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Climategate Continues - Will a penalty be called for Keith Briffa’s excessively curved hockey stick?
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Tunderbar
May 25, 2012, 4:26:18 PM5/25/12
to
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/300877/climategate-continues-andrew-montford#
May 24, 2012 4:00 A.M.
Climategate Continues
Will a penalty be called for Keith Briffa’s excessively curved hockey
stick?
By Andrew Montford & Harold Ambler
Climategate, the 2009 exposure of misconduct at the University of East
Anglia, was a terrible blow to the reputation of climatology, and
indeed to that of British and American science. Although that story
hasn’t been in the news in recent months, new evidence of similar
scientific wrongdoing continues to emerge, with a new scandal hitting
the climate blogosphere just a few days ago.
And central to the newest story is one of the Climategate scientists:
Keith Briffa, an expert in reconstructing historical temperature
records from tree rings. More particularly, the recent scandal
involves a tree-ring record Briffa prepared for a remote area of
northern Russia called Yamal.
For many years, scientists have used tree-ring data to try to measure
temperatures from the distant past, but the idea is problematic in and
of itself. Why? Because tree-ring data reflect many variables besides
temperature. Russian tree growth, like that of trees around the world,
also reflects changes in humidity, precipitation, soil nutrients,
competition for resources from other trees and plants, animal
behavior, erosion, cloudiness, and on and on. But let’s pretend, if
only for the sake of argument, that we can reliably determine the mean
temperature 1,000 years ago or more using tree cores from a remote
part of Russia. The central issue that emerges is: How do you choose
the trees?
It was the way Briffa picked the trees to include in his analysis that
piqued the interest of Steve McIntyre, a maverick amateur
climatologist from Canada. The Climategate e-mails make it clear that
McIntyre earned the public scorn of the most powerful U.N.
climatologists, including James Hansen, Michael Mann, and Phil Jones,
while simultaneously earning their fear and respect in private.
McIntyre noticed a few problems with the way Briffa chose the sampling
of Russian trees, and he wrote to Briffa requesting the data Briffa
used in a published tree-ring paper. Briffa declined. And so began a
four-year saga involving multiple peer-reviewed journals, behind-the-
scenes maneuvering by Briffa and his closest confidants, and a Freedom
of Information Act request on the part of McIntyre that appears to be
on the verge of being granted. Even without the final set of data,
however, McIntyre has shown beyond the shadow of doubt that Briffa may
have committed one of the worst sins, if not the worst, in climatology
— that of cherry-picking data — when he assembled his data sample,
which his clique of like-minded and very powerful peers have also used
in paper after paper.
It was already known that the Yamal series contained a preposterously
small amount of data. This by itself raised many questions: Why did
Briffa include only half the number of cores covering the balmy
interval known as the Medieval Warm Period that another scientist, one
with whom he was acquainted, had reported for Yamal? And why were
there so few cores in Briffa’s 20th century? By 1988, there were only
twelve cores used in a year, an amazingly small number from the period
that should have provided the easiest data. By 1990, the count was
only ten, and it dropped to just five in 1995. Without an explanation
of how the strange sampling of the available data had been performed,
the suspicion of cherry-picking became overwhelming, particularly
since the sharp 20th-century uptick in the series was almost entirely
due to a single tree.
The intrigue deepened when one of the Climategate e-mails revealed
that, as far back as 2006, Briffa had prepared a much more broadly
based, and therefore more reliable, tree-ring record of the Yamal
area. But strangely, he had decided to set this aside in favor of the
much narrower record he eventually used.
The question of Yamal had rightly come up when Briffa was questioned
by Climategate investigators. He told them that he had never
considered including a wider sample than the one he went with in the
end, and hadn’t had enough time to include a wider one. However, the
specific issue of the suppressed record appears to have largely been
passed over by the panel, and Briffa’s explanation, like so many
others given to the Climategate inquiries, appears to have been
accepted without question.
But the ruse has now been shot to pieces, by the recent decision from
the U.K.’s information commissioner that Briffa can no longer withhold
the list of sites he used in his suppressed regional record for the
Yamal area. The disclosure of these sites has allowed McIntyre to
calculate what the broad series would have looked like if Briffa had
chosen to publish it. He has shown that it has no hint of the hockey-
stick shape that Briffa’s cherry-picked data indicated. Briffa’s
decision to publish an alarming but unreliable version of the Yamal
series — instead of a more reliable and thoroughly unremarkable one —
has been the talk of the climate blogosphere, with many prominent
commentators openly speaking of dishonesty.
Two and a half years after the initial revelation of the Climategate e-
mails, new controversies, on the part of the scientists and the
investigators involved, continue to emerge. Many of the players
involved are desperate to sweep the scandal under the rug. However,
their machinations have only succeeded in bringing renewed attention
to their questionable science and ugly behind-the-scenes shenanigans,
reigniting hope that more complete and more independent investigations
— on both sides of the Atlantic — will yet be performed.
May 24, 2012 4:00 A.M.
Climategate Continues
Will a penalty be called for Keith Briffa’s excessively curved hockey
stick?
By Andrew Montford & Harold Ambler
Climategate, the 2009 exposure of misconduct at the University of East
Anglia, was a terrible blow to the reputation of climatology, and
indeed to that of British and American science. Although that story
hasn’t been in the news in recent months, new evidence of similar
scientific wrongdoing continues to emerge, with a new scandal hitting
the climate blogosphere just a few days ago.
And central to the newest story is one of the Climategate scientists:
Keith Briffa, an expert in reconstructing historical temperature
records from tree rings. More particularly, the recent scandal
involves a tree-ring record Briffa prepared for a remote area of
northern Russia called Yamal.
For many years, scientists have used tree-ring data to try to measure
temperatures from the distant past, but the idea is problematic in and
of itself. Why? Because tree-ring data reflect many variables besides
temperature. Russian tree growth, like that of trees around the world,
also reflects changes in humidity, precipitation, soil nutrients,
competition for resources from other trees and plants, animal
behavior, erosion, cloudiness, and on and on. But let’s pretend, if
only for the sake of argument, that we can reliably determine the mean
temperature 1,000 years ago or more using tree cores from a remote
part of Russia. The central issue that emerges is: How do you choose
the trees?
It was the way Briffa picked the trees to include in his analysis that
piqued the interest of Steve McIntyre, a maverick amateur
climatologist from Canada. The Climategate e-mails make it clear that
McIntyre earned the public scorn of the most powerful U.N.
climatologists, including James Hansen, Michael Mann, and Phil Jones,
while simultaneously earning their fear and respect in private.
McIntyre noticed a few problems with the way Briffa chose the sampling
of Russian trees, and he wrote to Briffa requesting the data Briffa
used in a published tree-ring paper. Briffa declined. And so began a
four-year saga involving multiple peer-reviewed journals, behind-the-
scenes maneuvering by Briffa and his closest confidants, and a Freedom
of Information Act request on the part of McIntyre that appears to be
on the verge of being granted. Even without the final set of data,
however, McIntyre has shown beyond the shadow of doubt that Briffa may
have committed one of the worst sins, if not the worst, in climatology
— that of cherry-picking data — when he assembled his data sample,
which his clique of like-minded and very powerful peers have also used
in paper after paper.
It was already known that the Yamal series contained a preposterously
small amount of data. This by itself raised many questions: Why did
Briffa include only half the number of cores covering the balmy
interval known as the Medieval Warm Period that another scientist, one
with whom he was acquainted, had reported for Yamal? And why were
there so few cores in Briffa’s 20th century? By 1988, there were only
twelve cores used in a year, an amazingly small number from the period
that should have provided the easiest data. By 1990, the count was
only ten, and it dropped to just five in 1995. Without an explanation
of how the strange sampling of the available data had been performed,
the suspicion of cherry-picking became overwhelming, particularly
since the sharp 20th-century uptick in the series was almost entirely
due to a single tree.
The intrigue deepened when one of the Climategate e-mails revealed
that, as far back as 2006, Briffa had prepared a much more broadly
based, and therefore more reliable, tree-ring record of the Yamal
area. But strangely, he had decided to set this aside in favor of the
much narrower record he eventually used.
The question of Yamal had rightly come up when Briffa was questioned
by Climategate investigators. He told them that he had never
considered including a wider sample than the one he went with in the
end, and hadn’t had enough time to include a wider one. However, the
specific issue of the suppressed record appears to have largely been
passed over by the panel, and Briffa’s explanation, like so many
others given to the Climategate inquiries, appears to have been
accepted without question.
But the ruse has now been shot to pieces, by the recent decision from
the U.K.’s information commissioner that Briffa can no longer withhold
the list of sites he used in his suppressed regional record for the
Yamal area. The disclosure of these sites has allowed McIntyre to
calculate what the broad series would have looked like if Briffa had
chosen to publish it. He has shown that it has no hint of the hockey-
stick shape that Briffa’s cherry-picked data indicated. Briffa’s
decision to publish an alarming but unreliable version of the Yamal
series — instead of a more reliable and thoroughly unremarkable one —
has been the talk of the climate blogosphere, with many prominent
commentators openly speaking of dishonesty.
Two and a half years after the initial revelation of the Climategate e-
mails, new controversies, on the part of the scientists and the
investigators involved, continue to emerge. Many of the players
involved are desperate to sweep the scandal under the rug. However,
their machinations have only succeeded in bringing renewed attention
to their questionable science and ugly behind-the-scenes shenanigans,
reigniting hope that more complete and more independent investigations
— on both sides of the Atlantic — will yet be performed.
AGWFacts
May 26, 2012, 9:56:28 PM5/26/12
to
On Fri, 25 May 2012 13:26:18 -0700 (PDT), Tunderbar
<tdco...@gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/300877/climategate-continues-andrew-montford#
A neo-nazi web site? LOL!
> May 24, 2012 4:00 A.M.
> Climategate Continues
No evidence it ever happened.
--
"A 'crank' is defined as a man who cannot be turned." --- _Nature_, 8 Nov 1906
<tdco...@gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/300877/climategate-continues-andrew-montford#
A neo-nazi web site? LOL!
> May 24, 2012 4:00 A.M.
> Climategate Continues
--
"A 'crank' is defined as a man who cannot be turned." --- _Nature_, 8 Nov 1906
Wally W.
May 26, 2012, 10:55:05 PM5/26/12
to
On Sat, 26 May 2012 19:56:28 -0600, AGWFacts wrote:
>On Fri, 25 May 2012 13:26:18 -0700 (PDT), Tunderbar
><tdco...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/300877/climategate-continues-andrew-montford#
>
>A neo-nazi web site? LOL!
>
>> May 24, 2012 4:00 A.M.
>> Climategate Continues
>
>No evidence it ever happened.
Sounds like a denier.
>On Fri, 25 May 2012 13:26:18 -0700 (PDT), Tunderbar
><tdco...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/300877/climategate-continues-andrew-montford#
>
>A neo-nazi web site? LOL!
>
>> May 24, 2012 4:00 A.M.
>> Climategate Continues
>
>No evidence it ever happened.
AGWFacts
May 28, 2012, 4:02:02 PM5/28/12
to
On Sat, 26 May 2012 22:55:05 -0400, Wally W. <ww8...@aim.com>
wrote:
Got any evidence "climategate" happened? If so, step forward and
present it. FOX "News" will pay you a great deal for such
evidence.
wrote:
present it. FOX "News" will pay you a great deal for such
evidence.
gordo
May 28, 2012, 10:55:39 PM5/28/12
to
On Mon, 28 May 2012 14:02:02 -0600, AGWFacts
<AGWF...@1800reality.com> wrote:
>On Sat, 26 May 2012 22:55:05 -0400, Wally W. <ww8...@aim.com>
>wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 26 May 2012 19:56:28 -0600, AGWFacts wrote:
>>
>> >On Fri, 25 May 2012 13:26:18 -0700 (PDT), Tunderbar
>> ><tdco...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/300877/climategate-continues-andrew-montford#
>> >
>> >A neo-nazi web site? LOL!
>> >
>> >> May 24, 2012 4:00 A.M.
>> >> Climategate Continues
>> >
>> >No evidence it ever happened.
>
>> Sounds like a denier.
>
>Got any evidence "climategate" happened? If so, step forward and
>present it. FOX "News" will pay you a great deal for such
>evidence.
I have , Delingpole said so and is now famous and makes a good living
<AGWF...@1800reality.com> wrote:
>On Sat, 26 May 2012 22:55:05 -0400, Wally W. <ww8...@aim.com>
>wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 26 May 2012 19:56:28 -0600, AGWFacts wrote:
>>
>> >On Fri, 25 May 2012 13:26:18 -0700 (PDT), Tunderbar
>> ><tdco...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/300877/climategate-continues-andrew-montford#
>> >
>> >A neo-nazi web site? LOL!
>> >
>> >> May 24, 2012 4:00 A.M.
>> >> Climategate Continues
>> >
>> >No evidence it ever happened.
>
>> Sounds like a denier.
>
>Got any evidence "climategate" happened? If so, step forward and
>present it. FOX "News" will pay you a great deal for such
>evidence.
from it.
You can even see him from time to time quoted in the shill blog run
by Watts. Proof enough for you heifer dust for brains?
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