Quick Fact: Fox News' Scott claims hacked emails "suggest some scientists manipulate data on global warming"
On Fox News' Happening Now, co-host Jon Scott stated that climate scientists' emails that were apparently stolen by hackers from the UK's Climate Research Unit (CRU) suggest that "some scientists manipulate data on global warming." Scott then quoted an email sent by Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, which stated: "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e. from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline"; however, the email Scott quoted has been cited by RealClimate.org as "[o]ne example" of "instances of cherry-picked and poorly-worded 'gotcha' phrases [being] pulled out of context."
From the November 25 edition of Fox News' Happening Now:
SCOTT: Scientists researching climate change have their emails hacked, and some of the mail suggests some scientists manipulate data on global warming. One of them reads, "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e. from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline." This is a controversy rocking the scientific community right now. [Happening Now, 11/25/09]
Jones' email was distorted, "pulled out of context"
Numerous climate scientists have explained that the purportedly offensive terms have been taken out of context. Several climate scientists have criticized efforts to take Jones' email out of context. In a November 20 post, Real Climate's staff, which is made up of several working climate scientists, cited Jones' 1999 email -- which Scott read -- as "[o]ne example" of "instances of cherry-picked and poorly-worded 'gotcha' phrases [being] pulled out of context." Moreover, a November 20 Guardian article reported that Bob Ward, director of policy and communications at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, said of Jones' email: "It does look incriminating on the surface, but there are lots of single sentences that taken out of context can appear incriminating. ... You can't tell what they are talking about. Scientists say 'trick' not just to mean deception. They mean it as a clever way of doing something -- a short cut can be a trick." Further, RealClimate.org explained that "[s]cientists often use the term 'trick' to refer to a 'a good way to deal with a problem,' " and that "hiding the decline" refers to a method that is "completely appropriate."
In the course of this discussion over a few threads, I have had people tell me, just as examples,
- that things that are in plain sight on graphs are "hidden,"
- that being upset over the publication of a poorly-written paper that should never have survived peer review is proof of a plot to "suppress skeptic papers,"
- that replying to a request for appropriate names for a peer review panel is "manipulation of the peer review process,"
- that the frustration of a programmer attempting to combine multiple (and multiply-formatted) data sets, each with their own necessary corrections, into one cohesive whole proves that there is no reliable temperature data at all,
- that out-of-context emails absolutely prove things they don't say,
- that irritation with having to deal with unending requests from nanny-nanny naysayers for more and more background information is clear evidence of an intention to hide data that questions global warming,
- that trying to understand why two sets of observations give different results demonstrates deception,
- that the common, everyday practice of applying corrections to data is a slam-dunk case for falsification of results, and
- that discussing the limitations of a model used (something every reputable scientist does) proves the model has no value at all.
The list of paranoid-driven, conspiracy-mongering, naysayer claims goes on and on.
What the leaked emails show at worst is some scientists being crabby, irritable, short-tempered, frustrated at dealing with those they consider fools, intemperate in language in what was supposed to be private correspondence - in short, some scientists behaving badly on a personal level. But for all of the stretches, all of the fill-in-the-blanks arguments citing words that aren't there, all of the wide-eyed gasps and "What about THIS????" finger-pointing from people who clearly don't understand what they're reading, that is, when you strip away the claims based on innuendo or ignorance, the evidence of them actually behaving badly on a scientific, on a professional level, is sorely lacking. Talking smack, I note for the record, is not evidence.
But none of that matters to them. So like mosquitoes, the nanny-nanny naysayers will always be around. And like mosquitoes, they are mostly annoying - but they can carry and transmit (in this case political) disease.
I fail to see how adding in the real temperatures is at all under-handed. Now, if they had added in phony temps...
I guess it proves that people will believe what they want to believe.
When they hear "hide the decline" they think the scientists are referring to hiding global cooling. The are not. They were trying to prevent other scientists from seeing that there tree temperature proxies are poorly correlated with the real temperature data. This significantly increases the uncertainty of their temperature reconstruction for the last thousand years. They left out data so they could conclude we are experiencing unusually warming now. So the republicans are wrong but the scientists were still trying to mislead their readers.
The paper Jones is referring to I believe is here: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/millennium-camera.pdf
The graph in question is on page 12. Because of the time scale, it looks as the correlation holds.
What will Media Matters publish next? How about an article claiming that the investor statements from Bernie Madoff's outfit were taken out of context?
Atlanta's problem is directly related to CO emissions. You can stop the symptoms, but you will not stop the disease. Is that what these mad scientists are saying?
Let's throw up our hands and let the planet implode because we felt it was more politically convenient to wait a while.
I think that Fox needs to be brought to court due to its blatant pattern of fraud and deception thinly coated and called"news". News is theoretically supposed to be reliably verified with sources and methodology of newsgathering presented, ie. how many people were polled and by whom and who can verify this BEFORE citing this information on-air.
Thanks for all the good work and keep it up!!!!!!
We have islands of garbage in our oceans. We have contaminated large ground water aquifers, we have had rivers catch fire, we took lead out of our gasoline because people (especially children) were being poisoned with it. How many species are on the endangered list as a result of human activitiy. We have overfished in many areas wiping out species in the process.
If humans can wreak all of the kinds of damage described above on such large scales, what makes any reasonable, intelligent person actually believe that we have not had a hand in warming this planet?? Worse, is what makes anyone who is presented with facts and evidence deny this is happening? What if all of the experts are right?
You forgot that the experts are all elitist liberal idealogues with an agenda and therefore their opinions/analysis must be dismissed.