Why the CRU may have Destroyed its Raw Data
[Guest post by DRJ]
Via Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, Willis Eschenbach at WattsUpWithThat considers why the East Anglia CRU deleted its raw data:
People keep saying “Yes, the Climategate scientists behaved badly. But that doesn’t mean the data is bad. That doesn’t mean the earth is not warming.”
So he looked at the Australian data and what did he find? The CRU’s “adjusted” data show rising temperatures even though the actual temperatures show a decline. It’s complicated so don’t rely on my shorthand version. Instead, check out the links.
[EDIT: Dr. K pointed this out the other day — so that’s another good reason to read the comments here.]
— DRJ
There are some other discussions about urban heat island effect from asphalt paving at some of the stations. A good explanation of the whole thing is at Climate Skeptic.
Mike K (2cf494) — 12/9/2009 @ 4:08 pmIn many ways this is similar to the process money launderers use.
cedarhill (f5b0fe) — 12/9/2009 @ 4:55 pmThe $20 billion or so of grants and awards the alarmist cabal got over the past decade to study global warming and arrive at the same conclusion dwarfed that received by the so called “bought and paid for oil industry funded scientists.” It pays for a lot of “convenient truths” and the inconvenient truths are thrown down the rabbit holes. This shit is not news.
daleyrocks (718861) — 12/9/2009 @ 5:01 pmI recognize that approach from college. The “universal fudge factor.” It used to be multiply by zero and add the correct answer. Of course it is buried a lot deeper than the old way would have been. Here, they just added a variable factor to get the answer they wanted. All the rise in temperature is manufactured by their factor.
What they did was not complicated at all. Willis Eschenbach did a great job at ferreting it out.
Jim (582155) — 12/9/2009 @ 5:02 pmGee, I thought I pointed this out the other day:
https://patterico.com/2009/12/06/epa-to-declare-co2-a-public-danger/#comments
Scroll to #36.
Dr. K (adb7ba) — 12/9/2009 @ 5:48 pmYou absolutely did, Dr. K. I’ve updated the post to give you the credit you deserve, but next time you may have to yell or say it IN CAPS. I must be getting hard of hearing.
DRJ (84a0c3) — 12/9/2009 @ 6:00 pmNo worries, I just put it into the first relevant thread.
Where should I send tips like this?
Dr. K (adb7ba) — 12/9/2009 @ 6:26 pmOne other point, in addition to the obvious fudging of the data, never seems to be raised, towit:
CRU say they’ve since lost the original data. Once we’re done with “the dog ate my global warming data” jokes, what does even their attempted excuse say about the lack of peer review?
Consider that what they’re saying, then, is that not even one other outfit ever replicated their adjustments, cuz you know that, if that had happened, the replicator wouldda kept a copy of the data.
What about NASA/Goddard, for example? You mean those guys never once replicated CRU’s temperature adjustments in order to verify them? No one in the whole world did?
ras (1d003b) — 12/9/2009 @ 6:29 pmDr. K,
I’m glad you asked! Please send any tips, suggestions or comments to Patterico.tips-at-gmail.com … except replace “-at-” with “@”.
DRJ (84a0c3) — 12/9/2009 @ 6:39 pmNow all we need are a few real journalists to look into this. I’d love to see this asked of Michael “Dirty Laundry” Mann instead of the usual softballs by clueless (or worse) reporters.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (0ea407) — 12/9/2009 @ 6:54 pmIf this data stream was a required filing at the SEC, a whole lot of bodies would be in jail.
AD - RtR/OS! (160cdd) — 12/9/2009 @ 6:57 pmThis will go down as an even bigger accounting fraud than Enron, which BTW was all-in on AGW and Green Tech.
I think this could be the blow that breaks down any attempt to contain the scandal.
The CRUtape letters have opened the door for questioning. However, so far the fraudsters and their allies have bluffed their way through most interviews, usually with the compliance of ignorant and/or biased reporters.
But even TV and radio journalists, who are not noted for their intelligence in the journalism community, can understand this data-manipulation scheme. It’s illustrated by charts (must have graphics!) that show how raw data with no warming turning into “adjusted” data that show warming, with no good explanation.
I’m guessing this will catch fire first in Australian media, then with media elsewhere. They will inevitably search for a local angle. Then the hunt will begin for other weather stations with phony “adjusted” warming data.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (0ea407) — 12/9/2009 @ 7:27 pmYes, Australia voted down their version of cap and tax, so it seems at least one developed country has some smarts.
For many people it will be hard to believe the reality and extent of the hoax/deception. It will require a whole paradigm shift, almost like learning there is no Santa Claus. I mean, the “science was settled”. Scientists aren’t supposed to lie. ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS are supposed to tell us the truth. Al Gore is supposed to be a responsible person, even if you didn’t vote for him for president.
MD in Philly (227f9c) — 12/9/2009 @ 9:38 pmRighteous indignation, religious beliefs, scientific certainty and political hubris create radicals.
But money makes the world go around.
Capitalism isn’t dead, it’s just sniffing around for CO2.
Ag80 (83c4ce) — 12/9/2009 @ 9:54 pmThere are questions about the raw data collected during the 1990s. As they say, “Garbage in, garbage out.”
The Soviets maintained about 10,000 remote weather stations, many above the Arctic Circle. After the government collapsed, these collection points continued reporting prior month observations as current. Eventually, they were shut down, but their inputs may have been tainted. As a result of eliminating these remotes, the worldwide data collection points dropped from 17,000+ to about 6,800.
The questions are:
1. How accurate were the Russian data?
2. During the 90s, did average temperatures actually rise, or did the data reflect a sample which under-represented cold areas?
If altering baseline caused the average temperature to increase, it would be necessary to strip out all of the readings so we are looking at an apples to apples comparison.
Several years ago, the Australians did a spot survey of US weather stations, many in cities and towns. As urban areas grew, not only did buildings restrict air flow, but parking lots paved with asphalt and air conditioning exhaust near sensors may have significantly changed the collection environment. In these cases, even apples to apples are invalid.
There are other data sets that haven’t been used. NASA and NOAA have been gathering satellite and weather balloon observations for decades, but according to Professor John Christy, the NASA scientist and IPCC contributor who did much of the collecting, those data refute AGW.
arch (24f4f2) — 12/10/2009 @ 3:22 amum i could be wrong but i understood the article to have a different point. they said there are 3 sets. CRU is one. the Aussie set is another. and the other is a NASA one. the Aussie one is largely separate, and thus the shenanigans represent a separate instance of borderline fraud (and maybe i shouldn’t use the word borderline) and definite inaccuracy.
So its 2 down, 1 to go.
A.W. (e7d72e) — 12/10/2009 @ 5:55 am#16 A.W.:
Not really.
The three “main” datasets are CRU and NOAA/GHCN, both (mostly) based on NASA/Goddard (GISS).
East Anglia says they “lost” theirs (CRU).
The problem at Darwin is that there were (only) 3 temperature monitoring sites in the 1897-1992 records, and that the data collected there doesn’t appear to correlate to the IPCC presentation of that data (with a few more stations added in the 1990-2000 timeframe).
The data in Australia is apparently part of the NOAA/GHCN set, although Wijborn is quoted identifying it ambiguously as NASA (GHCN).
The real problem is that the folks associated with East Anglia are saying “We don’t have any real data, because we lost it. So you just have to trust us when we say that our conclusions are valid.”
That isn’t any different than me telling you that I have some prime real estate two hundred miles west of Los Angeles, but you’ll have to trust me because I can’t find it at the moment.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 12/10/2009 @ 6:18 amWattsUpWithThat published a compelling piece today putting temperature results underlying the “hockey stick” theory in a some context, a context that suggest we’ll need our down coats a lot more than our bathing suits in future years.
MTF (17058c) — 12/10/2009 @ 8:40 amIf you have a look at this graph of Greenland icecap temperatures from ice core samples, you will see that despite some brief periods of warming, we have been in a significant cooling trend since about 0 AD. There is nothing “alarming” or “unusual” about today’s temperatures and we are still in one of the coolest periods of this interglacial despite the modern warming.
crosspatch (6adcc9) — 12/10/2009 @ 9:28 am> That isn’t any different than me telling you that I have some prime real estate two hundred miles west of Los Angeles, but you’ll have to trust me because I can’t find it at the moment.
Nice. I’ll buy that for a dollar.
Along the same lines as “My dog ate my global warming homework”.
O Bloody Hell (8ca3a3) — 12/10/2009 @ 1:35 pm> In many ways this is similar to the process money launderers use.
Except less legitimate…
O Bloody Hell (8ca3a3) — 12/10/2009 @ 1:38 pmThis may get me flamed here, but the true believers are acting like religous zealots. The CRU is destroying the holy text to eliminate inconvenient facts. Meanwhile, Al Gore is defending global warming by claiming “Well what do you think is causing it!?” — in effect claiming that the skeptics must not only prove global warming wrong, but that they must prove a counter-explaination for the hockey stick phenomenon (which might be a bit difficult, since the hockey stick was invented out of thin air).
Sean P (4fde41) — 12/10/2009 @ 5:44 pmSean, you’re right. This is a religion to many people. Al Gore is making hundreds of millions of dollars, just as GE and the democrats in general are (and sadly, quite a few Republicans). So I think they are more like the Tammy Fae Bakers of the religion.
I can’t prove Jesus is the son of God. I know it, but if I demanded people prove he doesn’t, and compared them to Nazis if they say they are skeptical, I’d sure resemble these global warming alarmists.
Dustin (44f8cb) — 12/10/2009 @ 5:48 pmI’m fear that the Darwin Zero article referenced here is not a sign of scientific misconduct. Rather, it appears to show how easy it is to misinterpret the results of the messy and complex process that some climatologists use in an honest attempt to improve the quality of their data.
I say this as one very skeptical of the AGW alarmism.
To me, the Darwin data is an example of how untrustworthy the actual data is, not how untrustworthy most of the scientists trying to use it are.
The temperature data supporting the hockey stick is of poor quality. Not all scientists adjusting it are doing so for dishonest reasons or using dishonest methods. They just have lousy stuff to work with.
The ones you have to watch out for are those who cheat (as in ClimateGate papers), and more importantly, those who exaggerate the accuracy of their data.
Let’s not cry wolf every time we see a puppy!
John Moore (7198c0) — 12/10/2009 @ 8:03 pm#24 John Moore:
I don’t think that anyone is: however, not only is the data tenuous, but it certainly appears (in the case of Darwin, anyway) that the data is being manipulated in such a way as to favor the desired result.
That’s not necessarily malpractice, but when you refuse (or are unable) to release the raw data it becomes so.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 12/10/2009 @ 8:37 pmDustin, as someone who watched segments of PTL, I can say for certainty that… it’s Bakker.
John Hitchcock (3fd153) — 12/10/2009 @ 9:23 pm#24 – The fact that the Darwin mainpulation favors the desired result is not evidence that it is malpractice – the possibility of coincidence is quite high.
As for the raw data… if they are refusing to release it, they should – no question about that.
If they can’t release it, well, that’s too bad. However, it’s more likely a sign of sloppiness with what didn’t use to be such important information (pre global warming) – something understandable if regrettable.
The time to call it a wolf is either when they refuse to release the information (and I suspect the critical missing information is the adjustments), or when they do release the adjustments and there is no plausible scientific reason for them.
John Moore (7198c0) — 12/10/2009 @ 10:41 pmJohn Moore – If carbon dioxide is only 0.04% of our atmosphere and the anthropogenic portion just a fraction of that, even accepting greenhouse theory, it’s tough to attribute global warming to just man’s impact on greenhouse gases. The logic is not there and the climate modeler’s models don’t work with history. There is not unanimty of scientific opinion over historical levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and we have only been taking direct measurements since the 1950s.
Personally I think it’s a more humble position to admit there’s a lot we don’t know about climate rather than trying to pin everything on humans, especially when there is more than ample evidence of scientists colluding to fudge the results and drown out skeptical voices. Science is not done by consensus. Let’s have an open and transparent process rather than the sham we have had so far.
daleyrocks (718861) — 12/10/2009 @ 11:10 pm#28 – The anthropogenic contribution of CO2 appears to be about 100ppm. Don’t be fooled by the small contribution, though. CO2 has a known greenhouse effect (ignoring feedback) – from relatively straight-forward radiative physics calculations, not by climatological measurements. That effect is 1.2C increase for each doubling of the CO2. We have so far (apparently) increased CO2 35%. Thus one would expect – just from the physics – an increase (if my calcs are right) of .52 degrees C. In fact, I compute the following values of temperature change from my (hopefully right) little formula:
delta-T = 1.2*LOGbase2(co2/baseline-co2)
CO2 delta-T
285 0 baseline
385 .52 now
570 1.2 doubling
1140 2.4 doubling twice
Obviously I’m taking someone’s word for the past level of CO2, but the skeptics I know who have looked into that issue more than I have don’t dispute that level (this includes PhD climatologist skeptics, and others outside the field). So on the level of CO2, I’m taking their word for it since the skeptics and the advocates are in agreement.
Hence my personal view is that humans have made a minor contribution to increasing the temperature. Note, however, that this is a long ways from the alarmist view that we have made a major change (the hockey stick) and that we are going to wreck things.
I am with you on that – we need to be humble about that because we really don’t know how to forecast climate worth a damn, and we aren’t very good at even reconstructing past climate.
John Moore (992b14) — 12/11/2009 @ 9:34 amSteve McIntyre <a href="http://climateaudit.org/2009/12/10/ipcc-and-the-trick/"puts the "Hide the Decline" email in context … and the result does not make the AGW crowd look any better.
SPQR (c1f32d) — 12/11/2009 @ 10:51 amJohn Moore, I don’t have the figure at hand, but there is a point where all of the wavelength window is blocked by CO2 and the increases in “greenhouse effect” from CO2 stop. CO2 is not itself the most significant “greenhouse” gas.
SPQR (c1f32d) — 12/11/2009 @ 10:53 am#27 John Moore:
No matter the effect of the Darwin manipulations, it becomes malpractice the moment there is refusal to release the underlying data.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 12/11/2009 @ 11:23 am#31 SPQR writes “John Moore, I don’t have the figure at hand, but there is a point where all of the wavelength window is blocked by CO2 and the increases in “greenhouse effect” from CO2 stop. CO2 is not itself the most significant “greenhouse” gas.”
That was the original theory way back when they started trying to calculate the one dimensional radiative model for CO2. Then they realized that even though it is blocked at a particular altitude, the CO2 itself is radiating isotropically, so the next level up, with an unsaturated radiation window starts absorbing. This realization made the calculation a lot simpler, and the saturation point much, much higher. I believe the saturation is reached at about +15C of simple (predicted by the one dimensional model) warming above the current level. That means at a CO2 level roughly 4000 times higher than today (because each 1.2C is a DOUBLING) – this if my quick math is right.
Hence until we get 15C warmer (without positive feedback), CO2 *is* a significant greenhouse gas – significant to the effect that each doubling of the CO2 produces a global temp increase of 1.2C.
John Moore (992b14) — 12/11/2009 @ 1:55 pmIt does, indeed. That does not tell us anything, however, about global warming, other than what we already knew (but many didn’t): the surface temperature data is lousy.
Of course, we are early in all of this. ClimateGate is only a month old. It may take quite a while for various organizations to even find and organize their data for release – now that the new world is upon us where scientists in this critical field are expected to make their data publicly available.
Then, and only then will we know where and how much folks have been fudging (either intentionally or out of unconscious data weeding as described by Feynman about the Millikan experiment).
Meanwhile, the satellites and the ocean sensors will be continuing to gather much more useful data.
One of the biggest problems I have with the alarmists is that they are making ridiculously certain pronouncements before much of the good quality data is available.
John Moore (992b14) — 12/11/2009 @ 1:59 pm