When the Team is on the move, they can sometimes move with surprising speed, as you’ll see in today’s story.
Over the last month, we’ve seen multiple changes to the Mann SI, at first, without any notice. More recently, they’ve started to note the existence of changes, though, the changes themselves are typically not reported (in the sense of a list of before and after values) and the old files have been deleted when the change is made, even if the incorrect values were actually used in Mann et al 2008 (this happened with the lat-long reversal of the rain in Spain). Sometimes, the change notices themselves have not proved permanent: for example, the notice of the correction of the Schweingruber MXD locations, once on the website, has itself now been deleted.
Now that we have a little more experience with changes to Mann’s SI, I’d like to re-visit our experience with the first such incident, one where I got wrongfooted and both Gavin Schmidt and a couple of CA readers criticized me as a result. There’s an interesting backstory on exactly how I got wrongfooted, which may appeal to people interested in dating problems and arguably shows a surprising degree of coordination of the Team when on the move.
The dispute arose over my comments on Sep 4 and 5 about an inline response by Gavin Schmidt to RC comment #23 ( the comment timestamped Sep 4 9:18 am EDT, but the inline response does not have a timestamp), in which Gavin stated:
The raw data (before any infilling) is also available on the SI site, and so you can look for yourself.
As it happens, on Sep 4, between 11.33 and 11.35 am EDT, over 2 hours after the above comment was submitted, I visited the relevant directory at Mann’s website and did not observe the existence of non-infilled data at that time. Strangely enough, I have timestamped files on my computer which enable me to establish the exact time of this visit. Here is a screenshot from my computer showing timestamps of 3 downloads from Mann’s website (rtable1209, rtable1209late and itrdbmatrix), timestamped locally on my computer between 11.33 and 11.35 am EDT.
The screenshot of my directory also shows a subdirectory “proxy” timestamped Sep 5 9:11 am, which is when I downloaded the Sep 4 version of the “original” data. This directory now has a later timestamp on Mann’s website because Mann deleted the Sep 4 “original” data on the afternoon of Sep 5, inserting a new version of “original” data.
So when I read Gavin’s inline response to Comment #23 (some time on Sep 4), my assumption – and given my late morning inspection of Mann’s website, hardly an unreasonable assumption – was that he’d been wrongfooted by Mann and had simply been in error in his claim that non-infilled data was available at the SI. I had checked the SI late in the morning of Sep 4 and it wasn’t there. I certainly didn’t think that he was intentionally misrepresenting the situation; I simply assumed that he’d got the wrong impression – that sometimes happens.
By early the next morning (Sep 5), a reader had observed at CA that Mann had altered his SI and provided a link to a new directory which proved to contain non-infilled data. Although the timestamp was overwritten when later on Sep 5, Mann deleted the Sep 4 “original” data and replaced it with new “original” data, a CA reader had recorded the Sep 4 timestamp as 15:42, which I adopt here for my timeline.
Gavin subsequently asserted on Sep 5 that (1) he had verified that the non-infilled data was online prior to making his inline response to the 9:18 am comment, (2) he made his inline response to the 9:18 am comment when he approved the comment; (3) the approval and inline comment was some time after 9.18 am EDT. The inline comment was a finite time before 12:14 pm, because a comment on the RC thread at 12:14 pm refers to comment #25 (made after #23). Therefore, comment #23 had to have been approved and online long enough for the RC reader to have read the various new comments on the thread and composed a reply. The 12:14 pm comment is short and wouldn’t take much time to compose, so approval needn’t have been much before 12:14 pm.
There’s one more part of the puzzle – server time. When was 15:42? If it was EDT (as RC server time), this would be 3:42 pm and would have made it impossible for verification to have taken place prior to 12:14 pm. However, one CA reader hypothesized that Penn State server time was UTC and another CA reader was able to prove this. UTC which is 4 hours ahead of EDT and 15:42 converts to 11.42 am EDT.
Mann altered his data 7 minutes after I visited his site.
Perhaps critics will have a little more sympathy for my being wrongfooted on this. Surely even someone as diligent as me can’t check Mann’s website every 10 minutes to see if he’s changed it. And look at the near-military precision of the Team on the move.
| 11.35 am | SM visits Mann website. Non-infilled data not there. |
| 11:42 am | Mann inserts non-infilled data. |
| ~12.00 | High Noon: Frank Miller arrives on train, meets gang; gunfight breaks out between Gary Cooper and Miller gang. Grace Kelly returns to assist Gary Cooper. Gary and Grace defeat all 4 members of the Frank Miller gang |
| 12.03 | Schmidt verifies existence of non-infilled data at Mann’s website |
| 12.05 | Schmidt approves comment #23, inserting inline response. |
| 12:14 pm | RC comment mentioning comment #25 |
While the above timeline is pretty improbable, it does seem to be what happened. Based on this review, I’ve added inline comments to any of my earlier comments that now appear to have been incorrect.
In this case, I think that one can also conclude that Mann had emailed Schmidt notifying him of the alterations to the SI and directed him to the new location. And that Schmidt had information not available to the public when he visited Mann’s website. (It’s possible that it’s one more bizarre coincidence, but c’mon.) If Schmidt had received information about alterations to Mann’s website that was not publicly announced, then, in my opinion, he should have provided a forthright change notice in his inline response, agreeing that, yes, Mann’s original SI failed to include “original” data, but reporting that Mann had amended his SI on Sep 4 (referring to the date of the amendment) so that there was no uncertainty. In my opinion, Schmidt’s inline response falls well short of the form of notice that is appropriate for someone in possession of information not available to the public. (If Schmidt was not in possession of such information and this was one more coincidence, then this criticism would not apply.) Provision of a proper change notice, with an explicit reference to the date of the change, would have avoided most, if not all, of the subsequent misunderstandings.
At the time, Gavin also made an accusation that appears to be against me that I wish to deny.
An RC reader:
made the following polite request to Gavin Schmidt:
Gavin, I realize it’s not your responsibility to patrol the skeptic hordes, but could you offer a quick summary of how the data set has been updated and where these changes are recorded?… I think (hope?) that McIntyre would happily “move on” and apologize after a clear statement that you were acting in good faith.
Instead of providing a clear timeline (which might have helped), Gavin petulantly stated:
[Response: What is the point? The presumption will be that I’ve just made something up and even if I didn’t, I’m a bad person in any case. I have no interest in communicating with people whose first and only instinct is to impugn my motives and honesty the minute they can’t work something out (and this goes back a long way). Well, tough. You guys worked it out already, and I have absolutely nothing to add. If McIntyre was half the gentleman he claimed to be, we’d all be twice as happy. – gavin]
I presume that I’m supposed to be one of the people whose “first and only instinct is to impugn my motives and honesty the minute they can’t work something out (and this goes back a long way)”. I deny this allegation on a number of counts.
First, I don’t have a track record “going back a long way” of repeated incidents where my “first and only instinct is to impugn [Schmidt’s] motives and honesty the minute [I] can’t work something out “. On the contrary, I think that any CA reader has to concede that I’m very patient with working out paleoclimate studies. On an earlier occasion, I asked a reader critical of me to name one such incident and received no reply.
I also deny that “impugning” people’s motives and honesty is “my first and only instinct” when I can’t work something out. It is neither my “first instinct” nor my “only instinct”. My general practice is exactly the opposite – to refrain from speculating on author’s “motives”. It’s a policy that I try to maintain at the blog though not all readers observe the policy. I challenge Schmidt or anyone else to support this allegation.
This is not the first such incident involving Schmidt. As an IPCC Reviewer (SOD Review Comment 6-760), Schmidt impugned the integrity of Ross and myself, falsely accusing us “deliberate obsfucations [sic]” as follows:
M&M2003 is a non peer reviewed publication, and as such should not be referenced here. The points raised are almost invaraibly due to misunderstandings, errors in the archived data set (subsequently corrected at Nature) and deliberate obsfucations. [IPCC SOD Review Comment 6-740]
Schmidt has no basis whatever for accusing us to IPCC of “deliberate obfuscations”. That is an untrue and defamatory allegation.
On an earlier occasion, Mann had made a similar defamatory allegation to Natuurwetenschap & Techniek (and you’ll be amused at the question that occasioned this answer):
This claim by MM is just another in a series of disingenuous (off the record: plainly dishonest) allegations by them about our work.
Again, this is an untrue and defamatory allegation.
I must say that I’m surprised at the recklessness of Mann and Schmidt, both as individuals and as employees representing presumably responsible organizations, in making such comments.
Climate Audit 
105 Comments
Almost all AGW “scientists” are now politicians first and foremost. And we know what politicians relationships with the truth is … don’t we?
Re: Bruce (#1),
What was it Anthony Eden (or was it Churchill?) said ? “A good politian must be able to predict, with absolute certainty, events a week, a month or a year from now … and afterwards be able to explain why they didn’t happen”.
snip -editorializing
I am not one bit surprised, not at all.
Mark
That was pretty bad luck mr Steve.
You can only do so much.
0. Thou shalt not scrutinize me.
1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
…
RP Sr has an essay online from Anne Henderson-Sellers who surveyed the IPCC lead authors shortly after completion of the AR4. There are lots of interesting quotes about their private doubts about the quality of models, their ironclad convictions abut what the right answers are, the sense that what they really need to do is improve their political advocacy, and so forth. But what caught my attention was this paragraph
The attitude of Mann and Schmidt infects the whole IPCC organization. They can’t admit any errors or problems with their work lest their critics find out (as if we didn’t already know). So they cover it up, stick to the script and even squash the idea of asking what they got wrong. I suppose there are other organizations that operate this way, just none that one would trust.
Re: Ross McKitrick (#6),
It seems to me that this attitude has become pervasive in our (USA)society. I’ve known a lot of people who seem to believe that they cannot be PROVED incorrect, no matter how obvious it is that they are. It isn’t helped by some famous court cases, where folks who were obviously guilty walked free.
And another very common characteristic of such people is mockery and ad-homs.
Steve, Have you heard about a Blog called “Open Mind”?Ibelieveit is run by Tamino! Jeff ID has been on it and they didn’t want to answer His questions. There wasn’t many kind statements for your work also….
Tamino’s blogname is an implied oxymoron, but it is well-known around here.
Mark
Steve,
The age of endarkenment is upon us – and it’s younger sibling – recklessness – has free reign.
As it was once said “It is folly to be wise in the land of folly”
Just keep pluggin along Steve. When and if there is anything to apologise for, you will do it.
Secondly, all the posts you have made on the latest Mann effort show there is something seriously wrong with how the climate research community produces and reviews its own science.
There is no way the original hockey stick should have become the theme of the IPCC third report and there is no way the latest paper should have been published at all. Without you and Ross, who knows what kind of stick would be on the wall of every classroom by now.
Like the Periodic Table, classrooms might have a field hockey stick of temps on their walls by now.
Steve,
Well played, and good shot across the bow. One hopes that the Team’s hubris is supported by their employers. It often is, but lawyers … I’ll stop now.
To me forensic work is usually spent on real problems. It is shocking to see organizations working with programs and data not using full version control. I sound like a broken record but why is this not an issue! I realize that it is not learned in school but in the field of programming it is mandatory. Every program has a life. Each data set has a life. They grow and change. To waste thousands of man hours or worse, of very intelligent people, how careless.
One wonders what would have happened if Mann et al. had been decent scientists. They might have embraced and absorbed the many lessons that McIntyre had to teach them; they might have produced a valid millennial climate reconstruction; we might actually know by now how today’s climate compares with that of the last thousand years.
Instead, like Wall Street “tycoons,” they have discredited their own community and left the rest of us with nothing.
It would be a sad and tragic story if it had not so altered the landscape and consumed so much of the climate science community’s attention. Also, like Wall Street tycoons, they will have consumed an astonishing amount of public resources before finally exiting the stage.
Steeve, it’s about time you look at
http://www.torproject.org/
It’s fairly easy to install: double click on the package and it will install.
You might need to install a Firefox plug-in
It will anonymize you properly when browsing.
Forgot to say: Steve Mc, you should play rugby, too (I hear that rugby players have leather balls). Don’t know how you manage to keep going, especially with a grin!!!!, when you don’t have to. Thank you for all your efforts.
Steve: I’m too old now but I played rugby when I was at university. I mentioned this before. I think that I might have played rugby against Bill Clinton when I was at Oxford. He was one year ahead of me and one of his CVs said that he played rugby at Oxford – if so, I probably played against him. I played wing at rugby. I’d played corner linebacker in high school football and still remember tackling hard. After the intramural games, you’d have drinks with the opponents – I thought that this was great. We do this in squash league as well – something I’ve been doing for over 40 years now (just back from league right now.) When we had the NAS panel hearings, there was a reception afterwards. I had mentioned that before the panel that Mann and I should sing rugby songs together, but, alas, Mann didn’t show up for the party.
Steve,
Please just keep putting your work out there. This “controversy” will be resolved by where the data takes us in the next few years. My reading to date tells me that you transparently put your data and methodology out for scrutiny and criticism while the Team works very hard to ensure that their data and methodology remain inscrutable. While this may inform my opinion on who to believe in the short term, the fact of what actually happens will be the final arbiter. Interestingly (and even amusingly if I don’t check my investments too often) the current financial crisis likely guarantees that no precipitous AGW remedial action of any economic consequence will be undertaken any time soon, which will clearly buy time for more facts to emerge.
Look at it this way. If the New York Times is eviscerating Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin today (see URL below) virtually anything is possible tomorrow. I wish I were a good enough soul to say that I pity Mann, Hansen and their ilk when their reckoning comes. I’m not.
OA
Re: “I hear that rugby players have leather balls”
And they play with them.
Steve, you should start to make a habit out of taking screen shots whenever you download anything from a Mann site. A bit of a pain, but you might be happy you did…
If you use the hockey team metaphor, then the whole point of the team’s play is to keep the puck away from you. You will also know that a major part of the game is the gloves-off attacks on players. One problem with this metaphor is that an auditor is more like a referee, he is not the other team.
Its not surprising as long as you realise that they are under immense pressure not to screw up royally this time.
Reminds me of a school bully. The more they get “called out”, the more agressive they become. Wounded animals also exhibit similar behaviour.
snip – policy
Jim
Steve , have you got enough to write a book about all this yet, or are you going to put something together for Peer review, as much as a joke that Peer review seems to be?
If nothing else, probably make a great textbook for statistics.
Re: #19 Screen shots.
I use this product so I can see what I was doing at any time. I just set it and leave it. Invaluable for my timesheet as I often forget to update it.
http://www.timesnapper.com/
(I have no affiliation with them)
Steve, you are a class act. The “Hockey Team” has proven they are not. Thank you for all the tireless work you do.
So that’s why they put all those files on their website rather than creating a zip or tarball. It allows all the previous versions to just sorta vanish into the ether. I had always found that practice a bit odd, forcing people to download each file individually.
Re: Soronel Haetir (#26),
The proxy data are available as zip archives, no need to download the individual ppd files.
Someone thats netsavy, needs to come up with a bot to just continually mine their archive sites for data changes and upload times.
Re: Max (#27),
A quick check on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine (yes, the name is inspired by Sherman & Peabody) reveals:
Seems that they are not interested in allowing their web presence to be archived for posterity. Google will not web crawl either. Web etiquette dictates that we abstain from an automated probing of their site.
The audit has to go on a bit longer. The 5th IPCC process has already started. We can already start wondering what type of (air?)hockey stick will be published? Will they backtrack or recruit Ovechkin and Crosby?
Perhaps PNAS could be pressured to include on its website a definitive version of the data used for each article alongside the SI. The author could of course later submit corrected versions, but the correction would then become part of the official record, rather than just smoke and mirrors as at present.
A request for such a policy could be part of the letter commenting on Mann 2008 that I am hoping Steve will write.
In a recent GRL article there was a link to SI but all that was there was a ReadMe. The author graciously did send the data right away, but this points out the problem with electronic archives compared to print, that links can be broken and stuff changed after the fact. They should be a little more permanent.
Re: Craig Loehle (#31)
The originals (data files and other relevant material) should be archived permanently by the publisher. Subsequent changes to files should be logged and date stamped. It would be great if the publisher had software that did this automatically and for the publisher to require that all changes be submitted and recorded for the record. Why this is not currently standard operating procedure is beyond me, an ignorant application developer. How hard could it be?
When asked about him, Richard A. Muller said
Obfuscations, deliberate or not, are obviously a root problem with the Team. One would think that a Team member could correctly spell the word – unless they are all so innocent that the word just never arises in their speech or thoughts.
What happened to the scientist who would welcome outside assistance in getting his data correct and carefully note that a change had been made? In my judgment it involves a reaction less from a science interest and much more from an advocacy stance.
If I were Steve M in this situation I would not take it personally as I suspect the team reacts to him as they would anyone pointing to their (many and reoccurring) errors. Even another team member, I suspect, would be treated similarly as what the Team is protecting here is not so much theory but ongoing sloppiness in their work and a sloppiness that could eventually have policy advocacy repercussions, or at least in their minds it might.
So let me see if I understand this correctly:
Gavin sees comment #23 in the moderation queue
Gavin tells Mann that the comment is there
Mann fixes the problem
Gavin approves comment #23 with the inline comment suggesting you’re lazy.
That’s what my read of the situation is, and I see no indication that events were otherwise.
Steve: The chronology outlined above is a little different.
Steve, You know that RC is frequently rude to many of those who question the orthodxy. Don’t worry about that. You are doing the right thing. Forge ahead.
Computer forensic experts don’t consider screenshots (or even the timestamps shown in explorer/dos ‘dir’) definitive. It’s too easy to manipulate both to show what one wants to show.
To provide non-contestable timestamps, one needs to use a digital timestamping service where a cryptographic digest (SHA-256 or similar) is derived from the source ‘document’ and timestamped and digitally signed by a trusted third party.
For more on digital timestamping:
http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/node.asp?id=2347
Steve,
Keep up the great work!
Mark
That the Team do not use configuration management is boggling.
1. Superb, free tools, e.g. Subversion, can be set up in a few minutes. Then there is never another argument about dates and versions. At least when you catch them fudging versioned objects in the “vault” you can throw the book at them.
2. Software teams rate the maturity of their process by grading against the “SEI-CMM”, Software Engineering Institute Capability Maturity Model, on a scale of 1 to 5. To get from Level 1 Initial (colloquially known as “Chaotic”) to Level 2 Repeatable, you must have CM. Please miss no opportunity to describe the Team’s process as Chaotic, Not Repeatable.
Steve:
When you are finished auditing this climate stuff, we have a little problem with some securities based on sub-prime mortgages we would like you to take a look at.
Best wishes,
G7 Central Bankers
P.S. It is kind of urgent so please call as soon as you can.
Steve: It sure is a mess, isn’t it. I might well have ended up this field – I was offered a PhD scholarship at MIT by Paul Samuelson, but didn’t go.
Steve, I recognize my chronology is not exactly yours. The question is whether or not they’re contradictory. Here’s a expression:
9:18 AM Comment #23 enters moderation queue
Unknown Time – Schmidt notices comment #23 in moderation queue
Possible Event – Schmidt contacts Mann
11:42 AM Mann inserts non-infilled data
Alternate Unknown Time – Schmidt notices comment #23 in moderation queue
12:03 PM Schmidt verifies data
12:05 PM Schmidt releases Comment #23 with inline snark
I assume that Schmidt would not release the comment with the snark unless he had actually verified it. The question is whether or not Schmidt was in communications with Mann between noticing the comment and Mann updating the data.
Why would anyone bother? So that they could claim you hadn’t done your homework.
The claim that you hadn’t done your homework was, in fact, made.
What is uncertain is whether or not Mann and Schmidt acted together in bad faith.
The evidence is circumstantial, but I think it’s a possibility worth considering.
Re: Dishman (#40),
Highly unlikely. The Sep. 4 “infilled” and “original” data sets were uploaded and archived (zipped) on Mann’s SI site at the request of the NOAA.
Re: Dave Clarke (#50),
**Highly unlikely. The Sep. 4 “infilled” and “original” data sets were uploaded and archived (zipped) on Mann’s SI site at the request of the NOAA.**
Now all we need is the NOAA time stamps. Did NOAA request the change?
Re: Gerald Machnee (#58),
On the “Slim Shady 2” thread, Steve quoted Bruce Bauer (BB) of NOAA (and custodian of the WDC paleoclimatology database):
So the sequence of events looks like:
– Sep 4 BB requests zip of proxy files
– Sep 4 Mann uploads 2 proxy file sets (one “infilled”, one “original) to his site
– Sep 4 Mann creates the 2 .zip files at his site
– Sep 5 BB downloads the 2 .zip files
– Sep 8 BB uploads the 2 .zip files to the NOAA site (according to NOAA timestamp on zip file)
Re: Dave Clarke (#62),
OK, NOAA requested a .zip of the individual proxy files, but they had nothing to do with the changes or “corrections”.
Re: Gerald Machnee (#65),
There were two datasets uploaded to the Mann SI on Sep. 4 (both at about 11:15 EDT). One of these was the “infilled” set which was then zipped and eventually downloaded by NOAA. Since the Dec 2007 “infilled” set already existed on the SI (presumably that’s the one that Steve downloaded first), it is very likely that the Sep 4 “infilled” set was uploaded for the purpose of archiving at NOAA. And if it was, the same is probably true of the “original” set, which was uploaded (and presumably zipped for NOAA) at the same time.
Of course confirmation of the sequence of events would depend on the exact time that NOAA sent the request for the proxy sets. But this scenario seems more likely and less dependent on improbable coincidences than the alternative scenarios proposed.
Re: Dave Clarke (#83),
**There were two datasets uploaded to the Mann SI on Sep. 4 (both at about 11:15 EDT). **
My point was that NOAA requested proxy files. I expect this to be one correct set. So there were “changes” or “corrections” being made. It appears that he could not upload a proper set which is why we have a problem with who said what and who did what.
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/10/do-researchers.html
This piece rings a big bell…..
Check out Anthony Watt’s latest post: Movies of the Mann giving his Rhode Island talk. See the last clip, especially. Disgusting hoot.
Re: jae (#42),
That business with the hands is disturbingly violent.
================================
At the URI talk Mann shows Steve in a cartoon as an “angry lobbyist” breaking a hockey stick….
I am in blood
Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er.
Strange things I have in head that will to hand,
Which must be acted ere they may be scann’d.
“Macbeth”, Act 3, Scene 4
Re: Bill Larson (#45),
Do you think it will it end in the same way?
Re: Bill Larson (#45),
“Macbeth shall never vanquished be until
Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill
Shall come against him.”
More of a convergence problem in this case.
And that distill’d by magic sleights
Shall raise such artificial sprites
As by the strength of their illusion
Shall draw him on to his confusion.
“Macbeth”, Act 3, Scene 5
You missed this one:
Also, maybe I missed it in the long explanation above, but Gavin did supply a link which you apparently missed. You might have avoided your mistake if you had noticed and followed the link (like others apparently did).
By the way, your inline comment with its reference to “a window of time … in which Gavin could have verified the existence of the website” sounds like obfuscation to me, although I wouldn’t care to say it’s deliberate.
I have one word of thanks to Mann and the Team and IPCC – where I am grateful for their work. Had their science not been so misleading, so irresponsibly scarifying, and so eventually transparently poor, I would not have had the opportunity and challenge to learn, and enjoy learning, this science as a newcomer, and talk with real experts – to wade right in, feel welcome, make mistakes, take responsibility, correct myself, and continue. This is a gift for the future. Science will need ordinary people to be able to ride out with the basics, in many departments, if we are not to abdicate our power to the kind of global spinners who allowed the sub-prime crash to happen.
From Lawrence Solomon’s book The Deniers, it seems that many experts can deny IPCC AGW in their particular department of expertise, but be unable to deny AGW otherwise, and be inclined to accept/trust it.
Steve, I think you have your work cut out for years ahead, for when your continuing faithful audit starts to give returns, as it surely will in time, when you can relax a bit, people will (I hope) want to take on your kind of “audit by blog” in many areas, other “baby” sciences that have global implications and, perhaps because of their youth and consequent scientific imprecision on essentials, are vulnerable to loud cowboys and fraudsters.
Start using a proxy server, you can’t go to war in a 3 piece suit..
You appear to have no sense of irony.
A bit of casual lurking here has impressed me that Steve has avoided pondering people’s motivations. Sure, we all have motivations, but even if they could be divined telepathically, that still doesn’t say anything about whether something is right or not. I think Steve has said that, and it is actually quite refreshing in a climate where many people are making a knee jerk response that so and so must be in the pay of the oil industry. And besides, the insistence that man made warming skeptics are producing biased and distorted science, just reinforces the fact that anyone can produce biased and distorted science–it applies equally to the man made warmers. You can question someone’s motivation after they have been found to be wrong; before that point it is useless. So I find reading this blog a far saner experience. I’m glad it’s the (joint) best science blog–it sticks to the issues and the data–it truly deserves to be. Thank you for this great resource.
If you want people to understand what you’re staying, you should define acronyms like “SI.” All of us haven’t followed you site since the beginning, and moreover we cannot read your mind.
Re: David (#56), SI=”Supplemental Information” which in print were called Appendices.
Re: David (#56),
Additional to Craig Loehle (#57) response, on the left-hand side of this blog’s main page is: Common Acronyms used on this blog
Re: David (#56),
David
You may also find the following two links useful:-
Glossary of Acronyms
Survey of Climate Change Sites
Many others have said the same thing, but I would also like to add my thanks and admiration for all your skill, hard work and forebearance.
The suggestion that publishers of scientific papers should insist that SI change history shall also be disclosed is a really good one, as is the observation that without such history, verification/validation activities cannot occur, ie that the reported science cannot be replicated.
Replication is the heart of this matter. It is not sufficient to publish an idea. The method used and the data used must also be published so that the work can be falsified. And if the method or data are not disclosed, or disclosed piecemeal, or disclosed in a disorganised, confusing way so that replication/falsoification cannot be undertaken then that is not real science.
My view is that the Team appear not to be concerned about science, the activity of replication.
It seems to me that Steve Mc is right not to ponder upon their motivations and stick to the facts as they come to light. Whatever their motivations are they seem to be extremely sloppy in their work, and determined to prove that the post industrial temperature profile is a hockeystick consistent with the rise in MM CO2 at any costs. Climate science was a backwater of scientific research until it was thrust centre stage some ten years ago with the publication of the hockeystick. McIntyre and McKitrick decided, for whatever reason, to look into the details of the hockeystick graph and proved it, shall we say, “unsafe”, in terms of its mathematical veracity. As far as I am aware no other climate science has been subjected to the same detailed scrutiny by “outsiders” as the hockeystick and it could be that, given its previous backwater status, the sloppines we see from the Team is widespread in the science, which would explain the howls of indignation from RC when flaws are exposed.
re #56, David, and to add to the correct information in #57,
there is a substantial list of abbreviations and their meanings.
Use the link in the left column, very close to the top of the page.
I asked some tough questions at Real Climate to at least make them aware of my latest work they of course blocked it. If they can’t answer tough questions at these sites it doesn’t help their case. No real surprise though.
Oddly, Tamino blocked it too on his open thread where they were in the middle of a discussion on PCA where they are still saying decentered pca produces the same results as centered pca. I just pointed out that the CPS method can produce any pattern you want from the latest data just by r sorting for a pattern. And I got a better correlation to a negative linear slope than M08 got to temperature. Blocked — twice.
Re: Jeff Id (#66),
Tamino is failing to respond to Spencer’s answer to his critique of Spencer’s recent work, except to crab briefly about the timescales. Surrogates sneer at Spencer’s data, and the whole Spencer’s Folly thread re-eruption has been throttled in its cradle. I would hope Tamino is burning the midnight oil in an attempt to answer Spencer, but so far, it seems he’s learned no lessons from Ian Jolliffe or Roy Spencer. There’s been a better discussion at Watts Up over this than at Open Mind.
===============================================
Speaking of team movement, what about this latest from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory supposedly reconciling the difference between projected and measured tropospheric temperatures in a paper in the International Journal of Climatology? Have they just manipulated the data sets and applied inappropriate statistics, again?
=========================
No one is surprised any more by the constant Mann/Schmidt & Co. stream of shenanigans.
Myself, I don’t believe for a minute these characters are in the business of science. Not at all.
Their’s is a business that is related to Washington.
Demand public debate. We’ve got to call them out to public debate. Why is it they are always allowed to dodge, hide and run away like scaredy cats?
Also demand they place their bets on sea level rise.
Some renown “scientists” here in Germany, principally Schellnhuber and Ramstorf, close associates of Mann and Co., seem to be sticking to this 1.4m SLR by 2100. But when sked to bet, they cut and run.
gavin:
“Response: What is the point? The presumption will be that I’ve just made something up and even if I didn’t, I’m a bad person in any case. I have no interest in communicating with people whose first and only instinct is to impugn my motives and honesty…”
Now there’s a mann who aint afraid of a public debate!
His logic is like this: “Why should I debate if he’s only going to try show I’m wrong?”
Basically, the only debate he’d show up at, I suspect, is one where his opponents would promise not to question his positions. All in all, I’ve never seen science taken to such a juvenile level.
Gotta call it the way it is.
Jeff ID – call it sun block science.
You decide the factor.
Somebody on the team or a fan of the team wasted no time:
wikipedia “hockey stick controversy”
It fits with Mann’s speaking engagement patterns too.
LOL, Both he and Hansen’s… Somebody please graph that.
Re #33 and its reference to “obsfucations”:
There may be a Freudian component to this.
Having spent a significant portion of my career involved with taking and analyzing meteorological observations, I’ve seen quite a number of obs ‘fucated’ during this period.
Aodhain:
If somebody is posting scientific data on a website, we have an absolute right to monitor that data, and how they handle it.
In my opinion, ethics actually dictates that any changes to their website be duly noted and that any previous versions be backed up using a revision control system, and that these prior versions be publicly accessible.
Re: Carrick (#76),
Here in Australia there are local rules on scientific disclosure. I requested some information & action. Here is the reply. The part I stress is the DISCLAIMER. It’s being used as a bludgeon to stifle debate. Other Government-related groups have been inventing their own in recent months. Talk about the former Pope Urban VIII and Galileo Galilei all over again!
email follows, note the warning:
Dear Geoffrey,
(text deleted by GHS to concentrate on the disclaimer)
Thank you for your email to CSIRO regarding the Climate Adaptation Flagship.
James Davidson
Information Officer
CSIRO Enquiries
Private Bag 10
Clayton South VIC 3169
Tel: 1300 363 400
Fax: +61 3 9545 2175
Email: enquiries@csiro.au
Aodhain:
Wow! Writing and installing a robot.txt and blocking google requires an active step. That’s sort of amazing.
You guys can stop scrutinizing the models now because they’ve resolved any issues between the observations and the predictions. LOL! Check this out:
—
Scientists resolve long-standing puzzle in climate science
A team led by Livermore scientists has helped reconcile the differences between simulated and observed temperature trends in the tropics.
Using state-of-the-art observational datasets and results from computer model simulations archived at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, LLNL researchers and colleagues from 11 other scientific institutions have refuted a recent claim that simulated temperature trends in the tropics are fundamentally inconsistent with observations. This claim was based on the application of a flawed statistical test and the use of older observational datasets.
Re: Fred (#78),
That looks like more manipulated data and inappropriate statistics, to me.
===========================================
Re: Fred (#78),
Nice article, I liked this quote- anything sound familiar?
Re: Fred (#78),
The actual article is here
Realclimate.org posting (written by co-author Gavin Schmidt) is here
The article appears to be a refutation of the Douglass et al paper on the “missing” tropical tropospheric signature of global warming.
Off topic, no doubt, but perhaps an interesting subject for a thread on its own.
Re: Dave Clarke (#81), Thanks for the reference. I should have refreshed the page before posting.
Re: Dave Clarke (#81),
Better would be to resurrect the thread here that already exists like this one: David Douglass’ Comments, where the subject of whether the statistical test used was appropriate was discussed at length.
Re: Fred (#78), I noticed that Gavin is a part of this team that seems to have “improved” the models by changing the rules and moving the goal closer.
Any idea what journal this (what I assume to be a) publication is in? I couldn’t find a reference in the news article.
Re: Fred (#78),
We await it to be posted and audited by “amateurs”.
Watch Gavin sputter and froth when he is called out on his shenanigans by Pielke Jr.:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/09/a-new-survey-of-scientists/langswitch_lang/fi#comment-100678
We have a new example of the double standard and selective moral outrage of the Team (well, Gavin). Link Here
Gavin posted a nasty hit piece on Real Climate about a survey of climate scientists by Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch. He did not have the common decency to inform the authors of his posting. When they then replied on Roger Pielke Jr’s site, Gavin complained -get this- that they did not tell him of their response (using words like “Shame”).
snip – no need for editorial adjectives.
snip — piling on
Folks, let the facts speak for themselves. Keep adjectives to a minimum. It gets to be piling on and you lose third party readers who may condemn the original facts but don’t want to be preached at.
Wow, man. Seriously, all y’all need to just get over something this incredibly petty. Timelag issues happen roughly 12 million times a day on the internet. They are roughly as remarkable as inadvertently jostling someone on a commuter train at rush hour. Just say “oops” and move on to something that actually matters. . . .
Re: Geo (#94),
If the situation were to involve being called a liar by those without the facts on their side, that might not be considered a petty matter by those on the receiving end. Eh?
But maybe it is time to move on. Everyone that’s made mistakes just needs to admit them and stop bringing it up. Then all would be wonderful.
But certainly it took longer than 3 minutes for Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly to wipe out the Miller gang. Something still seems off here….
Sam–
There’s a reason why the image of Bogey in the Caine Mutiny obsessing over who stole the ice cream is one of the more iconic moments in cinema. Petty is petty, and we should feel more alarmed/concerned for the mental health of those who try to keep insisting that petty can ever be anything more. Everybody go pet a kitten or something to find your happy place, and then get back to work that matters.
Actually, Geo, you seem to be missing the bigger picture here. Gavin, Mann, and all of the Team have a public pulpit from which to spread their lies, insults and nonsensical statements. Steve does not, at least not to the same level. This is not just one petty disagreement, it is ongoing evidence of a systematic distortion of the truth by folks such as Gavin. Were Steve to simply ignore all the so-called “petty” complaints by Gavin, he would drop into obscurity because “Gavin showed him!” in spite of the facts of the situation. Yes, it is tiring, but why don’t you go over to RC and tell Gavin, you know, the NASA representative, to demonstrate the ethics befitting his position for once in his shameful career.
Mark
Geo: try explaining away comments by Gavin like ” The points raised are almost invaraibly due to misunderstandings, errors in the archived data set (subsequently corrected at Nature) and deliberate obsfucations [sic] ” as being due to “time lag” is clearly nonsensical.
All that needs to be said about it.
#94. Geo, you are complaining to the wrong party. If you feel that the issue is irrelevant, then this point should have been made to Gavin Schmidt about his allegation at RC. In addition, you should have said this to readers here who had previously made an issue of the fact that I had made an incorrect statement a month ago about whether non-infilled data was on Mann’s website and demanded that I deal with this “issue”. When I looked into it, I concluded that, yes, I had made an error, but the error was hardly blameworthy. Indeed, the nature of the error was itself an illustration of why proper disclosure of changes is important. In this context, I felt that it was also relevant to at least be on the record as repudiating Gavin Schmidt’s most recent slander.
Re: Steve McIntyre (#101),
To me, the “issue” wasn’t that you made a “small mistake” or an “incorrect statement” about whether infilled data was available or not. Rather, it was the unfounded accusation of bad faith against Gavin Schmidt, when you said he was “full of crap” and even speculated that he had added the link to the SI “original” data in the RC comment hours after originally posting his “non-infilled” comment.
Same “issue” when you claimed that the “ass…es” [i.e. Mann et al] blocked you, when it was obvious there was a problem with your connection or your script.
And on and on … I think I’ve had about enough. Someone else will have to take over and call you on all your “mistakes” and the wild unfounded conclusions you draw from them.
So why play their game? What an awesomely unproductive idea –incentivize the unreasonable by spending your time trying to disprove their irrelevant bulls**t. Do you not get that when you reward that kind of behavior you’ll get more of it? The reward for them is moving the spotlight off the issues onto irrelevancies. Quit enabling them.
Geo, you really don’t get it, do you. The Hockey Schtick is portrayed to the public as incontrovertible proof that we’re entering a catastrophic climate period due to human activity. It’s been shown numerous times that the statistical meanderings needed to create the HS make it pretty much meaningless as a scientific exercise. Yet it, and many other studies, use the same data and methods, are leading us deeper and deeper into a morass of bad science, and consequently bad policy. Do you really want that?
Geo, one lesson that I figured out when I was young was to carefully examine any mistakes, since one tended to repeat mistakes. Even small mistakes. I wanted to understand why I made this particular error and I thought that the reason was interesting. But, as you say, I’ve spent enough time on this and that would include this line of discussion.
Good, leave. Don’t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out. Most of us are much more tired of folks like you that just don’t get it.
Mark
It does appear that much of the climate science community is acting in bad faith. Whether this is due to reasons of publicity, funding, publication, or peer pressure, has yet to be determined. What is becoming rather apparent is that the correlation between carbon dioxide levels and temperature is far looser and more poorly understood than is represented by the community. Mr. McIntyre provides an invaluable service in carefully examining the various bases for the far reaching claims of this very young branch of science.
If the entire world is to overturn its economy based upon a tiny newborn science such as climate science, we must examine every small detail of its tiny wailing claims. If this discomfits you in any way, perhaps you need changing.
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