Open Source
It is good to see that NIWA is now going to publish all it’s data and calculations on the web to allow proper scrutiny. Good on them for taking the initiative and not waiting until they were forced into it (a much less attractive look). I am vastly amused that James Renwick, the principal climate scientist at NIWA, is getting all huffy about it:
“Yesterday Dr Renwick said that while he had no problem releasing the Niwa data he found it insulting to be singled out when, for example, medical and Treasury researchers were not expected to disclose all of their workings.
““There is a real issue of trust here. The assumption is people like myself don’t know what we are doing or we’ve got some kind of agenda just to get research funding.””
Dr. Rewick has apparently failed to recognise that climate science currently has a crisis of belief on its hands. It looks very much to the layman that climate scientists really don’t know what they are doing or are actually cooking their data. Note that I am not accusing Dr. Renwick, or, indeed, any particular climate scientist, of this, I am merely stating the current perception. A perception brought upon by some climate scientists themselves by being autocratic, manipulative and downright secretive.
In any case, comparing climate science data to medical and treasury data and calculations is somewhat misleading. Climate science data is rarely commercially sensitive but both medical and treasury data can be. When they are not commercially sensitive, both medical and treasury data are freely available on request. In particular, medical data and calculations are often sought by researchers doing similar research. Any half-way decent meta-analysis uses the original data and calculations unless the “meta-analysis” in question is actually a study review (doctors like trendy words just as much as the next man).
Frankly, the sooner all climate scientists open up their data, the quicker the current air of suspicion will dissipate. Being disgruntled about it may be understandable but it just lowers the PR value of the public publishing of your data.
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Jan 30 10 8:40 pm
“Climate Science” is a crock – there are real disciplines like atmospheric physics, oceanography, meteorology and even climatology but “climate science” is what third rate “scientists” do to earn a crust.
Its no different to peddling soap powder when it comes down to it.
The trouble is of course to get grant money for whatever your pet subject is the best approach in recent times has been to put a “climate change” spin on what you want to do and to make sure your conclusions have some “climate change” aspect.
The whole discipline of science and science funding is up for review after this major fiasco and fiasco it is.
Jan 30 10 9:39 pm
Being cynical I’d say that something is coming out and Niwa want to head it off at the pass… too late.
JC
Jan 31 10 9:00 am
You’re absolutely right MacDoc, but Andrei and JC brilliantly demonstrate why so many climate scientists are so defensive about releasing their data, to these two people and many more like them, what the data actually says is irrelevant, if the results of the data clash with what they want to believe, the data must be wrong – end of story, so they’ll just go through it all looking for something to prove their convictions, they’ll find something (actually lots of things) they’re not capable of understanding because of their convictions, and will label their lack of understanding as proof of deceit by the scientists.
The human mind can rationalise anything.
Jan 31 10 9:11 am
Oh look right on cue, a comment from Andrew W which says……….nothing.
The reasons the people of NZ want to see the methodology disclosed is twofold.
1. The graphs of the raw data of NZs Temp doesnt agree with the graph released by NIWA. So how /why was it changed?
2. We paid for it.
Jan 31 10 12:20 pm
Not at all Andrew W
The rules of the game are
State your postulates
From those postulates draw your conclusions
Show your working
Its fundamental and its why I don’t believe in perpetual motion machines or the AGW theories as presented by the IPCC.
On the other hand the Navier-Stokes equations are very fruitful despite being in the most cases insoluble because that is the way they were developed and presented
Jan 31 10 12:22 pm
Andrew,
Why has Niwa been swearing black and blue it already released this information to the skeptics, who deny this . Why does Niwa now promise to release the info it swore its already released?
Why was Salinger saying in 1999 and 2000 that the 1990s were the warmest decade on record, and Renwick was saying in Dec last year that the 2000s were the warmest decade, followed by the 90s followed by the 80s, but a month later was saying without explanation that the order was now the 2000s, followed by the 1980s, followed by the 1970s followed by the 1990s?
What happened to the 1990s?
Why does Niwas raw 7 station data show no warming since the 1980s, why has temperature been falling since 1998?
Why is the inportant Kelburne weather station so poorly sited that by international standards we can expect an error of up tho 2C ?
Why are we still using urban stations that the Met Office in 1981 determined were no longer reading accurately because of urban effects and increasing shelter?
JC
Jan 31 10 3:06 pm
JC this time around they’re putting it on a publicly accessible site, rather than just giving it to the sceptics when they ask for it.
You may have missed this bit in my earlier comment: ” You’re absolutely right MacDoc”.
You’ll have to post links before I’ll address the questions you raise.
Jan 31 10 6:24 pm
Heres Salinger in 1999 on the 1990s
http://www.climateark.org/articles/1999/nzwarmyr.htm
“Last year was the warmest year globally, it was also Australia’s warmest year so we’re just mirroring that trend,” he told Reuters.
“Globally the 1990s have been the hottest decade of the century.”
Heres Renwick 9th Dec 2009
http://tinyurl.com/y93rkuw
“The climate change signal is clear, with the current decade coming in warmer than the 1990s, which were warmer than the 1980s. Continued monitoring, prediction, and adaptation/preparedness are crucial.”
Heres Niwa in January this year
http://tinyurl.com/yatso6o
NIWA is predicting that the New Zealand ‘ranking’ of warm decades will be:
* Warmest: 2000s
* 2nd place: 1980s
* 3rd place: 1970s
* 4th place: 1990s”
For the average temps for the selected 7 stations go to Niwa’s site and download the temps, then chart them by decade and then by 30 year “climate normal” temps. The record now shows that the 1990s were the fourth warmest decade and at no time in 4 decades could have been warmest. That presumably means Niwa used a different data set up to Dec last year.
Information on the siting and likely unreliability of the readings there is here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/06/how-not-to-measure-temperature-part-92-surrounded-by-science/#more-13789
Problems with the general reliability of the NZ temp record as identified by the Met Office is here:
http://www.investigatemagazine.com/hessell1980.pdf
Here is Niwa on releasing data last year/early this year:
“3. NZ Climate Science Coalition disingenuous
For more than two years, New Zealand Climate Science Coalition members have known of the need to adjust the “seven station” data. They have had access to:
* the raw data
* the adjusted data (anomalies)
* information needed to identify the adjustments made by Dr Salinger
* information needed to develop their own adjustments. ”
Here is Niwas statement as mentioned by Mac:
“The country’s climate forecaster is bowing to public pressure and putting all of its temperature data and calculations on the internet because of mistrust fuelled by errors overseas.
Principal climate scientist James Renwick said Niwa had decided to bare
all because “if we don’t we appear to be hiding something”.
Two people in Niwa’s climate group have prepared a full set of documents including all the data from climate stations and a full explanation of the adjustments made to records, which should be available online in about a week.
Niwa announced the move after an oceanographer and self-described scep
tic of global warming, Waikato University’s Willem de Lange, told the Herald he would have more faith in temperature predictions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change if calculations were on the internet where everybody could see them.”
There is a clear disconnect between Niwas public statements on the release of data, as well as on the temp record for the 1990s. Add in all the above plus the shenagans going on at the IPCC being exposed almost daily (some of which applies to NZ) and and I’m damned if I see any reason why I should trust the organisation.. particularly as it seems still reliant on the scientist (Salinger) that it sacked many months ago to supply it with current information.
JC
Feb 1 10 6:47 am
Thank you for those links JC.
I’m stunned, aghast, bowled over, staggered.
Globally the ranking is:
1. 2000’s
2. 1990’s
3. 1980’s
4. 1970’s
For New Zealand the ranking is:
1. 2000’s
2. 1980’s
3. 1970’s
4. 1990’s
1998 was the warmest year both in New Zealand and globally.
All your links are consistent with the above, how the hell can you so thoroughly delude yourself into confusing comments that were clearly about global temperatures, “Globally the 1990s have been the hottest decade of the century” and comments that were clearly about New Zealand temperatures, “NIWA is predicting that the New Zealand ‘ranking’ of warm decades will be…” were about the same temperature data?????
You accuse climate scientists of confirmation bias and inconsistency, perhaps you should sit down for a while and think about your own motivations and biases, and how they’re blinding you to the blindingly obvious.
Feb 1 10 11:45 am
Thank you Andrew, I was indeed confusing Niwas statements as applying to NZ.
Now, how abow the rest of the questions?
JC
Feb 1 10 10:07 pm
NIWA is saying that they’ve released :
* the raw data
* the adjusted data (anomalies)
* information needed to identify the adjustments made by Dr Salinger
* information needed to develop their own adjustments. ”
To the NZ CSC, and now due to pressure, they’re sticking that information, and also their calculations, on the internet so people can get it without even approaching them formally.
What’s your point? I see no contradictions, in the NIWA statements.
Feb 1 10 12:09 pm
Regarding your penultimate sentence, MacDoctor…
“Frankly, the sooner all climate scientists open up their data, the quicker the current air of suspicion will dissipate.”
…many people seem to be unaware just how much climate data is open. There’s a list on the RealClimate site:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/
For example, many people feel the HadCRUT global temperature series is now tainted by being produced by CRU, but how many people know that for the other widely cited global temperature series, GISTEMP, the data and source code have been openly available for several years?
Furthermore, some industrious people are in the process of re-implementing the GISTEMP analysis code independently as an open-source project to see if they get the same answers. (They do, except for some very minor bugs, which have been reported to the GISTEMP team and fixed.) Sorry I don’t have a link to that right now, as a site is down.
Feb 1 10 7:14 pm
I am aware that much of the satellite data is freely available. There is a large quantity of data, however, that is by no means easily available, including the data and calculations behind some of the most persuasive of Climate Science data, such as Mann’s notorious “hockey stick”.
Feb 2 10 10:37 am
The page I pointed to wasn’t just satellite data.
The original Mann et al hockey-stick papers have been superseded and are of historical interest now. Mann and co-authors recently published a comprehensive re-analysis of proxy data for the last couple of millenia:
Mann, M.E.; Zhang, Z.; Hughes, M.K.; Bradley, R.S.; Miller, S.K.; Rutherford, S.; Ni, F. (2008). Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/09/02/0805721105.abstract
The paper is available for free (which not all climate science papers are, I admit). This URL
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/09/02/0805721105/suppl/DCSupplemental
points to supplemental information, including a PDF document describing the methods in some detail and four spreadsheets containing tables describing each dataset. One of the entries in the spreadsheet is “publicly available” and a large proportion say “yes”. I don’t know why the ones with “no” aren’t publicly available, but I suspect it’s because the people who hold that data won’t allow it to be released. According to the PDF file, the tree ring data (which are the subject of most contention) are available from the Tree Ring Data Bank
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/treering.html
I note also that the Realclimate page I mentioned links to this
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/mann2008/mann2008.html
which gives more info for the same paper, including processing code.
If you’re going to complain that climate scientists don’t publish all the data and all the code, can you at least acknowledge that they do seem to be making an effort to publish a great deal?
Feb 1 10 11:17 pm
“What’s your point? I see no contradictions, in the NIWA statements.”
But they didn’t give all the information according to the NZ CSC.
You’ve acknowledged that Niwa has been foot dragging on release to the public, so there’s little room for doubt that its done the same to the CSC. That point is reinforced by Niwa’s complicity in the Climategate emails to obstruct outside audit and review.
JC
Feb 2 10 6:17 am
I don’t know the details of what information was given to NZ CSC and neither do you.
“That point is reinforced by Niwa’s complicity in the Climategate emails to obstruct outside audit and review.”
That calls for another link.
Feb 2 10 4:47 am
…such as Mann’s notorious “hockey stick”.
The Hockey Stick is only “notorious” on the denialist blogosphere.
In the scientific literature, where the real work is presented, the hockey stick data is firmly accepted.
Help kill the “Hockey Stick” Denialist PRATT.
Cedric Katesby´s last blog ..Jurassic Farce
Feb 2 10 6:57 am
“That calls for another link.”
This one will do for now.. its just breaking. As I rather expected, it appears Niwa has been foot dragging and obstructing because it no longer has the rationale for its adjustments. I’ll wait a day or two to see how this develops and if the CSC is overstating the case, but this does not look good:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC1002/S00004.htm
NIWA Unable To Justify Official Temperature Record
Monday, 1 February 2010, 4:02 pm
Press Release: New Zealand Climate Science Coalition
“NIWA Unable To Justify Official Temperature Record
The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) has been urged by the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition (NZCSC) to abandon all of its in-house adjustments to temperature records. This follows an admission by NIWA that it no longer holds the records that would support its in-house manipulation of official temperature readings.
In December, NZCSC issued a formal request for the schedule of adjustments under the Official Information Act 1982, specifically seeking copies of “the original worksheets and/or computer records used for the calculations”. On 29 January, NIWA responded that they no longer held any internal records, and merely referred to the scientific literature.”
http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/2010/02/farce-niwa-dont-have-the-changes/
“On the same day that Dr Renwick was promising in the Herald to put “all of its temperature data and calculations on the internet”, the company’s general counsel, Tim Mahood, was confessing in writing to the NZCSC that “NIWA does not hold copies of the original worksheets”.”
JC
Feb 2 10 3:52 pm
Press Release: New Zealand Climate Science Coalition
Wow.
The “New Zealand Climate Science Coalition”.
That’s a very official sounding name.
Very slick. Very smooth.
It sounds so much better than “Seven publicity hungry non-climatologists shaking their collective fists at science”.
Link on the “Coalition”.
Couldn’t help but notice that David Bellamy is one of the founding members.
Yes, THAT David Bellamy!
I remember him on TV years ago.
He came across as all lovable and enthusiastic about nature and plants. He probably inspired thousands to protect and care for their local environment. I was quite a fan of his.
However, Bellamy has…changed.
Here’s a TV interview with him that illustrates what I mean.
Part One and Part Two and Part Three.
Cedric Katesby´s last blog ..Jurassic Farce