Over on X, Al Gore just published a hagiography of the recently deceased climate “scientist” Lonnie Thompson. He said in part:
“Lonnie Thompson went to the ends of the Earth and above the clouds to document and understand the effects of the climate crisis on our planet. Across the highest mountain ranges, from the Andes to the Himalaya, his physically arduous and heroic research revealed the rapid decline of the world’s highest glaciers. And his meticulously documented findings from the ice cores he carried back down the mountains had an impact far beyond the scientific community. His lifelong determination to communicate what he discovered about the global impact of the climate crisis with policymakers and the public was extraordinary.”
Only one leetle problem with Thompson’s “meticulously documented findings” and “lifelong determination to communicate” … Lonnie flat-out refused to reveal what the Bona Churchill ice core had to say.
All the way back in the computer dark ages, in September of 2006, Steve McIntyre published a post yclept “My Prediction for dO18 at Bona Churchill“. In it, he said:
“In 2000, Lonnie Thompson drilled ice cores at Kilimanjaro which were published 2 years later. In 2003, they drilled ice cores at Bona Churchill in Alaska. They made a presentation at AGU with press release in 2004 about looking for (and not finding) White River Ash from an 803 AD eruption.
But no publications so far.
Here’s my prediction about dO18 levels at Bona Churchill.:
20th century dO18 levels will be more negative (“colder”) than levels in the early 19th century – the opposite pattern to the pattern that Thompson is promoting for tropical glaciers.“
In fact, both Lonnie and Ellen Thompson more than once refused to share their data, a huge scientific no-no. Steve McIntyre discussed that in a post called Lonnie and Ellen, A Serial Non-Archiving Couple. This hiding of their results is particularly egregious given that their research was taxpayer-funded.
Steve tried several times to get the National Science Foundation to convince Lonnie and Ellen to archive the Bona Churchill data … but no joy. This despite the US Global Change Research Programs’ official data policy, which says:
“Full and open sharing of the full suite of global data sets for all global change researchers is a fundamental objective. As data are made available, global change researchers should have full and open access to them without restrictions on research use….
For those programs in which selected principal investigators have initial periods of exclusive data use, data should be made openly available as soon as they become widely useful. In each case the funding agency should explicitly define the duration of any exclusive use period…
Deciding when data become widely useful is the responsibility of the funding agency, which should explicitly define the periods of restricted access, if any. In the past, some Principal Investigators have retained data for indefinite periods and this has inhibited their widespread use. This practice should be eliminated.”
So, feeling outraged by Gore osculating the nether regions of Lonnie and Ellen, the serial non-archivers par excellence, I thought I’d look to see if the Bona Churchill data was ever archived … and to my surprise, I found out it finally was archived.
In 2019, 16 years after they did the drilling, and years after Steve McIntre repeatedly asked for it to be exposed to public view, it was put into the NOAA Paleoclimate data repository.
Now, bearing in mind that Steve’s prediction was that “20th century dO18 levels will be more negative (“colder”) than levels in the early 19th century – the opposite pattern to the pattern that Thompson is promoting for tropical glaciers“, what does the actual data look like?
Here you go …
Figure 1. d18O data from the Bona Churchill ice core. d18O is generally thought of as a proxy for temperature, with more negative values indicating colder temperatures and less negative values indicating warmer temperatures.
So, as is usually the case, it looks like Steve McIntyre was right. Well, almost right. Rather than recent times being colder than the start of the 1800s, the ice core shows recent times as colder than the end of the 1700s. Good enough for me, and a very good reason for them to not reveal the data.
Lonnie and Ellen Thompson don’t deserve to be famous scientists. They deserve to be infamous “scientists” for repeatedly hiding from public view the very data that showed their claims were wrong. This is the exact opposite of what science is about.
Meanwhile, here in Northern California, the first of what are now called “atmospheric rivers” that bring rain from the tropics is due to arrive on Thursday. They used to be called the “Pineapple Express”, and on my planet, the name change is just another way that the mainstream climate alarmorous ignorati are sucking the joy out of studying the weather.
My very best to each and every one,
w.
PS: Yeah, you’ve heard it before, and you’ll hear it again. When you comment, please QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS you are referring to. I can defend my words. I cannot defend what you think my words mean. Thanks.
