25 November, 2009

CRU Hack “Deniers” Read Here

You know who you are. You have written things like this in the last few days:

This excerpt of excerpts demonstrates my point about e-mail conversations being "out of context" even when messages are quoted in full. People writing to colleagues about "using a trick" to "hide a temperature decline," or that the death of a pesky annoyance is "cheering news," are engaging in things we all do with friends and colleagues.

That’s an actual quote from a mailing list I participate in. I’ve removed the name of the author out of a sense of fair play.

Here’s my response on the mailing list in it’s entirety.

No, I'm tired of seeing this defense. Yes, there are lots of the e-mails that are no big deal, and at the worst just show petty childishness. But, to get the idea that that's the worst of it, you'd have to selectively choose only the least damaging e-mails to review.
Jones and Mann deserve to go down in history right beside Charles Dawson, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, and Clonaid. I'm not engaging in hyperbole here. There's some really bad stuff here, and only willful blindness would allow anyone to come to any other conclusion.

Warning, this is going to be very long. I'm going to quote a lot of stuff in-line.


Here: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=146&filename=939154709.txt


From: Tim Osborn <t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,imacadam@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Briffa et al. series for IPCC figure
Date: Tue, 05 Oct 1999 16:18:29 +0100
Cc: k.briffa@uea,p.jones@uea
Dear Mike and Ian
Keith has asked me to send you a timeseries for the IPCC multi-proxy
reconstruction figure, to replace the one you currently have. The data are
attached to this e-mail. They go from 1402 to 1995, although we usually
stop the series in 1960 because of the recent non-temperature signal that
is superimposed on the tree-ring data that we use.

Why is this a big deal? Simply put, the reason tree ring data is used is to extrapolate past temperature by comparing ring width with known temperature variations (i.e. after 1960). The recent data IS the link between thermometers and tree rings. Without the link, there's no reason to assume the older data is in any way representational of anything.


Here: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=891&filename=1212063122.txt


From: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: IPCC & FOI
Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 08:12:02 -0400
Reply-to: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

<x-flowed>
Hi Phil,

laughable that CA would claim to have discovered the problem. They would
have run off to the Wall Street Journal for an exclusive were that to
have been true.

I'll contact Gene about this ASAP. His new email is:
generwahl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

talk to you later,

mike

Phil Jones wrote:
>
>> Mike,
> Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
> Keith will do likewise. He's not in at the moment - minor family crisis.
>
> Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don't
> have his new email address.


Here Phil Jones is encouraging people to delete emails related to an FOI (freedom of information) request. At the very least this is unethical. At the most, it's criminal. You can't put a positive or even a non-negative spin on this.


Here: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=622&filename=1139521913.txt


From: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Tim Osborn <t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Keith Briffa
<k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: update
Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2006 16:51:53 -0500
Reply-to: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Cc: Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

<x-flowed>
guys, I see that Science has already gone online w/ the new issue, so we
put up the RC post. By now, you've probably read that nasty McIntyre
thing. Apparently, he violated the embargo on his website (I don't go
there personally, but so I'm informed).

Anyway, I wanted you guys to know that you're free to use RC in any way
you think would be helpful. Gavin and I are going to be careful about
what comments we screen through, and we'll be very careful to answer any
questions that come up to any extent we can. On the other hand, you
might want to visit the thread and post replies yourself. We can hold
comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think
they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you'd
like us to include.

You're also welcome to do a followup guest post, etc. think of RC as a
resource that is at your disposal to combat any disinformation put
forward by the McIntyres of the world. Just let us know. We'll use our
best discretion to make sure the skeptics dont'get to use the RC
comments as a megaphone...

RealClimate.org is supposed to be a clearinghouse blog for AGW. It was originally designed to be a rebuttal site to Steve McIntyre's
ClimateAudit.org, but it is also allegedly devoted to science, not opinion. And, as such, should be independent. Basically, what is being admitted here is that it is not an independent blog, and is under the control of CRU, and that Gavin and Mann will censor comments that don't fit the narrative. This has been a common complaint all over the blogosphere for years, that relevant, non-inflammatory, informative skeptic comments get censored. This one doesn't really make CRU look bad, but casts serious doubts on RealClimate.org. Are they a mouthpiece or interested in science? It's also interesting to compare, as ClimateAudit doesn't moderate comments at all. And here I thought healthy debate was part of science? Which side is engaging in debate, and which side is trying to shut it down?


Here: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=485&filename=1106338806.txt


From: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: FOIA
Date: Fri Jan 21 15:20:06 2005
Cc: Ben Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

Tom,
I'll look at what you've said over the weekend re CCSP.
I don't know the other panel members. I've not heard any
more about it since agreeing a week ago.
As for FOIA Sarah isn't technically employed by UEA and she
will likely be paid by Manchester Metropolitan University.
I wouldn't worry about the code. If FOIA does ever get
used by anyone, there is also IPR to consider as well.
Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people,
so I will be hiding behind them. I'll be passing any
requests onto the person at UEA who has been given a post to
deal with them.


More about ways to avoid responding to FOI requests. Once again, I have to ask why a legitimate scientific organization should be afraid of FOI? Here hey discuss that the code is intellectual property, and that they don't own the data so they can't release it. If so, CRU should never have entered into such agreements. I can't say this too often. If you don't have reproducible results, you don't have science. If you can't release the data and code, even under NDA (non-disclosure agreement), then your results are not reproducible. If you're afraid of FOI, then you're afraid of the truth.


The FOI e-mails are exceptionally damning, and there's a lot of them. Read the FOI link (http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/willis-vs-the-cru-a-history-of-foi-evasion/) I gave in another post. CRU can't spin their way out of this, and pretending it's not extremely bad is just that: pretending.


Here: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=813&filename=1188557698.txt


From: Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: Fwd: review of E&E paper on alleged Wang fraud
Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2007 06:54:58 -0600

<x-flowed>
Phil,

Seems to me that Keenan has a valid point. The statements in the papers
that he quotes seem to be incorrect statements, and that someone (WCW
at the very least) must have known at the time that they were incorrect.

Whether or not this makes a difference is not the issue here.

Tom.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Phil Jones wrote:
>
> Tom,
> Just for interest! Keep quiet about both issues.
>
> In touch with Wei-Chyung Wang. Just agreed with him
> that I will send a brief response to Peiser. The allegation by Keenan
> has
> gone to SUNY. Keenan's about to be told by SUNY that submitting this has
> violated a confidentiality agreement he entered into with SUNY when he
> sent the complaint. WCW has nothing to worry about, but it still
> unsettling!


This is about covering up fraud. There's no other way to describe it. One of the problems with CRU's thermometer data has been the concept of "urban heat islands" (UHI). In other words, for various reasons, the temperature is higher in cities than in the country. No big deal. If you're interested in long term temperature data, just use thermometers from outside cities. Of course, you'd have to use thermometers that stay outside cities, and don't become inside the cities over time as the cities grow. That might make the data unreliable. Well, Wang's (WCW) paper in question said that there was no issue with such thermometers. It turned out to be fraudulent research. Wigley is agreeing here that it's fraudulent, but Jones is telling him to keep quiet about it and that WCW has nothing to worry about.


Here: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=136&filename=938018124.txt

This one is long, but is useful for context.


From: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Keith Briffa <k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "Folland, Chris"
<ckfolland@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, 'Phil Jones' <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: RE: IPCC revisions
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 12:35:24 -0400
Cc: tkarl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

Thanks for your response Keith,

For all:

Walked into this hornet's nest this morning! Keith and Phil have both
raised some very good points. And I should point out that Chris, through no
fault of his own, but probably through ME not conveying my thoughts very
clearly to the
others, definitely overstates any singular confidence I have in my own
(Mann et al) series. I believe strongly that the strength in our discussion
will be the fact that certain key features of past climate estimates are
robust among a number of quasi-independent and truly independent estimates,
each
of which is not without its own limitations and potential biases. And I
certainly don't want to abuse my lead authorship by advocating my own work.

I am perfectly amenable to keeping Keith's series in the plot, and can ask
Ian Macadam (Chris?) to add it to the plot he has been preparing (nobody
liked my own color/plotting conventions so I've given up doing this
myself).
The key thing is making sure the series are vertically aligned in a
reasonable
way. I had been using the entire 20th century, but in the case of Keith's,
we need to align the first half of the 20th century w/ the corresponding
mean
values of the other series, due to the late 20th century decline.

So if Chris and Tom (?) are ok with this, I would be happy to add Keith's
series. That having been said, it does raise a conundrum: We demonstrate
(through comparining an exatropical averaging of our nothern hemisphere
patterns with Phil's more extratropical series) that the major
discrepancies between Phil's and our series can be explained in terms of
spatial sampling/latitudinal emphasis (seasonality seems to be secondary
here, but probably explains much of the residual differences). But that
explanation certainly can't rectify why Keith's series, which has similar
seasonality
*and* latitudinal emphasis to Phil's series, differs in large part in
exactly the opposite direction that Phil's does from ours. This is the
problem we
all picked up on (everyone in the room at IPCC was in agreement that this
was a problem and a potential distraction/detraction from the reasonably
concensus viewpoint we'd like to show w/ the Jones et al and Mann et al
series.

So, if we show Keith's series in this plot, we have to comment that
"something else" is responsible for the discrepancies in this case. Perhaps
Keith can
help us out a bit by explaining the processing that went into the series
and the potential factors that might lead to it being "warmer" than the
Jones
et al and Mann et al series?? We would need to put in a few words in this
regard. Otherwise, the skeptics have an field day casting
doubt on our ability to understand the factors that influence these
estimates
and, thus, can undermine faith in the paleoestimates. I don't think that
doubt is scientifically justified, and I'd hate to be the one to have
to give it fodder!


This is a case of politics trumping science. By itself, it's not awful. It's not good, but it's not awful. However, note the bit about Keith's series showing the late 20th century decline. This is the decline that Jones talks about hiding in one of the more infamous e-mails from this series, and is the link that shows you that the phrase "hide the decline" is not just an innocent turn of phrase, but an example that the process has been corrupted. The problem here is that they have some actual data that doesn't fit their agenda, so they're working on making it fit, and for justifying why it doesn't fit. Perhaps a scientist without an agenda might wonder if the fact that it doesn't fit is significant and further wonder if it means that incorrect assumptions have been made. Mann doesn't seem to want to go there, and wants to make sure that no one else goes there either.


Once again, what this shows is that CRU is an organization where opinions rule, not science.


Here: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=914&filename=1219239172.txt


From: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: Revised version the Wengen paper
Date: Wed Aug 20 09:32:52 2008
Cc: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

Gavin,
Almost all have gone in. Have sent an email to Janice re the regional
freshening.
On the boreholes I've used mostly Mike's revised text, with bits of
yours making it read a little better.
Thinking about the final bit for the Appendix. Keith should be in later, so
I'll check with him - and look at that vineyard book. I did rephrase the
bit
about the 'evidence' as Lamb refers to it. I wanted to use his phrasing -
he
used this word several times in these various papers. What he means is his
mind and its inherent bias(es).
Your final sentence though about improvements in reviewing and
traceability is a bit of a hostage to fortune. The skeptics will try to
hang on to
something, but I don't want to give them something clearly tangible.
Keith/Tim still getting FOI requests as well as MOHC and Reading. All our
FOI officers have been in discussions and are now using the same exceptions
not to respond - advice they got from the Information Commissioner. As an
aside and just between us, it seems that Brian Hoskins has withdrawn
himself
from the WG1 Lead nominations. It seems he doesn't want to have to deal
with
this hassle.
The FOI line we're all using is this. IPCC is exempt from any countries
FOI - the
skeptics
have been told this. Even though we (MOHC, CRU/UEA) possibly hold relevant
info
the IPCC is not part our remit (mission statement, aims etc) therefore we
don't
have an obligation to pass it on.
Cheers
Phil


More on hiding from FOI requests. They sound like the mob trying to figure out how to weasel out of subpoenas. And they've received advice from the "Information Commissioner" on how to deal with them. My understanding is that the Information Commissioner should be enforcing FOI requests, not telling people how to get around them.


Here: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=12&filename=843161829.txt


From: Gary Funkhouser <gary@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: kyrgyzstan and siberian data
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 15:37:09 -0700

Keith,

Thanks for your consideration. Once I get a draft of the central
and southern siberian data and talk to Stepan and Eugene I'll send
it to you.

I really wish I could be more positive about the Kyrgyzstan material,
but I swear I pulled every trick out of my sleeve trying to milk
something out of that. It was pretty funny though - I told Malcolm
what you said about my possibly being too Graybill-like in evaluating
the response functions - he laughed and said that's what he thought
at first also. The data's tempting but there's too much variation
even within stands. I don't think it'd be productive to try and juggle
the chronology statistics any more than I already have - they just
are what they are (that does sound Graybillian). I think I'll have
to look for an option where I can let this little story go as it is.

Not having seen the sites I can only speculate, but I'd be
optimistic if someone could get back there and spend more time
collecting samples, particularly at the upper elevations.

Yeah, I doubt I'll be over your way anytime soon. Too bad, I'd like
to get together with you and Ed for a beer or two. Probably
someday though.


Here Funkhouser is admitting that there's no way he can twist this particular data set into showing global warming. He's tried everything he can think of, but the data refuses to budge. Now, in real science, you don't try to twist the data to fit your theory, you adjust your theory to fit the data. Once again, CRU shows that what they are engaging in is not science.


Here: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1016&filename=1254108338.txt


From: Tom Wigley <wigley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: 1940s
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:25:38 -0600
Cc: Ben Santer <santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

<x-flowed>
Phil,

Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly
explain the 1940s warming blip.

If you look at the attached plot you will see that the
land also shows the 1940s blip (as I'm sure you know).

So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC,
then this would be significant for the global mean -- but
we'd still have to explain the land blip.

I've chosen 0.15 here deliberately. This still leaves an
ocean blip, and i think one needs to have some form of
ocean blip to explain the land blip (via either some common
forcing, or ocean forcing land, or vice versa, or all of
these). When you look at other blips, the land blips are
1.5 to 2 times (roughly) the ocean blips -- higher sensitivity
plus thermal inertia effects. My 0.15 adjustment leaves things
consistent with this, so you can see where I am coming from.


More on adjusting the data to fit the theory. Wigley seems to think it's ok to adjust the ocean temperature by .15 degC. This way it still looks plausible, but might make it easier to explain this "blip" in temperatures in the 1940s. There's a word for what Wigley is doing here. Fraud.


Here: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1003&filename=1249503274.txt


From: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Kevin Trenberth <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Grant Foster
<tamino_9@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: ENSO blamed over warming - paper in JGR
Date: Wed Aug 5 16:14:34 2009
Cc: "J. Salinger" <j.salinger@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, James Annan
<jdannan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, >b.mullan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Gavin Schmidt
<gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Mike Mann ><mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>,
j.renwick@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

Hi all,
Agree with Kevin that Tom Karl has too much to do. Tom Wigley is semi
retired and like Mike Wallace may not be responsive to requests from JGR.
We have Ben Santer in common ! Dave Thompson is a good suggestion.
I'd go for one of Tom Peterson or Dave Easterling.
To get a spread, I'd go with 3 US, One Australian and one in Europe.
So Neville Nicholls and David Parker.
All of them know the sorts of things to say - about our comment and
the awful original, without any prompting.

Cheers
Phil
At 15:50 05/08/2009, Kevin Trenberth wrote:

Hi all
I went to JGR site to look for index codes, and I see that the offending
article has
been downloaded 128 times in past week (second). All the mnore reason to
get on with
it.
see below
Kevin
Grant Foster wrote:

Gentlemen,
I've completed most of the submission to JGR, but there are three
required entries I
hope you can help me with.
1) Keyword
Please provide 1 unique keyword

global temperatures, statistical methods, El Nino-Southern Oscillation,
global warming

2) Index Terms
Please provide 3 unique index terms

1600 GLOBAL CHANGE
1616 Climate variability
3309 Climatology
1694 Instruments and techniques



3) Suggested Reviewers to Include
Please list the names of 5 experts who are knowledgeable in your area and
could give
an unbiased review of your work. Please do not list colleagues who are
close associates,
collaborators, or family members. (this requires name, email, and
institution).


This e-mail discusses the perversion of the peer review process. The peers are supposed to be anonymous and unknown. The fact that we're getting names here is somewhat disturbing, as is the comment that they "know the sorts of things to say ... without any prompting". This isn't peer review, it's advocacy. Now Grant was specifically asked to provide names of potential peers, so the first is perhaps forgivable, but Jones' comment is still terrible.


Here: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=490&filename=1107454306.txt


From: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: "Michael E. Mann" <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: For your eyes only
Date: Thu Feb 3 13:11:46 2005

Mike,
It would be good to produce future series with and without the long
instrumental series and maybe the documentary ones as well. The long
measurements can then be used to validate the low-freq aspects at least
back to 1750, maybe earlier with the documentary. There are some key
warm decades (1730s, some in the 16th century) which the Moberg
reconstruction completely misses and gives the impression that all
years are cold between 1500 and 1750.
Away Feb 6-10 and 12-20 and 22-25 (last in Chicago - on the panel to
consider the vertical temp work of CCSP).
Cheers
Phil
Cheers
Phil
At 15:26 02/02/2005, you wrote:

Thanks Phil,
Yes, we've learned out lesson about FTP. We're going to be very careful in
the future
what gets put there. Scott really screwed up big time when he established
that directory
so that Tim could access the data.
Yeah, there is a freedom of information act in the U.S., and the
contrarians are going
to try to use it for all its worth. But there are also intellectual
property rights
issues, so it isn't clear how these sorts of things will play out
ultimately in the U.S.
I saw the paleo draft (actually I saw an early version, and sent Keith
some minor
comments). It looks very good at present--will be interesting to see how
they deal w/
the contrarian criticisms--there will be many. I'm hoping they'll stand
firm (I believe
they will--I think the chapter has the right sort of personalities for
that)...
Will keep you updated on stuff...
talk to you later,
mike
At 09:41 AM 2/2/2005, Phil Jones wrote:

Mike,
I presume congratulations are in order - so congrats etc !
Just sent loads of station data to Scott. Make sure he documents
everything better
this time ! And don't leave stuff lying around on ftp sites - you never
know who is
trawling
them. The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they
ever hear
there
is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the
file rather than
send
to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to
enquiries within
20 days? - our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request
will test it.
We also
have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent
me a worried
email when he heard about it - thought people could ask him for his model
code. He
has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that. IPR should be
relevant
here,
but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at UEA who'll say
we must adhere
to it !


More on data hiding and fear of FOI requests, including an admission from Jones that he'd delete the data before complying with one. The timeline is interesting here, because this specific data was eventually requested under FOI, and CRU claimed that it had been accidentally deleted. I think Jones would have a tough time convincing a jury that the deletion was in fact, accidental.


Now let's look at some of the comments from the code or from people working on it. This is a very small smattering of comments. I could write a book on the problems with this code.


I don't have links to the code. Either download the whole file yourself and look at it, or trust me that these files exist and have these comments.


From the file data4alps.pro:

IMPORTANT NOTE: The data after 1960 should not be used. The tree-ring
density' records tend to show a decline after 1960 relative to the summer
temperature in many high-latitude locations. In this data set this
"decline" has been artificially removed in an ad-hoc way, and this means
that data after 1960 no longer represent tree-ring density variations, but
have been modified to look more like the observed temperatures.


This is pretty much a smoking gun. It's admitting that the tree ring data doesn't match temperature observations recorded elsewhere. The purpose of using tree ring data is to establish temperature variations. If it doesn't do that, it can't be used!


From the file HARRY_READ_ME.txt:

OH **** THIS. It's Sunday evening, I've worked all weekend, and just when I
thought it was done I'm hitting yet another problem that's based on the
hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform data integrity, it's
just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they're found.


Remember science must be reproducible. Their data corruption makes their work unreproducible, even by them!


From the file mkp2correlation.pro:


    function
mkp2correlation,indts,depts,remts,t,filter=filter,refperiod=refperiod,$
    datathresh=datathresh
    ;
    ; THIS WORKS WITH REMTS BEING A 2D ARRAY (nseries,ntime) OF MULTIPLE
TIMESERIES
    ; WHOSE INFLUENCE IS TO BE REMOVED. UNFORTUNATELY THE IDL5.4
p_correlate
    ; FAILS WITH >1 SERIES TO HOLD CONSTANT, SO I HAVE TO REMOVE THEIR
INFLUENCE
    ; FROM BOTH INDTS AND DEPTS USING MULTIPLE LINEAR REGRESSION AND THEN
USE THE
    ; USUAL correlate FUNCTION ON THE RESIDUALS.
    ;

    pro maps12,yrstart,doinfill=doinfill
    ;
    ; Plots 24 yearly maps of calibrated (PCR-infilled or not) MXD
reconstructions
    ; of growing season temperatures. Uses "corrected" MXD - but shouldn't
usually
    ; plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look
closer to
    ; the real temperatures.
    ;

    ;
    ; Plots (1 at a time) yearly maps of calibrated (PCR-infilled or not)
MXD
    ; reconstructions
    ; of growing season temperatures. Uses "corrected" MXD - but shouldn't
usually
    ; plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look
closer to
    ; the real temperatures.


"Shouldn't usually plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures"???


Another smoking gun admitting to changing the data to fit the theory. This kind of comment appears all over the source code, as does the phrase "applies a very artificial correction for decline".


Look, if the data doesn't stand on its own merits and has to be artificially adjusted then it's useless. Let's say I have a room with walls that are 6', 5'8", 6'2", and 5'6". I've claimed for years that the room is square. But I get the actual measurements and it's not. Well, all I have to do is apply a very artificial correction to the data and all the walls are 5'10" and I can continue to say that it's a square. I'd be lying, but what's wrong with that?

24 November, 2009

Why Obama’s Agenda Must Be Defeated

Yes, I’m going to channel my inner Rush and say that I want President Barack Obama (D-USA) to fail.

I’ll go farther. It’s vital for the future of this country that he fail.

I’m going to talk about numbers and dollars. And you don’t need to be a Nobel Laureate like Paul Krugman to understand. I’m going to lay it out in an airtight argument that a 12 year old could understand. I may even try it out on my six year old.

Ok, here goes.

This country is on a fiscal path that is unsustainable. The United States is responsible for over one-fifth of the world’s debt. Our debt currently makes up over 60% of our annual GDP.  By 2019, it’s expected to exceed 80% of our annual GDP. And you can look at the pictures I’ve linked to before here. The curve isn’t getting any better by 2019, so this number is only going to continue to rise.

By 2019, the projected annual interest on the debt is over three-quarters of a trillion dollars! Remember that the largest deficit for a single year prior to this one was less than five hundred billion dollars.

But wait. It gets worse.

These projections don’t include ObamaCare and Cap-and-Trade. They don’t include estimates for the unexpected, i.e., another war in the Middle East, or another Katrina, or another recession. They assume low interest rates will continue forever. Every day we hear about another state or city that may go bankrupt. As much as I, as a fiscal conservative, don’t like the idea, I must face reality. The likelihood that the federal government will decide to bail out one more or more of these states or cities is high. The likelihood of another GM bailout is high. We’re talking about another stimulus package for this recession. There’s a very real possibility of an FHA bailout, which could cost in the trillions of dollars.

In other words, this 80% number is a best case scenario. The betting man would bet on a figure much worse.

And, there’s no indication at all that it’s going to get better after 2019. At what point does the debt burden become crushing? I don’t know. But I don’t want to find out either. Continuing on in this manner guarantees that we’ll find out at some point. Hopefully later, not sooner, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

We had a debt bigger than this right after WWII. But then we had options. We decreased our huge military spending. Defense spending is a pretty small part of the budget now, and projected to get even smaller. In fact, that $774B number for interest on the debt in 2019, accounts for 84% of the projected deficit. The only way we’re going to reduce that interest number is to reduce the debt itself.

So the problem is the debt-to-GDP ratio. There are exactly four ways to reduce it. I suspect that we’ll have to do at least two of them.

1) Grow the economy

2) Cut spending

3) Increase taxes

4) Print money

I’m no Nobel Laureate, but if there’s another way, I sure don’t know about it.

Let’s assume that we’re not going to buy our way out of this by printing obscene amounts of money. You get double and triple digit inflation that way and destroy the economy. Generally, that’s a last resort. And usually fails in any event.

So, looking at the other three in turn.

1) Grow the economy – This helps two ways. It increases GDP, and also increases tax receipts, which would lower the debt. However, the CBO estimates weak to average economic growth over the next 10 years, in the 2-3% annual range. Cap-and-trade and ObamaCare will likely make this worse, not better. Unless Obama has some magic as yet unrevealed plan to grow the economy, this doesn’t appear to be the way out.

2) Cut spending – Remember how I started this? Saying I want Obama to fail? Everything he wants to do as part of his domestic agenda will increase spending. Every. Single. Thing. And the spending increases get worse after 2019.

3) Increase taxes – Ugh. I hate this one. And you have to be careful whenever you increase taxes, because it’s likely going to make it harder to 1) Grow the economy. But we’re probably going to have to do it anyway. Unfortunately, the Democrats already plan on massive tax increases to make their domestic agenda appear feasible. We won’t be able to afford to make the necessary tax increases once the Democrats have already increased them to pay for Obama’s agenda. Note that I could’ve called this one “Increase tax receipts”, which can occur by actually lowering taxes. But nothing on the Obama agenda is going to make it more likely to increase tax receipts by lowering taxes, nor does it appear even remotely possible that he’d even consider such a thing as supply-side economics.

So, in summary, Obama’s agenda will prevent us from being able to solve the debt-to-GDP problem by any of the available means. Therefore his agenda must be defeated. The Democrats must be stopped. It is vital for the future of the country that they fail.

Tell me where I missed something. I dare you.

23 November, 2009

Amateur Hour at the CRU

Here’s an interesting excerpt from the CRU documents, from a file called “HARRY_READ_ME.txt”. The author appears to be someone trying to analyze/debug their code.

17. Inserted debug statements into anomdtb.f90, discovered that
a sum-of-squared variable is becoming very, very negative! Key
output from the debug statements:

OpEn=   16.00, OpTotSq=    4142182.00, OpTot= 7126.00
DataA val =       93, OpTotSq=       8649.00
DataA val =      172, OpTotSq=      38233.00
DataA val =      950, OpTotSq=     940733.00
DataA val =      797, OpTotSq=    1575942.00
DataA val =      293, OpTotSq=    1661791.00
DataA val =       83, OpTotSq=    1668680.00
DataA val =      860, OpTotSq=    2408280.00
DataA val =      222, OpTotSq=    2457564.00
DataA val =      452, OpTotSq=    2661868.00
DataA val =      561, OpTotSq=    2976589.00
DataA val =    49920, OpTotSq=-1799984256.00
DataA val =      547, OpTotSq=-1799684992.00
DataA val =      672, OpTotSq=-1799233408.00
DataA val =      710, OpTotSq=-1798729344.00
DataA val =      211, OpTotSq=-1798684800.00
DataA val =      403, OpTotSq=-1798522368.00
OpEn=   16.00, OpTotSq=-1798522368.00, OpTot=56946.00
forrtl: error (75): floating point exception
IOT trap (core dumped)

..so the data value is unbfeasibly large, but why does the
sum-of-squares parameter OpTotSq go negative?!!

The author here is apparently a high school student, or a McDonald’s reject. The problem is apparently a sum of squares, i.e. x*x + y*y + z*z + a*a, etc. And the person here is stunned that the values go negative. The answer is that the algorithm is obviously using 32-bit signed integers, and he’s experiencing overflow. The result at the point of overflow is 2,494,982,989. The maximum 32-bit signed integer is 2,147,483,647.

Here’s another blogger’s take, with an example of how this could happen, using 4-bit arithmetic for simplicity.

I’m a software developer. I’d hope that any person we’d hire out of college would know this, but the person here is clueless.

And we’re supposed to trust these people’s code and their math. We’re supposed to trust the entire future of the world to it.

Global Warming IS Man-made After All…

…and now we know which men. Their names are Jones, Mann, Osborn, Wigley, and Briffa.

When I was a 20-something, a couple men announced they had achieved “cold fusion”. This turned out to be a hoax. In the early part of this decade, a company called Clonaid announced that they had cloned a human being. This also turned out to be a hoax.

If you haven’t been paying attention the last few days, you’ve missed the biggest science story since these two. E-mails and data from the UK’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) were published without their knowledge or consent. This has been referred to constantly by what little media coverage it’s received as a “hack”. That seems to be wrong to me. This has all the smells of a “whistleblower” incident if you ask me. Someone on the inside decided they’d heard/seen enough. I could be wrong. We’ll see.

The folks at CRU are the prime movers and shakers of the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) crowd. There’s barely a speech given or paper written on the subject that doesn’t reference their work. Why does this matter?

Well, to put it bluntly, these folks can’t be trusted.

These e-mails discuss elimination of data that doesn’t support the thesis, destruction of records requested under Freedom of Information requests, discrediting critics and prevention of publication of their works.

Longtime readers of this blog will recall that a couple months ago, I wrote a post about possible faking of data in one of the main “hockey stick” graphs. The text of the e-mails pretty much confirms this speculation, and this exact issue is even discussed in this e-mail.

Does this mean that AGW isn’t real? No. In fact, the sad thing is these people have made real debate on this subject even harder. I wouldn’t believe any of them now if they told me “2+2=4”. With or without proof. I’ve seen their idea of “proof”.

Of course, this issue has been met with deafening silence from the MSM. The NYT has decided to comment, with one of the most laughable comments I have ever read from a “news organization”.

The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.

The NYT’s problem isn’t that these documents “were never intended for the public eye”. It’s that they’re An Inconvenient Truth.