Today, the MITRE Corporation released its report investigating internal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientific policies and procedures regarding the publication of a study titled Possible Artifacts of Data Biases in the Recent Global Surface Warming Hiatus. This study was led by NOAA scientists – with Thomas Karl as the principal author – and generated concerns from whistleblowers about its conclusions after its publication. Commissioned by the Department of Commerce, MITRE engaged leaders in the fields of environmental science and engineering who were able to objectively and independently assess the Karl Study.
“Providing data-driven scientific products is an essential part of our mission at the Department of Commerce,” said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. “We can do more to ensure that all policies are followed when releasing critical data to the public. For example, as MITRE found in its report, the Karl Study did not include a disclaimer that it was not an official product of the Federal government. As a result, it is often mistaken as a NOAA publication – even though it was not subject to heightened internal governmental review – which has spawned additional, unnecessary controversy surrounding the study’s findings.”
While the MITRE report found that the publication of the Karl Study was not fully compliant with NOAA internal procedures, it also determined that there was no evidence that NOAA intentionally distorted climate data. The report also details the deficiencies in NOAA’s internal review processes.
“MITRE provided NOAA with an invaluable service by producing an independent report on internal policies which has identified opportunities for improvement,” said retired Navy Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, Ph.D., Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere. “We will take these findings into account and endeavor to be responsive to the MITRE’s recommendations.”
In 2015, the journal Science published the Karl Study. Responding to questions from the public after its release, a Congressional committee asked for related documents and communications from NOAA. On September 22, 2017, the Department of Commerce commissioned MITRE Corporation, a not-for-profit that operates Federally-funded research and development centers, to inquire into the complaints and to identify any concerns which were raised during the scientific review process.
NOAA will publish a plan responsive to MITRE’s findings and recommendations no later than February 1, 2019.
The full report can be seen here.
Bureaus and Offices
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
HT/Bart T and Steven Mosher
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The paper is paywalled????
So who gets payed? NOAA? Or some one else?
If it is NOAA to which account? Is it legal?
They may have screwed up. Adjust the records? Eh, misappropriate funds, that can bring people down.
michael
Oh and Steven Mosher and Bart T thank you. Also CTM
I read the report. Typical “The rules and regulations were unclear and any mistakes were bureaucratic and inadvertent. We recommend the following rules and regulation changes …” Oh, and “It’s OK to use a 90% confidence interval because the IPCC uses it [disguised it as ‘likely’ to be in that range].”
No discussion as to the appropriateness of the use of Night Marine Air Temperature to adjust SST. No discussion of Karl going outside the bounds of Huang to get what he wanted. A total nothing-burger.
Picture the scene. It is the final 30 seconds of the new Film “Hiatus” subtitled “Raiders of the lost Archive”
The retired rear admiral voicing over, as the camera rolls showing the scene of a military storage facility whose dusty boxed storage, disappears into the horizon.
“We have somewhere safe, to secure this report for posterity”
Cue credits…
Karl, Trenberth et. al. remind me more of Monty Python. Not really scientisobut more of a comedy troupe.
Will this lead to a new movie “Rebel without a Pause”?
Geoff
“Rebel without a pause”
Too funny
Don’t know about others here, but I personally get sick and tired of the whitewash utterings of cover-up teams so bereft of personal achievements that they are willing to be engaged in the defence of others who protect a principle.
None of the investigators seems, from a first read of their report, to have ever interacted greatly with private enterprise, which has been the source of most contributions to global wealth and wellbeing for the last couple of centuries.
None seems to have been asked the relevant question “Are you at all sceptical about science behind global warming hypotheses?
None seems to have the qualifications to discern if scepticism is warranted.
None seems to have learned the language of real life, preferring the abstruse terminology of bureaucratese.
None seems to have learned that it is OK to say “This work smells” or “There is no smell about this work” as the case may be.
Unfortunately, they did not discover which case applies. Or, if they did, they did not say so in unequivocal words.
No doubt, should their personal attributes allow it, they can share a strong drink and say “We played a blinder!”
Holy crap, when is enough enough? Geoff
Funny thing
John Bates
I read Bate’s complaint back when, Mr. Mosher. It was nitpicking whining over nitpicking compliance with obtuse bureaucratic regulations, not complaints about anything of substance. The MITRE study was a nitpicking bureaucratic exercise of studying nitpicking compliance with obtuse bureaucratic regulations. It had nothing to do with the abuse of the Huang work, shady science and statistical manipulations of historical SST by Karl.
The MITRE study is just the sort of Wandering in the Weeds you like.
I agree after reading the report. The review was to evaluate process, not the science. That was left to Science mag and was not in their work scope.
Two things I noticed that absolved Karl et al for his rare and atypical findings of no pause was the reference to Huang for the data and secondly for stating in no uncertain terms that the SST data set is full of inconsistencies/complications and is not nearly large enough spatially to capture the true SST. Their recommendations, other than procedural, at the end of the review were clear for example, “While Argo data are timely for climate studies, their ocean coverage is sparse.”
These conclusions are even more important because Karl /Huang found SST were the driver for the higher temperature trends compared to earlier data products.
My assessment was the reviewers believe the SST data is so sparse as to render any conclusions using the sparse data to be a fool’s errand, and hence gave Karl a pass.
kvs you might want to let zeke hausfather know given his latest proclamations on knowledge of ocean heat content to 2000m depth,to single figure zettajoule accuracy.
Sounds like you’re giving the scientific validity of the report about a 50% chance? We can’t say it’s invalid because the data is so sparse it could just as easily be valid?
I worked at MITRE and their results are about what I would expect. They are a very good engineering company but management won’t rock the boat too hard if it will make the customer mad at them. The agencies have to request funding for it explicitly.
Back in the 80’s they almost were zeroed out in the federal budget because they knew that the FAA’s modernization program was collapsing and didn’t tell congress only the FAA. Congress was not happy. I was involved in similar problems of and on through my career. Basically don’t annoy the sponsor. They don’t lie but they will dissemble.
A good description of all government-related work, Bear.
There are several quality control standards such as the ISO9000 series that require periodic auditing of quality systems by a 3rd party administrator. Government entities that produce data and studies affecting taxpayers ought to be required to meet and be certified to a quality standard.
Clearly they are not following the same laws and rules of disclosure that financial firms must follow. Let’s see a detailed comparison of what CFAs, CFO, and CPAs must follow compared to climate scientists.
Section 3.5
The adjustments of warming the data are all relative and don’t affect the trend one way or another.
Discuss
I continue to be amazed that industrial scale qualities of ‘smoke and mirrors’ are required in ‘settled science’
“…. it also determined that there was no evidence that NOAA intentionally distorted climate data. ”
I strongly disagree. Whenever any analysis that shows any correlation with anything else besides co2, the numbers magically change. As a critic of co2 induced global warming, all my numbers have to match exactly. A supporter of global warming, not so much. ” … where did you get those numbers.. ”
The approximation allowed for AGW is so wide as to make any result unreliable. It shows it in their predictions/projections… all failures both in time, articulation, and substance.
Does any body else remember the exact ratio of co2 to 1 C that was made in 2001? I do. There are still people to this day still parroting that. 10 ppm/v. I don’t see anybody aggressively disputing that from the warming side on those sites.