Huge Climate Story…. Honesty. UPDATE.

[ Welcome once again Insta-P readers. It’s always nice to have company around here. I’ll be in the garage tinkering with my car for much of the day – tinkering = replacing an engine in my strange world – but I’l come in from the cold and respond to points from time to time. ]

Did anyone else just hear the “bump-bump” of the Jones bus running right over the infamous Hockey Stick?

Dr. Phil Jones, the man at the center of the Climategate scandal, has for the first time admitted that the Medieval Warm Period could have been warmer than the present day, flying directly in the face of the stupid HockeyStick Graph that caused so much of the Climate panic in the first place. From the BBC report, titled “Climate data ‘not well organised“:

Phil Jones, the professor behind the “Climategate” affair, has admitted some of his decades-old weather data was not well enough organised.

He said this contributed to his refusal to share raw data with critics – a decision he says he regretted.

But Professor Jones said he had not cheated the data, or unfairly influenced the scientific process.

He said he stood by the view that recent climate warming was most likely predominantly man-made.

But he agreed that two periods in recent times had experienced similar warming. And he agreed that the debate had not been settled over whether the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than the current period.

Here is why that is important. If there was a warmer Medieval Warm Period, then the current warming could be more likely due to natural variation, instead of CO2 and man-made. as the models don’t account for this earlier warmer condition. At the very least, the “certainty” and of doom and gloom warming predictions is overstated, as the world may have been warmer and the world didn’t end.

These statements are likely to be welcomed by people sceptical of man-made climate change who have felt insulted to be labelled by government ministers as flat-earthers and deniers.

Yes, in fact, it does. Thank you Dr. Jones for finally being honest. I sincerely wish it didn’t have to come to this point where your life is in turmoil. Let this be a cautionary tale to others. Just be honest and open, and this kind of thing would be avoided.

PS. There have been some questions as to the source of the graphs in this post.

The first graph is Mann’s Hockey Stick. (if you don’t know this one, you have a lot of catching up to do on the research)

The second graph is the Hockey Stick temp presumptions vs the accepted temp record, pre-hockey stick, according to the IPCC 1990 and 1995 reports. (Link)

The third is from the cemetery where dead scientific ideas are laid to rest. Of course, this one seems to have the tenacity of a zombie, so it probably won’t be down for long.

UPDATE: Looks like the Jones bus has shifted into high gear and is doing donuts on the lawn of “consensus”.

Climategate, Global Warming Hysteria | Sonicfrog February 13, 2010

69 Comments to “Huge Climate Story…. Honesty. UPDATE.”

By Jeff Alberts, February 13, 2010 @ 2:54 am

Hmm, whomever created the second graph can’t spell anomaly.

REPLY: It wasn’t me! I swear it!!!! 🙂

It might be an English spelling thing. They also spell skeptic different than we do.
By Jeff Alberts, February 13, 2010 @ 2:55 am

But Professor Jones said he had not cheated the data, or unfairly influenced the scientific process.

You can’t cheat data, it’s not a thinking thing. You CAN cheat the public, which is what Jones and Mann have done.
By Sonicfrog, February 13, 2010 @ 4:48 am

I think it was made in Europe. They don’t know how to spell there. Maybe I should relocate… though I have been doing pretty well lately. 🙂
By gazzer, February 13, 2010 @ 1:26 pm

While we are at it, I’d like to see him publicly thank all the climate deniers and anti-scientists for helping him to improve the quality of his science
By Telemachus, February 13, 2010 @ 1:38 pm

Those are very interesting graphs. What are thier sources?

REPLY: The Internet!!!! 🙂
By rhhardin, February 13, 2010 @ 1:44 pm

So it’s back to the uncertainty principle, that you can’t tell a trend from a cycle with only a little data in time, owing to astronomical noise gain if you try; which was what the hockey stick meant to bypass. The hockey stick couldn’t be part of a cycle.

A cycle couldn’t be man-caused and so has no funding value.
By Robbins Mitchell, February 13, 2010 @ 1:48 pm

Well,it sure took Jonesy long enough to finally concede that the MWP just MIGHT have been warmer than the current period…considering that there are vast written records concerning how wine grapes were grown in England during that period to such an extent that French vineyard owners urged King Louis impose an import tariff on English wines since French wine drinkers found it preferable to French vintages…next thing you know,Jonesy will concede that Wellington MIGHT have defeated Napoleon at Waterloo.
By PTL, February 13, 2010 @ 2:22 pm

other than that the report was correct.
By Dana H., February 13, 2010 @ 2:29 pm

“I sincerely wish it didn’t have to come to this point where your life is in turmoil.”

Given Jones’s (and Mann’s and Hansen’s and …) crimes against science, and the fact that we came close to crippling industrial civilization with draconian emissions cuts thanks in part to him, a little turmoil in his life is better than what he deserves. And the sneering, disdainful response he and his cronies gave to legitimate criticism in the past in inexcusable. I sincerely wish he loses his professorship and is shunned as an example of what happens when “scientists” forget what it means to practice science.
By Don, February 13, 2010 @ 2:39 pm

They can’t spell hockey correctly either… as in “Hocleystick Graph” in the first paragraph.

REPLY: That wasn’t them… that was me. Fixed.
By JimmyNashville, February 13, 2010 @ 2:42 pm

Tar and Feathers would be most appropriate.
By Charles Collins, February 13, 2010 @ 2:55 pm

The most important thing is that mankind did not die out 1000 years ago, and there were no mass extinctions. So if it was warmer then, then the whole debate over “what to do” is moot.
By JCP, February 13, 2010 @ 3:26 pm

I’m happy to see this development. However I have to disagree with Dana H. that we came close… The politicians aren’t going to listen to reason and give up their “Green” economy destroying plans.
By John Blake, February 13, 2010 @ 3:28 pm

Phil Jones is to science what snake-oil is to water. Now that force of circumstance has impelled him to ‘fess up, we only hope that after a timely and public trial he and his peculating crew of Luddite sociopaths will face the consequences they deserve.

Meantime, three months past Climategate, to our knowledge none of Jones’ suppurating Green Gang has dared to publish anything of note, particularly with Pachauri’s despicable IPCC. Quite possibly, none of them ever will again.
By Telemachus, February 13, 2010 @ 3:28 pm

Does anyone know where the proof is that the proxy data is a good fit for the actual recorded temperature data? By just looking at the graph it’s not at all clear to me that the proxy data does a good job of explaining the recorded data. But there must be some sort of statistical analysis that proves it, right? Does anybody have a link to a paper on it or something?
By Al, February 13, 2010 @ 3:28 pm

There might not be all that much “solid data” on South America, but the mountain terraces in the Andes were most likely built when it was a hell of a lot warmer.
By JM Hanes, February 13, 2010 @ 3:37 pm

Jeff Alberts:

Whoever said, “whomever created the second graph,” should not be nitpicking other folks’ grammatical constructions!

As for Dr. Phil, I’m not sure he is making an honest admission here as much as embarking on the ‘honest mistake’ defense. It’s a big story, nonetheless; part of it is watching Jones wriggle on his own self-interested hook.
By bflat879, February 13, 2010 @ 3:42 pm

IF we can have a scientist, whose funding depended on there being proveable Anthropogenic Global Warming, to admit it’s possible they’re wrong, can we hope that politicians, who believed this was going to be a boon to their coffers to finance all sorts of sundry items, will decide to not tax carbon? Nah, I doubt it. They’re searching for scientists, as we speak, to come up with different data.
By Tom, February 13, 2010 @ 4:57 pm

At every step the process is poor. The data is bad, the adjustments are bad, the models don’t work, but we’re still 100% sure of the results.
By iconoclast, February 13, 2010 @ 5:19 pm

Telemachus has it right: where are the data for these graphs? While I like what they are stating, I cannot reuse them unless there is data and either actual code or clear enough description of the algorithms to recreate these results.
By Wintoon, February 13, 2010 @ 5:30 pm

AGW, is a giant fraud on a stick, in fact a hockey stick. Trillions of dollars hang in the balance if it can be rammed through. Follow the money and you’ll find a slavering, self righteous, rotund Nobel laureate – formerly an official in the US Government- cackling and stacking his coins.
By Sonicfrog, February 13, 2010 @ 5:55 pm

You can click on the graph and it will give you the location of the sites I got them from.

The first graph is Mann’s Hockey Stick.

The second graph is the Hockey Stick temp presumptions vs the accepted temp record, pre-hockey stick, according to the IPCC 1990 and 1995 reports. (Link)

The third is from the cemetery where dead scientific ideas are laid to rest. Of course, this one seems to have the tenacity of a zombie, so it probably won’t be down for long.
By Koblog, February 13, 2010 @ 7:35 pm

Do all scientists lie to us to make themselves rich, or just climate scientists?
By Ken Hahn, February 13, 2010 @ 7:36 pm

Climatology equals millions of dollars in research and scientific prestige. Climatology plus catastrophism equals billions, if not trillions, of dollars and raw political power. The zombie will rise.
By Jeff Alberts, February 13, 2010 @ 8:15 pm

Whoever said, “whomever created the second graph,” should not be nitpicking other folks’ grammatical constructions!

Ah! Ya got me!

However, I’m not presenting something scientific for public consumption. So whoever it was should have had someone else take a look before publishing.
By Telemachus, February 13, 2010 @ 9:08 pm

To Sonicfrog, thanks for the link. When I clicked on the graph nothing happened.
By fustian, February 13, 2010 @ 10:20 pm

Interesting graphs. Can you tell us where they come from?

REPLY: Again… The Internet!!!! 🙂
By TxTenther, February 13, 2010 @ 10:38 pm

I called Al Gore to get a response, his office said he is bobsledding in Mississippi.
By PJ, February 13, 2010 @ 10:41 pm

“If there was a warmer Medieval Warm Period, then the current warming could be more likely due to natural variation…”

Or, it really IS caused by animals farts, LOL! That’s the only thing both eras have in common–livestock.
By Sonicfrog, February 13, 2010 @ 10:42 pm

Here is the link for the “Hockey Stick” hockey stick. I think this is the one you’re looking for.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_orkXxp0bhEA/SN4kTyX11II/AAAAAAAAJYs/A_BN3DPU-lE/080926-hockey-stick.jpg
By Kermit, February 13, 2010 @ 10:55 pm

This is nothing new. Several leading skeptics have been saying this all along with the data to back it up. However, pre-Climategate, the press refused to cover it. Only those like me who were interested enough to look at the science rather than news blogs, network TV, newspapers or periodicals knew this a couple of years ago.
By Kralizec, February 13, 2010 @ 11:25 pm

If you want me to have a look at your graph, then get the stupid graphic out of the way. I’m not here to play games.

REPLY: The link to the un-photoshopp’d graph is right below the tombstone.
By Jim Johnson, February 13, 2010 @ 11:59 pm

I hope that we can stop this madness before all the children are brainwashed.
By Baxter Greene, February 14, 2010 @ 12:14 am

“Climate data ‘not well organised“………

………this is like saying a Micheal Moore movie is “just a little misleading”.
By Deckard, February 14, 2010 @ 12:36 am

To Jeff A.
You show your stripes now; It’s somebody elses fault! (They should’a checked it be4 “Publishing it”). I know, I know, it’s never YOUR fault. Jeff, real adults own their mistakes. Liberals, however, frequently will not.
By Lynn, February 14, 2010 @ 12:37 am

So, basically, being a little sceptical turns out to be a good thing.
By Odysseus, February 14, 2010 @ 1:06 am

What I need explained is that, if the Medieval Warming Period was not warmer than today, why did the Vikings name Greenland “green?” Why did they settle there? How could they have raised crops and cattle there? There’s undeniable evidence of multiple generations of people living there. The truth is that it was green. It was warm enough to raise crops and cattle there. That British Lord is right: People live in the warmer climates. Food grows in the warmer climates. Having a warmer climate is a good thing for people.
By martin, February 14, 2010 @ 1:23 am

These guys need to be nuked, with a stake through their hearts and blasted into the sun. No mercy can be shown else they regenerate like the worms that they are.
By Harry Schell, February 14, 2010 @ 1:50 am

OK, Mr. Jones, so you are telling me after a decade or two of working with this data (you tell me how long you have been at this) you still couldn’t get the data “properly organised” to reach a conclusion you could substantiate in an open forum.

Your mommy did poorly with the toilet training, is it? Couldn’t be your fault, you virtuous scientist.

Er, the little science I have had made a point of getting the bloody data right and organized from the beginning, twit. I don’t “do” science as a job, but I run a business and if our data isn’t “properly” organized, we die, bankrupt. I guess you go on to the next grant monies that come from people like me.

It is my thought you are a bloody liar and charlatan, that you organized the data as you needed to so to promote yourself and ideas. You knew from some point on you were “poorly organized” but hid that, lest your income stream and position suffer.

Do you have even a faint appreciation of the trillions of dollars pissed away, the people unemployed, the useless regulations and tyranny of econazis which has occurred with your connivance, all so you could be a slightly Bigger Man? Do you understand what you have started?

You are not a Big Man. You are the tiniest of men, not just dishonest but unable to see past your petty dishonesty, how it would create an international mess. You have a very limited mind, no oracle are you. Your infatuation with yourself or simple mental limitations have created a havoc for so many people.

And you could have prevented it. You knew. Unlike a Bjorn Lumborg, you were silent and complicit. You have no honor, sir, nor concern for your fellow man. You are a walking falsehood. I hope God deals with you in that way, but whatever He decides is fine with me. What I would do if it were up to me is irrelevant, because it isn’t.

But I would start praying, little man. And start telling the truth.
By ajacksonian, February 14, 2010 @ 2:26 am

And if you want lots of graphs and the data sources, check out Wattsupwiththat, as you can get all sorts of good stuff. Lots of pretty graphs and some really great demonstrations of how the AGW crowd has been lying with graphs.

As my Uncle Joe used to say: Figures don’t lie, but liars sure can figure.

And that about sums up AGW cultists.

REPLY: I’ve been a WUWT visitor since the beginning. Was one of the first to submit pics of a station. Yosemite. It gave me the perfect excuse to go hiking. 🙂
By Claire, February 14, 2010 @ 2:50 am

If the bottom graph came from your link, you are missing the last 25 years of the 20th century, and most of the warming as well. Where did the data go? Look at the X-axis of your link.

REPLY: It wasn’t rendering correctly. Fixed it (I think).
By Ivan Sims, February 14, 2010 @ 3:01 am

My Grandpa’s favorite saying was… “Numbers don’t lie… people do” I say if the shoe fits…
By Henry, February 14, 2010 @ 3:41 am

So, 1000 years ago came the medieval warming, by natural causes, which was followed 1000 years later – now – by the anthropogenic global warming scare. Cycles being what they are, shouldn’t we be taking steps to forestall a faux global climate crisis due 1000 years from now?
By Zoltan, February 14, 2010 @ 3:47 am

The current turmoil in Dr. Jones life should be replace by the ordered, predictable, and repetitious life in prison.
By cmb, February 14, 2010 @ 4:00 am

It’s almost as if someone is comparing a graph for Europe and a graph for the globe, and trying to make assumptions. Of course, no one is that stupid. =)

The medieval Warm Period was not global. It was largely confined to European latitudes, and includes the time period when charcoal fuel economies practically deforested the European continent.

Guess how much CO2 is produced by charcoal production. Yyyyep. 😉

REPLY: I was wondering if someone would bring that up. The MWP was not just a European phenomenon. There is plenty of proxy evidence across the globe that shows that. But it disagrees with the “consensus” so every time someone would publish a study showing this, it would get blasted by the protectors of the AGW flame. See my post here.
By Jeff Alberts, February 14, 2010 @ 4:46 am

By Deckard, February 14, 2010 @ 12:36 am

To Jeff A.
You show your stripes now; It’s somebody elses fault! (They should’a checked it be4 “Publishing it”). I know, I know, it’s never YOUR fault. Jeff, real adults own their mistakes. Liberals, however, frequently will not.

Wow, where did that come from? I owned up to my mistake, but that doesn’t erase the original mistake. FYI I aint no liberal, nor a conservative.
By Gene Felder, February 14, 2010 @ 4:49 am

Dr. Jones ent emails to Dr Michael Mann who was mentioned almost 4 years ago in a Wall Street Journal editorial.

See Hockey Stick Hokum, a July 14, 2006 Editorial at the Wall Street Journal at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115283824428306460.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks

It includes:
? The assertion “that the 1990s were the ‘warmest decade in a millennium’ and that 1998 was the warmest year in the last 1,000. … is often recited without qualification, and even without giving a source for the ‘fact’.”
? “The claim originates from a 1999 paper by paleoclimatologist Michael Mann. Prior to Mr. Mann’s work, the accepted view, as embodied in the U.N.’s 1990 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was that the world had undergone a warming period in the Middle Ages, followed by a mid-millennium cold spell and a subsequent warming period — the current one. That consensus, as shown in the first of the two IPCC-provided graphs nearby, held that the Medieval warm period was considerably warmer than the present day.”
? “Mr. Mann’s 1999 paper eliminated the Medieval warm period from the history books, with the result being the bottom graph you see here. It’s a man-made global-warming evangelist’s dream, with a nice, steady temperature oscillation that persists for centuries followed by a dramatic climb over the past century. In 2001, the IPCC replaced the first graph with the second in its third report on climate change, and since then it has cropped up all over the place.”
? “Al Gore uses it in his movie.”
? “In 2003, two Canadians, Ross McKitrick and Steven McIntyre, published an article in a peer-reviewed journal showing that Mr. Mann’s methodology could produce hockey sticks from even random, trendless data.”
? “three researchers — Edward J. Wegman of George Mason University, David W. Scott of Rice University and Yasmin H. Said of Johns Hopkins University — are not climatologists; they’re statisticians. Their task was to look at Mr. Mann’s methods from a statistical perspective and assess their validity. Their conclusion is that Mr. Mann’s papers are plagued by basic statistical errors that call his conclusions into doubt.”
? “Mr. Wegman brings to bear a technique called social-network analysis to examine the community of climate researchers. His conclusion is that the coterie of most frequently published climatologists is so insular and close-knit that no effective independent review of the work of Mr. Mann is likely. ‘As analyzed in our social network,’ Mr. Wegman writes, ‘there is a tightly knit group of individuals who passionately believe in their thesis.’ He continues: ‘However, our perception is that this group has a self-reinforcing feedback mechanism and, moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that they can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility’.”
? “published climatologists is so insular and close-knit that no effective independent review of the work of Mr. Mann is likely. ‘As analyzed in our social network,’ Mr. Wegman writes, ‘there is a tightly knit group of individuals who passionately believe in their thesis.’ He continues: ‘However, our perception is that this group has a self-reinforcing feedback mechanism and, moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that they can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility’.”
? “climate research often more closely resembles a mutual-admiration society than a competitive and open-minded search for scientific knowledge. …the dismissive reaction of the climate-research establishment to the McIntyre-McKitrick critique of the hockey stick confirms that impression.”
By archer52, February 14, 2010 @ 12:50 pm

Don’t thank Jones. This was obviously a deal struck with the university. (I wondered what was going on when they didn’t fire him…) You need to thank those profit loving, cap and trade hating Russians. They did what WE SHOULD HAVE DONE, which was to expose the scam. A little computer hacking trickery and your lives and the lives of your children were saved.

Now comes the question of who is suing who for losses in wages, time, innovation, taxes….

Somebody owes somebody something.
By John, February 14, 2010 @ 3:25 pm

Thank you, Harry Schell.
may you prosper, best regards John
By Neoavatara, February 14, 2010 @ 6:49 pm

Excellent breakdown of the facts, as we know them today. Keep up the good work!
By Bob, February 15, 2010 @ 6:41 pm

Has anyone noticed, that this is entirely irrelevant?

The global temperature 1000 years ago has no bearing at all on the current conditions, and to whether or not: a) mankind is increasing atmospheric CO2, b) increased CO2 leads to warmer temperatures, c) this is a good or bad thing.
By cmb, February 16, 2010 @ 4:43 am

“REPLY: I was wondering if someone would bring that up. The MWP was not just a European phenomenon. There is plenty of proxy evidence across the globe that shows that.”

I didn’t say it was just a European phenomenon. But there’s no evidence it was global, a point you sidestepped.

REPLY: Are you kidding? There is lots of evidence that it was global. See here and here. I know you’re not going to like the source, but as you can see, each of the sites listed is backed by peer review papers from such denialists journals as Science, Scientific American, Nature, GRL, Climate Dynamics, and other bogus journals.
By Otter, February 17, 2010 @ 9:29 pm

Peer-reviewed papers showing that the MWP was, indeed, GLOBAL- and Entirely relevant to today’s situation:

New Zealand
http://co2science.org//articles/V11/N53/C2.php

South America
http://co2science.org/articles/V12/N3/C4.php

West Canada
http://co2science.org//articles/V11/N49/C3.php

Asia
http://www.co2science.org//articles/V12/N11/C2.php

And considering the temperatures of that period were a good TWO degrees higher than they are today, that sort of blows the Hell out of a ‘tipping point,’ dontcha think?
By Jeff Alberts, March 1, 2010 @ 4:55 am

The MWP was probably as global as any current warming, which is not entirely.