of the warmer data fairly closely.
The real damage is to the Truth.
SHAME.
From the Daily Mail article:
“(Karl’s pack of lies) impact could be seen in this newspaper last month when, writing to launch his Ladybird book about climate change, Prince Charles stated baldly: ‘There isn’t a pause… it is hard to reject the facts on the basis of the evidence.’”
We foisted the Clinton’s on the world for decades. This HRH must feel something like that. Karl gave em what they wanted which is the genesis of this site. Climate science was politicized early and often in plain view by Tim Wirth, Al Gore, and a cast of European and UN characters seeking relevance and rent. It is not an accident of timing that this centralizing philosophy coincided with the sweeping of another one into the ash heap of history. In Europe the Red ones turned their coats inside out becoming the Green Party. In America it didn’t capture the regular people but gained great traction on the ramparts of power. Asians and others generally saw the whole thing as a sign of our decline and confirmation of their inevitable rise.
Proof of the corruption of science is at the EPA, NASA, and NOAA. All we have to do is look. There are more John Bates and unfortunately we will also discover more John Beales. Dr. Bates will face an incredible smearing but he must have know that. Let us encourage our elected officials to champion his cause.
“..the Red ones turned their coats inside out becoming the Green party.”
You can say that again-
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jun/07/peter-gleick-reinstated-heartland-expose
“We look forward to his continuing in the Pacific Institute’s ongoing and vital mission to advance environmental protection, economic development, and social equity.”
Gleick said he was glad to be back. “I am returning with a renewed focus and dedication to the science and research that remain at the core of the Pacific Institute’s mission,” he said in a statement.
Welcome to a sample of their political séance and aims.
most of my +1 comments get delayed.
Off Topic….. The Bill Nye commercial has made me …….. stupid. 🙁
“Pairwise homogeneity adjustment” …. hahaha, I love it.
Further on that fake warming of Karl. If you look at the latest UAH global temperature report from December 2016 you will discover not only that there was a halt to warming but that this eventually became cooling. This can be easily seen if you print out the UAH graph and then overlay it with a straight edge ruler. Place your ruler so that it covers the year 2002 on its left to the year 2012 on its right. That entire section between thyese two points is cooling. The temperature drops 0.1 degree Celsius during thes ten years this period lasts. That means cooling at the rate of one degree Celsiuis per decade, not a warming as the Karlists invented in order to please Obama. Beyond 2012 the temperature curve turns up again in preparation for creating of the El Nino of 2015/2016 ahead of it. I expect that when this El Nino is finished, sometime this year maybe, what follows it will be more cooling. It that can be anticipated by extending the straight line section of 2002 to 2012 into the region beyond that new El Nino. The lowest level the temperature can reach then should line in line with the true low temperature that existed in the eighties and nineties before the IPCC got started monkeying with temperature. Arno Arrak
A ruler? Wow, that’s old school.
WFT a bit more accurate.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah5/from:2002/to:2013/plot/uah6/from:2002/to:2013/trend
Cherry picking, but looks about what you said.
CR*P!
I used two different series. This one is fixed.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6/from:2002/to:2013/plot/uah6/from:2002/to:2013/trend
“A ruler? Wow, that’s old school.”
Remember, way back in the day, we used to solve equations for complex systems graphically?
You could draw a straight line corresponding to one part of the system, and another line corresponding to another. Where the lines crossed was your solution. Sometimes you used plain graph paper, sometimes semi-log paper, and sometimes log-log paper. Carefully made plots on good quality paper would yield an answer as accurate as what could be laboriously calculated with a slide rule. It was an art form in itself.
Remember, way back in the day, we used to solve equations for complex systems graphically?
Oh I remember. Got my knuckles rapped by a math prof for using log-log paper instead of a page of calculus. Pointed out to me that the purpose of the problem assigned was to teach me how to solve it with calculus, not to find the right answer by the easiest method available. My concern for today’s youth is that they have calculators and google constantly at their finger tips. They can easily find the answer to the most amazing things, without ever learning the underlying subject matter. It is why they can neither make change without the cash register telling them what to do, nor see through the most ridiculous of climate change stories.
but of course UAH and RSS, with their multiply adjusted figures, don’t show the surface temps… they don’t even measure temperature directly.
Unless you consider also the surface temp data, UAH/RSS aren’t indicative of anything.
“aren’t indicative of anything”
sort of like your posts, hey griff…
except that you are low-end brainless twerp.
“don’t show the surface temps”
They are far more reliable that the AGW scammed and fabricated NOAA/GISS surface data, that is for sure.
Oh look here’s is UAH vs NOAA Star 3 data…
I wonder why GISS doesn’t match NOAA’s own satellite data. ! 😉
and UAH vs CERES
It seems OLR is related to temperature with absolutely NO CO warming effect..
Poor diddums, griff
AW, what put that into moderation?
Let’s stick to science, even a thermometer or thermocouple etc do not measure temperature directly.
Whatever system is used, temperature is measured by a a system response, which response is then converted to temperature in accordance with some assessed conversion standard.
So for example with a LIG thermometer one is assessing the expansion of a liquid, which is then converted into temperature in accordance with an algorithm notated on e tried and tested scale.
i accept that the satellite data has issues, but conceptually these are far less than those that inflict the land based thermometer data set. This was the prime reason for their launch; to get a better and more accurate coverage,. Further, GHE theory is a top down game; it is a warmer atmosphere that is said to lead to warmer temperatures at the surface. If the atmosphere is not warming then GHE cannot be working, as proposed, to increase temperatures at the surface/slow down temperature loss from the surface.
Don’t embarrass yourself, get with the theory.
“Griff February 6, 2017 at 12:42 am
they don’t even measure temperature directly.”
Nothing does. It’s a “proxy”.
Dr Bates said: ‘I learned that the computer used to process the software had suffered a complete failure.’
The reason for the failure is unknown, but it means the Pausebuster paper can never be replicated or verified by other scientists.
—-
You have to try hard to fail a computer to the point that it’s not recoverable by a forensic shop. I hope the new Sherriff can secure the hardware.
There were EIGHT writers.
Either they all have back-ups of code and data………… .or
They NEVER examined that code and data.
Think about that. !!!!
Good thing is, ALL their names are on the paper, so they are ALL equally liable. 🙂
Sleep with dogs, you are gunna catch fleas.
Good luck guys.. you will need it. ! 🙂
Um, do we actually know for a fact that it is gone forever, and that the computer involved had the only copy, and that it couldn’t be or wasn’t recovered?
Exactly what do we know for certain about that?
We know more about the failure modes of the MH370 flight computer. A failure of this magnitude would seem to warrant a substantial forensic effort.
I love the noise that Mosh, Nick Ceist, etc etc etc are making to try and drown out this report.
The more NOISE you make, petulant little children, the more the powers that be will be drawn to it.
PLEASE keep going 😉
So Rose didn’t post two sets of data with different baselines on the same chart?
Yawn!
You are an EMPTY non-entity griff
go suck on a lemon or something.
Red herring Griff
Shhhhhhhhhhh AndyG55 please
I was trying to find some information about ship intake measurements and were the idea of them reading “hot” came from.
I stumbled across the paper below, which leaves me with more questions
clearly keel depth is an issue
So is it even possible to get any usable temperature measurement?
michael
http://www.ocean-sci.net/9/683/2013/os-9-683-2013.pdf
Ship’s engine cooling water inlet temperature data is acquired from the engine room cooling inlet temperature gauges by the engineers at their convenience.
There is no standard for either the location of the inlets with regard especially to depth below the surface, the position in the pipework of the measuring instruments or the time of day the reading is taken.
The instruments themselves are of industrial quality, their limit of error in °C per DIN EN 13190 is ±2 deg C. or sometimes even ±4 deg. C for a class 2 instrument, as can be seen in the tables here: DS_IN0007_GB_1334.pdf . After installation it is exceptionally unlikely that they are ever checked for calibration.
It is not clear how such readings can be compared with the readings from buoy instruments specified to a limit of error of tenths or even hundreds of a degree C. or why they are considered to have any value whatsoever for the purposes to which they are put, which is to produce historic trends apparently precise to 0.001 deg. C upon which spending of literally trillions of £/$/whatever are decided.
But hey, this is climate “science” we’re discussing so why would a little thing like that matter?
FINALLY, this story made it on Drudge Report!
I can’t believe it took Drudge Report this long to post it…
Now this scandal truly goes viral.
I just checked and this Daily Mail article now has 91,000 shares…
Good ol’ Drudge Report. Always a great venue for stories to go viral.
Rush Limbaugh spent quite a bit of time discussing Dr. Bates’ revelations on his radio program yesterday.
There is a lighter side to ecological silliness:
Too funny not to share this tweet.
“Jihad Joe
BREAKING NEWS! NOAA and NASA have readjusted the data from the game and the Falcons won 34-28. You Falcon deniers are nothing but flat earthers and science haters.”
Rocky,
That was my choice for best 2017 Super Bowl ad! Rolled off the couch onto the carpet, laughing at that one….