Could this man hold the answer to global warming?
November 30th, 2009 | by Curious Texan |
His name is Ian “Harry” Harris, and he’s a research staffer involved with dendroclimatology, climate scenario development, data manipulation and visualisation, programming at the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom. The CRU is one of the leading institutes in the world advocating Anthropogenic [i.e. man-made] Global Warming (AGW). The recent leaking of about 1,000 emails and 3,000 documents from the CRU has raised serious questions about the credibility of this institution’s research.
Much has been made about the emails sent among leading AGW scientists, many of which imply that there have been “tricks” played with the data to “hide the decline” of global temperatures, as well as a hickjacking of the entire peer review process to shut out all opposing theories. Many of these emails have been explained away by claiming that they have either been taken out of context or the somewhat cryptic use of words like “trick” have a much less sinister meaning than what global warming skeptics.
But there are two things that are far less open to broad interpretation: the raw data and the software used to “prove” that global warming exists and is man-made. If either the data or the software are less than 100% objective, the entire premise of AGW is called into question.
Enter Harry Harris. One of the most revealing CRU documents, which is only now gaining widespread attention, is harry_read_me.txt
Harry_read_me.txt is a 3-year commentary (2006-2009) by a programmer named “Harry” (most likely Ian “Harry” Harris) documenting his frustrations in trying to make the software do what it’s supposed to. I’m no computer geek, but programmers who don’t have an axe to grind in the AGW debate are saying that the software is hopelessly flawed.
In one of the best articles to date on this subject, Congress May Probe Leaked Global Warming E-Mails, CBS News blogger Declan McCullagh recounts some additional clues regarding serious flaws in the CRU software:
Programmer-written comments inserted into CRU’s Fortran code have drawn fire as well. The file briffa_sep98_d.pro says: “Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!” and “APPLY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION.” Another, quantify_tsdcal.pro, says: “Low pass filtering at century and longer time scales never gets rid of the trend - so eventually I start to scale down the 120-yr low pass time series to mimic the effect of removing/adding longer time scales!”
On April 5, 2007, in a post entitled “Global Warming’ or “Climate Change”?, I wrote, “Some day, we may look back on this debate with as much nostalgia as the epicircles [sic] of the geocentric universe theory.” (Actually, the term of art is “epicycles.”)
Back in the days when everyone thought that the Earth was the center of the universe, as the data became clearer and clearer that this couldn’t be the case, epicycles were geometric models that were used to explain away the variations in speed, direction and motion of the Sun, Moon and planets. Apparently, the code used to model global warming is the 21st Century equivalent of “epicycles,” which is basically what I predicted more than two and a half years ago. But never in my wildest dreams did I ever expect it to be exposed so soon.
I firmly believe that once someone with sufficient expertise in computer programming thoroughly interrogates “Harry,” the computer code is going to be the smoking gun of this whole fraud. Snarky emails can be explained away, the significance of “hiding” the data through various “tricks” depends on what the meaning of the words “hide” and “trick” are, but if the tool they used to reach their conclusions was hopelessly flawed, then all bets are off.
My statistics professor had a name for this kind of cooking of the books: “strangling the data until it confesses.” If I understand this correctly, what we’re witnessing here is the cyber-version of water boarding.
4 Responses to “Could this man hold the answer to global warming?”
By Bodacious on Dec 1, 2009 | Reply
A most excellent post.
By Curious Texan on Dec 6, 2009 | Reply
Thanks for the kind words, Bo.
Last night, the evening TV news prgram “Tageschau” on the German First Program (ARD) ran a piece about ClimateGate. The announcer mentioned that in mid-November, a hacker gained access to emails and documents from the University of East Anglia. Yet there was no explanation as to why this wasn’t reported until December 5th, almost literally on the eve of the Copenhagen summit.
One interesting portion of the piece was an excerpt of an interview with Phil Jones, erstwhile Director of the CRU, in which he said (in English, with German overdubbing) that we can’t explain the rapid increase of temperatures without including greenhouse gases into the model. This was immediately juxtoposed with the CRU email that exclaimed, “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t” [ARD's emphasis (in German)]. This was followed with the imfamous “Mike’s nature trick” email.
Next was an excerpt of an interview with Edward Acton, the Vice Chancellor of the University of East Anglia, admitting that there were some regrettable emails, but the research itself has yet to be investigated by an indepedent commission.
Although ARD admitted that the damage was already great (citing Senator Inhofe’s call to postpone all climate decisions), there was also a statement from Ed Milliband, the UK Environmental Minister, who claimed that a couple of emails can’t negate a couple of decades of climate science.
I don’t know whether the U.S. mainstream media has begun reporting on ClimateGate; the last I heard, it was 14 days of silence (and counting). At this point, I don’t hold out much hope, nor do I care, quite frankly. Media bias has proven so widespread that I’ve all but given up on getting my news from the broadcast networks, as well as most cable news outlets, for that matter.
But where it is being reported, a consensus is beginning to emerge. Embarrassing emails notwithstanding, the resolution of this debate is going to be where it always should have been in the first place: in the data, and how it was manipulated.
Even if global warming is predominently man-made (a possibility I haven’t totally ruled out), how will we ever know for sure if original data has been destroyed and/or computer programs are hopelessly flawed?
In the age of the Internet, when we have the capability of virtually unlimited amounts of data being accessed by anyone with a modem, the only excuse for not maintaining total scientific transparency is either national security (e.g. the Manhattan Project) or proprietary material (i.e. patented or copyrighted). Pure science should be out there for all to see - and critique.
By Curious Texan on Dec 7, 2009 | Reply
As I am writing this comment, Campbell Brown on CNN just finished moderating an excellent segment on ClimateGate, with two of the top global warming skeptics (Chris Horner and Steve McIntyre) debating Michael Oppenheimer from Princeton University, who allegedly stated on This Week with David Brinkley in 1984 that in 20 years global warming will be irreversible (I say “allegedly” because I haven’t actually seen it. Hopefully, someone will either come up with the tape or totally debunk it.)
Chris Horner, who’s not a scientist but rather an attorney, held his own and then some. He’s written several books on the subject and knows much more than the typical layman.
I’d never seen Steve McIntyre before (he’s the guy who debunked the Michael Mann’s “hockey stick”). Unfortunately, like many scientists, presenting oral arguments doesn’t come as easily to him as it does to Horner.
Oppenheimer was smooth, but he’s had at least 25 years to polish his presentation.
Maybe I’m an optimist, but I still stand by my belief that AGW will either rise or fall on the data. It may take years, or even decades (the Piltdown Man took some 40 years to be discredited), but ultimately science should win out over politics.
At the end of the segment, Campbell Brown expressed the hope that transparency will prevail. I agree, but the debate has to go beyond the emails and center on the actual research.
By Curious Texan on Dec 8, 2009 | Reply
I can’t believe I missed this! Here’s Ann Coulter’s column from last week on ClimateGate. LOL!