Back in February, I signed a www.number10.gov.uk petition to the Prime Minister concerning the scandal at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia. This was set up by Mike Haseler and received 3296 signatures (or 3273 depending on which page on their site you look at).
“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to suspend the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia from preparation of any Government Climate Statistics until the various allegations have been fully investigated by an independent body.”
The detailed version can be found here
On the 24th March, some six days before the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee published the findings of its very cursory inquiry into the goings on at CRU, Number 10 circulated its response to the petition:
The Government believes that all these allegations should be investigated transparently.
An independent review is currently examining the scientific conduct of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and is due to report its findings later in the spring. More information on the review can be found at: http://www.cce-review.org/. The University of East Anglia also recently announced that there will be a separate review to examine the CRU’s key scientific publications. The findings of both these reviews will be made public.
The House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology is also investigating the matter. On 1 March the Select Committee heard evidence from a wide range of contributors, including Professor Jones, who has temporarily stepped down from his post as Director of CRU.
CRU’s analysis of temperature records is not funded by, prepared for, or published by the Government. The resulting outputs are not Government statistics.
Our confidence that the Earth is warming is taken from multiple sources of evidence and not only the HadCRUT temperature record, which CRU scientists contribute to. The same warming trend is seen in two independent analyses carried out in the United States, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Goddard Institute of Space Studies at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). These analyses draw on the same pool of temperature data as HadCRUT, but use different methodologies to produce analyses of temperature change through time. Further evidence of this warming is found in data from instruments on satellites, and in trends of declining arctic sea ice and rising sea levels.
Science is giving us an increasingly clear picture of the risks we face from climate change. With more research, we can better understand those risks, and how to manage them. That is why the Government funds a number of institutions, including the University of East Anglia, to carry out research into climate change science.
It is, no doubt, true to say that Phil Jones’ global temperature estimates are not, strictly speaking, government statistics, but they are certainly statistics that the government relies very heavily in formulating policy and in AGW propaganda. There also appears to be a blatant contradiction concerning government funding of the CRU:
CRU’s analysis of temperature records is not funded by ….. by the Government.
That is why the Government funds ….. the University of East Anglia, to carry out research into climate change science.
But perhaps most startling of all is the omission any reference to human caused global warming. One suspects that six months ago that would not have been the case.
The main thrust of the Downing Street response is that there is no need whatsoever to be concerned about the robustness of the CRU’s research into historic global mean temperatures. All must be well because Phil Jones’ findings are confirmed by other, similar research carried out at GISS and NOAA. This once again raises a question that has been puzzling me for some tim; the claim that the similarity of the findings published by CRU, GISS, and NOAA is proof that the quality of the CRU research is beyond question. I find this unconvincing.
The well worn argument, now being trotted out on an almost daily basis by high profile climate scientists and assorted politicians and activist, goes like this: all three institutions use the same data pool, but applying different methods for homogenisation, adjustment, and analysis, they reach much the same conclusion about what the global mean temperature is, or has been, in the past. This, we are told, satisfies the normal requirements of the scientific method, to confirm findings by independent replication. And of course the word ‘independent’ is very important here.
For anyone who has even scratched the surface of the complexities that are involved in attempting to identify a global temperature signal from large amounts of surface station data stretching back to the mid 19th century, there can be no doubt about the challenges this presents. That data pool that they are all using is a very muddy one indeed.
Problems concerning the siting and periodic relocation of weather stations abound, which are aggravated by changes in instrumentation, in recording regimes, the inevitable introduction of scribal errors, and an extremely inconsistent geographic distribution of data sources. Then there is the urban heat island effect and the influence on temperature measurements of changes in land use around weather stations. All these factors require adjustments to the raw temperature data.
Worse, there is the discontinuous nature of many records. Periods when no temperature measurements are available have to be infilled by processes of estimation.
All these problems have to be seen against a background of a data processing regime that relies on computer algorithms. Concerns have been expressed about the quality of the programming at both CRU and GISS.
In spite of all these complexities and uncertainties, we are told that three of the worlds leading climate research institutions can derive global temperature estimates accurate to within tenths of a degree centigrade, which more or less agree with each other. And that this is achieved independently, without collusion of any kind.
It would seem to me that inconsistency in the results from CRU, GISS and NOAA would be far less surprising.
PeterM
The CO2 discussion is pointless. There are two pre-Mauna Loa sets of data: one based on ice core analysis (favored by IPCC), the other based on several analyses made over the 19th and early 20th centuries, using various analytical techniques (favored by a minority of scientists, including Ernst Beck).
The results of the two methods do not agree, although there is some overlap.
Which is correct?
AsI understand TonyB, he does not take a definitive stand on this, but simply raises the question:
A re-evaluation of Beck’s findings certainly cannot hurt. If the ice core data are validated, so much the better. If not, we will still be more knowledgeable than before.
But more germane is the discussion of “pre-industrial” global temperature.
Do you agree with IPCC (and Mann) that temperature remained essentially constant prior to significant human CO2 emissions?
Or do you agree that there was a distinct Roman Optimum and MWP, both warmer than today, as well as a Dark Ages minimum and LIA, both cooler than today?
This is important, because if there were major fluctuations in our past climate, we cannot be sure that the causes for these fluctuations may not also have been largely responsible for the current climate changes, and that anthropogenic greenhouse warming only played a secondary role, if any at all.
Max
PeterM
Yeah. Downwind from an active volcano, at that!
But, what the hell, Mauna Loa is the best we have so let’s live with it!
(I personally would have picked Easter Island, or maybe a spot 100 miles northwest of Vladivostok, but Hawaii is a nicer place to live.)
Max
Peter
Thank you for your link which was cited in the thread. It unfortunately ignored Ernst Becks material (it just sniped at it) and is rather out of date as the current material has somewhat moved the discussion on.
So the nub of this is that you think that the highly complex proxy ice core records are more reliable than the direct measurements taken at the time by highly experienced scientists using well proven methods?
All I am trying to determine is that if co2 concentrations are constant, yet we had dramatic climate variability in the past, what cauised it? It couldn’t have been C02 which surely demonstrates it is a weak climate driver that is overwhelmed by natural variability?
So can you please answer the direct question as to which of the 3 scenarios I posed above in #46 are correct? Or perhaps you have a number 4 you wish to share?
Tonyb
Peter
Why do you assume that the CO2 level is the cause rather than the effect? There is 50 times as much CO2 in the ocean as in the atmosphere, and it releases more when warmed. If the resultant atmospheric CO2 had a significant effect on warming, the resultant positive feedback loop would have fried us aeons ago…
BTW, has anyone else noticed the haze now the aeroplanes are back? A coincidence, no doubt.
JamesP
CO2 is the principal driver of our planet’s climate?
How simplistic and myopic.
Our climate, as well as atmospheric CO2, have remained essentially constant over human history, until mankind became industrialized and started generating CO2, primarily from the combustion of fossil fuels.
A totally unsubstantiated suggestion.
We must curtail carbon emissions in order to “save our planet”.
A disastrous suggestion, which will wreck our overall standard of living and well-being, but achieve absolutely nothing for our climate.
Unfortunately, these are the myths we are dealing with here.
There are many individuals and organizations that are going along with the game “for the ride” in the hopes of gaining a profit.
There are “scientists”, who have sacrificed their scientific impartiality in order to get the tax-payer funding they need to continue their work.
There are some who have become activists for “the cause”, rather than objective scientists.
But there are others, like PeterM, who truly believe these myths (because they want to believe them).
These are the “toughest nuts to crack”, because they are physically unable to see that their paradigm is not supported by the “holy grail” of science: empirical evidence.
Max