Thread by @ClimateAudit

late last night (and early this morning), I watched the ABC hagiography of Christopher Steele, followed by the BBC hagiography (The Trick) of Phil Jones. Russiagate and Climategate. Both fictional.
I'm mentioned by name at beginning of The Trick, accompanied by a fake picture.

2/ much to say about both, but first an ironic comment. The "heroes" of The Trick, to the extent that there are any, are the square-jawed "reputation managers" who coached Jones up to appear before a Parliamentary Committee a few weeks later.

3/ they are Neil Wallis and Sam Bowen of Outside Organization - similar guys to Fusion GPS. Wallis, a former exec editor of tabloid News of the World, was arrested two years later in phone hacking scandal journalism.co.uk/news/phone-hac…, noted at CA climateaudit.org/tag/wallis/

4/ the phone hacking by News of the World was real enough, but Wallis was later found not guilty (which I was unaware of until now.) Like Fusion GPS, Wallis arranged for favorable articles from complicit journalists. He arranged the Poor Phil in Guardian climateaudit.org/2011/08/26/wal…

5/ I will make more substantive comments. I'm presently about half-way through watching, just as Wallis and Bowen are beginning their rehabilitation strategy. 45 minutes.

6/ on a personal note, I'm introduced as a sort of villain at ~11:30. The police analyst says: "The first place a link is posted, along with this comment 'A miracle has happened' is at Climateaudit.org". See climateaudit.org/2009/11/16/luc…

7/ in real time, no one noticed link, which consisted of a hyperlink to a zip file uploaded to realclimate. But the hyperlink was under "RC" and no one seems to have checked it. First person to draw it to our attention was Gavin Schmidt of realclimate a couple of days later

8/ the policeman continues: "It's a climate skeptic blog run by this man, Steve McIntyre", pointing to a picture of someone younger than me and much younger than portrayal of Jones in a setting that looks somewhat American to me.

I'm actually 5 years older than Jones.

9/ the BBC posits that these events were part of a fantastic and well-orchestrated conspiracy. But there wasn't. I, Mosher and others were reacting to events which surprised us as much as anyone else.

10/ My initial reaction (and still to this day) was profound disappointment at the antagonism and bitchiness of Mann, Jones and others.

11/ I had originally thought that, if climate scientists expect society to make dramatic changes based on their analyses, the data and methods would have been thoroughly audited and would be available for scrutiny. The animosity in emails to that expectation was discouraging

12/ back to narrative. The police narrator continues "He’s got a history with Jones, He’s a Canadian ex-mining consultant and self-appointed climate science fact checker."

13/ This description leaves out an important and relevant component of my deeper background: I studied mathematics at a fine university in Canada and my math skills, despite not being used for 35 years, were still much, much better than Jones'. I was also an alumnus of Oxford.

14/ nor would I describe myself as a "mining consultant". I was a businessman in the mineral exploration business. I was very familiar and experienced with disclosure and audit obligations of public companies offering securities to the public.

15/ public companies dealing with the public are required to make "full, true and plain disclosure", including disclosure of adverse results. I presumed that academics anxious for a better world would hold themselves and their associates to even higher standards. Silly me.

16/ as to being a "self-appointed climate science fact checker": 1) I was used to a business environment where people took initiative and view initiative as a good thing; 2) I took a specialized interest in proxy reconstructions, not the enormous field of "climate science"

17/ 3) my specific focus arose from a very strange experience when I asked Mann in 2003 for the FTP location of data used in his 1998 study. He responded that he had "forgotten" the location of the link and referred me to his research assistant. His assistant told me that data

18/ data wasnt in any one location, but that he would get it together for me. I thought that was nice of him - at the time, I was a 55-year old Canadian businessman with the most peripheral interest imaginable.

19/ but if he had to assemble the data for my request, it meant that no one had ever audited the calculations. At the time, I was thinking as someone used to dealing with financial auditors on financial statements, independent geological consultants on qualifying reports etc

20/ so I read Mann's description of his MBH98 methodology and it read to me like a wordy, verbose and overblown description of relatively simple linear algebra operations. What someone second-rate would write trying to impress (someone first-rate would have written elegantly).

21/ if someone else had audited/verified Mann's work, then there would have been a zipfile of data already buttoned up. Auditors check financial statements all the time. Since no one else seemed to have done so, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to audit MBH98

22/ as the policeman observed, no one had "appointed" me to fact check MBH98, but I thought it would be interesting since no one else had done so. Like doing a big crossword puzzle, nothing more. I wasn't even particularly "skeptic", more agnostic.

23/ The police narrator continues: "if you look at his blog posts, he had established relationship [with Jones] as far back as 2002. Asked Jones for data, which Jones gave him. Initially."

24/ My interest in climate in 2002 was even more casual than 2003. The Canadian govt was then promoting Kyoto treaty with statements that 1998 was warmest year in 1000 years. This was the first time in my life that I had ever heard of climate as a topic or issue.

25/ one of my business associates was an accomplished PhD geologists who told me that earth had been much warmer than at present throughout nearly all of geological time, that we were still recovering from Ice Age (which had covered Canada with ice sheet as recently as ~10,000 BP

26/ he sneered at the Hockey Stick as, from a geological point of view, a form of "creationism" in which past climate was viewed as unchanging (the shaft of the Stick). Rather than being a "climate change denier", he viewed Hockey Stickers as, in effect, climate evolution deniers

27/ at the time, there had obviously been an ongoing battle between "skeptics" and advocates, but, at the time, I was entirely unaware of this history. I've also, for the most part, kept my commentary and views separate from traditional "skeptics".

28/ whereas my eventual interest was proxy reconstructions, much energy in traditional "skeptic" circles was that development of urban heat islands resulted in an overstatement of actual temperature increase since 19th century (which IMO was probably coldest century since LGM)

29/ in 2002, I asked Jones for station data used in his most recent version of the CRU temperature index. As I recall, Jones sent me a version corresponding to the outgoing version, rather than the incoming version that he was then working on. (But I'd need to check to be sure)

30/ Jones had been then been collecting "station data" for almost 20 years. Originally under a contract with Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre (CDIAC), a unit of the Oak Ridges Nuclear Laboratory in Tennessee, a contract that continued well into 1990s.

31/ Jones collected station data from international meteorological agencies, sent it to CDIAC which at some point in the 1990s posted it online at their then FTP site.

32/ rather than station data being "confidential", the first few versions had been made available online, initially at CDIAC in the US and later at the CRU FTP site.

32/ The police narrator continued "But then McIntyre starting using the data to undermine his career, Jones backed off."

"TO UNDERMINE HIS CAREER". Puh-leeze.

What conceivable interest would I have had in trying to "undermine [Jones'] career"? That is total fabrication by BBC.

33/ By 2005, I had published several academic articles that were critical of Mann's hockey stick. Technical criticism of his erroneous principal components methodology that in effect mined data for hockey stick shaped series, his failure to disclose adverse verification r2 stats

34/ and excessive reliance on stripbark bristlecone tree ring chronologies - all criticisms that were and remain valid. But had nothing to do with Jones. If anything, I viewed Jones as possibly a voice of reason as compared to the irascible and tricky Mann.

35/ the idea that I was trying to "undermine [Jones'] career" was preposterous. My interest was in the numbers and data and I had zero involvement with Jones' career.

36/ In late 2004, as our critique of MBH98 was about to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, Mann and his allies tried like crazy to block its publication. Concurrently, they were founding Real Climate (where Climategate emails first uploaded), which began by slagging us

37/ in January 2005, I responded by starting Climate Audit blog and discovered that I both liked the format and the audience that began to inhabit it. If one re-reads both articles and comment threads, they remain of interest. I marvel at the energy.

38/ after our criticism of MBH98 was published in GRL, refusal of data became increasingly prevalent. Given that climate community was becoming increasingly insistent on major social change, their refusal to archive or provide data to critics was very frustrating.

39/ as refusals piled up, rather than getting mad, I developed the tactic of exposing each and every such refusal at Climate Audit blog in real time and then going to play squash. This infuriated refusers as, increasingly, google of their names would go to a CA article on refusal

40/ over time, the refusals became increasingly ridiculous.

Concurrent with my interest in proxy reconstructions, many readers of my blog (and especially of Watts Up, a later and ultimately bigger blog) maintained interest in station data (which I delved into occasionally)

41/ one day, @WEschenbach, by now an old friend tho we've met in person only once or twice, had the bright idea of sending an FOI request to CRU for their station data, which by 2007, they were refusing to make available to "known skeptics". He got blown off with invalid reasons

42/ I followed his example by sending several FOI requests for datasets that should have been publicly archived and (by memory) got favorable response on a couple.

43/ we connect back to our narrative in May 2009 see climateaudit.org/2009/05/11/ano…. By then Jones had repeatedly refused the current version of station data (tho earlier versions were online.) The Met Office webpage said they had a version. I sent FOI to Met Office for what they had

44/ John Kennedy of Met Office immediately refused. climateaudit.org/2009/06/04/the… I sent a follow up request and a couple of weeks later was told that Met Office did not have "raw" data, only the "value-added" data.

45/ we continued fencing with Met Office for next two weeks climateaudit.org/2009/06/18/the…. I began to wonder about the legal basis for their refusal. I didn't expect any big revelations in the station data - as I cautioned readers over and over - but I objected to the obstruction:

46/ in a CA comment thread, Peter Webster, a accomplished climate scientist at Georgia Tech, wrote that one of his students had got Jones' station data. (Price seems to have been including Jones as co-author, not mere acknowledgement, in any publication) I FOI'd CRU for that dset

47/ a month passed. Many lively posts at CA on other topics. On Jul 23, climateaudit.org/2009/07/23/uk-… Met Office said Jones had agreements not to publicly release station data but "it cannot be determined which countries or station data given in confidence as records were not kept"

48/ In reply, I pointed out to Met Office that earlier versions of so-called confidential data had been online at CDIAC and CRU itself (which had taken it down during this FOI process.)

49/ The Met Office refusal cited a supposed agreement with CRU. I asked for a copy of this agreement under EIR (FOI equivalent):

50/ the next day, Jul 24, CRU refused my FOI request to them. climateaudit.org/2009/07/24/cru… They claimed that they received data "on terms that prevent further transmission to non-academics".

51/ we're going to re-connect with The Trick narrative soon, I promise, but all of this is part of the full story.

52/ UEA's claim that they had entered into confidentiality agreements "on terms that prevent further transmission to non-academics" was not only false, but absurd. From my mineral exploration days, I had plenty of experience with real confidentiality agreements.

53/ the biggest legal case in Canadian mining history (in early 1980s) turned on a confidential agreement (Lac-Corona). To be in the business, you had to understand how each confidentiality term worked. It was a serious business issue for serious people.

54/ it was impossible that CRU had included clauses in a confidentiality agreement that somehow specifically precluded the unusual situation where a "non-academic" was asking for station data. Fabricating this excuse also made them look recklessly dishonest, not just annoying.

55/ it was also simply stupid tactically on two counts. First, there were plenty of highly qualified "academics" who were going to immediately submit follow-on FOIs (and did.) Second, it was predictable that I would FOI the supposed (and non-existent) agreements (which I did.)

56/ because the UEA refusal didn't seem to make even the slightest attempt at plausibility, I was concerned that they were viewing my quest as a quixotic enterprise by a single person, rather than representing a larger interested community.

57/ so I submitted a FOI request for any confidentiality agreements for five named countries (Canada, US, Australia, UK, Brazil) and invited readers to submit similar requests for five other countries until all countries were covered.
climateaudit.org/2009/07/24/cru…

58/ complying with this request turned out to be trivial: they didn't have ANY agreements which contained the purported language about "non-academics". A few weeks later (see later), they put up a webpage with 3 or 4 agreements , none of which supported their refusal.

59/ in the climate science community, this request for non-existent confidentiality agreements, falsely used as excuse to avoid FOI disclosure, was widely portrayed as huge and unconscionable harassment, designed to prevent scientists from doing their job.

60/ in The Trick, the police narrator says "McIntyre got frustrated, earlier this year he got his entire database to send FOI requests to CRU asking for their raw data. Which they did. Jones was flooded and I mean flooded with requests. 60 in a week. Look, a bloody tsunami."

61/ uh, the requests were NOT for their raw data, but for the falsely claimed and non-existent confidentiality agreements. Nor is 60 requests a "tsunami". UEA spent more time making false excuses, than it would have taken to provide the data.

62/ One thing I should have mentioned earlier. Jones already said to one potential critic: "We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it"
climateaudit.org/2005/10/15/we-…

63/ this phrase was known to pretty much every Climate Audit reader. So as the University of East Anglia trotted out increasingly fanciful and untruthful reasons to not provide station data, it bred suspicion among many readers that there was some dark secret in the data.

64/ I myself didn't think so and repeatedly urged readers to keep in mind that it was entirely possible that Jones was just being a jerk and was concealing the triviality of his calculations, nothing more. But I also was determined not to be blown off either.

65/ an exchange in the comment thread nicely illustrates where we were. One reader observed that UEA replies sounded like Yes Minister scripts, while (now stubbornly) replied "Two can play that game." And, as it turned out, the game was still in its early stages.

66/ on July 25, I wrote an article noting climateaudit.org/2009/07/25/cru… CDIAC had placed station data online in 1994. If a confidentiality agreement was before 1994, CRU already violated it and now long moot; if after 1994, would have been in IPCC period and antithetical to policy.

67/ an editorial comment in this post gave summary that a) concerned scientists should tell CRU to stop obstruction; b) US DOE should have ensured funding of Jones ensured open data; c) and told Jones to immediately make data open if he wanted further funding

68/ later on July 25, I wrote a second post entitled "A Mole" climateaudit.org/2009/07/25/a-m… which, IMO, inadvertently set Climategate "hack" in motion. I announced that I was in possession of a CRU data version matching their current station list.

69/ there was a game afoot in this post. Readers familiar with Climategate will know how this chapter ends, but it might be fun for new readers to see if you can guess. (I'll return to this later, taking a break.)

https://twitter.com/ClimateAudit/status/1450494229235572744