Nov
25, 2009
CRU’s
Source Code: Climategate Uncovered
By Marc Sheppard, The
American Thinker
As the evidence of climate fraud at the University of East Anglia[s
prestigious Climactic Research Unit (CRU) continues to mount, those
who’ve been caught green-handed continue to parry their due opprobrium
and comeuppance, thanks primarily to a dead-silent mainstream
media.
But should the hubris and duplicity evident in the emails of those
whose millennial temperature charts literally fuel the warming alarmism
movement somehow fail to convince the world of the scam that’s been
perpetrated upon it, certainly these revelations of the fraud cooked
into the computer programs that create such charts will.
First—Let’s briefly review a few pertinent details.
We reported on Saturday that among the most revealing of the “hacked”
emails released last week was one dated November 1999, in which CRU
chief PD Jones wrote these words to Hockey-Stick-Team leaders Michael
Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes: “I’ve just completed Mike’s
Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20
years (ie from 1981 onwards) and (sic) from 1961 for Keith’s to hide
the decline.”
Predictably, the suggestion of a climate-related
data-adjusting
“trick” being employed by such alarmist bellwethers 10 years ago
instantly raised more than a few eyebrows. And with similar
alacrity,
the Big Green Scare Machine shifted into CYA gear.
Almost immediately after the news hit on Friday, Jones told
Investigative Magazine’s TGIF Edition [PDF] that he “had no idea” what
he might have meant by the words “hide the decline” a decade prior:
“They’re talking about the instrumental data which is unaltered - but
they’re talking about proxy data going further back in time, a thousand
years, and it’s just about how you add on the last few years, because
when you get proxy data you sample things like tree rings and ice
cores, and they don’t always have the last few years. So one way is to
add on the instrumental data for the last few years.”
Baloney.
Mere hours later, Jones’s warmist soul mates at
RealClimate offered
an entirely different explanation: “The paper in question is the Mann,
Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy
temperature reconstruction, and the ‘trick’ is just to plot the
instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of
the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term “trick” to
refer to “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something
that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all.
As for the ‘decline’, it is well known that Keith Briffa’s maximum
latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records
after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the “divergence problem” -
see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in
the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391,
678-682). Those authors have always recommend not using the post 1960
part of their reconstruction, and so while ‘hiding’ is probably a poor
choice of words (since it is ‘hidden’ in plain sight), not using the
data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to
understand why this happens.”
And later that day, Jean S at Climate Audit explained
the reality of
the quandary. In order to smooth a timed series, it’s necessary to pad
it beyond the end-time. But it seems however hard they tried, when MBH
plotted instrumental data against their tree ring reconstructions, no
smoothing method would ever undo the fact that after 1960, the tree
ring series pointed downward while the instrumental series pointed
upward - hence the divergence: “So Mann’s solution [Mike’s Nature
Trick] was to use the instrumental record for padding [both], which
changes the smoothed series to point upwards.”
So the author of the email claimed the “trick” was
adding
instrumental measurements for years beyond available proxy data, his
co-conspirators at Real Climate admitted it was actually a replacement
of proxy data due to a known yet inexplicable post-1960 “divergence”
anomaly, and CA called it what it was - a cheat.
The next day, the UEA spoke out for the first time on the subject when
its first related press-release was posted to its homepage.
And Jones
demonstrated to the world the benefits a good night’s sleep imparts to
one’s memory, though not one’s integrity: “The word ‘trick’ was used
here colloquially as in a clever thing to do. It is ludicrous to
suggest that it refers to anything untoward.”
Tick Tock.
Of course, RealClimate also avowed there was “no
evidence of the
falsifying of data” in the emails. But as Jones chose not to
walk back
his statement that the “tricks” were rarely exercised, and even assured
us that he was “refer[ring] to one diagram - not a scientific paper,”
his explanation remained at-odds with that of his virtual-confederates
at RC.
And as Jones must have known at the time—such would prove to be the
very least of CRU’s problems.
Getting with the Green Program(s)
One can only imagine the angst suffered daily by the
co-conspirators, who knew full well that the “Documents” sub-folder of
the CRU FOI2009 file contained more than enough probative program
source code to unmask CRU’s phantom methodology.
In fact, there are hundreds of IDL and FORTRAN source files buried in
dozens of subordinate sub-folders. And many do properly
analyze and
chart maximum latewood density (MXD), the growth parameter commonly
utilized by CRU scientists as a temperature proxy, from raw or
legitimately normalized data. Ah, but many do so much
more.
Skimming through the often spaghetti-like code, the number of programs
which subject the data to a mixed-bag of transformative and filtering
routines is simply staggering. Granted, many of these
“alterations”
run from benign smoothing algorithms (e.g. omitting rogue outliers) to
moderate infilling mechanisms (e.g. estimating missing station data
from that of those closely surrounding). But many others fall
into the
precarious range between highly questionable (removing MXD data which
demonstrate poor correlations with local temperature) to downright
fraudulent (replacing MXD data entirely with measured data to reverse a
disorderly trend-line).
In fact, workarounds for the post-1960 “divergence
problem”, as
described by both RealClimate and Climate Audit, can be found
throughout the source code. So much so that perhaps the most
ubiquitous programmer’s comment (REM) I ran across warns that the
particular module “Uses ‘corrected’ MXD - but shouldn’t usually plot
past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to
the real temperatures.”
What exactly is meant by “corrected” MXD, you
ask? Outstanding
question—and the answer appears amorphous from program to
program.
Indeed, while some employ one or two of the aforementioned
“corrections,” others throw everything but the kitchen sink at the raw
data prior to output.
For instance, in subfolder ”” there’s a program
that calibrates the MXD data against available local instrumental
summer (growing season) temperatures between 1911-1990, then merges
that data into a new file. That file is then digested and
further
modified by another program
which creates calibration statistics for the MXD against the stored
temperature and “estimates” (infills) figures where such temperature
readings were not available. The file created by that program
is
modified once again, by a program which “corrects it” - as
described by the author—by “identifying” and “artificially” removing
“the decline.”
But oddly enough - the series doesn’t begin its “decline adjustment” in
1960—the supposed year of the enigmatic “divergence.” In fact, all data
between 1930 and 1994 are subject to “correction.” And such games are
by no means unique to the folder attributed to Michael Mann.
A Clear and Present Rearranger
In 2 other programs, briffa_Sep98_d.pro and
briffa_Sep98_e.pro, the
“correction” is bolder by far. The programmer (Keith Briffa?) entitled
the “adjustment” routine “Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for
decline!!” And he/she wasn’t kidding. Now, IDL is not a native language
of mine, but its syntax is similar enough to others I’m familiar with,
so please bear with me while I get a tad techie on you.
Here’s the “fudge factor” (notice the brash SOB actually called it that
in his REM statement): yrloc = [1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
valadj=[0., 0., 0., 0., 0., -0.1, -0.25, -0.3, 0., -0.1, 0.3, 0.8, 1.2,
1.7, 2.5, 2.6, 2.6, 2.6, 2.6, 2.6] *0.75; fudge factor
These 2 lines of code establish a 20 element array
(yrloc) comprised
of the year 1400 (base year but not sure why needed here) and 19 years
between 1904 and 1994 in half-decade increments. Then the
corresponding “fudge factor” (from the valadj matrix) is applied to
each interval. As you can see, not only are temperatures
biased to the
upside later in the century (though certainly prior to 1964) but a few
mid-century intervals are being biased slightly lower. That,
coupled
with the post-1930 restatement we encountered earlier, would imply that
in addition to an embarrassing false decline experienced with their MXD
after 1960 (or earlier), CRU’s “divergence problem” also includes a
minor false incline after 1930.
And the former apparently wasn’t a particularly well-guarded secret,
although the actual adjustment period remained buried beneath the
surface.
Plotting programs such as data4alps.pro print this
reminder to the
user prior to rendering the chart: “IMPORTANT NOTE: The data after 1960
should not be used. The tree-ring density records tend to
show a
decline after 1960 relative to the summer temperature in many
high-latitude locations. In this data set this ‘decline’ has
been
artificially removed in an ad-hoc way, and this means that data after
1960 no longer represent tree-ring density variations, but have been
modified to look more like the observed temperatures.”
Others, such as mxdgrid2ascii.pro, issue this warning:
“NOTE: recent
decline in tree-ring density has been ARTIFICIALLY REMOVED to
facilitate calibration. THEREFORE, post-1960 values will be
much
closer to observed temperatures then (sic) they should be which will
incorrectly imply the reconstruction is more skilful than it actually
is. See Osborn et al. (2004).”
Care to offer another explanation, Dr. Jones?
Gotcha
Clamoring alarmists can and will spin this until they’re
dizzy. The
ever-clueless mainstream media can and will ignore this until it’s
forced upon them as front-page news, and then most will join the
alarmists on the denial merry-go-round.
But here’s what’s undeniable: If a divergence exists between
measured
temperatures and those derived from dendrochronological data after
(circa) 1960 then discarding only the post-1960 figures is disingenuous
to say the least. The very existence of a divergence betrays a
potential serious flaw in the process by which temperatures are
reconstructed from tree-ring density. If it’s bogus beyond a
set
threshold, then any honest men of science would instinctively question
its integrity prior to that boundary. And only the lowliest
would
apply a hack in order to produce a desired result.
And to do so without declaring as such in a footnote on
every chart
in every report in every study in every book in every classroom on
every website that such a corrupt process is relied upon is not just a
crime against science, it’s a crime against mankind.
Indeed, miners of the CRU folder have unearthed dozens
of email
threads and supporting documents revealing much to loathe about this
cadre of hucksters and their vile intentions. This veritable
goldmine
has given us tales ranging from evidence destruction to spitting on the
Freedom of Information Act on both sides of the Atlantic. But the now
irrefutable evidence that alarmists have indeed been cooking the data
for at least a decade may just be the most important strike in human
history.
Advocates of the global governance or financial
redistribution
sought by the United Nations at Copenhagen in two weeks and the
expanded domestic governance and financial redistribution sought by
Liberal politicians both substantiate their drastic proposals with the
pending climate emergency predicted in the reports of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Kyoto,
Waxman-Markey, Kerry-Boxer, EPA regulation of the very substances of
life - all bad policy concepts enabled solely by IPCC
reports. And the
IPCC, in turn, bases those reports largely on the data and charts
provided by the research scientists as CRU - largely from tree ring
data—who just happen to be editors and lead authors of that same U.N.
panel.
Bottom line: CRU’s evidence is now irrevocably
tainted. As such—all
assumptions based on that evidence must now be reevaluated and
readjudicated. And all policy based on those counterfeit assumptions
must also be re-examined.
Gotcha. We’ve known they’ve been lying all along, and now we
can prove
it. It’s time to bring sanity back to this debate.
It’s time for the
First IPCC Reassessment Report. See post here.
|