Scientific Journal Nature Finds Nothing Notable In CRU Leak 736
eldavojohn writes with an update to the CRU email leak story we've been following for the past two weeks. The peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature has published an article saying the emails do not demonstrate any sort of "scientific conspiracy," and that the journal doesn't intend to investigate earlier papers from CRU researchers without "substantive reasons for concern." The article notes, "Whatever the e-mail authors may have said to one another in (supposed) privacy, however, what matters is how they acted. And the fact is that, in the end, neither they nor the IPCC suppressed anything: when the assessment report was published in 2007 it referenced and discussed both papers." Reader lacaprup points out related news that a global warming skeptic plans to sue NASA under the Freedom of Information Act for failing to deliver climate data and correspondence of their own, which he thinks will be "highly damaging." Meanwhile, a United Nations panel will be conducting its own investigation of the CRU emails.
Nice explanation in potholer54's video (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nnVQ2fROOg [youtube.com]
Re:Same with newscientist (Score:4, Informative)
Those that want to be bamboozled... (Score:5, Informative)
... will be bamboozled. There is nothing new in that. It lies behind all political folly.
The data that was adjusted was paleoclimate data, and what it was being adjusted to was temperature data (i.e., the more reliable modern temperature data). As far as I can tell, they neither could nor did adjust the measured temperature data.
The OP did not quote the really important part of the Nature piece :
Nothing in the e-mails undermines the scientific case that global warming is real — or that human activities are almost certainly the cause. That case is supported by multiple, robust lines of evidence, including several that are completely independent of the climate reconstructions debated in the e-mails.
The evidence for this is literally all around us. Throw all of the CRU data out if you want. It won't change a thing.
Re:Nice try (Score:5, Informative)
The source code is another thing that has been taken completely out of context. For example, the "Very ARTIFICIAL correction" in was computed, but the line where it was applied was commented out. This is clearly a case of someone playing around with the output to explore various effects and scenarios. They did the experiment, then commented it out to removed that effect from the production output. Does anyone really believe that a real attempt at fraud would be blatantly labeled in the code?
Re:Nice try (Score:5, Informative)
FFS, not this shit again. Frankly, given the number of times this has been pointed out, I can only assume that people still mentioning it are wilfully ignoring anything that contradicts them.
However, one last time. It's commonplace to have multiple versions of analysis code with variations including "artificial" changes. I've done it lots of times, mostly for testing purposes - it's quite useful [1] to know how the output of your analysis depends on variations in the input. Only a small fraction of the code in existence was actually used to process the data "for real". Unless you have some evidence that a) arbitrary modifications were made to published data without explanation in the publication and b) any such modifications were not scientifically justified, please stop with this ridiculous and discredited point.
[1] By which I mean "essential for any non-trivial analysis"
Re:Nice try (Score:5, Informative)
If you look at the actual code instead of some blog you'll see the reference to the adjusted value is commented out and never used in the plotting call.
; ;filter_cru,5.,/nan,tsin=yyy+yearlyadj,tslow=tslow ;oplot,timey,tslow,thick=5,color=20
; Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!
;
yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,$
2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
if n_elements(yrloc) ne n_elements(valadj) then message,'Oooops!'
;
yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,timey)
;
;
filter_cru,5.,/nan,tsin=yyy,tslow=tslow
oplot,timey,tslow,thick=5,color=21
;
oplot,!x.crange,[0.,0.],linestyle=1
;
plot,[0,1],/nodata,xstyle=4,ystyle=4
Without revision control one can't say for certain but there's no evidence any adjusted data made it into a paper. There's only evidence that a single piece of code from the thousands of modeling sims had at one time an adjustment that was commented out.
Re:Data thrown away (Score:4, Informative)
You can follow the original link to realclimate.org to find many other links to data sources. I have posted the data sources above only because many critics of AGW won't even bother with realclimate.org as they are thought to be part of the conspiracy. The data exists and is public as is the source code.
Re:Peer-reviewed journal? (Score:5, Informative)
Dude, you're not just talking about any journal here. You're talking about THE journal for the physical sciences. This journal has more than a century of scientific reporting as testament to its quality. It predates the Nobel price. It predates the work of Einstein and Schrödinger. Interestingly though it is not older than the discovery of the atmospheric greenhouse effect, which was first described by Fourier in 1824.
Just to give you a clue what you're actually implying in your post...
Re:Indirection, folks (Score:5, Informative)
Two points.
1) That paper is nearly a year old so the logic that "Now finally counter arguments can be heard" seems a bit specious.
2) That paper is a complete crock of unrefereed shit. I read 92-94 which are the conclusions and was so confused I went and read the earlier portions. There are numerous fallacies in their assumptions and they get some pretty fundamental thermo issues flat wrong.
If you'd like to read physicists (not climatologist) opinion of the paper go here:
http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-300667.html [physicsforums.com]
Re:How they acted? (Score:3, Informative)
If AGW was actually happening, there would be no need to "adjust" numbers and likewise no need to cover up the leaked emails
Here in the southern hemisphere we have just started our summer. According to my measurements, it is hotter now than it was six months ago. As you say, there is no need to adjust any numbers, so this means we have proof of global warming.
But seriously, there are plenty of reasons why you might need to adjust some data. New measuring equipment (from alternative manufacturers), procedural changes meaning measurements are taken at different times of the day or even a different place. An organisation might stop measuring a particular reading and you have to go to another source.
Remember, these measurements have been taken over many decades through different political administrations, through budget cuts, and through technology changes. Even the reasons for taking a certain measurement might change over time, resulting in new methodologies for data collection.
This is not just one big experiment. This is a series of thousands of different scientific endeavours all coming together. There will have to be a normalisation process involved.
Re:Oh, come on. (Score:5, Informative)
On that same blog you link to [jgc.org], there is an "Update": Read the comments below. It's been pointed out to me that there's a later version of code in the archive in which similar correction code is not commented out. Details and link below.
Re:Nice try (Score:5, Informative)
I will, however, admit that the researchers should have noted the issues with the tree-ring data in question.
Good thing they did, then. [nature.com] Only ten years ago, mind you.
Seriously, this whole "climategate" debacle tends to run like this:
1- Deniers exhume some e-mail / piece of code which they don't understand, but assume is definite proof of evil scheming on the part of the great academic conspiracy ("Trick!" "Hide the decline!" OMGconspiracy send teh copz!!) .
2- Scientists post explanation, [uea.ac.uk] showing the deniers' allegations to be baseless (The "hidden" decline in tree ring growth was published a decade ago - see Nature link above; in this very publication, it was shown to diverge from the actual instrumental record after 1960; so for the post-1960 period we basically replace tree rings with the actual instrumental data, because we trust thermometers more than tree rings when the two fail to agree; we cited the relevant articles in the caption for the graph just to be sure).
3- Deniers completely ignore scientists' explanation, and keep fantasising about their glorious victory over evil scheming scientists. See GP for an illustration.
Rinse. Repeat.
To GP and all the folks who keep harping about this "VERY ARTIFICIAL" correction code: the code in question is a one-time code for temporarily re-calibrating the tree ring data. The reason, and the coefficients, are ultimately derived from the Nature article I linked to above. For an interesting hypothesis concerning the source of this code, see comment #147 and linked manuscript on this thread. [scienceblogs.com]
Re:Nice try (Score:4, Informative)
A real scientist would have investigated why the proxy failed to to reflect actual temperatures in recent times, and might have questioned if the methodology actually applied correctly to any time in the past.
Which is exactly what these guys did ten years ago. [nature.com] Answers: we don't know (trees are living beings, not thermometers), and yes it does.
Notice the "Briffa" name in the author list? And the "University of East Anglia" in the list of institutions? Reminds you of something?
Re:Nice try (Score:5, Informative)
... and yet they continued to publish a dataset which they knew didn't hold up to scrutiny.
Either the proxy isn't a good proxy, or the temperature record isn't a good record. You can have either, but not both.
No researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge, "grafted the thermometer record onto" any reconstrution. It is somewhat disappointing to find this specious claim (which we usually find originating from industry-funded climate disinformation websites) appearing in this forum. - Michael Mann
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7810 [climateaudit.org]
Re:Nice try (Score:3, Informative)
Why would you prove that which is pretty much known to be false. The retreat was likely caused by the combination of substantially less plant mass and steady state volcanic activity which slowly rose CO2 levels. The rapid acceleration of melt off was aided by establishment of the thermohaline circulation which warmed the NW coast of Europe and the NW coast of North America.
Re:Oh, come on. (Score:5, Informative)
Which version was used to produce the plot that is in the Nature paper? It is easy enough to tell by looking at the Nature paper. Hint, the plot in the paper does not have this correction applied.
Re:Nice try (Score:3, Informative)
It's believed that the northern U.S. was covered in a 5,000 foot thick ice cap (some time in the last 100k years). It created the 5 Great Lakes.
You should rush out and tell a scientist. Maybe they didn't know that the temperature has changed before!
OK, I am being facetious, but I can never understand why people think that they have discovered something that climate scientists didn't know (or didn't want you to know). Yes, it has been hot before and it has been cold before. The problem today is the rate of change. It is getting hot very quickly in the global scheme of things.
Also, if Anthropogenic Global Warming were true, why hasn't recorded human history, vis-a-vis, the last 1,000 years or so, shown a consistent increase in global temperatures?
The population 1000 years ago was estimated to be 300 million. Over the next 800 years, it hadn't even increased to 1 billion. Then in the last 200 years it skyrocketed to 6.7 billion. Prior to 1800 the population increased by an average of 835,000 per year. After 1800 that grew to 27.5 million per year.
We also invented new ways to really pollute the planet like never before. If technology hadn't changed, we would be polluting the planet 21 times more than we were 1000 years ago. But now we also have coal power stations, aluminium smelters, street lights that light the world while we sleep and over 600 million cars.
With all this in mind, I really can't see how anyone can think that it is not possible that we are having an impact on the planet. We can deliberately go out of our way to change the landscape, alter the course of rivers, seed clouds to make it rain, convert deserts to farmland and make the Panama Canal. So why is not possible that we could also inadvertently alter the planet?
Finally, here is a question for all the deniers out there. If the engineering feat required today was to actually warm up the planet, how would we do it? I think that the best answer would be to do what were are already doing today.
Re:Nice try (Score:5, Informative)
I don't defend his apparent attempt to thwart one of the 50 odd FOI request he has on his plate by requesting Mann delete some emails. However I do defend his commitment to opening up the data sources. The HADCrut [hadobs.org] data set has been available on the web to scientists, the general public, and psudeo-skeptics alike for years due mainly to his efforts. However I don't expect easily verifyable facts to stop uninformed wankers from being lead around by nose for fun and profit.
As the Nature editorial points out a small percentage of that set is still locked up by national governments such as France and is only available to researchers willing to fillout the red tape and wait months to get it, they are leaglly bound not to publish it!!! If not for the efforts of Jones 100% of the data would still be locked up with similar red tape.
I have no doubt as to the motives of the CEI and their ilk who continually bombard climate scientists with such requests while simultaneously running inumerable front sites for the FF industry (eg:icecap), and doing their very best to smear the reputations of leading climate scientists (eg: Mann, Schmidt).
Re:Nice try (Score:3, Informative)
Yes [realclimate.org] and yes [realclimate.org] (yes, Realclimate again, but try clicking the links and reading this time).
If you did read the links, you'd see that Mann refers to "dozen model-based and proxy-based reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere mean temperature by different groups". And that was in in 2005. Do your homework.
I guess this means you seriously do think that all of climate science hinges on one single study.
Re:Nice try (Score:3, Informative)
Yes and yes (yes, Realclimate again, but try clicking the links and reading this time).
I click on them, and then I actually read them.
#1 cites Mann. Thats right, its cites Mann. Do you even comprehend the stupidity of using Mann to validate Mann? Why do you keep doing it.
#2 shows a graph, with something similar to Mann's stick produced by Oerlemans, Moberg, and Esper. Before I roast your citation, I am going to point out that Moberg has co-authored at least 8 papers with Jones. Now on with the show.
This is the RealClimate version of Oerlemans graph. [realclimate.org]
But this is NASA's version of the graph. [noaa.gov] AND THEY PROVIDE THE ACTUAL DATA [noaa.gov]
Why doesnt Mann's version of the graph (hosted by Mann and used in defense of Mann) look anything like NASA's version(hosted by NASA and used to illustrate whats in the paper?)
You really are a sucker.
Re:Nice try (Score:5, Informative)
The graph was not a demonstration of the skill of their method, it was the cover graph for a report for policymakers. Their actual scientific publications show the proxy record directly. And they did not ignore the discrepancy between the two time series. The "divergence problem" is well known, well cited, and frequently discussed among dendroclimatologists. There are some reasons to believe that trees are now responding to non-climatic human influences which they previously were not subject to, such as changes in atmospheric aerosol loading, CO2 content, and pH of precipitation in some locations. You can debate whether these causes are legitimate or not, but in a graph for policymakers it's not inappropriate to drop the data where you suspect it's contaminated and switch to data you think is more trustworthy. Again, their actual publications indicate the decline which is the whole basis for the divergence problem literature in the first place. It's not like this is some huge secret that nobody knew about or the authors refused to acknowledge.
Are you a dendrochrinologist? (Score:1, Informative)
Are you a dendrochrinologist? Because you have to be to understand exactly what's going on, but the issue (and it's been known about for AGES, so hardly "hidden") is that when there's plenty of rain, pest species are controlled, invasion of competition is limited, and so on, then CO2 correlates well with tree ring size.
But the quicker pace of warming has buggered that up and so you can't rely on CO2 and ring sizes to be correlated any more for species that are
1) in areas now seeing drought
2) in areas now seeing pest species invading (cf dutch elm disease, etc)
3) in areas being invaded by, say, southern species that couldn't compete in the colder northern climes
Which is to say not ALL tree rings display this problem, but enough do that you either have to ignore the data after a point or cut down so far that your error bars make the data practically worthless.
Re:The most telling word in the whole article: (Score:1, Informative)
Interesting in how you want everyone who doesn't agree to shut up so the believers can figure out what to do. If history would ever teach us anything it should be that this line of thinking has lead to the most repressive, the most repulsive, the most heinous, and the most disturbing dictatorships ever. Hitler rose to power on the backs of the jews which he blamed for all the people's problems, dissenters were violently shut up to the point that others were afraid to question his madness. I doubt you can look at any tyrannical power that stands as the worlds most repressive regimes without seeing the same parallels.
Maybe you should just shoot down the opposition with real live facts if your position is so accurate and honorable. If not, I can't see how your not just another tool in the next big mistake of government that will line our history books until another bloody and costly war brings it to it's knees.
Re:Nice try (Score:3, Informative)
Instead people are looking at their models and trying not to laugh.
1950-2000 warming nothing to be afraid of (Score:4, Informative)
"The principal conclusion from these studies (summarized in IPCC AR4) is that the second half of the 20th century was very likely (90% probable) warmer than any other 50-year period in the last 500 years and likely (66% probable) the warmest in the past 1300 years."
Before any of this email stuff, climateaudit caught NASA adjusting the output so that the 1940's blip was not more than the latter half of the century. I seem to recall it was a error in how the program was rounding the numbers. Climateaudit made a new graph with 1940's showing the warmest year. NASA reproduced the results and then later produced a new chart that showed the 1990's having the warming year with the 1940's the second warmest.
To quote another post of this subject (a href="http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/11531">strata-sphere.com):
"Well, the raw CRU data shows that the first half of the last century (1900-1960) was as warm or warmer than it is today. But even if it was not warmer, it was within the uncertainty of the processed data. But let’s assume this claim still holds water, so what if this was the warmest half century since the beginning of the Little Ice Age! We have only had 3 half centuries since the LIA ended! We all know the Earth has been thankfully warming since this bleak time in humanity’’s brief existence."
Re:Nice try (Score:3, Informative)
North America was covered by an ice sheet until about 10,000 years ago.
Strawman argument [slashdot.org]. Nobody is denying that there have been ice ages in the past. And ice in the last glacial period didn't cover all of North America, just parts of it - have you even read the article you link to? "ice covered most of Canada, the Upper Midwest, and New England, as well as parts of Montana and Washington".
That Mars is suffering "climate change" too.
Ah, that old chestnut. Climate myths: Mars and Pluto are warming too [newscientist.com]
Re:Nice try (Score:3, Informative)
The United States National Academy of Science investigated the "Hockey Stick" and found it to be valid. Their report states:
"The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on ice caps and the retreat of glaciers around the world". (see Climate myths: The 'hockey stick' graph has been proven wrong [newscientist.com])
Or do you believe that the U.S. National Academy of Science is also taking part in this supposed global conspiracy?
Re:Worst case (Score:3, Informative)
1) they're guilty of not properly responding to a FOIA request
2) they've said nasty things about certain colleagues work (but still cited it)
3) they've discarded some data for reasons they should have better explained (reasons that were valid -- it wasn't properly calibrated)
4) they arranged to have a journal editor fired for publishing a peer reviewed article that questioned conclusions reached by AGW promoters.
Nothing notable? Really! (Score:2, Informative)
So email evidence of data forgery, refusal to comply with FOIA requests, and attempts to silence dissenting opinion is nothing notable?
Perhaps Nature considers these part and parcel of regular science. I don't, however, and I think most scientists would be shocked and horrified to learn the new rules.
Granted, the overwhelming majority of the emails show nothing more than the normal scientific process. Apparently, whomever selected those in FOIA.zip is unaware of the normal peer review process. However, if only by chance, they did find evidence of:
Granted, I may not believe the GW conspiracy theorists, but this development is very troubling. While climatology as a whole is probably unaffected, those making public policy cannot rely on the resuts published by Mann, et al, until the investigation is finished. While this may not have long term effects on the scientific problem of GW, it certainly affects the political aspects of it.
But then again, if Nature sees nothing wrong with forging data to get the result you want, perhaps all of science is doomed.
Church of Climatology (Score:4, Informative)
Exactly! You got it! So, when we talk about ancient history, we can calmly attribute things to geological processes, that we have no control over. But when dealing with our own times, we aren't going to skip a good opportunity to raise taxes and give more control to the government. Scratch almost every modern "environmentalist" and you'll find a worn-out Che Guevara T-shirt underneath...
Actually, you can be sure, there were people explaining the climate change and/or the rising sea levels, that flooded the entire cities, by the anger of the gods. You can also bet safely, that various priests back then suggested (and demanded) large sacrifices to appease the supernaturals.
Kinda like what Al Gore is doing now [thepeoplescube.com] (warning, unsafe amounts of sarcasm at the link)...
Re:Nice try (Score:1, Informative)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/04/jo-nova-finds-the-medieval-warm-period/#more-13698
It's been rigged for a while on a few fronts. Nature REFUSED to publish the correction to the hockey stick even when it was conclusively proven to them that it was faulty. So what do you expect from Nature? They didn't even require Mann to release his data! They are bought and paid for scum!
Step outside of this argument.. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Nice try (Score:2, Informative)
I look at the graph on the Realclimate page and see the line labeled "Oerlemans-2005" showing a roughly .2 degree increase and the "instuments Data" showing around a .7 degree increase. The NASA graphs show temperature ranges between -.2 and +.4 degree changes with the "Tglobal" coming in at about .2 degree increase. Sure a ,5 degree difference is pretty big, but since, as you say, the Realclimate graph does not provide the data, can we even be sure that they are using the same data sets? This is only a "smoking gun" if they are using the same data. If it is from different sets then all you have here are different graphs of different data.
Re:psuedo-skeptics (Score:3, Informative)
Finally I quote from your link - "“The oceans absorb much of the CO2 that we release to the atmosphere,” Ries says. However, he warns that this natural buffer may ultimately come at a great cost. “It’s hard to predict the overall net effect on benthic marine ecosystems," he says. “In the short term, I would guess that the net effect will be negative. In the long term, ecosystems could re-stabilize at a new steady state. “The bottom line is that we really need to bring down CO2 levels in the atmosphere.”"
Re:Nice try (Score:3, Informative)
The article merely repeats the same claims as the original poster, and so does not constitute a refutation of my response.
The fact remains, the divergence problem is not some secret that is being hidden. It is cited and discussed by these very authors (e.g., by Briffa at least back to 1998). As I said, you may disagree with their interpretation of the divergence problem (namely, that it's a non-climatic artifact that only affects recent reconstructions), but you can't claim that they pretended it didn't exist. And, as I said, you can find the actual tree ring series unblended with instrumental data in their journal publications (e.g., Briffa again in 2000, with further discussion of the divergence). Finally, as I said, it is not "fraud" to either truncate the series where you don't believe it's accurate nor to substitute data you believe is more accurate in place of the inaccurate data.