Embattled UK climate scientist steps down
The embattled director of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU), Dr. Phil Jones, announced that he will be temporarily standing aside as director. An independent review of his conduct in light of the emails illegally hacked from his computers last month is in progress. In a press release, Professor Jones said: "What is most important is that CRU continues its world leading research with as little interruption and diversion as possible. After a good deal of consideration I have decided that the best way to achieve this is by stepping aside from the Director's role during the course of the independent review and am grateful to the University for agreeing to this. The Review process will have my full support".
The University and the police are investigating the break-in, and it is currently unknown if this was the act of an insider or an external break-in. I think it is highly unlikely this was the work of an insider in a whistle-blower type of action, since a computer at realclimate.org was hacked into the same week (via a computer in Turkey), and the criminal attempted to upload the emails stolen from CRU to the realclimate.org server. This is not the sort of action a whistleblower would do. Dr. Gavin Schmidt of realclimate.org said in a comment yesterday that the CRU break-in appeared to have been done from the outside, into a backup mail server. It is unlikely the hacker acted alone, since hackers aren't typically intimately familiar with the details of the climate change science debate. The emails and code stolen were selectively culled by someone who appeared to have considerable expertise in climate science.
What did Dr. Jones do wrong?
So, what did Dr. Jones do wrong? For starters, he should have confronted the allegations raised by his critics immediately and talked candidly to the press about some of the specific accusations being made. For example, one of the emails contained the statement that he would like to "redefine what the peer-reviewed literature is" to exclude two questionable papers from the IPCC report. Well, that's not something a good scientist should seriously advocate, and is an impossibility, in any case. No one can redefine the peer-reviewed literature, since the rules for this are well-established an not subject to change. When I read the comment in the context it was made, it reads as a joke. There is no discussion in the hacked emails about how to go about redefining the peer-reviewed literature. In the end, the two papers Jones was referring to with this comment, McKitrick and Michaels (2004) and Kalnay and Cai (2003), ended up being cited and discussed in Chapter 2 of the IPCC AR4 report. Those intent on discrediting the science of human-caused global warming are spinning the comment differently, creating a controversy about something that is impossible to do, and was not being seriously suggested. Jones should have immediately spoken up to quash the hype on this comment.
The "trick" to "hide the decline"
Another area of concern is over a graph Dr. Jones helped construct in 1999 showing the "hockey stick" of Earth's surface temperature going back 1,000 years. This graph combined instrumental measurements made since the 1800s with older paleoclimate data (including data from tree rings) to show a continuous 1,000 year record of Earth's temperatures. The paleoclimate data after 1960 show a bogus decline in Earth's temperatures that does not agree with what modern thermometers have been measuring, due to a well-known variation in tree ring thickness as a function of time, referred to as "the decline". Thus, Jones elected to toss out the bogus paleoclimate data (using a "trick" to "hide the decline") rather than present it in the graph. The graph was not properly labeled to show this was done, so viewers of the graph would have had needed to be familiar with a 1998 paper published in Nature or the 1999 paper referenced in the caption on the graph, which explained this well-known data issue. The graph that Jones used his "trick" on was put into a 1999 report called the "WMO Statement on the Status of the Global Climate". The report was given to policy makers, but was never published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. No reputable climate scientist believes that the paleoclimate data since 1960 is of higher quality than the instrumental record (this is discussed in detail in Chapter 6 of the 2007 IPCC report). In order to make the "hokey stick" graph less confusing, removing "the decline" from the tree ring data is a reasonable thing to do--provided one labels the graph properly. The graph was not properly labeled. Does Jones' "trick" and failure to properly label the graph constitute data falsification, or was it merely sloppy science? The hacked emails contain no suggestions that the "trick" was done to intentionally fool people, and the "trick" never appeared in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, including the IPCC reports. In Dr. Jones' words, "This is well-known and is called the "decline" or "divergence". The use of the term "hiding the decline" was in an email written in haste. CRU has not sought to hide the decline. Indeed, CRU has published a number of articles that both illustrate, and discuss the implications of, this recent tree-ring decline, including the article that is listed in the legend of the WMO Statement figure".
Figure 1. The WMO 1999 "hockey stick" figure (top) with climate reconstructions and instrumental temperatures merged, and a version (bottom) with the climate reconstructions (coloured) and instrumental temperatures (annual & summer in black) shown separately. Note "the decline" in the temperature obtained from tree ring data (green curve) in the bottom curve. Image credit: University of East Anglia.
Global warming contrarians are spinning the "trick" as reason to discredit the "hockey stick", claiming that the data was falsified to hide the fact that tree rings were telling the real story. Since the hockey stick was falsified, some claim, the entire science behind human-caused global warming needs to be questioned. This is plain ludicrous. The graph was never published in a scientific journal. Several updated versions of the "hockey stick" graph have been published in the ten years since the disputed graph was produced, and the "hockey stick" can be reproduced in essentially the same form excluding the controversial tree rings, using other paleoclimate data such as boreholes (See Mann et al., 2008, Figure 2). Furthermore, the peer-reviewed science supporting human-caused global warming is not based solely upon the "hockey stick" and the CRU data used for the last 150 years of the hockey stick graph. There are three separate data sets of global temperatures maintained by NASA, the CRU, and NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, that all show essentially the same global warming. We also have evidence from nature herself in the form of plants and animals expanding their ranges poleward, the record loss of Arctic sea ice in 2007 and record loss of multi-year Arctic sea ice this year, the shrinking of mountain glaciers, reductions in the length of freeze season in many Northern Hemisphere lakes and rivers, the shifting of spring blooms earlier in most regions of the world, and on and on and on. Again, Jones should have spoken up immediately to kill the ridiculous hype being pushed by global warming contrarians about the importance of a 10-year old graph that is now scientifically irrelevant, and was never published.
Figure 2. The "hockey stick" of global temperature anomalies since 300 A.D., as published in a 2008 paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Mann et al.. Even if one excludes tree rings (blue curve), the hockey stick looks the same.
Resistance to releasing data to other researchers
The hacked emails also show that Dr. Jones resisted releasing his data to contrarians and urged others to delete emails regarding Freedom Of Information (FOI) related requests. Many countries protect their weather data under an international agreement called World Meteorological Organization Resolution 40, which prohibits the data from being made public (this is why wunderground can't give out the UKMET model forecasts on our web site, for example). About 5% of the CRU data fell in that category, making release illegal. However, deleting emails related to FOI requests is inadvisable and implies one has something to hide. The investigation should certainly pursue the issue of whether Dr. Jones properly handled the requests to turn over his data to outside researchers. Ideally, weather data documenting Earth's climate history should be free to everyone on the planet (I am not a big fan of WMO Resolution 40). However, another aspect to this issue is the time it takes for the scientists involved to prepare the data for release. Large, complicated data sets require extensive documentation and access to related computer codes in order to process them, and making the data available to every amateur investigator interested in the data puts an unfair burden on the scientists who maintain the data sets. In particular, an amateur climate science investigator named Stephen McIntyre, who runs the web site Climate Audit, has created such an issue. McIntyre, a retired mining executive and an investor, is not a professional scientist, but has been successful identifying several technical errors made in the published literature. He has also generated a huge amount of misleading and incorrect information over the years, and has done a tremendous amount of damage to the understanding of climate science. McIntyre is intent on discrediting the science of human-caused global warming--presumably for ideological reasons, since he has no obvious ties to the fossil fuel industry--and has generated a large number of Freedom of Information requests to further his cause. One of the hacked emails, from Dr. Ben Santer, complained that McIntyre's FOI requests were intrusive and unreasonable with no scientific justification or explanation given, and appeared to be a calculated strategy to divert Santer's attention and focus away from research. It's worth reading Santer's reaction to the hacked email affair to learn more. Given such tactics by McIntyre, Dr. Jones' resistance to FOI requests from McIntyre is understandable, but appears to have been poorly handled.
The science of human-caused global warming remains unaffected
None of the hacked emails reveal any conspiracy to publish falsified or "fudged" material in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. The science of human-caused global warming will require no revision as a result of this affair. Baseless accusations of fraud, data manipulation, and conspiracy against climate change scientists stemming from the hacked emails are being massively hyped by the Manufactured Doubt industry in an effort to discredit climate scientists, since no flaw with the science can be found. Most of the public is in no position to distinguish good science from bad, so if you can create doubt, uncertainty, and confusion, you can win--or at least buy time, lots of it. The hacked email affair is all about politics, not science. Dr. Jones is an excellent scientist, but unfortunately was over-matched as a politician. It was hardly a fair fight--one scientist against the political might of the mightiest PR campaign against science ever waged, armed with some selectively culled stolen emails taken out of context.
Other posts in this series
The Manufactured Doubt industry and the hacked email controversy
Is more CO2 beneficial for Earth's ecosystems?
Next post
I'm working on a post called, "Don't shoot the messenger", and plan to run this Sunday or Monday.
Our Climate Change expert, Dr. Ricky Rood, will be in Copenhagen for Monday's start to the crucial COP15 climate change treaty negotiations. Be sure to tune into his blog for updates on the talks. Wunderground has provided financial support for several University of Michigan students to attend the talks, and I may be featuring portions of their blogs over the coming weeks.
Jeff Masters
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Gaseous State
Reuters
Scientists measure methane at the source: In a lush pasture near Buenos Aires, this cow and its compatriots are digesting important information: how much methane—a greenhouse gas 20 times as potent as carbon dioxide—is released by the country’s 55 million bovines. Researchers from Argentina’s National Institute of Agricultural Technology connected inflatable tanks to the cows’ first stomach, where methane is made, through a small hole between their ribs.
By measuring methane production directly inside each cow, biologist Silvia Valtorta hopes to more accurately determine the country’s overall agricultural contribution to global warming. According to the data, an average cow releases more than 70 gallons of the stuff every day. But a change in diet could reduce that. Cows that eat mostly grain produce 20 to 25 percent less methane than grazing cows, and adding tannin—a bitter chemical found in wine—to the feed could lower it further.
Alexandria...Baton Rouge...Fort Polk...Lafayette and Lake Charles.
Mississippi...
McComb...Vicksburg.
Im only 15 miles south of BR and looks like we wont get any snow... that sucks!
You will
you think? I hope so.
You should get some.
Is the blue supposed to be all snow? Because thats alot more then the actual radar shows.
I can tell ya, it is NOT reaching ground level still frozen in southern St. Tammany Parish.
Those precip type radars are so misleading when the conditions are tenuous...
GREAT!! Bring on the cold air!
I know. I checked the weather stations. It looks like the rain/snow line is around Baton Rouge; south of there is just rain.
Most of the rain in that image is not reaching the ground. However, it shows us that the atmosphere is starting to get more moist and widespread rain will develop tonight.
Cold air is lagging behind out west. Therefor, snow will be closer to the mountains of NC until afternoon Saturday when a mix of snow/rain could occur east before the moisture leaves. It might not make it to Raleigh if the moisture leaves to soon. Greensboro might see some mix precip after 1pm.
Better, but I am thinking it is conservative on the snow line...
This looks like snow to me. In Walker, one parish east of Baton Rouge...middle of it, really.
For instance, in Houston, about 3" of snow fell from the clouds according to ABC 13, however there was very little accumulation in much of Houston because temperatures ranged from 33-35 degrees.
Will there be enough cold air to allow for temperatures to get below freezing and allow for snow accumulation, or will a lot of people get their first snow along the east coast, but have almost no accumulation?
Awww! Look at Walker! Im just a tad south of them. Come south snow!
Jackson, Hinds County.
Snow u0.0 inch, reported by public.
Snow is picking up in intensity at Jackson State
University
12/04/2009 0738 PM
Jackson, Hinds County.
Snow u0.0 inch, reported by public.
Moderate to heavy snow reported at Metro center mall with
accumulations on car tops and grassy surfaces. Light snow
reported at medical mall.
12/04/2009 0738 PM
Jackson, Hinds County.
Snow u0.0 inch, reported by public.
Moderate snow reported at Metro center mall. Light snow
reported at medical mall.
12/04/2009 0722 PM
Clinton, Hinds County.
Snow u0.0 inch, reported by trained spotter.
Light snow beginning to fall in the Clinton area. No
accumulations.
12/04/2009 0710 PM
Jackson, Hinds County.
Snow e0.0 inch, reported by broadcast media.
Light snow falling now at Memorial Stadium in downtown
Jackson... reported by wapt-TV and wadm-TV
Yeah, I'm watching it closely, Walshy. Hoping for the cold air to get here a little earlier than expected or the precip to last a little longer than expected, or the best situation would be for BOTH to happen!! I've seen many, many surprises with winter weather in NC. Some have been for the better and some ended up with nothing at all when a big storm was expeted. Most of my experiences have been in Wilmington where I grew up, however. Not quite as familiar with weather here in the piedmont.
Accumulating snow for areas that are under a warning or advisory. Looks like in NC elevation will play a roll into how much you get.
So my answer is no for big cities in NC like Raleigh or Charlotte but they could see a mix develop before the moisture leaves. The north-east remains to be seen. Cold air will chase the moisture out, but my area might get 2inches or so since its colder near the mountains.
http://www.mstraffic.com/Link
12/04/2009 0727 PM
Mandeville, St Tammany Parish.
Sleet e0.00 inch, reported by NWS employee.
Sleet starting to mix with snow in city of Mandeville
12/04/2009 0705 PM
Abita Springs, St Tammany Parish.
Sleet e0.00 inch, reported by NWS employee.
Rain changing over to sleet.
Surprised that the SPC hasn't issued a Severe T-Storm or Tornado Watch for SW FL yet!
Mobile is slightly further north longitude. Looks like Mobile may get some later tonight.
There are a few factors going against snow accumulating in the Piedmont. It will be very wet with all that rain on the onset and ground temps will be near 40 as the cold air chases the moisture out. If your lucky you might get a heavy burst to cover the grass and cars but black ice will be a bigger problem for your area Sunday AM.
Hopefully this is a sign of things to come this winter for the south-east! Its just getting started...
little feetsleet pellets hitting all of the maple leaves from a tree near my front porch...One could have said the same about our 6 inches of snow last mid-Dec, but it actually turned out to be a fairly normal winter in SE LA outside of that one event.
"....sign of things to come..."
Agreed!! We got more snow in Wilmington when I was a kid than inland areas have seen in recent years.
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MOBILE AL
805 PM CST FRI DEC 4 2009
...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IS IN EFFECT FOR INLAND AREAS OF
SOUTHEAST MISSISSIPPI AND SOUTHWEST ALABAMA FROM 11 PM THIS
EVENING TO 9 AM CST SATURDAY...
.A LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM WILL MOVE ACROSS THE CENTRAL GULF OF
MEXICO TONIGHT THROUGH SATURDAY MORNING. TO THE NORTH...A COLDER
AIRMASS WILL BE MOVING GRADUALLY SOUTHWARD ACROSS MISSISSIPPI AND
ALABAMA. DEEP MOISTURE ON THE NORTH SIDE OF THE LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM
WILL CONTINUE TO MOVE ACROSS PORTIONS OF SOUTHEAST MISSISSIPPI AND
SOUTHWEST ALABAMA THIS EVENING AND OVERNIGHT...WITH PRECIPITATION
GRADUALLY BECOMING MORE WIDESPREAD OVERNIGHT. THE PRECIPITATION WILL
BEGIN AS A COLD RAIN...AND THEN CHANGE TO MOSTLY LIGHT SNOW AFTER 11
PM...GENERALLY ALONG AND NORTHWEST OF THE I-65 CORRIDOR. TOTAL
ACCUMULATIONS BEGINNING LATE TONIGHT WILL BE ABOUT ONE INCH OR LESS
FOR MOST AREAS IN THE ADVISORY...WITH SLIGHTLY HIGHER AMOUNTS
NORTHWEST OF A WIGGINS MISSISSIPPI TO CAMDEN ALABAMA LINE. ELEVATED
SURFACES...LIKE OVERPASSES AND BRIDGES...COULD SEE SOME MINOR
ACCUMULATIONS CREATING SLIPPERY CONDITIONS FOR MOTORISTS BY EARLY
SATURDAY MORNING.
ALZ051>057-059-061-062-MSZ067-075-076-078-079-051015-
/O.EXT.KMOB.WW.Y.0002.091205T0500Z-091205T1200Z/
CHOCTAW-WASHINGTON-CLARKE-WILCOX-MONROE-CONECUH-BUTLER-ESCAMBIA-
UPPER MOBILE-UPPER BALDWIN-WAYNE-PERRY-GREENE-STONE-GEORGE-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...BUTLER...LISMAN...SILAS...CHATOM...
MILLRY...JACKSON...THOMASVILLE...GROVE HILL...CAMDEN...
PINE HILL...HOMEWOOD...MONROEVILLE...EVERGREEN...GREENVILLE...
ATMORE...BREWTON...EAST BREWTON...MOBILE...PRICHARD...SARALAND...
BAY MINETTE...WAYNESBORO...RICHTON...BEAUMONT...NEW AUGUSTA...
LEAKESVILLE...MCLAIN...WIGGINS...LUCEDALE
805 PM CST FRI DEC 4 2009
...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY NOW IN EFFECT FROM 11 PM THIS EVENING
TO 6 AM CST SATURDAY...
A LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM WILL MOVE ACROSS THE CENTRAL GULF OF
MEXICO TONIGHT THROUGH SATURDAY MORNING. TO THE NORTH...A COLDER
AIRMASS WILL BE MOVING GRADUALLY SOUTHWARD ACROSS MISSISSIPPI AND
ALABAMA. DEEP MOISTURE ON THE NORTH SIDE OF THE LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM
WILL CONTINUE TO MOVE ACROSS PORTIONS OF SOUTHEAST MISSISSIPPI AND
SOUTHWEST ALABAMA THIS EVENING AND OVERNIGHT...WITH PRECIPITATION
GRADUALLY BECOMING MORE WIDESPREAD OVERNIGHT. THE PRECIPITATION WILL
BEGIN AS A COLD RAIN...AND THEN CHANGE TO MOSTLY LIGHT SNOW AFTER 11
PM...GENERALLY ALONG AND NORTHWEST OF THE I-65 CORRIDOR. TOTAL
ACCUMULATIONS BEGINNING LATE TONIGHT WILL BE ABOUT ONE INCH OR LESS
FOR MOST AREAS IN THE ADVISORY...WITH SLIGHTLY HIGHER AMOUNTS
NORTHWEST OF A WIGGINS MISSISSIPPI TO CAMDEN ALABAMA LINE. ELEVATED
SURFACES...LIKE OVERPASSES AND BRIDGES...COULD SEE SOME MINOR
ACCUMULATIONS CREATING SLIPPERY CONDITIONS FOR MOTORISTS BY EARLY
SATURDAY MORNING.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR SNOW MEANS THAT PERIODS OF SNOW
WILL CAUSE PRIMARILY TRAVEL DIFFICULTIES. BE PREPARED FOR SNOW
COVERED OVERPASSES OR BRIDGES AND LIMITED VISIBILITIES...AND USE
CAUTION WHILE DRIVING.
Recent years have brought less snow here lately. A moderate El Nino this year should bring us back to average. Did your area get that big Valentines Day snow? It was like 1 or 2 years ago it came out of no where...
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
758 PM CST FRI DEC 4 2009
.UPDATE...
...SOUNDING DISCUSSION...
NO PROBLEMS WITH THE FLIGHT THIS EVENING. A VERY MOIST SOUNDING...
PARTICULARLY ALOFT WITH A PW OF 0.84 INCHES AND A NEARLY SATURATED
SOUNDING BETWEEN 500 AND 830 MILLIBARS WHERE DEW POINT DEPRESSIONS
ARE AROUND ZERO DEGREES. FREEZING LEVEL IS CURRENTLY AT 5100 FEET
BUT WILL CONTINUE TO DROP AS EVAPORATIONAL COOLING AS WELL AS COLD
AIR ADVECTION TAKES PLACE OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF HOURS. THIS WILL
ALLOW FOR RAIN TO MIX WITH AND EVENTUALLY CHANGE OVER TO SNOW FOR
A FEW HOURS BEFORE ENDING SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT ESPECIALLY NORTH
OF THE LAKE. A STRONG 140 KNOT SOUTHWESTERLY JET IS IN PLACE AT
AROUND 188 MILLIBARS AS WELL.
The atmosphere is JUICY!!!
If he went pick his daughter up in BR he is probly in traffic! LOL. My mom went to the mall there and it usually takes 20 minutes to get home and it took her a good hour and a half.
"...Valentine's Day snow?..."
No. We had a light dusting this past Jan in Wilmington. That's the only time we've had ANY accumulating snow since late January 2000. As a child growin up there in the '80's, we had accumulating snow about every 2,3,or4 years. My aunts in Durham and Richmond used to get a good snow about every year. Until this past January, it hadn't snowed AT ALL for 4 years in Richmond. Hopefully we will make up for the "snow drought" over the next few winters!! FYI.. I just moved to Greensboro from Wilm in August. I'm counting on seeing some snow this winter!
Thanks, I hope everything is OK, too bad he doesn't have laptop with a wireless card.
Updated today at 8:26 PM
A Winter Weather Advisory has been extended to the southshore of Lake Pontchartrain. This is for only Orleans, Upper Jefferson, St Charles, St James, St John's parishes, but little to no accumulations expected in the New Orleans metro area.. Sleet/snow mixed will be seen on the southshore. A Winter Storm Warning continues from Pearl River county for all of northshore to Baton Rouge for Accumulations around 1-3" A Winter Weather Advisory is in effect for coastal counties in MS for accumulations from 1-2". Icing of bridges not expected until after midnight if it happens at all. The lowest temperatures around freezing won't occur until 4am-6am.
I noticed the traffic cameras from Siegen to points east have been off for quite a while. So LA DOTD turns off cameras when they are going to widen and add a lane to the outside? Dat's not nice.
(No, gro, not the city in Germany, but the road in Baton Rouge.)
Sorry, we did have a small (2" or so) accumulation in Jan or Feb 2003.
Not so "Tropical"
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