Smokong Gun in Climategate Emails

[IanC]

When Results Go Bad … | Watts Up With That?

Here is an interesting series of emails from the hacked file. Note that is between CRU's Jones and Trenberth and a non-denier scientist who was looking to clear up some discrepancies he found while trying to replicate findings in the IPCC report.

There was no animosity, just questions that seemingly had no honest answers from CRU. I prefer to think of the bigwigs of AGW as simply arrogant, incompetent and petty but there certainly could be a case made for dishonesty after the fact by the way they stonewalled and cover up.

For those who still think that the climate scientists are within their rights to hold back data and computer code, it is very odd that those pesky bloggers seem to find basic errors in AGW work whenever they get a chance to look at it. DailyTech - Blogger Finds Y2K Bug in NASA Climate Data . Funny how a blogger has to reverse engineer the code from the data, and then inform NASA about their mistake.

 

[Old Rocks]

That site is pure bullshit. 1934 was only the warmest year for the US, about 2% of the Earth's surface. For the rest of the world, the warmest years were 1998 or 2005.

Climategate Redux — The Green Grok

Turns out, the InterAcademy’s findings are far from sensational — much like earlier related climategate studies, no findings of misconduct; only recommendations that the organization:

“fundamentally reform its management structure and strengthen its procedures to handle ever larger and increasingly complex climate assessments" (as noted in the press release),

"strengthen and enforce its procedure for the use of unpublished and non-peer-reviewed literature" [pdf] and

find ways to better ensure the "full range of thoughtful scientific views" (including those that disagree with the reports' conclusions) are included and documented.
Pretty ho hum in the these days of “in your face” news and discourse, so I guess it’s not all that surprising that stories like this (and the retraction by the Sunday Times of London of an inaccurate report by the paper of an inaccuracy in the IPCC report) will receive little or no play. (NPR's On the Media did an entire show this weekend on how inaccuracies in published news reports can have a much more lasting impression on the public than the corrections to those inaccuracies.)

 

[Old Rocks]

1934 is the hottest year on record

1934 - hottest year on record

"In August 2007, Steve McIntyre noticed a strange discontinuity in US temperature data, occurring around January 2000. McKintyre notified NASA who acknowledged the problem as an 'oversight' that would be fixed in the next data refresh. The warmest year on US record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place." (Daily Tech).

What the science says...
Select a level... Basic Intermediate
Globally, 1934 is the 47th hottest year on record.

The year 1934 was a very hot year in the United States, ranking third behind 2006 and 1998. However, global warming takes into account temperatures over the entire planet. The U.S. accounts for only 2% of the earth's total land area. Despite the U.S. heat in 1934, the year was not so hot over the rest of the planet, and is barely holding onto a place in the hottest 50 years in the global rankings (today it ranks 47th).

Climate change skeptics like to point to 1934 in the U.S. as proof that recent hot years are not unusual. However, this is another example of "cherry-picking" a single fact that supports a claim, while ignoring the rest of the data. Globally, the ten hottest years on record have all occurred since 1998, with 2007 as the hottest. Right now 2010 is on track to join the top ten, which will knock 2004 off of the list.

The fact that there were hot years in some parts of the world in the past is a weak argument against climate change. There will always be regional temperature variations as well as variations from year to year. These happened in the past, and they will continue. The problem with climate change is that on average, when looking at the entire world, the long term trend shows an unmistakable increase in global surface temperatures, in a way that is likely to dramatically alter the planet.

 

[Old Rocks]

RealClimate: 1934 and all that

The U.S. annual (January-December) mean temperature is slightly warmer in 1934 than in 1998 in the GISS analysis (Plate 6). This contrasts with the USHCN data, which has 1998 as the warmest year in the century. In both cases the difference between 1934 and 1998 mean temperatures is a few hundredths of a degree. The main reason that 1998 is relatively cooler in the GISS analysis is its larger adjustment for urban warming. In comparing temperatures of years separated by 60 or 70 years the uncertainties in various adjustments (urban warming, station history adjustments, etc.) lead to an uncertainty of at least 0.1°C. Thus it is not possible to declare a record U.S. temperature with confidence until a result is obtained that exceeds the temperature of 1934 by more than 0.1°C.

More importantly for climate purposes, the longer term US averages have not changed rank. 2002-2006 (at 0.66 ºC) is still warmer than 1930-1934 (0.63 ºC – the largest value in the early part of the century) (though both are below 1998-2002 at 0.79 ºC). (The previous version – up to 2005 – can be seen here).

In the global mean, 2005 remains the warmest (as in the NCDC analysis). CRU has 1998 as the warmest year but there are differences in methodology, particularly concerning the Arctic (extrapolated in GISTEMP, not included in CRU) which is a big part of recent global warmth. No recent IPCC statements or conclusions are affected in the slightest.

 

[IanC]

Wow! That's got you pissed, eh Old Rocks? Your buddies are as sleasy as a used car salesman but you still want to stand up for them. And NASA still made the mistake, didn't they? And in case you didn't notice, when NASA 'corrected' the results, they changed all the pre-y2k numbers rather than the later ones. What's up with that?

 

[Old Rocks]

OK, Ian, you would rather believe that the vast majority of the scientists in the world would lie about there research than accept evidence that contradicts 'the way things ought to be'. You gave me a site on another post that you labeled as from one source, and it was from another. The SPPI is a political site, not a scientific one. It is not peer reviewed, and most of the articles it publishes are pure bullshit.

Yes, outright lies and lies like '1934 was the warmest year' without specifying that was only for the US, do piss me off. Especially when I know full well that the person posting the lie knows better. You want to front for idiocy, OK. That is your perogotive. But I will continue to name you for the idiot you are.

 

[IanC]

Hey- the article printed the emails, your heros were the ones writing them.

Why did NASA change all the pre-y2k numbers and change 'history'?

 

[IanC]

Hey Old Rocks- the OP linked to a series of emails from a climate scientist to Trenberth and Jones describing his difficulty in reproducing the IPCC results.

[Karlen] In attempts to reconstruct the temperature I find an increase from the early 1900s to ca 1935, a trend down until the mid 1970s and so another increase to about the same temperature level as in the late 1930s.

A distinct warming to a temperature about 0.5 deg C above the level 1940 is reported in the IPCC diagrams. I have been searching for this recent increase, which is very important for the discussion about a possible human influence on climate, but I have basically failed to find an increase above the late 1930s.

And your response was to rant and rave about America only being 2% of the world and so it doesn't matter if 1934 was hotter there. Why did you not address the issue of Prof Karlen being unable to reproduce Jones' published IPCC report on northern europe?

The temperature data from around the world is being scrutinized and seemingly every month another article comes out that points to major discrepancies in the manipulation of historical records, all in the direction increased rate of warming.

this months example- Australian Temperatures in cities adjusted up by 70%!? « JoNova

Does it not concern you that the insulated group that forms the elite of climate science, that shuns discourse from skeptics and statisticians alike, is using manipulated data in awkward and incorrect ways to promote the goal of AGW? Why do articles in the media and major reports such as those presented by the IPCC never publish the large uncertainties present, and then when called out for it, point to a paragraph in a climate journal as proof that they were not trying to mislead the public? Why was the Hockey Stick Graph flouted in public when the principals knew the large uncertainties involved? Very interesting indeed, and very bad for the reputation of science. The ends do not justify the means, especially in climate science.

 

[westwall]

Hey Old Rocks- the OP linked to a series of emails from a climate scientist to Trenberth and Jones describing his difficulty in reproducing the IPCC results.

[Karlen] In attempts to reconstruct the temperature I find an increase from the early 1900s to ca 1935, a trend down until the mid 1970s and so another increase to about the same temperature level as in the late 1930s.

A distinct warming to a temperature about 0.5 deg C above the level 1940 is reported in the IPCC diagrams. I have been searching for this recent increase, which is very important for the discussion about a possible human influence on climate, but I have basically failed to find an increase above the late 1930s.

And your response was to rant and rave about America only being 2% of the world and so it doesn't matter if 1934 was hotter there. Why did you not address the issue of Prof Karlen being unable to reproduce Jones' published IPCC report on northern europe?

The temperature data from around the world is being scrutinized and seemingly every month another article comes out that points to major discrepancies in the manipulation of historical records, all in the direction increased rate of warming.

this months example- Australian Temperatures in cities adjusted up by 70%!? « JoNova

Does it not concern you that the insulated group that forms the elite of climate science, that shuns discourse from skeptics and statisticians alike, is using manipulated data in awkward and incorrect ways to promote the goal of AGW? Why do articles in the media and major reports such as those presented by the IPCC never publish the large uncertainties present, and then when called out for it, point to a paragraph in a climate journal as proof that they were not trying to mislead the public? Why was the Hockey Stick Graph flouted in public when the principals knew the large uncertainties involved? Very interesting indeed, and very bad for the reputation of science. The ends do not justify the means, especially in climate science.

Nope. Doesn't concern him in the slightest.