With the publication of damaging e-mails from a climate research center in Britain, the radical environmental movement appears to face a tipping point. The revelation of appalling actions by so-called climate change experts allows the American public to finally understand the concerns so many of us have articulated on this issue.

“Climate-gate,” as the e-mails and other documents from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia have become known, exposes a highly politicized scientific circle — the same circle whose work underlies efforts at the Copenhagen climate change conference. The agenda-driven policies being pushed in Copenhagen won’t change the weather, but they would change our economy for the worse.

The e-mails reveal that leading climate “experts” deliberately destroyed records, manipulated data to “hide the decline” in global temperatures, and tried to silence their critics by preventing them from publishing in peer-reviewed journals. What’s more, the documents show that there was no real consensus even within the CRU crowd. Some scientists had strong doubts about the accuracy of estimates of temperatures from centuries ago, estimates used to back claims that more recent temperatures are rising at an alarming rate.

This scandal obviously calls into question the proposals being pushed in Copenhagen. I’ve always believed that policy should be based on sound science, not politics. As governor of Alaska, I took a stand against politicized science when I sued the federal government over its decision to list the polar bear as an endangered species despite the fact that the polar bear population had more than doubled. I got clobbered for my actions by radical environmentalists nationwide, but I stood by my view that adding a healthy species to the endangered list under the guise of “climate change impacts” was an abuse of the Endangered Species Act. This would have irreversibly hurt both Alaska’s economy and the nation’s, while also reducing opportunities for responsible development.

Our representatives in Copenhagen should remember that good environmental policymaking is about weighing real-world costs and benefits — not pursuing a political agenda. That’s not to say I deny the reality of some changes in climate — far from it. I saw the impact of changing weather patterns firsthand while serving as governor of our only Arctic state. I was one of the first governors to create a subcabinet to deal specifically with the issue and to recommend common-sense policies to respond to the coastal erosion, thawing permafrost and retreating sea ice that affect Alaska’s communities and infrastructure.

But while we recognize the occurrence of these natural, cyclical environmental trends, we can’t say with assurance that man’s activities cause weather changes. We can say, however, that any potential benefits of proposed emissions reduction policies are far outweighed by their economic costs. And those costs are real. Unlike the proposals China and India offered prior to Copenhagen — which actually allow them to increase their emissions — President Obama’s proposal calls for serious cuts in our own long-term carbon emissions. Meeting such targets would require Congress to pass its cap-and-tax plans, which will result in job losses and higher energy costs (as Obama admitted during the campaign). That’s not exactly what most Americans are hoping for these days. And as public opposition continues to stall Congress’s cap-and-tax legislation, Environmental Protection Agency bureaucrats plan to regulate carbon emissions themselves, doing an end run around the American people.

In fact, we’re not the only nation whose people are questioning climate change schemes. In the European Union, energy prices skyrocketed after it began a cap-and-tax program. Meanwhile, Australia’s Parliament recently defeated a cap-and-tax bill. Surely other nations will follow suit, particularly as the climate e-mail scandal continues to unfold.

In his inaugural address, President Obama declared his intention to “restore science to its rightful place.” But instead of staying home from Copenhagen and sending a message that the United States will not be a party to fraudulent scientific practices, the president has upped the ante. He plans to fly in at the climax of the conference in hopes of sealing a “deal.” Whatever deal he gets, it will be no deal for the American people. What Obama really hopes to bring home from Copenhagen is more pressure to pass the Democrats’ cap-and-tax proposal. This is a political move. The last thing America needs is misguided legislation that will raise taxes and cost jobs — particularly when the push for such legislation rests on agenda-driven science.

Without trustworthy science and with so much at stake, Americans should be wary about what comes out of this politicized conference. The president should boycott Copenhagen.

Source:  Sarah Palin, “Copenhagen’s political science,” Washington Post, December 9, 2009

The president’s decision to attend the international climate conference in Copenhagen needs to be reconsidered in light of the unfolding Climategate scandal. The leaked e-mails involved in Climategate expose the unscientific behavior of leading climate scientists who deliberately destroyed records to block information requests, manipulated data to “hide the decline” in global temperatures, and conspired to silence the critics of man-made global warming. I support Senator James Inhofe’s call for a full investigation into this scandal. Because it involves many of the same personalities and entities behind the Copenhagen conference, Climategate calls into question many of the proposals being pushed there, including anything that would lead to a cap and tax plan. Policy should be based on sound science, not snake oil. I took a stand against such snake oil science when I sued the federal government over its decision to list the polar bear as an endangered species despite the fact that the polar bear population has increased. I’ve never denied the reality of climate change; in fact, I was the first governor to create a subcabinet position to deal specifically with the issue. I saw the impact of changing weather patterns firsthand while serving as governor of our only Arctic state. But while we recognize the effects of changing water levels, erosion patterns, and glacial ice melt, we cannot primarily blame man’s activities for the earth’s cyclical weather changes. The drastic economic measures being pushed by dogmatic environmentalists won’t change the weather, but will dramatically change our economy for the worse. Policy decisions require real science and real solutions, not junk science and doomsday scare tactics pushed by an environmental priesthood that capitalizes on the public’s worry and makes them feel that owning an SUV is a “sin” against the planet. In his inaugural address, President Obama declared his intention to “restore science to its rightful place.” Boycotting Copenhagen while this scandal is thoroughly investigated would send a strong message that the United States government will not be a party to fraudulent scientific practices. Saying no to Copenhagen and cap and tax are first steps in “restoring science to its rightful place.

A heretic I might be, but the religion of Anthropogenic Global Warming is and was allegedly based on science not faith.  As such, the story can begin and end with the data.

Almost since the beginning of Anthropogenic Global Warming, its purveyors horded their data, allowing only manipulated data to be released.  This control allowed them to say and do what they wanted.  In hindsight, shame on the governments that paid for the data, even participated.  As science, this data should have been freely available from day one for anyone to review, validate, or debunk.  Now faced with their scandalous email and software code that unmistakeably created desired Anthropogenic Global Warming results, they offer to release their data.  But, alas, as their own emails make clear, they already deleted their raw data (in some cases very intentionally to avoid disclosure) and can now only offer their manipulated data.

Setting aside the politics of the purveyors of Anthropogenic Global Warming, ignoring for a moment their control of the conversation, of what got published, and who participated in the conversations, the single most important element of Anthropogenic Global Warming is the data.  Without the source data Anthropogenic Global Warming is nothing.  It is not science and, at least for me, it is not a religion that I can take on faith.

Now, regarding the purveyors of Anthropogenic Global Warming that include Al Gore, James Hansen, Michael Mann, Phil Jones, and so many others, they are nothing more than liars and witch doctors to me.  I’ve had enough of their dire doomsaying, their holier-than-thou attitudes, their insinuations that deniers of their faith are not much better than Holocaust deniers.  Enough.

What is left?  Let’s all take a new look at the data–rebuild the raw data, evaluate it’s origins and credibility, and consider other possibilities.  Here in the U.S. the collection of data has evolved and some data is suspect (consider Mohonk Lake USHCN as an example, and look at the more comprehensive quality plot and surface station data).  Even more suspect than the data sources is the way that the resulting data is used and manipulated.  The purveyors of AGW became masters at adjusting this data to create desired results.

Regarding other possibilities, the influence of solar cycles and other non-man-made causes are roundly rejected by AGW purveyors.  That is, in public at least.  The recently released email tell a different story–that solar cycles do have impact.  But this was ultimately rejected and suppressed because it didn’t promote AGW.  Now that we are in what some are calling a solar minimum, even a potential mini-Ice Age, it is increasingly hard to ignore other causes of climate change.  Even AGW purveyors admit privately in their email that the ongoing weather does not sustain the religion of AGW.  For nearly a decade temperatures have decreased.  Furthermore, glimpses of data suggest that the AGW data was manipulated to suppress much warmer periods in the past and that pre-1960 data was incompatible with post-1960 data, suggesting recent cooling instead of global warming.

Finally, no one has conclusively said if global warming, if it can be proven, is really a bad thing after all.  Surely the increased growing seasons in the American midwest and Canadian plains is a good thing.  Milder winters in Siberia might also be very welcomed by Russians.

Bottom line for me is that (1) I want to see real data, not data faked to create a desired result and cover up inconvenient information; (2) let’s get real about what mankind can and does have ability to influence; (3) let’s discuss what is good and bad about climate change; and (4) let’s be more realistic about what mankind is really doing to the environment.

Regarding the latter, I am always dismayed to see ‘Blame America First’ as the quick response among AGW purveyors.  This is politically-motivated and incredibly shortsighted.  Granted that most AGW advocates may not have traveled extensively and are relying on the words of others, but I have traveled to 47 countries and can say without hesitation that the U.S. is among the cleanest, best kept areas on the planet.  The real problem areas–and the ones explicitly excluded by the AGW purveyors–are China, India, Mexico and other third world and developing countries.  These places are often absolutely filthy and there is no apparent regard for the environment.

Until someone can independently prove Anthropogenic Global Warming exists, it is dead.  The purveyors need to be held accountable for their scientific fraud, deceit, and actions.  In the meantime, maybe we can have a substantive discussion on what we can do to respect the environment?  Like, for starters, stop littering!

The code documentation and write read me files releaseed last week are so incredibly unprofessional to be almost unbelieveable.  They raise big red flags about what was transpiring.  Didn’t anyone ever look at the code?!

As reprinted by Watts Up With That from Ecotretas:

To say that the CRU code might be “buggy” would be…well I’ll just let CRU’s programmer tell you in his own words.

• FOIA\documents\osborn-tree6\mann\oldprog\maps12.proFOIA\documents\osborn-tree6\mann\oldprog\maps15.proFOIA\documents\osborn-tree6\mann\oldprog\maps24.pro; Plots 24 yearly maps of calibrated (PCR-infilled or not) MXD reconstructions
; of growing season temperatures. Uses "corrected" MXD - but shouldn't usually
; plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to
; the real temperatures.
• FOIA\documents\harris-tree\recon_esper.pro; Computes regressions on full, high and low pass Esper et al. (2002) series,
; anomalies against full NH temperatures and other series.
; CALIBRATES IT AGAINST THE LAND-ONLY TEMPERATURES NORTH OF 20 N
;
; Specify period over which to compute the regressions (stop in 1960 to avoid
; the decline
• FOIA\documents\harris-tree\calibrate_nhrecon.pro;
; Specify period over which to compute the regressions (stop in 1960 to avoid
; the decline that affects tree-ring density records)
;
• FOIA\documents\harris-tree\recon1.pro
  FOIA\documents\harris-tree\recon2.proFOIA\documents\harris-tree\recon_jones.pro;
; Specify period over which to compute the regressions (stop in 1940 to avoid
; the decline
;
• FOIA\documents\HARRY_READ_ME.txt17. Inserted debug statements into anomdtb.f90, discovered that
a sum-of-squared variable is becoming very, very negative! Key
output from the debug statements:
(..)
forrtl: error (75): floating point exception
IOT trap (core dumped)
..so the data value is unbfeasibly large, but why does the
sum-of-squares parameter OpTotSq go negative?!!
• FOIA\documents\HARRY_READ_ME.txt22. Right, time to stop pussyfooting around the niceties of Tim's labyrinthine software
suites - let's have a go at producing CRU TS 3.0! since failing to do that will be the
definitive failure of the entire project..
• FOIA\documents\HARRY_READ_ME.txtgetting seriously fed up with the state of the Australian data. so many new stations have been
introduced, so many false references.. so many changes that aren't documented. Every time a
cloud forms I'm presented with a bewildering selection of similar-sounding sites, some with
references, some with WMO codes, and some with both. And if I look up the station metadata with
one of the local references, chances are the WMO code will be wrong (another station will have
it) and the lat/lon will be wrong too.
• FOIA\documents\HARRY_READ_ME.txtI am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as
Australia was. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations, one with no WMO
and one with, usually overlapping and with the same station name and very similar coordinates. I
know it could be old and new stations, but why such large overlaps if that's the case? Aarrggghhh!
There truly is no end in sight.
• FOIA\documents\HARRY_READ_ME.txt28. With huge reluctance, I have dived into 'anomdtb' - and already I have
that familiar Twilight Zone sensation.
• FOIA\documents\HARRY_READ_ME.txtWrote 'makedtr.for' to tackle the thorny problem of the tmin and tmax databases not
being kept in step. Sounds familiar, if worrying. am I the first person to attempt
to get the CRU databases in working order?!!
• FOIA\documents\HARRY_READ_ME.txtWell, dtr2cld is not the world's most complicated program. Wheras cloudreg is, and I
immediately found a mistake! Scanning forward to 1951 was done with a loop that, for
completely unfathomable reasons, didn't include months! So we read 50 grids instead
of 600!!! That may have had something to do with it. I also noticed, as I was correcting
THAT, that I reopened the DTR and CLD data files when I should have been opening the
bloody station files!!
• FOIA\documents\HARRY_READ_ME.txtBack to the gridding. I am seriously worried that our flagship gridded data product is produced by
Delaunay triangulation - apparently linear as well. As far as I can see, this renders the station
counts totally meaningless. It also means that we cannot say exactly how the gridded data is arrived
at from a statistical perspective - since we're using an off-the-shelf product that isn't documented
sufficiently to say that. Why this wasn't coded up in Fortran I don't know - time pressures perhaps?
Was too much effort expended on homogenisation, that there wasn't enough time to write a gridding
procedure? Of course, it's too late for me to fix it too. Meh.
• FOIA\documents\HARRY_READ_ME.txtHere, the expected 1990-2003 period is MISSING - so the correlations aren't so hot! Yet
the WMO codes and station names /locations are identical (or close). What the hell is
supposed to happen here? Oh yeah - there is no 'supposed', I can make it up. So I have
• FOIA\documents\HARRY_READ_ME.txtWell, it's been a real day of revelations, never mind the week. This morning I
discovered that proper angular weighted interpolation was coded into the IDL
routine, but that its use was discouraged because it was slow! Aaarrrgghh.
There is even an option to tri-grid at 0.1 degree resolution and then 'rebin'
to 720x360 - also deprecated! And now, just before midnight (so it counts!),
having gone back to the tmin/tmax work, I've found that most if not all of the
Australian bulletin stations have been unceremoniously dumped into the files
without the briefest check for existing stations.
• FOIA\documents\HARRY_READ_ME.txtAs we can see, even I'm cocking it up! Though recoverably. DTR, TMN and TMX need to be written as (i7.7)./code>
• FOIA\documents\HARRY_READ_ME.txtOH FUCK THIS. It's Sunday evening, I've worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done I'm
hitting yet another problem that's based on the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform
data integrity, it's just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they're found.
• FOIA\documents\osborn-tree6\mann\mxdgrid2ascii.proprintf,1,’Osborn et al. (2004) gridded reconstruction of warm-season’
printf,1,’(April-September) temperature anomalies (from the 1961-1990 mean).’
printf,1,’Reconstruction is based on tree-ring density records.’
printf,1
printf,1,’NOTE: recent decline in tree-ring density has been ARTIFICIALLY’
printf,1,’REMOVED to facilitate calibration. THEREFORE, post-1960 values’
printf,1,’will be much closer to observed temperatures then they should be,’
printf,1,’which will incorrectly imply the reconstruction is more skilful’
printf,1,’than it actually is. See Osborn et al. (2004).’
• FOIA\documents\osborn-tree6\summer_modes\data4sweden.pro
  FOIA\documents\osborn-tree6\summer_modes\data4sweden.proprintf,1,'IMPORTANT NOTE:'
printf,1,'The data after 1960 should not be used. The tree-ring density'
printf,1,'records tend to show a decline after 1960 relative to the summer'
printf,1,'temperature in many high-latitude locations. In this data set'
printf,1,'this "decline" has been artificially removed in an ad-hoc way, and'
printf,1,'this means that data after 1960 no longer represent tree-ring
printf,1,'density variations, but have been modified to look more like the
printf,1,'observed temperatures.'
• FOIA\documents\osborn-tree6\combined_wavelet_col.pro;
; Remove missing data from start & end (end in 1960 due to decline)
;
kl=where((yrmxd ge 1402) and (yrmxd le 1960),n)
sst=prednh(kl)
• FOIA\documents\osborn-tree6\mann\mxd_pcr_localtemp.pro; Tries to reconstruct Apr-Sep temperatures, on a box-by-box basis, from the
; EOFs of the MXD data set. This is PCR, although PCs are used as predictors
; but not as predictands. This PCR-infilling must be done for a number of
; periods, with different EOFs for each period (due to different spatial
; coverage). *BUT* don’t do special PCR for the modern period (post-1976),
; since they won’t be used due to the decline/correction problem.
; Certain boxes that appear to reconstruct well are “manually” removed because
; they are isolated and away from any trees.
• FOIA\documents\osborn-tree6\briffa_sep98_d.pro;mknormal,yyy,timey,refperiod=[1881,1940]
;
; Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!
;
yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,$
2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
(...)
;
; APPLY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION
;
yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,x)
densall=densall+yearlyadj
• FOIA\documents\osborn-tree6\summer_modes\pl_decline.pro;
; Plots density ‘decline’ as a time series of the difference between
; temperature and density averaged over the region north of 50N,
; and an associated pattern in the difference field.
; The difference data set is computed using only boxes and years with
; both temperature and density in them – i.e., the grid changes in time.
; The pattern is computed by correlating and regressing the *filtered*
; time series against the unfiltered (or filtered) difference data set.
;
;*** MUST ALTER FUNCT_DECLINE.PRO TO MATCH THE COORDINATES OF THE
; START OF THE DECLINE *** ALTER THIS EVERY TIME YOU CHANGE ANYTHING ***
• FOIA\documents\osborn-tree6\mann\oldprog\maps12.pro;
; Plots 24 yearly maps of calibrated (PCR-infilled or not) MXD reconstructions
; of growing season temperatures. Uses “corrected” MXD – but shouldn’t usually
; plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to
; the real temperatures.
;
• FOIA\documents\osborn-tree6\mann\oldprog\calibrate_correctmxd.pro; We have previously (calibrate_mxd.pro) calibrated the high-pass filtered
; MXD over 1911-1990, applied the calibration to unfiltered MXD data (which
; gives a zero mean over 1881-1960) after extending the calibration to boxes
; without temperature data (pl_calibmxd1.pro). We have identified and
; artificially removed (i.e. corrected) the decline in this calibrated
; data set. We now recalibrate this corrected calibrated dataset against
; the unfiltered 1911-1990 temperature data, and apply the same calibration
; to the corrected and uncorrected calibrated MXD data.
• FOIA\documents\osborn-tree6\summer_modes\calibrate_correctmxd.pro; No need to verify the correct and uncorrected versions, since these
; should be identical prior to 1920 or 1930 or whenever the decline
; was corrected onwards from.
• FOIA\documents\osborn-tree5\densplus188119602netcdf.pro; we know the file starts at yr 440, but we want nothing till 1400, so we
; can skill lines (1400-440)/10 + 1 header line
; we now want all lines (10 yr per line) from 1400 to 1980, which is
; (1980-1400)/10 + 1 lines
(...)
; we know the file starts at yr 1070, but we want nothing till 1400, so we
; can skill lines (1400-1070)/10 + 1 header line
; we now want all lines (10 yr per line) from 1400 to 1991, which is
; (1990-1400)/10 + 1 lines (since 1991 is on line beginning 1990)

Incredible!

As all of this was funded by US, UK, and other tax dollars, who had oversight and audit responsibilities?  A few heads need to roll…

Can anyone seriously deny that they need to simply start from scratch and, for transparancy, put the real data out for everyone to access and analyze? 

Anyway, Watts says that a review of the software code released by the alleged hacker includes comments clearly documenting data manipulation.

For example, in three code files (maps12.pro, maps15.pro, maps24.pro in directories named after Tim Osborne and Michael Mann) is the following:

; Plots 24 yearly maps of calibrated (PCR-infilled or not) MXD reconstructions
; of growing season temperatures. Uses “corrected” MXD – but shouldn’t usually
; plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to
; the real temperatures.

Watts concludes that this is more telling that the email. I do not agree. First, these are in a subdirectory called “oldprog” and risks being taken completely out of context. The code is rather easy to read but these comments do not tell the whole story. I’ve now looked through more than a dozen code files and most look rather innocuous. What I wonder about is the data input and the weighting assigned to the data as it is processed by the code. There are some data files but I’m guessing most is missing, of course, and the latter, while in the code, is not as easy to discern and judge.

Among the data in the code directories are limited tree-ring data, temperatures, and more. Maybe summaries, sample files, or results? I do not have the time to compare this data with external datasets to see what is real and what is made up. Nor do I have time to read the code to not only spot the weighting and calculations but to interpret their impact. What I do wonder about as I read through the files is how and why specific ranges were chosen for normalization of data and averaging. Consider, too, how missing data was filled in or ignored, and, as well, the impact of solar cycles and other influences.

The bottom line is that all of this is ripe for manipulation to achieve whatever results are desired. Which gets us back to the email. These researchers were Kool-Aid drinkers for the religion of global warming. They have vested interest in producing results to support their cause. The email makes this abundantly clear and shows their willingness to modify data, ignore inconvenient data, destroy data, and actively prevent independent analysis of their data.