Climategate: What Did Phil Jones Actually Admit? Was He Correct?
Phil Jones is director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA), which has been at the center of the row over hacked emails. The BBC’s environment analyst Roger Harrabin put questions to Professor Jones yesterday, including several gathered from climate skeptics.
Here are some of the questions. Some of Phil’s replies were surprisingly candid. I will look at and comment on six of the 23 questions.
Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?
Phil Jones admitted the warming trends in the cyclical climate change we have seen since 1860 have been similar in magnitude. He provided these values for those periods:
Period Length Trend Significance
1860-1880 21 years 0.163 Yes
1910-1940 31 years 0.150 Yes
1975-1998 24 years 0.166 Yes
Jones left out 1880 to 1910, and 1940 to 1976, which both had negative decadal trends.
Do you agree that from January 2002 to the present there has been statistically significant global cooling?
Here Jones noted that the trend from 2002 to 2009 is negative (-0.12C per decade), but not statistically significant. He had noted earlier in the interview:
Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.
Do you agree that natural influences could have contributed significantly to the global warming observed from 1975-1998?
When considering changes over this period we need to consider all possible factors (so human and natural influences as well as natural internal variability of the climate system). Natural influences (from volcanoes and the Sun) over this period could have contributed to the change over this period.
However, Jones also noted that volcanoes should have produced cooling (and did) in the early 1980s and 1990s. He said the solar was flat. Here, it actually depends on what and whose measure of solar output you use.
Some, like Judith Lean, show flat solar output, but others like Hoyt/Schatten/Willson show an increase in line with recent decadal warming. Also, the other solar factors like ultraviolet (Shindell and Labitzke) and geomagnetic (Svensmark, Friis-Christensen), which can influence Earth’s temperature through ozone chemistry or cosmic ray cloud cover variations, were ignored by Lean and the IPCC (though they were discussed at some length in the IPCC science chapters). Scafetta and West have shown that, depending on which reconstruction is used and assuming that they are proxies for the total solar effect, you can explain up to 69% of the government (inflated) warming since 1900.
Skeptics of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) suggest that the official surface record paints a different story from the actual station records. To restore trust, should we start again with new quality control on input data in total transparency?
There is more than one “official” surface temperature record, based on actual land station records. There is the one we have developed in CRU, but there are also the series developed at NCDC and GISS. Although we all use very similar station datasets, we each employ different ways of assessing the quality of the individual series and different ways of developing gridded products. The agreement between the three series is very good.
That is because NCDC and CRU do not adjust for urbanization — even though Tom Karl, director at NCDC, suggested in a 1988 peer review paper an urban contamination of 3.73°C for a city of 5 million. Phil Jones himself, in a 2009 paper on China, found a countrywide urban contamination of 1C per century. GISS does adjust for urbanization, which results in much less U.S. warming. For the globe, their metadata base of station location/population is poor. And Steve McIntyre found they just as often adjust urban temperature trends up as down.
There is a debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was global or not. If it were to be conclusively shown that it was a global phenomenon, would you accept that this would undermine the premise that mean surface atmospheric temperatures during the latter part of the 20th Century were unprecedented?
There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. … Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today … then obviously the late-20th century warmth would not be unprecedented.
The Idsos at CO2 Science have done a very thorough job documenting, using the peer review literature, the existence of a global MWP. They have found data published by 804 individual scientists from 476 separate research institutions in 43 different countries supporting the global Medieval Warm Period.
Where do you draw the line on the handling of data? What is at odds with acceptable scientific practice? Do you accept that you crossed the line?
No answer. Matter for the independent review.
Anthony Watts, E.M. Smith, and I have shown in “Surface Temperature Records: Policy Driven Deception” that the surface temperature records leave a lot to be desired. Claims about global monthly and annual rankings, and that the last decade was the warmest ever, can be dismissed as folly.
I wonder if there will be a slow creep towards the real facts and figures and a general amnesia about the extremes and scare tactics the general public were subjected to. This seems to not be unlike the recent revisionism in the Iraq “success story,” pretending we all knew the truth and were on the “right side” of the issues, all along.
Interesting to compare Jones’ recent statements on the Medieval Warm Period to what he said in the past.
Thank you for the rich information and for the precious links.
I am astonished at the tone of the answers: this guy doesn’t even sound like a scientist, he sounds like a politician, a salesman: yes but no, but yes but perhaps but no but yes.
Are going to change the whole economy of the world because of this kind of blathering ?
These are the results of decades of radical brainwashing in the schools, a new species of HOMO SOVIETICUS, worse than the last.
Do you accept that you crossed the line?
I think we all know how he and his fellow travelers will answer that.
It’s good to see the scientific debate is starting the ball rolling concerning alternate reasons for global temperatures and climate changes. Keep up the investigative science!
One good data base is maintained by NOAA and is posted on the Internet. It goes back to 1701. The data base was clearly started in the IBM punch card era, each record is 72 columns long, and contains station number, year, and 12 temperature readings in degrees C, with one digit after the decimal point (tenths of a degree). From perhaps 30 stations in 1701, the record grows to 100,000 stations by 1980. Then the number of stations was radically purged down to 14,000 stations. Skeptics have charged that the higher altitude, higher latitude, colder reading stations were purged, resulting in a warmer global average since 1980. When averaged by year and plotted, the NOAA raw temperature record shows a gentle rise from perhaps 9 degrees in 1701 to about 13 degrees today. Since 1701 was in the depths of the little ice age, this is a reasonable temperature history.
In addition to the raw data file, NOAA has applied undocumented corrections to produce an “adjusted” temperature record. When averaged by year and plotted, the adjusted temperature record is trash until 1838. From 1838 to present day is shows a nearly flat temperature average, with a temp rise of only a degree or two since 1838. Plus a few glitches over the years, including a sharp 4 degree cooling in 2006, which I sure don’t remember. I don’t have much confidence in the adjusted data.
Many in the climate “science” field advocate “updating” or “adjusting” or otherwise messing with the raw data. If this is allowed, then the resulting temperature history will be what ever the adjuster thinks it ought to be.
I don’t know. I mean, dude has lied before.
Witness PJM once-upon-a-time co-founder Charles Johnson frothing at the mouth about whether the Daily Mail is a good newspaper, as if that were the issue here – not the actual science. What’s happened to him?
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/35781_The_Daily_Mails_Latest_Lie_About_Climate_Change
Maybe he should be reading Watts Up With That? and not the Daily Mail.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/14/phil-jones-momentous-qa-with-bbc-reopens-the-science-is-settled-issues/
Even if the idea of AGW becomes totally discredited its champions will not go away. It was always just an excuse for taking control. If the current excuse is shown to be garbage they’ll just search for another excuse.
I suspect that the next big justification for submitting to the Dictatorship of the Wise will be global economic conditions, which were in great part brought about by policies created by the same people who now want to save us from them.
Yes–the cure for arsenic poisoning is to take more arsenic. Any member of our current political class can tell you that.
(sarcasm ends)
The question now is how to stop the ambitious pols and econazis who will try to pretend this reversal didn’t happen.
I suggest you write your congressman and state reps, to start…
#8 Nancy Lopez:
“What’s happened to him? ”
At this point, WHOGAS?
Some questions for those who might know.
1. What were the declines in temp in the years 1880 – 1910, and 1940 – 1975,
2. What has been the decline, if any, in the years 1998 – 2009?
3. To what extent do the declines cancel out the gains, if they do?
Thanks
Isn’t it striking how the elites demand billion-dollar double-blind testing regimes for new drugs, yet accept with little argument the (clearly conflicted by need for financial support well beyond tenure and salary) claims of 2nd and 3rd rate schools’ academics. Shades of Laetrile. “Well, it didn’t do any harm to take it and I felt better.” (Granted, I’ve no use for the guilds and regulations that preserve them in the drug and medical business. Sooner we return to a free market in health care, the sooner the least of us will live longer and healthier – and those without common sense will make an earlier exit).
We need to erect a statue to Michael Crichton who spent his last years when he should have been in a sickbed raising this criticism of politics corrupting science, especially with regard to the environment and AGW. A (still) unsung hero and one of the smartest (educated
people I have ever met.
We’ve too many researchers playing with models and not doing field work. For years Freeman Dyson has been telling everyone he touches that we need to spend 10x-100x on field research and laboratory experiments than we do on computers (which he regards as pretty close to self-abuse when used for more than record keeping.. which as we can see from the current fiasco, these scientists were incapable of – no laboratory discipline, no record keeping, no publishing of sufficient data or pointers to who had the data and algorithms sufficient to replicate their model’s results.) And there’s no better indicator of this then when your strongest reviewers are the statisticians – who need know nothing about a field to see when an “experiment” has blasted the barn door with a shotgun, and then went and drew the circle for measurement. Dr. Dyson observes that we (the U.S.) may well be absorbing more CO2 than we emit, and scrubbing even more out of the air as it passes across the continent west-to-east, but no one has done the work to verify (since we’ve been returning so much land to nature as we’ve become a richer nation, with farming much more concentrated on only the most productive land (a benefit of agribusiness displacing the family & yeoman farmer), and much more so relative to everyone else).
A pity. And an embarrassment to scientists everywhere (where there is no such thing as a “right” answer, where a “no” is as good as a “yes” for an experiment as long as it is well documented and repeatable), which is certain to discredit them and their discipline in the eyes of the public for generations. The stain of corruption (the human condition) takes thousands great reputations to recover from the failings of a few.
Truth is solar anomolies,flares etc. probably effect the global temps more than anything else. Global temperature change is more accurately measuredby core samples in thousands of years. Shorter increments are all but meaningless from everything I have read.
The left will use anything they can to advance Marxism its up to us to stop it.
Re: #8 Nancy Lopez:
“What’s happened to him? ”
I don’t know, but it is sad, isn’t it? That used to be my most admired blog, but from the moment the mighty Zero was given the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, something happened.
I can see having intellectual disputes on individual issues, or disagreements with other blogger’s tactics, but to buy into and promote the whole libtard agenda, up to and including the global warming hoax? I’m not going to even attempt to explain that one.
Bilgeman probably has the best perspective on this: “At this point, WHOGAS?”
Joseph;
Good article, thanks for the effort.
And thanks much more for pointing us to: [b]Surface Temperature Records: Policy Driven Deception[/b] – this baby is much more worthy of awards than anything IPCC/AlGore [i]et al[/i] have ever done!
We’ve been nailed with pure HOAX/MYTH/FRAUD for a number of years regarding GW now called AGW. But unfortunately, our Liberal/Socialist slime won’t give up on it all that easily, there is too much money involved! We’ll need to police them.
WOW, he is really backpedaling. Do you think the backpedaling is finished? Or is it just beginning, as the facts come out and criminal charges are considered for defrauding the public. (these guys took Millions of dollars in research grants) Will they start ratting each other out to save their ass?
Charles Johnson went the way of all Dan Rathers.
I found this general statement of Jones in this BBC interview to be the most jaw-dropping:
BBC: When scientists say “the debate on climate change is over”, what exactly do they mean – and what don’t they mean?
Jones: It would be supposition on my behalf to know whether all scientists who say the debate is over are saying that for the same reason. I don’t believe the vast majority of climate scientists think this. This is not my view. There is still much that needs to be undertaken to reduce uncertainties, not just for the future, but for the instrumental (and especially the palaeoclimatic) past as well.
Doesn’t Phil Jones, with this statement, essentially declare himself to be an AGW skeptic?
Pal Jones blaming untrustworthy climate reports on personal organizational shortcomings is like,
blaming shopping mistakes for alcoholism.
Wow!
The NEW YORK TIMES has yet to cover this.
Wow!
Oh please, notice this article doesn’t even quote anything Jones says. All this distortion is carefully explained here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/daily-mangle/
Consider this from the Jones interview:
E – How confident are you that warming has taken place and that humans are mainly responsible?
ANSWER:
“I’m 100% confident that the climate has warmed. As to the second question, I would go along with IPCC Chapter 9 – there’s evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
DAR
So Jones is 100% certain the climate has warmed and he thinks humans have caused most of it since the 1950′s. Oh how will the science supporting climate change recover from a blow such as this?!
D.
————–
Fifteen years is simply not long enough to establish a significant statistical trend, as Jones correctly stated.
Go here to learn about this works:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/how-long/