Thanks for repeating what i said in a better way. The technology is there, it's ready, and like i said, there wont be a change anytime soon as long as demand and money is still being made using the current oil.

From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@xxxxx.xxx, mhughes@xxxx.xxx
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@xxx.xx.xx,t.osborn@xxxx.xxx

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,
Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or
first thing tomorrow.
I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps
to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from
1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual
land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land
N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999
for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with
data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.
Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers
Phil

Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) xxxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxx.xxx
NR4 7TJ
UK

 

Some explanation of that specific line (ie the orange one above) that is being widely reported (courtesty of WUWT):

...

But there is an interesting twist here: grafting the thermometer onto a reconstruction is not actually the original “Mike’s Nature trick”! Mann did not fully graft the thermometer on a reconstruction, but he stopped the smoothed series in their end years. The trick is more sophisticated, and was uncovered by UC over here. (Note: Try not to click this link now, CA is overloaded. Can’t even get to it myself to mirror it. -A)

When smoothing these time series, the Team had a problem: actual reconstructions “diverge” from the instrumental series in the last part of 20th century. For instance, in the original hockey stick (ending 1980) the last 30-40 years of data points slightly downwards. In order to smooth those time series one needs to “pad” the series beyond the end time, and no matter what method one uses, this leads to a smoothed graph pointing downwards in the end whereas the smoothed instrumental series is pointing upwards — a divergence. So Mann’s solution was to use the instrumental record for padding, which changes the smoothed series to point upwards as clearly seen in UC’s figure (violet original, green without “Mike’s Nature trick”).

...

I haven't had a ton of time to look over this, but basically they were graphing the data in black above whith the green line being a smoothed version of that data (which is legit).  They didn't like the downward slope at the end so the grafted the data in red onto their black data using an offset that would make the red and black data series coincide in their overlapping years. The violet line represents the resulting change in the smoothed time series over the effected area. In short, the "trick" is to make a graph that points slightly downwards instead point sharply upwards.

Understanding this information prompted one of my favorite comments on this whole topic:

To those defending the ‘trick’:
The problem is not that he called his technique a ‘trick’.
The problem is that the intent of his technique is to fool people into thinking something is going on that is not, in fact, going on.

PS - I want to say that from what I've seen of the e-mails so far I don't think there is any sort of smoking gun proof of a colloboration to produce a hoax...I see quite a bit that could eventually be found to be deliberate falsification of data, but nothing yet to suggest they thought they were actually manufacturing a hoax instead of just supporting what was (in their minds) the truth in need of a boost.  I also have seen e-mails where they talk fairly candidly about bringing in funds (from NOAA) without actually doing what they are paid to do and discussing how to go about making sure nobody would get "suspicious" (their words).

@Sqrl.

Umm, from what I can see is that he is trying to reconcile the divergence between theoretical and actual temperatures. The actual temperature on the instrumental record was pointing upwards, the model was pointing downwards. He changed the model to match the actual temperatures.

It's not a scandalous "We must have it pointing upwards to fool the public", it's a sensible "we must have it pointing upwards as that is what the smoothed instrumental record shows".

Edit: Actually reconcile historical temperatures taken from other sources with instrumental temperatures I think.

It doesn't matter whether oil exists or doesn't exist, alternatives to fossil fuels will not become popular until the technology exists to make these alternatives viable; and the lack of technology isn't from lack of investment or effort, it is taking time because fossil fuels are such excellent energy sources you require amazingly advanced and complicated technologies to surpass them.

It is not a question of what he is trying to do, nobody is debating that...it is whether how he went about it is legitimate.  And the issue is that he is mixing his apples and oranges so to speak.  As much as I hate appeals to authority I am fairly sure you won't take my word for it so here:

Back in December 2004 John Finn asked about “the divergence” in Myth vs. Fact Regarding the “Hockey Stick” -thread of RealClimate.org.

Whatever the reason for the divergence, it would seem to suggest that the practice of grafting the thermometer record onto a proxy temperature record – as I believe was done in the case of the ‘hockey stick’ – is dubious to say the least.

WUWT was able to actually dig up a comment on the issue from the guy who invented the "trick". He too thinks this useage was illegitimate:

"No researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge, “grafted the thermometer record onto” any reconstrution. It is somewhat disappointing to find this specious claim (which we usually find originating from industry-funded climate disinformation websites) appearing in this forum.

This is not just skeptics pointing this e-mail saying "gotcha"....several pro-AGW scientists have also weighed in on the side of it being an illegitimate useage of the technique.  Which is why I added the quote to my discussion of it about how the problem is not that he called it a "trick" but that he abuses the trick to mislead people.

edit: oh and just to clarify, he was not adjusting a "model".  He was adjusting a reconstruction from proxy data...proxy data for which he had more data for but chose to supplement it with this instrument data.  This is of course another problem because you cannot simply do that "just because"...you have to explain why you are doing it..AFAIK he never has other than so he can have it match.  But the goal of science is not to produce matching data sets...in fact any scientificly minded individual would find this divergence exciting as a potential opportunity to find a previously unknown mechanism...his responce was to just poor existing data over it and make it dissappear rather than explain it. I'm sorry but I don't know how anyone can defend that as legitimate science....it simply is not....

Perhaps illegitimate but I don't think hugely scandalous, it seems like he was honestly trying to wrestle with the divergence. Scientists do make mistakes.

It certainly doesn't seem to indicate any conspiracy about AGW.

See my edit where I clarify a bit of why it is a scandal....the scientific responce to the divergence should not be to ignore and hide it...it should be to attempt to explain it.  That he made no attempt on that front is....beyond odd....  Remember that it was/is literally his job to understand what the data is saying and to explain it as best he can.  That goal was clearly not in his mind or his first reaction would not have been to employ a "trick" that he knew would make the discrepency vanish.

As for it not indicating a conspiracy about AGW...I agree actually and have said as much in the postscript of my first post in this thread.

Yeah, it's a pretty funny response.  They don't actually bother to debate anything but instead talk about how their wasn't a master list, even though there is a lot of proof multiple orginzations either altered data unscientifically or presented to the public facts which they knew weren't facts.

More proof of the liberal lie. Eat your heart out Gore.

Edit: Btw, I would encourage ppl to watch the documentary "Not Evil, Just Wrong" by Phelim McAleer.  It is the opposite of AIT.

I dunno - IMO this whole affair seems to be more about human error and poor judgement/methods at worst, rather than a politically minded plot to quash opposing views on AGW.

Either way, this'll only create a mess - if scientists find some other climate-related issues that could screw up the planet even worse, incidents like these just make it harder to convice anyone about these hazards.

And on a side note - I don't personally think climate change should factor into researching alternative energy sources at all, at least not over shaking our fatal dependency on finite, non-renewable substances like fossil fuels and uranium.