Yesterday, Dr. Phil Jones – perhaps the most influential ‘Climate Alarmist’ scientist who headed up THE centre of ACC research, resigned. At least, he has stepped down temporarily (original report by AP, corrected with actual facts here), while there is a fraud investigation into his and his team’s treatment of the very data on which the IPCC reports (and the trillions of dollars in spending by the politicians – and setting up a ‘World Government’) is based.
Not mistakes, not errors – fraud!
And, unless a person is plugged into the blogosphere, they would be unlikely to hear about it. The mainstream media seems to think this is not worth reporting….
This whole ‘ClimateGate’ (oh, how I hate that term) is being swept under the carpet and whitewashed by those who are guilty, their friends, and journalists who don’t want to reveal (or, in many instances, don’t want to admit to themselves) just how deeply they failed to do their job and check the ‘facts’ they ‘reported’ with an impartial source and how easily they allowed themselves to be manipulated into reporting only one side of the ACC debate.
And, since only one side of the scientific debate was being reported, it was easy to pretend that there is a ‘consensus’ and that the ‘debate is settled’…
It does not help that a lot of the things that are at the heart of the scandal are not easily understandable by people who are not used to the ‘scientific method’ or the language used to describe ‘stuff’ when scientists talk amongst themselves. It seems that every field of human specialization develops its own jargon, as much to prove that the ‘insiders’ are ‘in’ as to elevate themselves (in their own eyes) above ‘the outsiders’. It’s human nature.
Here, this ‘jargon’ and ‘specific methodology’ makes it very difficult for the ‘outsider’ to understand exactly how rude and contemptuous some of the communication – published in the leaked (and, latest evidence available now suggests it was leaked by a whistle-blower and not illegally hacked by an outsider) emails – truly is.
I am referring to the ‘Accees to Information’ thread – specifically, to the one described by the ‘requestee’ himself, Willis Eschenbach.
OK – I will do my best to explain the depth of disrespect, arrogance and {insert expletive of your choice} attitude the CRU team in East Anglia has demonstrated.
Point #1.
Lots and lots of ‘surface temperature data’ has been collected. That is true.
Point #2
Most of this data is openly published at all kinds of official websites. That is also true.
Point #3
Some of this data is of poor quality – for all kinds of reasons. Anthony Watts has demonstrated this, through his photographic documentation as well as analysis of the ‘surface stations’, where he showed some of these were placed next to barbecues and heat vents… The Phil Jones and his team also admit there are problems with some of the stations: that is why they had only decided to use data from some stations, rejecting others.
Point #4
In order to re-produce the results that Dr. Phil and his team got – an integral part of the scientific peer-review process – Willis Eschenbach needed to know which of the stations were used in Dr. Phil’s CRU studies, and which were excluded.
In an ideal world, the CRU team would release openly not only the list of the stations whose data they actually used, they would also publish their selection criteria and the reasons for it. (That is, ‘only data from stations that are not located within 100m of artificial heat sources was used’, or ‘stations which have been re-located more than 5 times are excluded’ etc.) After all, scrutinizing the reasoning for including and excluding some data is very important, as it double checking that the ‘mechanics’ of including/excluding was done without errors.
The original FoI request:
In his original FoI request (September 2006), Willis Eschenbach asks the CRU for the actual data which was used in their study, so he can replicate their methodology.
The 1st CRU reply:
Some 6 months or so later, Mr. Eschenbach finally gets a response and is told to check the websites, as all the info is out there- somewhere !
“Your request for information received on 28 September now been considered and I can report that the information requested is available on non-UEA websites as detailed below.
…
Between them, these two datasets have the data which the UEA Climate Research Unit (CRU) uses to derive the HadCRUT3 analysis.
…
In accordance with S. 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 this letter acts as a Refusal Notice, and the reasons for exemption are as stated below
Exemption Reason
s. 21, Information accessible to applicant via other means Some information is publicly available on external websites
This is really, really an official ‘PFO’ – yes, the data is somewhere out there, in these here websites. Go ‘f’ yourself, because we’re not telling you which ones of these sets of data we used, which we threw away, or why!
It’s sort of like asking for the bus schedule and being told to look at the list of all the arrivals and departures at all the different bus stops, but without telling you which bus route goes to which stop…
The second FoI request:
Willis Eschenbach was outraged – and made a second FoI request in which he explained that he needed to know WHICH data was actually used, and why. He also pointed out that the two sites the response to his first FoI request have different numbers for many stations – and wants to know which ones the Dr. Jones’ team actually used.
The 2nd CRU response:
Interestingly enough, the 2nd response does not claim that the data is ‘all out there’, like the first one does. No!
The claim NOW is that 98% of the data is on these sites – and, again, ‘we’re not telling you which bits we chose to use and which to toss out, so go boil your head’. So look. BUT, 2% of the data we used isn’t there anyway, and it is too secret to tell you what it is. Go ask the people we got it from!
“In regards the “gridded network” stations, I have been informed that the Climate Research Unit’s (CRU) monthly mean surface temperature dataset has been constructed principally from data available on the two websites identified in my letter of 12 March 2007. Our estimate is that more than 98% of the CRU data are on these sites.
The remaining 2% of data that is not in the websites consists of data CRU has collected from National Met Services (NMSs) in many countries of the world. In gaining access to these NMS data, we have signed agreements with many NMSs not to pass on the raw station data, but the NMSs concerned are happy for us to use the data in our gridding, and these station data are included in our gridded products, which are available from the CRU web site. These NMS-supplied data may only form a very small percentage of the database, but we have to respect their wishes and therefore this information would be exempt from disclosure under FOIA pursuant to s.41. The World Meteorological Organization has a list of all NMSs.
So,which is it? Both responses can’t possibly be true!
Either the data is on these websites, as per the 1st response, or some of it isn’t, as per the 2nd reply.
Regardless, the main question, the subject of both the FoI requests (for either 100% or 98% of the data) has not been addressed! There is no list of stations which were actually used.
You’d think they had Dogbert write these responses!
AFTER A FEW MORE TRIES…
… the CRU finally claims they cannot hand over the list of stations, because they lost it.
Actually, they say they deleted it because they needed the space…
This really is inconcievable!
How could a prestigious place of scientific research loose the very data on which years of their research is based?
Going back to my ‘bus schedule’ parallel – this would be like saying that they can’t tell you which bus route goes to which stop, because they lost the list of routes!
OK – I am getting all worked up, and this post is getting rather long – my apologies. It’s just that this just boggles my mind: I just hope I have explained just how revealing this particular exchange of correspondence truly is.
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