Joe Romm would call this a “head exploding moment“. If this were a skeptic, Tamino aka Grant Foster, would sharpen his invective ginsu knives and launch a fusillade of cutlery in a blog post claiming how stupid and inept skeptics are for not being able to work a simple program like Excel.
But this is professional climate science, so none of that will happen.
Over at Climate Audit, Steve McIntyre writes:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Phil Jones spends much of his time looking down his nose at the heathen, but then confesses to Bob Ward that he is unable to calculate a trend on his own, as in this hilarious exchange at Bishop Hill:
I’m not adept enough (totally inept) with excel to do this now as no-one who knows how to is here.
Nor it seems in Matlab, R, ODL, Fortran or any other language. No wonder that he regarded someone who could calculate principal components (like Mann) as a sort of computational prodigy.
Last year, Phil was ranked one of England’s top 100 scientists. Just imagine the ranking that he could have achieved if he knew how to calculate a trend by himself.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is from FOIA2011 email 1885.txt
Don’t worry Dr. Phil, help is on the way!
I’d like to suggest to our readers that they purchase copies of this book and send them to Phil as a Christmas gift. Click image to order a copy. For UK residents, use the Amazon UK Link.
Here’s Dr. Phil’s address below. Amazon allows Christmas gift giving, and you can send a nice note along too. I suggest we fill his messy office (From Climategate1) with these books.
Maybe if gets so many he’ll give them to students, and he’ll actually be doing something useful. As for Romm and Foster, send them coal.
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit
School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia
Norwich
NR4 7TJ
UK
Here’s the full email, note what Bob Ward concludes at the end (my bold):
From: Phil Jones
Sent: 20 December 2007 13:58
To: Bob Ward
Subject: Re: More nonsense on climate change
Bob,
Quickly re-reading this it sounds as though I’m getting at you. I’m not – just at the idiots who continue to spout this nonsense. It isn’t an issue with climatologists. All understand. If I tried to publish this I would be told by my peers it was obvious and banal. I will try and hide it in a paper at some point. I could put it on the CRU web site. I’ll see how I feel after the Christmas Pud.
I would have thought that this writer would have know better! I keep on seeing people saying this same stupid thing. I’m not adept enough (totally inept) with excel to do this now as no-one who knows how to is here.
What you have to do is to take the numbers in column C (the years) and then those in D (the anomalies for each year), plot them and then work out the linear trend. The slope is upwards. I had someone do this in early 2006, and the trend was upwards then. It will be now. Trend won’t be statistically significant, but the trend is up.
This is a linear trend – least squares. This is how statisticians work out trends. They don’t just look at the series. The simpler way is to just look at the data. The warmest year is 1998 with 0.526. All years since 2001 have been above 0.4. The only year before 2001 that was above this level was 1998. So 2cnd to 8th warmest years are 2001-2007
The reason 1998 was the warmest year was that it resulted from the largest El Nino event of the 20th century in 1997/8. We’ve not had anything resembling a major El Nino event since – they have all been minor.
Using regression, it is possible to take the El Nino event into account (with a regression based on the Southern Oscillation Index). This accounts for about 0.15 deg C of 1998’s warmth. Without that 1998 would have been at about 0.38.
There is a lot of variability from year-to-year in global temperatures – even more in ones like CET. No-one should expect each year to be warmer than the previous. The 2000s will be warmer than the 1990s though. This is another way of pointing out what’s wrong with their poor argument. The last comment about CET is wrong. 2007 will be among the top 10 warmest CET years – it will likely be 2cnd or 3rd.
Cheers
Phil
Ward responds:
Dear Phil,
Thanks for responding so comprehensively. I have plotted the data before, and as you observe, the trend is up but the result isn’t statistically significant, which I think makes it open to attack. I think the problem is that NOAA made the following statement in its report on the 2006 data:
“However, uncertainties in the global calculations due largely to gaps in data coverage make 2006 statistically indistinguishable from 2005 and several other recent warm years as shown by the error bars on the [1]global time series.”
I’m not sure how to argue against this point – it appears to imply that there is no statistically significant trend in the global temperature record over the past few years.
Best wishes,
Bob
Then what makes Jones think he knows anytthing to talk about in support of Mann’s statistical efforts?
Maybe by eldest son who has just turned 8 could help him. (For a fee of course). He’s a whiz at excel.
It would be shame if he is unable to plot a trendline. How would he know where the temperature is going?
I have no more tears left for laughter, then I see this..
This is so much much fun fun. I love you FOIA2011 whomever you are.
While this might be funny, aren’t some of these Climategate posts getting a bit too ad hominem now?
REPLY: What, sending Phil a Christmas gift that will help him? A little tongue in cheek with Tamino and Joe Romm? I hardly see how. – Anthony
It would be worse if he had been able to do it…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/12/the-new-math-ipcc-version/
Do you suppose it is too ad hominem for the peasant children to point at the Emperor with no clothes on, giggle, and offer a cloak to the exposed Emperor?
Gee wasn’t it Phil who after Climategate 1 admit that there was no statistically significant warming since 1998.
I’m not sure how to argue against this point – it appears to imply that there is no statistically significant trend in the global temperature record over the past few years.
With temperature there is always a trend, even if the trend is stable.
He’s still in the office though and is getting paid by the tax-payers (sheep) + bonuses from various organizations.
Who cares if he know Excel he is making money, that’s his logic and only!
Well, there is also:
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Microsoft-Excel/dp/1615640746/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322160132&sr=1-5
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Microsoft Excel.
I mean, some people might feel that the implication that one is a “dummy” is a little rude.
🙂
“While this might be funny, aren’t some of these Climategate posts getting a bit too ad hominem now?”
He deserve it, he deletes emails to cover his scams, sends honest researchers on wild goose chases to get data he refuses to give out and as FOIA1002 pointed out the trillions of dollars wasted by this man’s dishonesty could have saved lives. He has no morals and deserves no respect.
I sent a copy of Excel for Dummies to Professional Conman Phil Jones – School of Envirnmental Scams.
Excelent post!
Jones and Acton are out doing the dog and pony show to deny any significance to the ClimateGate2 e-mail disclosures. The Associated Press is accomodating the coverup by asserting the ClimateGate1 e-mail concerns were “refuted” by the investigations clearing Jones et al of wrongdoing. Funny how they manage to just deny and ignore the illegal FOIA obstructions whose penalties were escaped only by a conveniently inept statute of limitation. Jones is asking: “Why do people need to know who wrote what individual paragraph?”
After new leak, climatologist takes case to public By RAPHAEL G. SATTER | AP – 4 hrs ago
Steinar Midtskogen says:
November 24, 2011 at 10:01 am
[ “While this might be funny, aren’t some of these Climategate posts getting a bit too ad hominem now?” ]
[ Bolding mine ]
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Actually, I think you’ll find this is not an ad hominem fallacy.
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ad-hominem.html
[ ” An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument” ]
[ Bolding mine ]
Most of what I’ve learnt about climate change has come from the web. After reading a number of FOIA2011 emails the thought occured to me that, if I was a youngster looking to study climate at a reputable university, where in the world could I go where I wouldn’t be taught by numptys like Phil Jones?
Please…can someone richer than me [ I get an allowance for chores I do – If I do them right 🙂 ] send a book with my name 🙂
I really don’t get the point of all of this badgering the man has his doctorate collects data and has support staff create spiffy looking graphs for those that are not able to conceptualize mans impact on the planet earth. To not believe that the human race has had a negative impact on this planet is ludicrious. Those that close their minds to, Maybe, What if and possiblities to name a few, perhaps have an overinflated view of their signifigance and possibly they might rethink their priorities.
WAIT! If I send a book to help educate the / a Nobel Peace Prize Winner – Do I get to say I’m A Nobel Peace Prize recipient?
“…The warmest year is 1998 with 0.526. All years since 2001 have been above 0.4. The only year before 2001 that was above this level was 1998. So 2cnd to 8th warmest years are 2001-2007
The reason 1998 was the warmest year was that it resulted from the largest El Nino event of the 20th century in 1997/8. We’ve not had anything resembling a major El Nino event since – they have all been minor.
Using regression, it is possible to take the El Nino event into account (with a regression based on the Southern Oscillation Index). This accounts for about 0.15 deg C of 1998′s warmth. Without that 1998 would have been at about 0.38…”
So, by implication, he’s saying that about a quarter of the observed warming for 1998 was due to a NATURAL event, and not due to Anthropogenic causes.
They’ve always said that the entire amount of warming was directly attributed to man – IIRC, Gavin said that man was responsible for up to 110 percent of the current warming. If I’m wrong, then someone can correct me.
But the same question still applies – in percentages, just how much of the warming since the start of the industrial revolution was caused by man, and how much by natural causes?
There was a campaign in the US designed to send a message to congress about dissatisfaction with their stance on the issue of illegal immigration from Mexico.
Basically, it was simply to send a brick to your elected representatives in congress as a hint – “build a wall, here is start.”
When the congressional postoffice had to deliver (literally) tons of packages each day, and congressional offices filled with bricks, the message was heard – was heard, and reported on in the MSM, but little done. The “little” that was done was probably more than would have been done without the campaign though.
I would suggest sending bricks to Phil. He can re-sell the books (and probably would). Bricks are a different matter.
Why a brick? Why, so that he can practice his skills for what will probably be the only job he will ever get hired for once the university gets enough pressure to fire him.
Unfortunately, sending bricks from the US is a little on the expensive side, so this would have to be probably a mostly UK initiative.
Henrythethird says:
“… just how much of the warming since the start of the industrial revolution was caused by man, and how much by natural causes?”
There has been no acceleration in temperatures, which have been rising along the same trend line since the LIA. Therefore it is reasonable to assume warming due to human activity is minuscule to none:
http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/2681/temperaturewithrealbase.gif
Oh my! I can’t believe that no one at the CRU could “do this now as no-one who knows how to is here.” The lesson here is that you should never let all your knowledgeable staff go on vacation at the same time! I am sure Dr. Jones is aware that most folks from mid level management up to the CEO’s use the phone (actually a closed door 1:1 is preferred) for communications that might put you, and/or your organization, at the risk of looking foolish, (etc.) if the communication was made public………..
I just had to buy a new Office 2010 suite (3 users) for a new Windows 7 machine (thanks Bill, I wish I could of designed products without backward version capability!!!!).
I have a feeling that Dr. Jones is going to be a bit distracted over the next couple of weeks…………
The interesting thing that I took from this email exchange was not the fact that Phil Jones can’t work Excel but the fact that they were discussing how to refute an article that they were describing as rubbish while at the same time admitting to each other that the content of the article was correct. This rubbish article is putting about the ridiculous claim that there has been no significant warming since 1998, can we come up with a rebuttal? Any ideas? Er…seeing as there has been no significant warming since 1998, I’m not really sure how we can refute an article that says that there has been no significant warming since 1998. What kind of mindset wants to refute an article that they privately admit is correct?
No, you cannot argue against the flattening/non-increase/cooling of global temps. The best they have been able to do is to claim that
5 years 6 years 7 years, 8 years13 years without a statistically significant rise in temperature is not long enough to constitute a valid trend. It has to be >16 years!Good grief!
They knew the temps were stalled. Phil knew that without the El Nino 1998 would have been +0.38, same as the following 13 years (so far). They were worried after about 5 years because they knew it meant a meaningful trend developing that undermined the CO2 argument. And they were right. It is completely undermined. CO2 just isn’t all that important a forcing agent for global temps and never was. The new information revealed above is they were not bothered enough by this realisation to correct their claims for it.
Oh. Dear. Bog.
Reading that, I realized I hadn’t had need to plot an Excel trend in years, and didn’t recall how. So I pulled up the first spreadsheet I found, retaught myself how to build a graph, and plotted the trend. In roughly 60 seconds.
So… The new standard of scientific evidence is, “I’m too freaking stupid to follow menus or read help files, therefore there is no trend”?
Dear Doctor Jones,
I understand that you are in need of an assistant with bare minimal expertise in standard office tools.
I am available.
Please submit an offer, and I’ll get back to you.
Bloke down the pub says:
November 24, 2011 at 11:17 am
Most of what I’ve learnt about climate change has come from the web. After reading a number of FOIA2011 emails the thought occured to me that, if I was a youngster looking to study climate at a reputable university, where in the world could I go where I wouldn’t be taught by numptys like Phil Jones?
[ Bolding mine ]
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I asked a Scientist on Dr Curry’s blog this basic [ Bolded above ] question – phrased differently – of course.
The reply I got went something like this : If you like natural science – study it. There are unappealing people everywhere.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
People should not use Excel trendlines without knowing what happens to trendlines at the beginning and end of the graph, where Excel gets it wrong for some kinds of cyclic curves.
Stonyground says:
November 24, 2011 at 11:38 am
“What kind of mindset wants to refute an article that they privately admit is correct?”
Stonyground-
I assume that your question is a rhetorical one. If not JC’s recent post http://judithcurry.com/2011/11/22/research-ethics-training on ethics comes to mind as a location to have a dialogue on the subject. The only thing I can come up with to explain the mindset leading to the lack of integrity (as I interpret the word) noted in your question would be covered in the slippery slope topic of situational ethics.
“TomT says:
November 24, 2011 at 10:35 am
Gee wasn’t it Phil who after Climategate 1 admit that there was no statistically significant warming since 1998.”
It was actually since 1995.
“The trend over the period 1995-2009 was significant at the 90% level, but wasn’t significant at the standard 95% level that people use,” Professor Jones told BBC News.
To update: The anomaly for 2009 was 0.443. The anomaly for 2010 was 0.477. However the anomaly for the first 9 months of 2011 so far is only 0.358. So it is simple to do the math for the average for the last 21 months, namely 12(0.477) + 9(0.358) all divided by 21 gives 0.426. This is LESS than the 2009 value of 0.443. So in other words, the warming for the last 16 years and 9 months is NOT significant at the 95% level. And when the figures are in for all of 2011, we will have 17 years of warming that is NOT significant at the 95% level.
Also see the graphics at:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/
Focus on the top 95% error bar for 1995 and note that it is way above the bottom error bar for the presently green 2011 line. It is so much higher that the green line cannot catch up any more for the remainder of the year.
P.S. The October value is about 0.35 according to the following so that will make anything written above even more certain.
http://www.climate4you.com/GlobalTemperatures.htm#HadCRUT3%20TempDiagram
The best Phil could come up with is that there was no significant trend since 1998 about a year ago, but just barely.
Now, after a year had passed, Phil sez that there has been a significant warming trend since 1998, but just barely.
What does that mean? If 2011 pulls up a tad cooler than the average since 1998, then the significant warming trend since 1998 disappears into thin air, but just barely.
It’s nice to know that the playing field has been leveled by 2 sprinklings of Climategate Email droppings, but just barely.
slowdecline says:
November 24, 2011 at 11:24 am
I really don’t get the point of all of this badgering the man has his doctorate collects data and has support staff create spiffy looking graphs for those that are not able to conceptualize mans impact on the planet earth. To not believe that the human race has had a negative impact on this planet is ludicrious. Those that close their minds to, Maybe, What if and possiblities to name a few, perhaps have an overinflated view of their signifigance and possibly they might rethink their priorities.
____________________
My priorities are the people that have DIED as a direct result of this SCAM and the millions more that will DIE.
To start with Friday Mukamperezida an ill young boy who was burned alive thanks to a company run by Al Gore, your HERO. Thousands more indigenous people have been tossed off their land to endure a slow starvation so the World Bank, Al Gore, George Soros, Goldman Sachs and UNIVERSITY endowment funds can grow rich from “Carbon credits”
Then there were 26156 excess winter deaths during 2009-10. One reports says that 2700 people are died in fuel poverty. It is estimated an additional 3,000 people in England and Wales will die this winter because they cannot afford to heat their homes. Inefficient heating are factors driving the high level of winter deaths in Britain. There are 30,000-40,000 more deaths in winter than summer months, and old people make up the vast majority.
That is just the people and does not include introducing a nasty very invasive monoculture tree that poisons the very soil and sucks up water. Even a goat will not eat it so it kills off the local wildlife and the oil “mist” supresses native seed from sprouting. On top of that it is the worst tree for fire hazard thanks to the oil. In dry weather it literally explodes. Now they are making a GMO version that can survive freezing. ( eucalyptus )
…. Now what were you saying about closed minds????
kim2ooo says:
November 24, 2011 at 11:16 am
[ ” An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument” ]
If the purpose is to prove that he doesn’t know some computer basics, then it’s not a fallacy. If the purpose is to expose questionable behaviour related to science, FOIA requests, peer review or political activities, which I believe “Climategate” is mostly about, then not knowing Excel doesn’t necessarily prove anything, though jumping conclusions is tempting. People did science etc even before Excel came along.
I apologise for trying to spoil the fun. I just think the jokes and schadenfreude, nothing wrong with that, are more approperiate in private conversation (such as in e-mails, hopefully not to be stolen…). I wouldn’t hesitate to make such fun myself if it isn’t too public. I don’t mean to criticise Anthony either. This is his blog. But too many of these posts might not (excuse the expression) “help the cause”.
Suggestion for Urban Dictionary:
Jones – (v)
To sit in front of an excel spreadsheet coveting the ability to plot. Usage example: Jonesing for a hockey stick.
Can’t get a positive slope Phil?
Having trouble with the HTD Excel add-in?
Gail Combs says:
November 24, 2011 at 12:54 pm
Spot on. Lets not forget the true cost of what these crooks have done and will happily keep doing until they are stopped. These people make my blood boil. Not only have they tarnished the credibility of climate science but the public will assume this behaviour is rife in all science. There is enough mumbo-jumbo trying to attack science from the outside, the last thing we need is an ‘inside job’.
Gail Combs says:
November 24, 2011 at 12:54 pm
To start with Friday Mukamperezida an ill young boy who was burned alive thanks to a company run by Al Gore, your HERO. Thousands more indigenous people have been tossed off their land to endure a slow starvation so the World Bank, Al Gore, George Soros, Goldman Sachs and UNIVERSITY endowment funds can grow rich from “Carbon credits”
How were you able to jump to these conclusions as my posting did not infer any allegiance to any of the parties mentioned for which I have none. Al Gore has never been my hero nor have I ever seen any of his productions or other materials that I believe you might be referring to, you do seem rather angry.
I only question berating a scientist for not being able to use excel as it is immaterial to the discussion. Also that I do believe that mankind has impacted this planet which was once in balance with nature before our arrival to an Extremely negative state which will lead to the demise of the human race in my opinion. Also I only suggested that the people of this planet should try to keep an open mind and not viscerally react to another point of view and possibly re-evaluate themselves if they do and attempt to adjust their thought processes.
Even Google’s automatic ad-placer is trying to solve the problem, and seems to understand the point better than Phil did. As I’m viewing WUWT, Google has an ad for ELISA Automatic Curve-fitting software under this post.
More seriously, anyone who deals with science, whether as a producer or a consumer, knows how to do a least-squares curve fit. Anyone who wants to be considered a scientist would be ashamed to admit to a colleague that he doesn’t know such a basic method. Instead of admitting it, he’d find a book or look it up on Google.
Phil doesn’t even know enough to know that he should be ashamed!!!!! That’s the really scary part.
Henry the third says
They’ve always said that the entire amount of warming was directly attributed to man – IIRC, Gavin said that man was responsible for up to 110 percent of the current warming. If I’m wrong, then someone can correct me.
——————-
No. They have always said that a large proportion of the long term trend is due to AGW. The long term trend does not include short term changes like el nino events.
The IPCC actually puts a percentage figure on what proportion of the long trerm trend is due likely due to AGW. I forget the figure but it’s something like 60%. So the remainder of the increase must be due to natural causes.
Wrong again, my lazy friend.
The long term trend from the LIA shows no AGW. The long term trend is actually declining.
Apparently it is not just Excel that has been troubling Phil Jones, he has had problems with his laptop also.
http://search.dilbert.com/comic/Etch-a-sketch
Gail Coombs says.
____________________
My priorities are the people that have DIED as a direct result of this SCAM and the millions more that will DIE.
—————
So let’s use more coal and oil because they have none of these problems. Totally clean and no one ever dies because people use these fuels. The Koch brothers are my heros, they can do no wrong. /parody
Seems to be a strange lack of proportion and objectivity here.
And the rant about Eucalyptus trees is 75% bad story telling. Exploding trees. Sheesh! Nothing grows near them. Sheesh! And a whole bunch of other sheesh. To much crazy greenie alarmism around here.
Lazy,
Maybe in Oz there are plants that have evolved to grow under eucalyptus trees. But not here. I live in California, and I can assure you that nothing grows under the eucalyptus trees introduced here.
Hahah. This was great. I spent the $33 to have it shipped, expedited and gift wrapped, to Phil Jones. The card is titled “To a True Idiot,”.
I wonder if Phil knows about http://www.woodfortrees.org/ ? It wasn’t available when Phil needed then, but it is now. Perhaps UEA could send all their data to Paul to make available to interested parties and UEA’s in-house crew. 🙂
Phil, note also http://www.woodfortrees.org/notes.php#trends
No, that’s just you employing a thoroughly dishonest attempt to smear with an ignorant strawman accusaton.
Your willful ignorance is simply spectacular. You don’t grow your garden in the same soils as certain plants. Eucalyptus is one of those problem plants. Black walnut trees and Japanese iris pose some problems as well. It’s their adapatation to prevent competition from other plants competing for the same nutrients. Eucalyptus trees do have a bad habit of exploding in wild fires. for example:
Exploding bushfires mystery
You may want to consider an apology to Gail for your inaccurate sarcasm.
So who was he intending to have do the job? – Not Harry surely, I’m still laughing after two years at his code from Climategate 1.0. And he is still there. They must have very low expectations, but then it is Norfolk we’re talking about. Lovely people, but not known for its programming expertise. A few miles to the west of course you’ll hit Cambridge, but that is a different matter, Alan Turing went there, and Isaac Newton. On the other hand Norfolk did produce Oliver Cromwell, and this is what he said to Parliament in 1653:-
“It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.
Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter’d your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?
Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil’d this sacred place, and turn’d the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress’d, are yourselves gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.
In the name of God, go!”
It almost fits the bill for UEA, They might even have a mace (shining bauble)
If that is what you are thinking, you missed the biggest part of the ironic humor. Microsoft Excel is notorious for having some software bugs which result in the naive user not being aware of errors being introduced in its results when using statistical features and charting. This is why experienced users so often advise naive users to use other software with more accurate statistical capabilities. When Jones bemoans his incompetence when using Excel to perform elementary statistical charting implies, he is also strongly implying that he lacks the competence to recognize how his and his collaborators’ choice of MS Excel for statistics can be a potential source of serious errors in his results and conclusions affecting the entire Earth’s population. Then to compound his sheer pompous stupidity, he then bemoans how incompetent his critics are supposed to be for disagreeing with his methods and conclusions. The ironic and tragic humor can hardly be more enormous than this latest revelation.
Yes, “People did science etc even before Excel came along,” and the less capable scientists sometimes did equally boneheaded stunts with published tables and/or slide rules. You would think and expect one of the most prominent self-dscribed climate scientists would be incapable of making such elementary errors with literally worldwide consequences measured in the trillions of dollars and millions of lives. Of course, historical experience shows us the deaths of millions of people in pursuit of a non-existant Utopian objective is all in a year’s work for such self-appointed Masters of the Universe.
” it appears to imply that there is no statistically significant trend in the global temperature record over the past few years.”
The horror.
Red alert! Hide the lack of incline! Hide the lack of incline!!!
LazyTeenager says:
November 24, 2011 at 2:59 pm
Gail Coombs says.
So let’s use more coal and oil because they have none of these problems. Totally clean and no one ever dies because people use these fuels. The Koch brothers are my heros, they can do no wrong. /parody “]
I’m probably younger than you, so maybe you can attempt to answer a question of mine?
Why do you AGW’ers seem to think the Coal / Koch Brothers references …. work as a debate tool?
George Soros [ You know, the buddy of Mr Hanson – http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/09/26/nasa-s-hansen-mentioned-soros-foundations-annual-report = http://www.soros.org/resources/articles_publications/publications/annual_20070731/a_complete.pdf = pages 123 -and 124 ] Profiteers from Coal and tobacco
http://seekingalpha.com/article/262063-5-favorite-george-soros-stocks
http://nation.foxnews.com/george-soros/2011/11/21/big-government-george-soros-helped-craft-stimulus-then-invested-companies-benefiting
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/02/new-soros-hedge-fun-profiting-obamas-green-energy-push-hires-top-
http://waynebrown.hubpages.com/hub/A-COAL-WORLD
http://firebasefreedom.ning.com/forum/topics/george-soros-proud-new-owner?commentId=5663659%3AComment%3A3285
http://www.bing.com/search?q=soros+coal&form=OPRTSD&pc=OPER
Who’s playin’ who?
There’s a certain lord who has been known to dabble with computer stuff who might be willing to help Dr Jones out 🙂
Ring ring ring
Mann; uh, hello?
Jones; Mike? its Phil….
Mann; Phil, its uhm… 3 AM here…is it important?
Jones; Yeah. Real important. I need to do a graph. Look there’s nobody in the office to do it for me and I have to have it ready for tomorrow morning. Do you know how to run Excel?
Mann; Yeah.
Jones; OK, good. How do I do a trend line?
Mann; You’re kidding….
Jones; No! I need to draw a trend line and I need to do it fast.
Mann; OK, calm down. Have you got Excel running?
Jones; Yes.
Mann; OK then, right click on the data plot you want to trend and choose add trend line from the drop down menu.
Jones; I did that already. Doesn’t work.
Mann; Uhm… doesn’t work?
Jones; No. It just draws a straight line. I want one of those curvy ones.
Mann; Uhm…linear is the default.
Jones; Well I don’t want lin… liny… whatever you said, I don’t want that one I want a curvy one.
Mann; Well which curvy one? You mean polynomial? Moving average? What?
Jones; Yeah, yeah, yeah, I saw all those choices on the menu. Linear, polynomial…hey what’s this bullsh*t with logarithmic? How’d that get in here? Didn’t we get rid of the notion that CO2 is logaruthmic? Who wrote this thing? How do we get them fired?
Mann; Its a statistical analysis method Phil, it has nothing to do with CO2.
Jones; We should get rid of it anyway. Optics you know.
Mann; Look, just tell me what method you want to use Phil…
Jones: Hockey stick.
Mann; Huh?
Jones; I want a hockey stick. Like the ones you draw all the time.
Mann; Uhm Phil, that wasn’t done with Excel, I wrote my own code.
Jones; Cool. Can I import it into Excel?
Mann; Uhm…no.
Jones; Well, there must be some way to do it in Excel.
Mann; Well…you could use moving average but you might have to adjust your data…
Jones; Well that won’t work. Hansen’s the adjustment guy and no way he’ll answer the phone at this hour.
Mann; Actually he’s here….
Jones; At your place? What’s he doing there?
Mann; Well, we had some stuff we had to burn. Notebooks, computer backup tapes and such…I’ll put him on the line.
Hansen; Hey there Jonesey, so ya need some adjustments huh?
Jones; Yeah.
Hansen; OK, here’s what you do. Get a felt marker and draw the line on the screen shaped like a hockey stick. Then you fiddle with the numbers until they match the line.
Jones; Hey! It’s working.
Hansen; OK, call back if you need anymore help. Bye.
Click. Bzzzzzzzzzz…..
Mann; You didn’t….
Hansen; Yup, I did.
Mann; Felt marker?
Hansen; Giggle. He’ll be trying to figure out why all his data has the same curve for the next week….
Mann; Too good. Hey, the fire is really going now. Think its hot enough to melt these hard drives yet?
The aptly described Lazy Teenager said:
“And the rant about Eucalyptus trees is 75% bad story telling. Exploding trees. Sheesh! Nothing grows near them. Sheesh! And a whole bunch of other sheesh. To much crazy greenie alarmism around here.”
Well, LT, take it from an Aussie, from the continent where they are the predominant tree species, Gail knows of what she speaks. You can fly for hundreds of miles along the east and south east coast of Australia, and see vast forests of eucalypts which are pretty much monocultural, like conifer forests in the high latitudes of the NH. Different species and sub-species of eucalypts, but many, many millions of the things and not much else growing. There are a few plants that have evolved to co-exist with them, but they are pretty much unique to Australia. Eucalypts drop resinous bark and oily leaves which leave a dead circle around the tree, rather as the pine needles in the aforementioned NH forests do.
That is why they are the predominant species of tree here – they killed off and outlasted the competition a long time ago. (I hasten to add that there is plenty of non-forest land with other plant species thriving).
And until you have seen a massive bushfire involving trees with a high oil content, such as eucalypts or certain conifers with similar properties, best not to comment on the exploding trees thing. It’s a sensitive subject in this country, where many people have perished in precisely those sorts of fires.
I’m left puzzled… If Phil Jones can’t do an Excel spreadsheet, what tools did he use to massage his data? And was it lazy (or non-existent) computer backup on his part that caused him to lose his data?
Or are his claims that he’s lost his methodology and that all-important data just a big cover so people won’t find out about his inept mathematical and computer abilities and dismiss him for incompetence?
Speaking of Phil, he’s got some explanations up on the web about the context of some of those emails. He comes up with some very nice explanations that I have some questions about. Oddly, comments aren’t allowed, so, with the permission of the mods, I’m posting my questions here in the hopes that Phil sees them and answers.
Professor Phil Jones explains the context of some of the phrases cherry-picked from the thousands of emails (from 1995 to 2009) posted on the web on November 22, 2011.
Email 3062:
“We don’t really want the bullsh*t and optimistic stuff that Michael has written […] We’ll have to cut out some of his stuff.”
Phil;
What has been cut out of this quote is the explanation that we wanted the science to reflect the limits of scientific knowledge ‘warts and all’: “We don’t really want the bullshit and optimistic stuff that Michael has written that sounds as though it could have been written by a coral person 25 years ago. We’ll have to cut out some of his stuff. What we want is good honest stuff, warts and all, dubious dating, interpretation marginally better etc.”
REPLY:
Well Phil, how about you publish the stuff you cut out and let us decide for ourselves? BTW, was it the “optimistic” part that made it “bullsh*t”? Could you also identify for us the good honest stuff you did use that had the “dubious dating” and other warts? If you knowingly used “stuff” that you knew had “warts”, perhaps you could point out exactly which “stuff” that was do we can cross it off our list of things that need to be discredited?
Email 2775:
“I too don’t see why the schemes should be symmetrical. The temperature ones certainly will not as we’re choosing the periods to show the warming.”
Phil;
The full email exchange reveals that we were choosing colours for a chart covering periods that showed warming. The periods chosen were 1901 to 2005 (the long record) and 1979 to 2005 (the satellite record).
REPLY:
So prehaps Phil, you could explain what the advantage of having an asymmetrical color scheme over a symmetrical color scheme would be? What was so important about the color scheme of data plots that it required several PhD’s to figure it out? Isn’t that what grad students are for? What effect did an asymmetrical color scheme have on the graphs and how they appeared that was so important to you? Was this before or after you learned Michael’s “Nature Trick”?
Email 0714:
“Getting people we know and trust [into IPCC] is vital – hence my comment about the tornadoes group.”
Phil;
This was related to the selection of contributing authors, not IPCC-appointed chapter authors over which I have no influence. It means scientists we could trust to write succinct and clear text.
REPLY:
Phil, Phil, Phil. Poor Phil, you have no influence over chapter authors? Well, the implication isn’t that you did, is it? The implication is that you were part of a concerted effort to stack the writing team with like minded individuals to ensure there were no dissenting view points for the chapter to deal with. That sounds reminiscent of one of your emails from ClimateGate 1 about keeping certain papers out even if you had to redefine the meening of peer review, does it not?
Email 1788:
“There shouldn’t be someone else at UEA with different views [from “recent extreme weather is due to global warming”] – at least not a climatologist.”
Phil;
This was in response to a request from a TV programme (via the university press office) which wanted to find two climatologists from UEA with differing views to debate on air. It was my view that I doubted if we could find anyone of that opposing view among my colleagues.
REPLY:
Odd that in an organization of your size, everyone agrees on the main points of everything, is it not? Was your certainty based on the assumption that as their boss no one would dare contradict you? Or was your certainty based in the knowledge that you had gotten all your detractors fired already? After all, wouldn’t getting people with contrary opinions fired be a real good way to keep them from writing anything you didn’t want the chapter authors to deal with?
Email 0896:
“I think the urban-related warming should be smaller than this, but I can’t think of a good way to argue this. I am hopeful of finding something in the data that makes by their Figure 3.”
Phil;
These were discussions between me and two Chinese scientists and they were resolved, as evidenced by the paper in Journal of Geophysical Research. It was about confusion over different regions of China.
REPLY:
Gee Phil, if you were confused, one would think that you would ask them for clarification. Instead you said you were looking for a way to argue that their results were wrong and couldn’t think of a way to do it. Yes, that sounds like confusion to me. Facts you don’t want to believe often have that effect do they not?
Email 4443:
“Basic problem is that all models are wrong – not got enough middle and low level clouds.”
Phil;
This is a discussion that referred to climate models of the late 1990s vintage. These issues were well-known and they have improved in more recent modelling. This related to model differences in development of a multi-model average for the future. The work was not published in the peer-reviewed literature.
REPLY:
But Phil… you said “all models”. Now you say it was in reference to the models of the late 1990’s. That would be like… say….1998? 1999? When was AR4 published again? What models from what time period were used in the publication just a few years later? Were they a year newer? Two years newer? Did they go from all being wrong to all being right in two or three years?
Email 2440:
“I’ve been told that IPCC is above national FOI Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process”
Phil;
At the end of the IPCC process, chapters, formal comments and responses are all published and that is the appropriate place for this information. It is important that scientists should be allowed free and frank discussion during the writing process. I might also point out that I am not part of AR5.
REPLY:
Well Phil, I can certainly understand the difficulty of having detailed discussions in the public eye, but wouldn’t the record of how you drew your conclusions be of value? You know, sort of like “show your work”? Now I know that Nixon set a precedent by erasing some of his work, but he only erased bits here and there, you’re going to a whole new level and saying erase it all. I’m not sure what you not being a part of AR5 has to do with telling people to erase everything to “cover” themselves? What could they possibly say about scientific facts that wouls need to be erased to “cover” themselves?
Email 1577:
“Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get – and has to be well hidden. I’ve discussed this with the main funder…in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.”
Phil;
‘Hidden’ refers here to some of the work on data collection and management. This is a common issue in some areas of climate research and refers to issues of an operational nature and research aspects. An obvious example is updating earlier data sets within a new project. Most funders are fully aware that this is common practice.
REPLY:
Well Phil, after the whole “hide the decline” think by using “Mike’s Nature trick” which was to cut and past temperature records over top of tree ring records, but only for those parts of the graph where the tree rings didn’t show what they were “supposed to”, I’m sure you can understand that some of us are a bit sensitive to words like “hidden”. You see, when someone with a track record like yours says things have to be “well hidden” and that people should “cover” themselves by deleting all their work, well, we just get a but suspiscious Phil. Tell you what, let’s give you the benefit of the doubt. How about you specify exactly which data you were referring to, and exactly how it was “hidden” and we’ll double check with the “funder”. Of course we’ll need to know exactly who the funder was, which, since this is evidently fresh in your mind given your ability to recall the obscure details the email was in reference to, I’m sure you will be able to remember.
Looking forward to your answers Phil. I’m sure you can clear up the issues I’ve raised in nothing flat.
I am not a scientist but did statistics as an undergrad. This cannot be possibly be true. A lead scientist in a field almost entirely based on statistical analysis cannot plot a linear trend in Excel. This has to be a wind up doesn’t it?
Also Lazy T, re gum trees; I have stood on the back of a fire tender and had my eyebrows removed by the detonation (and yes that is the correct word) of a gum tree canopy some 50 metres away. I suggest you know little of that topic. What do think happens when you vapourise a few hundred litres of flammable fluid into a cloud and then apply flame?
Oh gawd, Phil Jones has had WAY too much money thrown at him already – and who knows what he’ll do with the books. Throw them away or burn ’em out of anger or embarrassment? Please, don’t waste the $$ sending him books – far better to find better uses for it. Give the book to a kid who could really use it, but perhaps print out a copy of the cover, then send THAT to Phil Jones with a note along the lines of ‘donated this to a child in the hopes that he/she will wind up a far better scientist than you!’
reply to: Pj says: November 24, 2011 at 2:11 pm
This sort of lack of logic never ceases to blow my mind. Pj, I hate to break it to you, but by definition mankind, and everything we do, is a ‘part of nature’ that has occurred naturally. Or are anthills, beehives, termite mounds/dens (or dens created by any creature for that matter, bears, wolves, etc), shells used by shellfish & hermit crabs, etc., bird nests, and so on, all unnatural too?
As to some utopian magical planet being in balance with nature – gee, would you please explain that to the dinosaurs? They existed for a vastly greater time frame than man. Did they also become unnatural, doing unnatural things to the planet, thus leading to their extinction?
Just how “in balance with nature” was the planet during each of the glacial periods? Were those all “extremely negative states” between the planet and nature where nature got miffed or something and was just giving our planet the cold shoulder?
And, speaking of cold shoulders…. how did you manage to divorce planets from nature to begin with? Is the moon not in balance with nature, since it has no atmosphere or life? Did the planet Mercury REALLY tick nature off, thereby resulting in such a volatile red hot situation between the two of them? If so, let’s not even talk about the relationship of the Sun with Nature!! Is Nature giving Neptune the cold shoulder? Are gas giants just planets where nature has a bad case of indigestion causing super excessive gas?
Just when and how did planets and nature become two separate entities, entities that are somehow magically in balance now and forever, until, of course, the advent of modern man’s unnatural behavior? Inquiring minds want to know.
Well you can call me an old fussbudget, but Excel is a spreadsheet and I’m sure Jones knows how to use it for the budgets, anyone using it for serious graphs needs a brain transplant. Love your work Anthony, some great contributions to humour here and I will attribute correctly!
“I’m not adept enough (totally inept) with excel to do this now as no-one who knows how to is here.”
So what? Neither can I. I can do it by hand, though, as well as in other software, and so can Phil.
“I’m not sure how to argue against this point – it appears to imply that there is no statistically significant trend in the global temperature record over the past few years.”
So what? A few years is just that — a few. Add one more year and you get a statistically significant trend. [snip]
DavidmHoffer wrote…..”Ring ring……”
Absolutely Monty Python pricelessness!!!
There has been no significant warming trend since 1998 because that is when Excel was installed on ‘what me?’ Phil’s computer.
They’ve always said that the entire amount of warming was directly attributed to man – IIRC, Gavin said that man was responsible for up to 110 percent of the current warming. If I’m wrong, then someone can correct me.
Forgive a humble Chartered Structural Engineer, but can we have 110% of warming? Surely he meant 100% of current warming? I appreciate that one can have an “increase in excess of 100%”, but I despair when peolpe keep using this ridiculous expression of “I am a million percent certain ” or whatever. It shows complete ignorance, but then again I expect that is what the dumbing down exercise was all about in the first place, to ahcieve the ignorance of the populace!
I have an old HP-45 calculator from the mid 1970’s that makes calculation of trend lines almost trivial. The only trick is learning RPN (“reverse Polish notation”), which should not be difficult for someone who can extract ‘raw’ data from a predetermined ‘conclusion.’
When I was going through school 20 years ago first semester engineering and science students had to learn C on Sunsparc stations. Before that, I believe students had to learn FORTRAN (either on mainframes or midrange). Programs like Mathematica were also the rage.Most science and engineering grad students I knew back then were well versed in both FORTRAN and C. The really serious ones also very good at diff equations, numerical analysis, and many statistical techniques. I even met a couple of PHD candidates in engineering who had 2 semesters of Assembly language under thier belts. The point is, Phil Jones isn’t so old that he wouldn’t have been exposed to some programming language or tools to do advanced statistics. Heck, Minitab has been around for years, and I’ve met many quality techs with no college who can do advanced SPC analysis on mini-tab. Granted, using SPC is not exactly doing PCA. But, I would think after reading Phil Jone’s CV, Excel would be child’s play for him.
The lesson here is that narcissism trumps competence.
It is shocking and distressing to see how incompetent the people who convinced the world there was disastrous man-made global warming are. So, I can appreciate the anger. But, if any of you are thinking of following the suggestion of sending him a Christmas “present”, PLEASE think twice.
The guy considered suicide after Climategate 1: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101115/full/468362a.html
One of the things the e-mails reveal to me is that he genuinely believes he’s doing the right thing. He may be wrong, and he may have helped spread that wrong message. But, I don’t think he’s evil, just seriously misguided.
REPLY: I just had an email exchange with Dr. Phil Jones, I can assure you he appears anything but suicidal. He’s also publishing papers again. – Anthony
Anthony, I’m reassured to hear that. And, from the sounds of your reply, I’m guessing he’s keeping up his appalling behaviour that we’re learning about from the e-mails… 🙁
I just don’t like the idea of causing someone to have a nervous breakdown (or worse)… even a guy like him.
I do think his behaviour was and is appalling, and that he brought Climategate on himself by his ridiculous stonewalling on basic requests for data. Especially, when he had no qualms in giving that data to a “non-sceptic” if it meant another publication. So, I have very little sympathy for him at all.
But, I never liked the idea of fighting fire with fire.
P.S. Happy Thanksgiving for yesterday, and thanks for keeping the posts going during your holidays. They’re making fascinating reading! 🙂
@davidmhoffer: Priceless! The kind of humour (UK sp) that was so good I could actually see the dialogue taking place.
@Lazy T: At time of comment you have yet to apologise to Gail. It is the mark of a man that he not only knows when he is in error (some error!!), but that he has enough guts to apologise for it. That you fail in both of these qualities marks you out as a mindless troll. I shall be happy to change my opinion when I see you apologise.
Sad, but it reminds me of a question I’ve always had: Isn’t linear regression the wrong method, considering that the underlying function is roughly trigonometric, both on an annual and daily basis? I’ll bet that attempts to fit a more realistic equation have been unsuccessful (or show the opposite of the desired result with a significant goodness of fit measure), so resort was made to LR because it showed the trend they “knew” was right. Wouldn’t be the first time.
My previous comment only makes sense if you’re looking at one station at a time, but I think that’s the right way to do it. If the preponderance show warming, then a case can be made that there has been wide scale warming over the period under study. But I would monitor the predictive accuracy for each station for many years before venturing to make long-term predictions. My guess is that the accuracy would not be stunningly high.
I think using linear regression of a daily global average would only work if if every station were equidistant and diametrically opposite from another station, otherwise the cancellation of seasonal variation would be skewed according to the regional density of the stations. You could try to simulate equidistance by averaging into a global grid, but the result would still be skewed according to the regional density of the stations, and would convey less information. IMO.
re: davidmhoffer says: November 24, 2011 at 7:03 pm
“ring ring…”
Thanks for the good laugh!
davidmhoffer says:
November 24, 2011 at 9:09 pm
Speaking of Phil, he’s got some explanations up on the web about the context of some of those emails. He comes up with some very nice explanations that I have some questions about. Oddly, comments aren’t allowed, so, with the permission of the mods, I’m posting my questions here in the hopes that Phil sees them and answers.
Professor Phil Jones explains the context of some of the phrases cherry-picked from the thousands of emails (from 1995 to 2009) posted on the web on November 22, 2011.
….
Email 1577:
“Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get – and has to be well hidden. I’ve discussed this with the main funder…in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.”
Phil;
‘Hidden’ refers here to some of the work on data collection and management. This is a common issue in some areas of climate research and refers to issues of an operational nature and research aspects. An obvious example is updating earlier data sets within a new project. Most funders are fully aware that this is common practice.
REPLY:
Well Phil, after the whole “hide the decline” think by using “Mike’s Nature trick” which was to cut and past temperature records over top of tree ring records, but only for those parts of the graph where the tree rings didn’t show what they were “supposed to”, I’m sure you can understand that some of us are a bit sensitive to words like “hidden”. You see, when someone with a track record like yours says things have to be “well hidden” and that people should “cover” themselves by deleting all their work, well, we just get a but suspiscious Phil. Tell you what, let’s give you the benefit of the doubt. How about you specify exactly which data you were referring to, and exactly how it was “hidden” and we’ll double check with the “funder”. Of course we’ll need to know exactly who the funder was, which, since this is evidently fresh in your mind given your ability to recall the obscure details the email was in reference to, I’m sure you will be able to remember.
Looking forward to your answers Phil. I’m sure you can clear up the issues I’ve raised in nothing flat.
===============================================
🙂 we know who the funder was, it was in the original email which Phil snipped before posting his excuse.
“Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we
get – and has to be well hidden. I’ve discussed this with the main funder (US
Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original
station data.”
How the US Dept of Energy comes to be the main funder?
Excel illiteracy is more common than you would expect. I interviewed for an engineering position recently and they said they needed people who were expert in Excel, so they were asking prospects if they knew how to use the VLOOKUP() function.
I’m a stats wiz. I’ve used SAS for plenty of analysis, plus innumerable programs I’ve written to analyse time series data.
In this case I’ll have to agree that Excel sucks big time. Serious analysts should avoid Excel at all costs.
While this is amusing and all, the inability to do something in Excel shouldn’t be taken as an indicator of ability/intelligence. Excel does sometimes make some … er … inexcusable … errors.
This said, Octave is free, and has lots of stats packages in it. So if you don’t want to code up your own linear least squares, you could use this. And it runs everywhere. The R language is built for stats, and does an amazingly good job at analysis. You could use that as well.
All this said, without grasping the full context, the a-priori assumption they are making is that they have something best modeled by a linear function. Least squares will give you an approximation to such a line based upon your data. They might need to look more at an Levenburg-Marquardt routine. Which I am pretty sure isn’t in baseline Excel. Could be there though, I haven’t looked.
As sad as all of this is, lets not attack someone for their assumed lack of knowledge of a particular (and relatively poor) analysis tool. Not knowing of other tools, and the techniques to use them? Yeah, thats a good reason to poke at someone (a simple google search would help them find what they need these days, and certainly when the emails were written).
The thing that bothers me is that after observing there’s no statistically significant trend, his next concern is about protecting his conclusions from “attack,” not the reason for a lack of trend.
Good grief….. back when I taught beginning computer science programming courses (that would be QuickBasic, Fortran, Pascal, C…. etc….) I taught freshman students how to compute least squares methods and plot the real data, computed and observed-computed values. (Not to mention compute all those neat stat values, etc…)
FRESHMEN!
And this bunch… sounds like some of them might have had problems passing one of my classes.
Cute. As a climate researcher I never use Excel. Where does it say he doesn’t know Matlab? And what is ODL? I’ve heard of IDL, but you got me on ODL.
And come on folks. These old timers were brought up on HP calculators and graph paper.