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Suggestion

That last line could stand to be expanded upon at least a tiny bit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.183.238.180 (talk) 22:42, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

EMail Controversy

The Phil Jones quote gives undue weight to one side of the issue and is covered in the main article.Flegelpuss (talk) 06:42, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

On the ClimateGate Misplaced Pages page, there is information to the effect that "BBC climate correspondent Paul Hudson stated that he received the chain of leaked e-mails on 12 October...." Wouldn't it be more correct to inform that while the upload to the Internet for wide-scale examination did not occur until 19 November, the hacking itself had to have taken place sometime (probably shortly) before 12 October? 71.125.159.106 (talk) 21:17, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

National Review

Math.geek3.1415926 (talk · contribs) is quoting a National Review opinion piece to make an assertion of fact. This isn't acceptable, as it violates a fundamental principle of WP:NPOV#A simple formulation: "Assert facts, including facts about opinions — but do not assert the opinions themselves." It's also not verifiable, as the cited words do not appear in the source. The statement that the CRU was "resisting requests" is an interpretation of a statement of opinion attributed to an opinion writer - not even a journalist, but a think tank staff member. The way to deal with this is to do what WP:NPOV says: "When we discuss an opinion, we attribute the opinion to someone and discuss the fact that they have this opinion." I've done this in this edit, where I directly quoted the writer's views and attributed them to him by name. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:04, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

The edits I made that you reverted cited a book and the Guardian, rather than the National Review opinion piece as you claim. You are in violation of the three revert rule by having reverted sourced material three times. I improved the refs per the discussion, but you have removed sourced material three or four times now.Math.geek3.1415926 (talk) 19:23, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
The book citation is useless - there is no page reference and no indication of what is being quoted. The Guardian source says nothing about refusals. It says: "There have been repeated calls, including Freedom of Information requests, for the Climate Research Unit to make public a confidential dataset of land and sea temperature recordings that is "value added" by the unit before being used by the Met Office." You are misrepresenting it quite blatantly. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:28, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
Clearly the statement in the article should include "after repeated calls including Freedom of Information requests" which would be WP:V as asserted fact by the Guardian writer and not a matter of opinion. Personally, I would suggest that not giving material "after reopeated requests" would be understood by most people to mean they declined the requests. Un fact, how else might one read it? Collect (talk) 20:40, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
The Guardian article attests to FOI requests being made. It says nothing about FOI requests being "refused" or "resisted". It therefore can't be used to support a statement that the requests were refused or that the CRU has been "resisting" the requests. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:04, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Per request for outside opinion: the information is being slanted in a way not intended or directly stated by the source. This is wp:SYN. The source clearly states that the data set is confidential, but doesn't say why it's confidential or why the requests were denied. In fact, it implies that the requests were made for political purposes, not altruistic or scientific. There are lots of data sets in the world that have been requested but not released for various reasons (often just to create a stir by publicly demanding something that is illegal to obtain), so I'm not sure how notable this event really is. At the most, it might be OK to say that "there is a confidential dataset that was requested but not provided..." purely stating the facts. "Failing to" or "Resisting requests..." is clearly POV. T34CH (talk) 21:00, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

As one of the emails clearly stated that the person hoped no one mentioned that the UK has an FOI act, it is reasonable to state that here. And the email which asked that a person delete all his emails also could be mentioned. Otherwise, why not accept tby consensus that the group did not respond to FOI requests? No one in any RS has claimed that anyone was told the material was "confidential" in response to the requests or that, indeed, any response was made, so that part is not particularly relevant as a claim. Collect (talk) 21:39, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
What I saw as the relevant paragraph was:
The alleged emails illustrate the persistent pressure some climatologists have been under from sceptics in recent years. There have been repeated calls, including Freedom of Information requests, for the Climate Research Unit to make public a confidential dataset of land and sea temperature recordings that is "value added" by the unit before being used by the Met Office. The emails show the frustration some climatologists have had at having to operate under such intense, often politically motivated, scrutiny.
So basically "there's a confidential data set and someone is mad (or pretending to be mad) they can't see it. This irks some climatologists. They said so in the emails." What other information do you think the passage should provide, and what text should source it? As far as I can tell, this is all being blown out of proportion. Comments like this one suggest that this is just another one in a long string of sexed up media games. Are there sources that point to anything in the emails with enough context to actually prove anything? Because otherwise the whole paragraph should be restructured out of WEIGHT and BLP concerns, and suggestions that some scientists committed academic malfeasance should be backed up by verifiable RS sources, not sourced to some blogger's interpretations). T34CH (talk) 08:51, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
This is basically being driven by people who have a preconceived view that the e-mails confirm the existence of a vast international conspiracy; they are not at all interested in weight and sourcing considerations. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:26, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Amazingly enough, it does not appear in the source that the group told anything to the people making the FOI requests that the data was "confidential." In science, moreover, data sets are not generally confidential as it is necessary for others to examine methodology etc. Dat can not be reviewed if they are secret <g>. Collect (talk) 13:17, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
Your standard of amazing must be much lower than mine. The article also doesn't say that the group(s?) wasn't told the data set was confidential either. It also isn't mentioned that the group was or wasn't told it was a "value-added" data set, but it does say that's the reason it's confidential. Imagine there is publicly available data on the order of 1000's of terabytes, and somebody pays to have the relevant 2 megabytes distilled from that. The new data-set is value-added and not public. A much better direction for this talk page to take would be to ask, "where is the clear indication of wrong-doing?" T34CH (talk) 20:37, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Copyright

A comment and reversed edit: "Implying copyrights prevented release is inconsistent with the rest of the article". If so, then the rest of the article would be wrong. Midgley (talk) 00:56, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think anything is being "implied". The CRU has stated explicitly that it can't release the data because it doesn't own all of it. This is reflected in the article. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:01, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
The article states that the CRU can't release the data, not that the CRU has stated that it can't release the data; this seems stronger to me than is justified by the sources. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 18:06, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, the new flow does make more sense and is more accurate. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 13:36, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
It now appears much of the raw data was destroyed -- making it hard to be released. Collect (talk) 21:09, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
It appears that the data they "destroyed" is still available at NOAA. (ie. they deleted their copy) And that data isn't the same data that is being talked about in regards to the release (since it isn't part of the CRU temp. record) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:39, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
It certainly appears that much of the original data of the CRU was destroyed. NOAA has the "value-added data" and NOAA's own raw data. I find no place which asserts NOAA has the original raw data. And it is not the fudge-factored-data which is what scientists the world over would seek -- can you imagine if Darwin only left fudge-factored diaries to prove evolution? Or if Einstein had thrown out any notebooks which showed relativity had a problem? Yet, we are being asked on a "trust us" basis to accept that the raw data was strong and compelling? In which case, why add fudge factors? It is the known presence and uncertain size of those which are a large part of the furor, after all. Collect (talk) 11:28, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
This of course is wrong since NOAA archives does have the raw data. (and it is stated by the CRU that NOAA has the data). Even if NOAA didn't have the data (which they do), the individual national met. offices have them. So your whole "fudge" soapboxing is baseless. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 11:37, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
NOAA only has the NOAA raw data -- I did not find any news article stating that NOAA has the raw data which the CRU said was destroyed. I did find cites for NOAA having the massaged data set. makes it clear that NOAA has its own data-set, and its own graphs. "CRU is not the only group in the world that is tracking the change in global-average near-surface temperature. There are at least three other groups, two in the U.S. (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA; and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA), and one in Japan (Japan Meteorological Agency, JMA)." from a person who is defending the CRU does not make the claim either. It says they "aggregated" data -- including their own raw data. They massaged the data, and it is that data which was furnished to others. No claim is made that the CRU's own raw data is extant except in the "aggregated" form. The reason this author gives for keeping data hidden is "any discrepancy at all is often used to shut down new explanations." Um -- it is "discrepancies" which are the most important data! "it will sharpen the rhetorical knives between how to communicate with people that are “ignorant” and those that are “deceptive'" sure sounds like it is the folks found with hands on the delete button who intend to go on the offensive on this. What we have? A person strongly defending the CRU can only say that NOAA has its own raw data. And that is the closest I can find -- the ftp site you give does not assert it is the CRU raw data, Thanks! Collect (talk) 11:54, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
No, it is not just "NOAA raw data" - perhaps you missed the acronym GHCN (global historical climatology network), NOAA are the official keepers of the station data. NOAA has value-added data as well (and a temperature record, where they have calculated the global average, as has NASA and the british met office) - but you asked for the raw data. Of course they aggregated/value-added the data, thats what science is about! You are still going on as if the data is "lost" - it isn't - its there and you can fetch it if you want. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 12:26, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Addendum -- the ftp site does not anywhere near include all raw data ( the files are not all that large, by the way) -- ut even makes a point that data which did not fit the pattern were deleted <g> as "erroneous." Yep -- delete data which do not fit in. Collect (talk) 11:58, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Just in case you missed it - the data that they "discarded" is located in the file "v2.slp.failed.qc-1", specifically if some researcher finds that it is valid after all. As for the "anywhere near" comment - this is ASCII data mostly consisting of numbers, which compresses rather well, do try to download the data and decompress and check it. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 12:29, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Climate data discarded

Editor Ratel reverted my new section, substituting what appears to be an irrelevant quote from Phil Jones: diff. Talk about it here if you disagree, please.

Sorry for the untitled rollback -- edit in haste, going out-of-town. --Pete Tillman (talk) 16:27, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't seem irrelevant to me. Look at the source. Shouldn't we defer to the CRU rather than hearsay in newspapers on issues like this? ► RATEL ◄ 23:26, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Re - CRU doesn't own any data, it doesn't do any raw obs. It only collects data from other sources, generally from national meteorological offices. They own the raw data, and are (at least in theory) responsible for keeping whatever raw data is required (or at least, I'm moderately sure this is so, though open to correction) William M. Connolley (talk) 23:40, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
The Times is pretty much the gold standard for reliable news reporting in the UK, and is unquestionably a reliable source. I don't think you can just discard their report -- as you (Ratel) just did, a second time.
Pretty clearly, we need both the Times report and CRU's reply (if any). The E&E report is earlier, and appears to be a different dispute, with CEI. I'm too tired to sort it out tonight, but what you have in the article now makes no sense, at least to me. The E&E article is also very confusing -- is this really a reliable source? It looks like a mishmash of competing press releases. --Pete Tillman (talk) 04:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
It appears to be about the same issue. In any event, if it's this opaque from the recent sources, it should not be on the 'pedia at all. NOTNEWS etc. ► RATEL ◄ 04:33, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
The Times is pretty much the gold standard for reliable news reporting in the UK - this was true in 1800, perhaps, but has long been false. As I've said, its wrong William M. Connolley (talk) 12:54, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
  • So -- Ratel & WMC -- are you willing to work towards making a consensus-acceptable section of this? What Ratel has posted is unacceptable on its own, not least because it is opaque to most readers. The Jones quote in the article cited (E&E) comes from a UEA press release, so we may as well use that. Unfortunately, the CRU website is operating "on emergency backup", with no access to recent stuff. So here's a draft:

DRAFT Climate change data discarded (section)

According to The Times, the CRU has discarded much of the raw temperature data on which its predictions of global warming are based. The original data, stored on paper and magnetic tape, were dumped "to save space" when the CRU moved to a new building in the 1980s. This means that "other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years," the Times reported. The CRU was forced to reveal the losses following requests for the data under the UK Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

In an earlier statement, CRU director Phil Jones disputed charges of data deletion, stating that:

"The research unit has deleted less than 5 percent of its original station data from its database because the stations had several discontinuities or were affected by urbanization trends. When you're looking at climate data, you don't want stations that are showing urban warming trends, so we've taken them out. Most of the stations for which data was removed are located in areas where there were already dense monitoring networks. We rarely removed a station in a data-sparse region of the world.

  1. ^ "Climate change data dumped", by Jonathan Leake, Times Environment Editor, 11/29/2009
  2. "Climate: Scientists return fire at skeptics in 'destroyed data' dispute -- 10/14/2009 -- www.eenews.net". www.eenews.net. Retrieved 2009-11-30. Note: source to UEA-CRU press release, when server is back up.

--Pete Tillman (talk) 19:44, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

It is really hard to know where to start. If you really think that makes any sense, then you simply haven't got a clue. the CRU has discarded much of the raw temperature data on which its predictions of global warming are based is twaddle - CRU does data, not models. It doesn't do predictions (or it may have a tiny sideline, but it isn't responsible for the ones you're thinking of). So they question is, do you realise how little you know about this stuff? William M. Connolley (talk) 19:53, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
(e/c) Why, thank you, WMC <G>. The Times story is +/- the story I've heard over the last few years. Despite your previous snark, The Times remains a RS, and this is a serious effort to present neutrally a charge and a response. Deal with it. Pete Tillman (talk) 20:03, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
William M. Connolley is right that the first phrase is wrong (or twaddle as he so trenchantly observes); the discarded data was used to calculate a temperature record, not to make predictions. Otherwise this seems basically good to me, and I really cannot see why people are being so difficult. Lighten up folks, and assume good faith. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 19:58, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
You're right, I'm right. I'm quite prepared to *assume* good faith, but I've seen this stuff pasted around all too much. Well, this is Tillman's good faith test: is he able to admit that his first sentence is simply wrong, or is he going to keep repeating "The Times remains a RS"? Once we've got him past the first sentence, we can start talking about the rest. Or shall we just leave him behind stuck on the first sentence and continue without him? William M. Connolley (talk) 20:11, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
Did you see the "DRAFT" bit, as in "invitation to mark up and correct"? And do you remember WP:No personal attacks? Pete Tillman (talk) 20:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
Indeed, it is draft. So, I've pointed out what is wrong (with the first sentence) and your response was not "oh dear, yes I see I was wrong, thanks for correcting me" it was "The Times remains a RS, and this is a serious effort to present neutrally a charge and a response. Deal with it". So I am dealing with it: we can't have a huggy caring-and-sharing consensual edit-fest here unless I can carry you along in agreement. So, without changing the subject, can you actually answer the question psed above, viz, is he able to admit that his first sentence is simply wrong, or is he going to keep repeating "The Times remains a RS"? You see, the two are linked. JAJ and I agree that the first sentence is wrong. That, obviously, is not compatible with your source being reliable William M. Connolley (talk) 21:07, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
William, I was assuming that Pete Tillman meant a reliable source in the sense of Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources; it seems to meet the criteria as far as I can tell, and our joint opinion that the opening of the article is wrong is arguably based on Original Research. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 21:33, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps William would like to propose a revised version of sentence 1? Jonathan A Jones (talk) 20:33, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm sure we can come to that. I haven't given up on Tillman yet. He is, basically, sensible. He *is* capable of admitting his first sentence is wrong. Give him a second chance; don't be impatient William M. Connolley (talk) 21:07, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
  • William, you're basically sensible too, when you're not trying to score silly points. Would you rewrite the damn thing the way you'd like to see it? I'm in the middle of something else. In haste, Pete Tillman (talk) 21:12, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Question I am having trouble understanding why the Times are not considered an RS, could someone explain please? Unomi (talk) 23:22, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Is anyone saying it isn't? --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 23:29, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
It strikes me that on which their predictions of global warming are based. is a direct quote from the Times article and I haven't seen presentation of sources which contradict the statement. The objection to Tillmans draft seemed to be rooted in the position that the Times did not reflect the truth. Unomi (talk) 23:49, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
There is a difference between the Times being reliable, and the article being reliable. In fact it raises quite a bit of red-flags. (1. is the prediction part 2. that other academics aren't able to test whether it has warmed (ie. forgetting that there are several independent Temp records) 3. stating that this is a new revelation (follows after the email thing) which is incorrect) 4. states that it is one of the main evidences for the IPCC (which it isn't either)) - see also the sections above. This is exactly what Misplaced Pages:Reliable source examples#Science article in the popular press warns about. All in all, a significant number of red-flags which indicate sloppy reporting, and suggesting that we by editorial discretion shouldn't use it as a reference. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 00:54, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
1. Looking at the publications of CRU it seems that they have indeed published predictions.
2. Are there for their aggregate data?
3. Placing the disclosure as following the email leaks does appear to be counter to evidence at hand, but such a timeline does not seem to be attempted to be inserted.
4. CRU did contribute extensively to the IPCC. See their full list and search for "ipcc"
If you have sources which point other inaccuracies than the disclosure following the leaks it would be helpful to me as I am not privy to them. Unomi (talk) 02:01, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
  • It does look like The Times article has problems, as both WMC & KDP have pointed out. See this analysis and commentary by Texas climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon, who doesn't appear to have any axes to grind:

"I know this is going to shock y'all, but there was nothing unethical about CRU throwing away the raw temperature data. This is because CRU IS NOT THE ARCHIVAL SITE FOR THE RAW TEMPERATURE DATA. The individual nations that collected the weather observations are responsible for their archival. If things proceeded as they normally do, CRU wrote to Burundi, say, and requested copies of their climate of their climate observations. Someone in Burundi made them a magnetic tape or Xerox copies of the data and sent it to CRU. CRU processed the data and got it in the form they wanted. Having no need for the copies of the original data anymore, they tossed them. ... In summary, there's no evidence that they destroyed data. They destroyed extra copies of data that they didn't need anymore. The originals, as far as we know, were and are in other hands." --scroll down, this is a reply to readers asking about the Times article in question. So we need to refigure here.

Nielsen-Gammon also notes that "Any regular reader of Climate Audit knows that McIntyre and his allies have struggled for years to pry information out of Phil Jones and his group, and that Jones has resisted at every turn." -- which isn't directly applicable here, but CRU is hardly off the hook. Enough for now, Pete Tillman (talk) 02:54, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh, you're back. But could you avoid adding new stuff until you've had time to address the unsolved problems above? If you're abandoning the old stuff as no longer viable, it would be helpful to indicate which: perhaps you could strike it out William M. Connolley (talk) 09:33, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm working on it. Patience, please. Pete Tillman (talk) 15:18, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
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