Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995

mc_squared · 14-02-2010, 10:09 AM

Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995

By Jonathan Petre
Last updated at 2:39 AM on 14th February 2010

Data for vital 'hockey stick graph' has gone missing
There has been no global warming since 1995
Warming periods have happened before - but NOT due to man-made changes

Data: Professor Phil Jones admitted his record keeping is 'not as good as it should be'

The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.
Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.
Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.
The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.
And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.
The admissions will be seized on by sceptics as fresh evidence that there are serious flaws at the heart of the science of climate change and the orthodoxy that recent rises in temperature are largely man-made.
Professor Jones has been in the spotlight since he stepped down as director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit after the leaking of emails that sceptics claim show scientists were manipulating data.
The raw data, collected from hundreds of weather stations around the world and analysed by his unit, has been used for years to bolster efforts by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to press governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

More...

MAIL ON SUNDAY COMMENT: The professor's amazing climate change retreat

Following the leak of the emails, Professor Jones has been accused of ‘scientific fraud’ for allegedly deliberately suppressing information and refusing to share vital data with critics.
Discussing the interview, the BBC’s environmental analyst Roger Harrabin said he had spoken to colleagues of Professor Jones who had told him that his strengths included integrity and doggedness but not record-keeping and office tidying.
Mr Harrabin, who conducted the interview for the BBC’s website, said the professor had been collating tens of thousands of pieces of data from around the world to produce a coherent record of temperature change.
That material has been used to produce the ‘hockey stick graph’ which is relatively flat for centuries before rising steeply in recent decades.
According to Mr Harrabin, colleagues of Professor Jones said ‘his office is piled high with paper, fragments from over the years, tens of thousands of pieces of paper, and they suspect what happened was he took in the raw data to a central database and then let the pieces of paper go because he never realised that 20 years later he would be held to account over them’.
Asked by Mr Harrabin about these issues, Professor Jones admitted the lack of organisation in the system had contributed to his reluctance to share data with critics, which he regretted.

Enlarge

But he denied he had cheated over the data or unfairly influenced the scientific process, and said he still believed recent temperature rises were predominantly man-made.
Asked about whether he lost track of data, Professor Jones said: ‘There is some truth in that. We do have a trail of where the weather stations have come from but it’s probably not as good as it should be.
‘There’s a continual updating of the dataset. Keeping track of everything is difficult. Some countries will do lots of checking on their data then issue improved data, so it can be very difficult. We have improved but we have to improve more.’
He also agreed that there had been two periods which experienced similar warming, from 1910 to 1940 and from 1975 to 1998, but said these could be explained by natural phenomena whereas more recent warming could not.

He further admitted that in the last 15 years there had been no ‘statistically significant’ warming, although he argued this was a blip rather than the long-term trend.
And he said that the debate over whether the world could have been even warmer than now during the medieval period, when there is evidence of high temperatures in northern countries, was far from settled.
Sceptics believe there is strong evidence that the world was warmer between about 800 and 1300 AD than now because of evidence of high temperatures in northern countries.
But climate change advocates have dismissed this as false or only applying to the northern part of the world.
Professor Jones departed from this consensus when he said: ‘There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia.
‘For it to be global in extent, the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions.
‘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. On the other hand, if the MWP was global, but was less warm than today, then the current warmth would be unprecedented.’
Sceptics said this was the first time a senior scientist working with the IPCC had admitted to the possibility that the Medieval Warming Period could have been global, and therefore the world could have been hotter then than now.
Professor Jones criticised those who complained he had not shared his data with them, saying they could always collate their own from publicly available material in the US. And he said the climate had not cooled ‘until recently – and then barely at all. The trend is a warming trend’.
Mr Harrabin told Radio 4’s Today programme that, despite the controversies, there still appeared to be no fundamental flaws in the majority scientific view that climate change was largely man-made.
But Dr Benny Pieser, director of the sceptical Global Warming Policy Foundation, said Professor Jones’s ‘excuses’ for his failure to share data were hollow as he had shared it with colleagues and ‘mates’.
He said that until all the data was released, sceptics could not test it to see if it supported the conclusions claimed by climate change advocates.
He added that the professor’s concessions over medieval warming were ‘significant’ because they were his first public admission that the science was not settled.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz0fVHdUqK3

The Escapist · 14-02-2010, 07:14 PM

blah blah blah blah blah. The world of science is corrupted my money. I don't know who to believe.

The Final Track · 14-02-2010, 07:25 PM

Sure, guy with white hair says there is no Global Warming and therefor it is true. Bleach, Fox News is gonna have a great time this week

mc_squared · 14-02-2010, 07:26 PM

Science friction?

The Escapist · 14-02-2010, 07:29 PM

^that was a good one.

mc_squared · 14-02-2010, 07:30 PM

The Final Track · 14-02-2010, 07:35 PM

Mark just used a smiley that wasn't rolleyes

mc_squared · 14-02-2010, 07:50 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Final Track;3971518
Mark just used a smiley that wasn't rolleyes

It happens..............................

Crests · 14-02-2010, 07:54 PM

:ROLLEYES:

The Final Track · 14-02-2010, 08:49 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by mc_squared;3971560
It happens..............................

There we go

Quote:
Originally Posted by Crests of Daylight;3971566
:ROLLEYES:

There should be a size 9 rolleyes

the_gloaming09 · 14-02-2010, 09:50 PM

honestly i think no one has any idea what is happening. there are so many factors that go into climate change.

In the 70's i think they said that there was global cooling, then the last few years it's global warming, and now global cooling again.

no one really knows whats happening

mc_squared · 14-02-2010, 09:53 PM

Well it seems to be snowing incessantly at the moment.....................

HorrificAttack · 14-02-2010, 10:13 PM

YOU'RE ALL FUCKING MORONS, SERIOUSLY.

I've actually studied in depth this very issue and it's fucking clear to see that regardless of levels of change, our pollutants are doing absolutely no fucking good, dickheads like this guy ruin all the work people put into helping pollution.

So fuck him.

IMightBeWrong · 15-02-2010, 12:29 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by HorrificAttack;3971845
YOU'RE ALL FUCKING MORONS, SERIOUSLY.

I've actually studied in depth this very issue and it's fucking clear to see that regardless of levels of change, our pollutants are doing absolutely no fucking good, dickheads like this guy ruin all the work people put into helping pollution.

So fuck him.

The first post here that wasn't sychophantic backslapping.

Cobalt · 15-02-2010, 12:59 AM

Wasn't the message in the 90s to try and reduce pollution? At least, it was taught to me as a kid. Well, maybe early 2000s since I didn't really start school until 1999, but still.

14-02-2010, 10:09 AM	#1
mc_squared Banned Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 67,519 My Mood: Location: Wherever life takes me Gender: Country: Chat posts: 0 Thanks given: 0 Thanked 4 Times in 4 Posts	Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995 Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995 By Jonathan Petre Last updated at 2:39 AM on 14th February 2010 Comments (27) Add to My Stories Data for vital 'hockey stick graph' has gone missing There has been no global warming since 1995 Warming periods have happened before - but NOT due to man-made changes Data: Professor Phil Jones admitted his record keeping is 'not as good as it should be' The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information. Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers. Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’. The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory. Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon. And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming. The admissions will be seized on by sceptics as fresh evidence that there are serious flaws at the heart of the science of climate change and the orthodoxy that recent rises in temperature are largely man-made. Professor Jones has been in the spotlight since he stepped down as director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit after the leaking of emails that sceptics claim show scientists were manipulating data. The raw data, collected from hundreds of weather stations around the world and analysed by his unit, has been used for years to bolster efforts by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to press governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions. More... MAIL ON SUNDAY COMMENT: The professor's amazing climate change retreat Following the leak of the emails, Professor Jones has been accused of ‘scientific fraud’ for allegedly deliberately suppressing information and refusing to share vital data with critics. Discussing the interview, the BBC’s environmental analyst Roger Harrabin said he had spoken to colleagues of Professor Jones who had told him that his strengths included integrity and doggedness but not record-keeping and office tidying. Mr Harrabin, who conducted the interview for the BBC’s website, said the professor had been collating tens of thousands of pieces of data from around the world to produce a coherent record of temperature change. That material has been used to produce the ‘hockey stick graph’ which is relatively flat for centuries before rising steeply in recent decades. According to Mr Harrabin, colleagues of Professor Jones said ‘his office is piled high with paper, fragments from over the years, tens of thousands of pieces of paper, and they suspect what happened was he took in the raw data to a central database and then let the pieces of paper go because he never realised that 20 years later he would be held to account over them’. Asked by Mr Harrabin about these issues, Professor Jones admitted the lack of organisation in the system had contributed to his reluctance to share data with critics, which he regretted. Enlarge But he denied he had cheated over the data or unfairly influenced the scientific process, and said he still believed recent temperature rises were predominantly man-made. Asked about whether he lost track of data, Professor Jones said: ‘There is some truth in that. We do have a trail of where the weather stations have come from but it’s probably not as good as it should be. ‘There’s a continual updating of the dataset. Keeping track of everything is difficult. Some countries will do lots of checking on their data then issue improved data, so it can be very difficult. We have improved but we have to improve more.’ He also agreed that there had been two periods which experienced similar warming, from 1910 to 1940 and from 1975 to 1998, but said these could be explained by natural phenomena whereas more recent warming could not. He further admitted that in the last 15 years there had been no ‘statistically significant’ warming, although he argued this was a blip rather than the long-term trend. And he said that the debate over whether the world could have been even warmer than now during the medieval period, when there is evidence of high temperatures in northern countries, was far from settled. Sceptics believe there is strong evidence that the world was warmer between about 800 and 1300 AD than now because of evidence of high temperatures in northern countries. But climate change advocates have dismissed this as false or only applying to the northern part of the world. Professor Jones departed from this consensus when he said: ‘There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia. ‘For it to be global in extent, the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions. ‘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. On the other hand, if the MWP was global, but was less warm than today, then the current warmth would be unprecedented.’ Sceptics said this was the first time a senior scientist working with the IPCC had admitted to the possibility that the Medieval Warming Period could have been global, and therefore the world could have been hotter then than now. Professor Jones criticised those who complained he had not shared his data with them, saying they could always collate their own from publicly available material in the US. And he said the climate had not cooled ‘until recently – and then barely at all. The trend is a warming trend’. Mr Harrabin told Radio 4’s Today programme that, despite the controversies, there still appeared to be no fundamental flaws in the majority scientific view that climate change was largely man-made. But Dr Benny Pieser, director of the sceptical Global Warming Policy Foundation, said Professor Jones’s ‘excuses’ for his failure to share data were hollow as he had shared it with colleagues and ‘mates’. He said that until all the data was released, sceptics could not test it to see if it supported the conclusions claimed by climate change advocates. He added that the professor’s concessions over medieval warming were ‘significant’ because they were his first public admission that the science was not settled. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz0fVHdUqK3 __________________ LIFE ISN'T MEANT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY Be yourself, no matter what anyone else thinks. Work to live - don't live to work...................... Age is purely a state of mind! Don't waste your time on jealousy. Success is a journey, NOT a destination. Life is a marathon, NOT a sprint! http://www.generationterrorists.com/...sunscreen.html

14-02-2010, 07:14 PM	#2
The Escapist Lindisfarne Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 20,574 Gender: Country: Chat posts: 0 Thanks given: 0 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	blah blah blah blah blah. The world of science is corrupted my money. I don't know who to believe. __________________ "The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless"- Tolstoy

14-02-2010, 07:25 PM	#3
The Final Track Prognissekongen! Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 19,189 My Mood: Location: House by the sea Gender: Country: Chat posts: 0 Thanks given: 132 Thanked 81 Times in 71 Posts	Sure, guy with white hair says there is no Global Warming and therefor it is true. Bleach, Fox News is gonna have a great time this week __________________ Quote: Originally Posted by Destrokk Kobe Bryant was in my Sprite once.

14-02-2010, 07:26 PM	#4
mc_squared Banned Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 67,519 My Mood: Location: Wherever life takes me Gender: Country: Chat posts: 0 Thanks given: 0 Thanked 4 Times in 4 Posts	Science friction? __________________ LIFE ISN'T MEANT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY Be yourself, no matter what anyone else thinks. Work to live - don't live to work...................... Age is purely a state of mind! Don't waste your time on jealousy. Success is a journey, NOT a destination. Life is a marathon, NOT a sprint! http://www.generationterrorists.com/...sunscreen.html

14-02-2010, 07:29 PM	#5
The Escapist Lindisfarne Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 20,574 Gender: Country: Chat posts: 0 Thanks given: 0 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post	^that was a good one. __________________ "The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless"- Tolstoy

14-02-2010, 07:30 PM	#6
mc_squared Banned Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 67,519 My Mood: Location: Wherever life takes me Gender: Country: Chat posts: 0 Thanks given: 0 Thanked 4 Times in 4 Posts	__________________ LIFE ISN'T MEANT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY Be yourself, no matter what anyone else thinks. Work to live - don't live to work...................... Age is purely a state of mind! Don't waste your time on jealousy. Success is a journey, NOT a destination. Life is a marathon, NOT a sprint! http://www.generationterrorists.com/...sunscreen.html

14-02-2010, 07:35 PM	#7
The Final Track Prognissekongen! Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 19,189 My Mood: Location: House by the sea Gender: Country: Chat posts: 0 Thanks given: 132 Thanked 81 Times in 71 Posts	Mark just used a smiley that wasn't rolleyes __________________ Quote: Originally Posted by Destrokk Kobe Bryant was in my Sprite once.

14-02-2010, 07:50 PM	#8
mc_squared Banned Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 67,519 My Mood: Location: Wherever life takes me Gender: Country: Chat posts: 0 Thanks given: 0 Thanked 4 Times in 4 Posts	Quote: Originally Posted by The Final Track;3971518 Mark just used a smiley that wasn't rolleyes It happens.............................. __________________ LIFE ISN'T MEANT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY Be yourself, no matter what anyone else thinks. Work to live - don't live to work...................... Age is purely a state of mind! Don't waste your time on jealousy. Success is a journey, NOT a destination. Life is a marathon, NOT a sprint! http://www.generationterrorists.com/...sunscreen.html

14-02-2010, 07:54 PM	#9
Crests tiger! fire! cyber! Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 151,916 My Mood: Country: Chat posts: 20 Thanks given: 46 Thanked 80 Times in 63 Posts	:ROLLEYES: __________________ ♪

14-02-2010, 08:49 PM	#10
The Final Track Prognissekongen! Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 19,189 My Mood: Location: House by the sea Gender: Country: Chat posts: 0 Thanks given: 132 Thanked 81 Times in 71 Posts	Quote: Originally Posted by mc_squared;3971560 It happens.............................. There we go Quote: Originally Posted by Crests of Daylight;3971566 :ROLLEYES: There should be a size 9 rolleyes __________________ Quote: Originally Posted by Destrokk Kobe Bryant was in my Sprite once.

14-02-2010, 09:50 PM	#11
the_gloaming09 Feral Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 11,944 My Mood: Location: NY Gender: Country: Chat posts: 0 Thanks given: 43 Thanked 47 Times in 30 Posts	honestly i think no one has any idea what is happening. there are so many factors that go into climate change. In the 70's i think they said that there was global cooling, then the last few years it's global warming, and now global cooling again. no one really knows whats happening __________________ I'm not yours. You're not mine. That's just fine. Please. Don't. Judge. My Blog Facebook Twitter

14-02-2010, 09:53 PM	#12
mc_squared Banned Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 67,519 My Mood: Location: Wherever life takes me Gender: Country: Chat posts: 0 Thanks given: 0 Thanked 4 Times in 4 Posts	Well it seems to be snowing incessantly at the moment..................... __________________ LIFE ISN'T MEANT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY Be yourself, no matter what anyone else thinks. Work to live - don't live to work...................... Age is purely a state of mind! Don't waste your time on jealousy. Success is a journey, NOT a destination. Life is a marathon, NOT a sprint! http://www.generationterrorists.com/...sunscreen.html

14-02-2010, 10:13 PM	#13
HorrificAttack Banned Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 6,809 My Mood: Location: Newcastle Upon Tyne Gender: Country: Chat posts: 0 Thanks given: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	YOU'RE ALL FUCKING MORONS, SERIOUSLY. I've actually studied in depth this very issue and it's fucking clear to see that regardless of levels of change, our pollutants are doing absolutely no fucking good, dickheads like this guy ruin all the work people put into helping pollution. So fuck him.

15-02-2010, 12:29 AM	#14
IMightBeWrong The Retort Courteous Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 940 Gender: Country: Chat posts: 0 Thanks given: 0 Thanked 15 Times in 7 Posts	Quote: Originally Posted by HorrificAttack;3971845 YOU'RE ALL FUCKING MORONS, SERIOUSLY. I've actually studied in depth this very issue and it's fucking clear to see that regardless of levels of change, our pollutants are doing absolutely no fucking good, dickheads like this guy ruin all the work people put into helping pollution. So fuck him. The first post here that wasn't sychophantic backslapping. __________________ Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.

15-02-2010, 12:59 AM	#15
Cobalt OH SUCH THE SHAME! Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 18,339 My Mood: Location: Melbourne, Australia Gender: Country: Chat posts: 87 Thanks given: 164 Thanked 178 Times in 124 Posts	Wasn't the message in the 90s to try and reduce pollution? At least, it was taught to me as a kid. Well, maybe early 2000s since I didn't really start school until 1999, but still. __________________ my quotes are old and my body is weary this space for rent