3 ms·

Former NOAA Scientist Confirms Colleagues Manipulated Climate Records

24 points by danjoc 10y ago

diyorgasms 10y ago
Given the source of this release, I am incredulous, and suspect that the internal disagreements referenced were more akin to bikeshedding or perhaps just entirely fabricated for the purpose of political ax-grinding.
gravelc 10y ago
Worth a read for some background on this: http://www.popsci.com.au/science/the-house-science-committee-claims-scientists-faked-climate-change-data8212heres-what-you-should-know,450206 http://www.popsci.com.au/science/the-house-science-committee...
- tangue 10y ago
  "The source of their evidence, according to Committee spokesperson Thea McDonalds, was a Daily Mail article." This is not politics, this is trolling and it takes trolling to a whole new level. It feels as if the wildests redditors are in charge in the US.
- mcguire 10y ago
  "Zeke Hausfather at Berkeley Earth independently developed an updated version of Figure 2 in Karl et al 2015. The black line shows the new NOAA record, while the thinner blue line shows the results from raw land stations, ships, and buoys with no corrections for station moves or instrument changes. The two are quite similar over the last 50 years; over the last 100 years the corrected data [the one Karl uses] actually shows less global warming."
iamjono 10y ago
Probably to do with the current administration's agenda to discredit climate change...
jcranmer 10y ago
http://www.popsci.com/regardless-house-science-committee-claims-noaa-scientists-probably-didnt-manipulate-climate-records http://www.popsci.com/regardless-house-science-committee-cla... is another view of the record which is certainly more detailed than the original press release, which contains a single quote and 0 context.
stuckagain 10y ago
The actual Karl paper: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6242/1469.full http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6242/1469.full
jessriedel 10y ago
John Bates has an extensive blog post describing his allegations on Judith Curry's well-known blog: https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/04/climate-scientists-versus-climate-data/ https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/04/climate-scientists-versus... It was submitted to HN yesterday but got 4 points and 0 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13574012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13574012 Posts submitted to HN in the last month about the effort to back-up climate data from a suspected erasure by the Trump administration got 448 and 85 points. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13488334 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13488334 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13487843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13487843 [EDIT] Bates: > I read with great irony recently that scientists are “frantically copying U.S. Climate data, fearing it might vanish under Trump” (e.g., Washington Post 13 December 2016). As a climate scientist formerly responsible for NOAA’s climate archive, the most critical issue in archival of climate data is actually scientists who are unwilling to formally archive and document their data. I spent the last decade cajoling climate scientists to archive their data and fully document the datasets. I established a climate data records program that was awarded a U.S. Department of Commerce Gold Medal in 2014 for visionary work in the acquisition, production, and preservation of climate data records (CDRs), which accurately describe the Earth’s changing environment. [EDIT2] Rebuttal post by Peter Thorne, who was in Karl's group, although was not an author on the key paper: http://icarus-maynooth.blogspot.ca/2017/02/on-mail-on-sunday-article-on-karl-et-al.html http://icarus-maynooth.blogspot.ca/2017/02/on-mail-on-sunday...
- jcranmer 10y ago
  If I may summarize the blog post to characterize the allegations more accurately than the House press release: NOAA scientist used as the basis for a major climate paper a data set which was in an alpha stage in terms of post-processing. This preliminary data should have been at least indicated as such but was not done in the paper submission. The exact differences between the alpha version and released version is not documented, and the dataset used for the paper hasn't apparently been located, so finding the differences is difficult. Notably, Bates doesn't seem to be accusing Karl et. al. of actually manipulating the data to get spectacular results. Rather, the allegation is that the rush to put out the paper induced Karl et. al. to bypass transparency rules designed to prevent, well, suspicion of the data being manipulated.
danjoc 10y ago
quietly removed from front page Edit: Not [Flagged], but not getting karma from further upvotes to story. Edit2: Down voting comment has begun.
- grzm 10y ago
  User flags affect rankings even prior to the '[flagged]' tag appearing. There are plenty of submissions with higher and lower upvotes. As you're aware, the ranking algorithm isn't public, in large part to prevent gaming of the system. If you have questions or concerns about the ranking, contact the mods via the Contact link in the footer. Please stop with the conspiracy innuendos. You're likely getting downvotes just for that, and now for commenting on downvotes.
  - danjoc 10y ago
    >Please stop with the conspiracy innuendos. Simply documenting. Last time I pointed out a post had been "shadow flagged" (because it didn't say [Flagged]) I got told off. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12473904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12473904 I'm sparing someone else from being told off if they notice my post before it is [Flagged]
karmelapple 10y ago
The wording in the linked article is surprising and disconcerting: "This fact has always been a thorn in the side of climate change alarmists, as it became difficult to disprove the slowdown in warming." That is some fairly loaded language, including "climate change alarmists." I am disappointed that taxpayer dollars are being used to put out official government writings that improperly vilify people with no context. Someone who is concerned about climate change is not a de facto alarmist.
gremlinsinc 10y ago
All I have to say is look at the source... .gov might as well be .ch or .ru or .tk links anymore. Since Trump took office it's quite hard to believe anything is more than actual propaganda.
Oletros 10y ago
Agood account of this can be read on Ars Technica [0] [0] https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02/article-names-whistleblower-who-told-congress-that-noaa-manipulated-data/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02/article-names-whistl...

24 points by danjoc 10y ago

Given the source of this release, I am incredulous, and suspect that the internal disagreements referenced were more akin to bikeshedding or perhaps just entirely fabricated for the purpose of political ax-grinding.

gravelc 10y ago

Worth a read for some background on this: http://www.popsci.com.au/science/the-house-science-committee-claims-scientists-faked-climate-change-data8212heres-what-you-should-know,450206 http://www.popsci.com.au/science/the-house-science-committee...

tangue 10y ago
"The source of their evidence, according to Committee spokesperson Thea McDonalds, was a Daily Mail article." This is not politics, this is trolling and it takes trolling to a whole new level. It feels as if the wildests redditors are in charge in the US.
mcguire 10y ago
"Zeke Hausfather at Berkeley Earth independently developed an updated version of Figure 2 in Karl et al 2015. The black line shows the new NOAA record, while the thinner blue line shows the results from raw land stations, ships, and buoys with no corrections for station moves or instrument changes. The two are quite similar over the last 50 years; over the last 100 years the corrected data [the one Karl uses] actually shows less global warming."

iamjono 10y ago

Probably to do with the current administration's agenda to discredit climate change...

jcranmer 10y ago

http://www.popsci.com/regardless-house-science-committee-claims-noaa-scientists-probably-didnt-manipulate-climate-records http://www.popsci.com/regardless-house-science-committee-cla... is another view of the record which is certainly more detailed than the original press release, which contains a single quote and 0 context.

stuckagain 10y ago

The actual Karl paper: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6242/1469.full http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6242/1469.full

jessriedel 10y ago

John Bates has an extensive blog post describing his allegations on Judith Curry's well-known blog: https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/04/climate-scientists-versus-climate-data/ https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/04/climate-scientists-versus... It was submitted to HN yesterday but got 4 points and 0 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13574012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13574012 Posts submitted to HN in the last month about the effort to back-up climate data from a suspected erasure by the Trump administration got 448 and 85 points. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13488334 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13488334 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13487843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13487843 [EDIT] Bates: > I read with great irony recently that scientists are “frantically copying U.S. Climate data, fearing it might vanish under Trump” (e.g., Washington Post 13 December 2016). As a climate scientist formerly responsible for NOAA’s climate archive, the most critical issue in archival of climate data is actually scientists who are unwilling to formally archive and document their data. I spent the last decade cajoling climate scientists to archive their data and fully document the datasets. I established a climate data records program that was awarded a U.S. Department of Commerce Gold Medal in 2014 for visionary work in the acquisition, production, and preservation of climate data records (CDRs), which accurately describe the Earth’s changing environment. [EDIT2] Rebuttal post by Peter Thorne, who was in Karl's group, although was not an author on the key paper: http://icarus-maynooth.blogspot.ca/2017/02/on-mail-on-sunday-article-on-karl-et-al.html http://icarus-maynooth.blogspot.ca/2017/02/on-mail-on-sunday...

jcranmer 10y ago
If I may summarize the blog post to characterize the allegations more accurately than the House press release: NOAA scientist used as the basis for a major climate paper a data set which was in an alpha stage in terms of post-processing. This preliminary data should have been at least indicated as such but was not done in the paper submission. The exact differences between the alpha version and released version is not documented, and the dataset used for the paper hasn't apparently been located, so finding the differences is difficult. Notably, Bates doesn't seem to be accusing Karl et. al. of actually manipulating the data to get spectacular results. Rather, the allegation is that the rush to put out the paper induced Karl et. al. to bypass transparency rules designed to prevent, well, suspicion of the data being manipulated.

danjoc 10y ago

quietly removed from front page Edit: Not [Flagged], but not getting karma from further upvotes to story. Edit2: Down voting comment has begun.

grzm 10y ago
User flags affect rankings even prior to the '[flagged]' tag appearing. There are plenty of submissions with higher and lower upvotes. As you're aware, the ranking algorithm isn't public, in large part to prevent gaming of the system. If you have questions or concerns about the ranking, contact the mods via the Contact link in the footer. Please stop with the conspiracy innuendos. You're likely getting downvotes just for that, and now for commenting on downvotes.
- danjoc 10y ago
  >Please stop with the conspiracy innuendos. Simply documenting. Last time I pointed out a post had been "shadow flagged" (because it didn't say [Flagged]) I got told off. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12473904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12473904 I'm sparing someone else from being told off if they notice my post before it is [Flagged]

karmelapple 10y ago

The wording in the linked article is surprising and disconcerting: "This fact has always been a thorn in the side of climate change alarmists, as it became difficult to disprove the slowdown in warming." That is some fairly loaded language, including "climate change alarmists." I am disappointed that taxpayer dollars are being used to put out official government writings that improperly vilify people with no context. Someone who is concerned about climate change is not a de facto alarmist.

gremlinsinc 10y ago

All I have to say is look at the source... .gov might as well be .ch or .ru or .tk links anymore. Since Trump took office it's quite hard to believe anything is more than actual propaganda.

Oletros 10y ago

Agood account of this can be read on Ars Technica [0] [0] https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02/article-names-whistleblower-who-told-congress-that-noaa-manipulated-data/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02/article-names-whistl...