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The People Versus the Climate Research Unit (CRU) by Willis Eschenbach

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The People Versus the Climate Research Unit (CRU) by Willis Eschenbach The People Versus the Climate Research Unit (CRU) by Willis Eschenbach As far as I know, I am the person who made the original Freedom Of Information Act to CRU that started getting all this stirred up. I was trying to get access to the taxpayer funded raw data out of which they built the global temperature record. I was not representing anybody, or trying to prove a point. I am not funded by Mobil, I’m an amateur scientist with a lifelong interest in the weather and climate. I’m not "directed" by anyone, I’m not a member of a right-wing conspiracy. I’m just a guy trying to move science forwards. People seem to be missing the real issue in the discussion of the hacked CRU climate emails. Gavin Schmidt over at RealClimate keeps distracting people by saying the issue is the scientists being nasty to each other, and what Trenberth said, and the Nature "trick", and the like. Those are side trails that he would like people to follow. To me, the main issue is the frontal attack on the heart of science, which is transparency. Science works by one person making a claim, and backing it up with the data and methods that they used to make the claim. Other scientists then attack the claim by (among other things) trying to replicate the first scientist’s work. If they can’t replicate it, it doesn’t stand. So blocking my Freedom of Information request for his data allowed Phil Jones to claim that his temperature record was valid science, even though it has never been scientifically examined. This is not just trivial gamesmanship, this is central to the very idea of scientific inquiry. This is an attack on the heart of science, by keeping people who disagree with you from ever checking your work and seeing if your math is correct. The recent release of the hacked emails from CRU has provided me with an amazing insight into the attempt by myself, Steve McIntyre, and others from CA and elsewhere to obtain the raw station data from Phil Jones at the CRU. We wanted the data that was used to make the global temperature record that is relied on to claim "unprecedented" global warming. This is a chronological account of my attempts to get that vital data released to public view. A few housekeeping notes first. While we don’t know if all of these emails are valid, the comments of the researchers involved such as Gavin Schmidt and Michael Mann clearly indicate that they think the emails are authentic. The emails certainly fit with my experience. I have only included the relevant parts of emails, and indicated where I have snipped text by an ellipsis (...). Numbers of the emails are in parentheses. "Codes" is shorthand for the computer programs used to analyze the data. CRU is the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (UEA), arguably the top climate research unit in the world. Dr. Phil Jones is the Director of CRU. CA is ClimateAudit, a web site run by Steve McIntyre that audits scientific papers for errors of all types. MM is Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, who have authored papers together. Michael Mann is one of the three authors, with Bradley and Hughes, of the now discredited iconic "Hockeystick" paper that was heavily promoted by the UN IPCC. The Hockeystick paper claimed this is the warmest period in six hundred years. The Hockeystick paper was discredited largely through the efforts of Steve McIntyre, so Michael Mann and the others do not like Steve at all. Gavin Schmidt is a climate modeler that runs a web site called RealClimate. This purports to be a scientific blog, but the CRU emails confirm that it is a well-controlled mouthpiece for Michael Mann and others who believe in anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming (AGW). RealClimate ruthlessly censors comments and questions, in stark contrast to ClimateAudit, which allows free expression of any scientific questions and ideas. (Although in response to the intense scrutiny caused by the emails, RealClimate immediately started accepting a number of opposing comments for the first time. This is a smart move, as newcomers will be fooled into thinking there is no censorship … but the emails prove otherwise.) The IPCC is the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. AR4 is the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (2007). WMO is the World Meteorological Organization, which collates and supplies weather information. FOI or FOIA is the UK Freedom of Information Act. The story actually starts with Warwick Hughes, an Australian climate researcher who had previously been in cordial contact with Phil Jones. I find only one email in the archive (0969308954) where Phil emails Warwick, from 2000. This is in response to some inconsistencies that Warwick had found in Phil’s work: Warwick Hughes to Phil Jones, September '04: Dear Phillip and Chris Folland (with your IPCC hat on), Some days ago Chris I emailed to Tom Karl and you replied re the grid cells in north Siberia with no stations, yet carrying red circle grid point anomalies in the TAR Fig 2.9 global maps. I even sent a gif file map showing the grid cells barren of stations greyed out. You said this was due to interpolation and referred me to Phillip and procedures described in a submitted paper. In the last couple of days I have put up a page detailing shortcomings in your TAR Fig 2.9 maps in the north Siberian region, everything is specified there with diagrams and numbered grid points. [1] One issue is that two of the interpolated grid cells have larger anomalies than the parent cells !!!!????? This must be explained. [2] Another serious issue is that obvious non-homogenous warming in Olenek and Verhojansk is being interpolated through to adjoining grid cells with no stations, like cancer. [3] The third serious issue is that the urbanization affected trend from the Irkutsk grid cell neare Lake Baikal, looks to be interpolated into its western neighbour. I am sure there are many other cases of this, 2 and 3 happening. Best regards, Warwick Hughes (I have sent this to CKF) Phil to Warwick, same email: Warwick, I did not think I would get a chance today to look at the web page. I see what boxes you are referring to. The interpolation procedure cannot produce larger anomalies than neighbours (larger values in a single month). If you have found any of these I will investigate. If you are talking about larger trends then that is a different matter. Trends say in Fig 2.9 for the 1976-99 period require 16 years to have data and at least 10 months in each year. It is conceivable that at there are 24 years in this period that missing values in some boxes influence trend calculation. I would expect this to be random across the globe. Warwick, Been away. Just checked my program and the interpolation shouldn’t produce larger anomalies than the neighbouring cells. So can you send me the cells, months and year of the two cells you’ve found ? If I have this I can check to see what has happened and answer (1). As for (2) and (3) we compared all stations with neighbours and these two stations did not have problems when the work was done (around 1985/6). I am not around much for the next 3 weeks but will be here most of this week and will try to answer (1) if I get more details. If you have the names of stations that you’ve compared Olenek and Verhojansk with I would appreciate that. Cheers Phil OK, so far we have a couple of scientists discussing issues in a scientific work, usual tone, no problem. But as he found more inconsistencies, in order to understand what was going on, in 2005 Warwick asked Phil for the dataset that was used to create the CRU temperature record. Phil Jones famously replied: Subject: Re: WMO non respondo … Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it. … Cheers Phil Hmmm … not a good start. Or as they say in the novel "1984", double-plus ungood. Science can only progress if there is a free exchange of scientific data. The scientific model works like this: • A scientist makes claims, and reveals the data and methods he used to come to his conclusions. • Other scientists who don’t agree attack the claim by (inter alia) seeing if they can replicate the result, using the first scientist’s data and methods. • If the claims cannot be replicated, the claim is adjudged to be false. Obviously, if the data or the methods are kept secret, the claims cannot be verified. Attacking other scientist’s claims is what what scientists do, that's their job description. This adversarial system is the heart of science. Phil Jones refusing scientific data because someone will attack it is an oxymoron, of course they will attack it. That's science. When I found out about Phil Jones saying this, I couldn’t believe it. I thought, a scientist can’t do that, can he? He can't refuse to reveal his data. This is science, not hide and seek. I literally didn't think Jones had been quoted correctly. So to find out, I wrote to the University of East Anglia (of which the CRU is a Department) on September 8, 2006, saying: I would like to obtain a list of the meteorological stations used in the preparation of the HadCRUT3 global temperature average, and the raw data for those stations.
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