When you don’t like the bottom line…
Shortly after NASA published their source code on Sept 7, we started noticing puzzling discrepancies in the new data set. On Sep 12, 2007, I inquired about the changes to Hansen and Ruedy, observing that there was no notice of the apparent changes at their website…
… change the accounting method;
Hansen said that the difference between 1998 and 1934 was “statistically insignificant”. But business accountants are familiar with situations where a lot of attention is paid to numbers that may be “statistically insignificant”. I’ll give you an example. For a large corporation, the difference between a small profit and a small loss can be “statistically insignificant”, but there is a big difference in how they are perceived by the public. In some cases, unscrupulous corporations (and you can think of a few, including the most famous recent U.S. bankruptcy) will do whatever they can in terms of deferring expenses or recognizing revenue to change a reported loss into a reported profit. Accounting changes are a red flag to analysts for brokerage companies; there may be “good” reasons but the analyst needs to be right on top of the situation and they will be VERY unimpressed if a company tries to slip a change in without reporting it.
So while the difference between 1934 and 1998 may have been “statistically insignificant”. Hansen was obviously quite annoyed by the attention paid to 1934 being called the “warmest year” even in the U.S. and the change in rankings must have stuck in his craw. Was that motivation in the change from SHAP to FILNET accounting? I certainly hope not. Perhaps long before the Y2K error re-arranged things, NASA had already made long-standing plan to shift from SHAP accounting to FILNET accounting. But if this was not the case, then the timing of the change, especially with the all too “convenient” restoration of 1998 to the top of the leaderboard is certainly unfortunate.
It’s a long and detailed post and difficult to extract from, so read the whole saga.
More from Anthony Watts;
An odd twist has developed in the past week regarding some data sets that surfacestations.org volunteers have been using to look at individual stations. The data has changed on NASA’s GISS website with no notice whatsoever.
My first indication that something changed came from surfacestations.org volunteer Chris Dunn who wrote to me complaining that one of the sites he’d recently surveyed, Walhalla, SC had been greatly adjusted at GISS for no good reason that he could ascertain, since the site is pristine by climate monitoring standards, and has not gone through any significant changes in the past, and has been operated at the same location (by the same family) since 1916. He wondered why NASA would have to adjust the data for a “good” station. The way I view it, shouldn’t good data stand on it’s own? That was September 7th. He was using data from NASA GISS published on 8/28.
So he continued to look at the data, and the site. The on Sept 11th he noticed a change when he downloaded the data again. Something had changed, the data was different. Not only the adjusted data but the “raw” data too.
[…]
I don’t know what to make of this, by I think perhaps this could be a breach of the Data Quality Act. At the least, it flies in the face of accepted scientific courtesy, where if you publish data sets being used by researchers worldwide, scientific courtesy would dictate that you at least place notice of such a change, otherwise there can be a domino effect for hundreds of research projects that use the data. Which would cause researchers to wonder why things don’t look the same anymore and begin searching for answers. Well that is exactly what happened here. We had a citizen trying to figure out why a climate site with good data was “adjusted”, and then the data changed right in the middle of him looking at it.
The following quote may be appropriate:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the state can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the state to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the state.”
Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda.
But being the scrupulous person that you are, you’ll spin it anyways. I preferred the pic of the wheeled barbecue next to the data collection device. That was insipid enough for your personality cult to grapple.
What do you do for a living, wallen?
That was insipid enough for your personality cult to grapple.
How often have they spun it?
Like Gore says that sealevels will go up 20 feet the ipcc says at most 22 inches. Or is that to insipid for a staunchly religious person like yourself.
While your comments are very typical of global warming trolls they are hardly science are they.
Can you imagine Bohr and Einstein talking like that you poo poo head.
Here’s the real reason for global warming
I’m a self employed dog trainer
This has become about ego not science how humiliating and embarrissing it must be for him to find that what you have been touting is wrong. So change the rules so you are right.
It is sad to see a great institution like NASA marred by a weak personality such as this.
Environmentalists use lies, damn lies and statistics.
Very nice, Wallen. Then perhaps you’ll be interested in the views of some of the engineers and accountants who regularly comment here. I’m sure they’ll have something insipid to say.
Kate muses: “What do you do for a living, wallen?”
He must write the little impromptu gaffes Dion blurts out…..and here we were thinking these “Dijonisms” were the product of linguistic Tourettes . 😀
I can see the new climate doom endorsements now:
“Self employed dog trainers validate Global warming science”
Whooooha…stop the presses at the Red Star …we have a new “exclusive” to run on the climate hysteria file.
😀
Wallen,
Congrats. It takes a great effort to look so foolish.
[It’s a long and detailed post and difficult to extract from, so read the whole saga.]
Yes. I tried last night.
James Hansen, of the Gore/Suzuki/Strong Kult, cooked the books. That is proven. When caught red-handed, he tries to slip in changes. Caught again.
(Wants to retore 1998 as warmest, otherwise Gore is lying ever time someone watches YouTube)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqUHM2gf5g4
But the problem is, as Kate points out, the complexity of the data collection, the analyzing, and reporting.
The Kult Krowd knows that the media will ‘dumb-down’ the news. Even items that are simple, let alone complex data.
Which one would make headlines;
E=Mc2 and the square root of infinity is greater than the angle of the repose when a thermometer is uncalibrated
OR
the polar bear fell in, can’t swim, will drown — you know, the one with the Coke in his hand, not the one that will eat you on a whim.
For this reason it has taken longer than usual to expose the Kyoto Hoax but it is rapidly unraveling now —- as the Quebec voters told Dion & May & Company — in no uncertain terms.
In the meantime, Hansem et al continue to dig themsevles a deeper and deeper hole.
Bureaucrats first rule of work prime direective if you will!
Cover your ass!
So NASA Bureaucrats who happen to have science degrees have decided to invoke the prime directive.
The official word is that AGW is a fact and that we need to be taxed and regulated to prevent a catastrophy. Because as we all know governments can do magic with enough taxes and regulation. Just look at ALL the examples of that!
And the final incontrovertible proof is : The Data!
Yup…..South American Backwaters are looking better all the time as alternatives to living under the governance of these kinds of idiots!
James Hansen has to try to secretly change the cooked data or Albert Gore is lying ever time someone watches YouTube — which is often. In both cases.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqUHM2gf5g4
This is getting to be more like ADSCAM for climatologists! Hey, let’s cook the books on temperature data so we can get more governemnt money. If someone finds us out, we’ll just cook the books some more. Sound familiar – like Enron? What a backward way to do things. Instead of climatologists using real science, we get egotistical climate bums, rigging the results to get what they want. catch us – if you can. Just like ADSCAM. Real scientists should be ripping these guys a new one for the growing credibility gap that “science” will have to win back in trust. Steve and others should get Nobel prizes for their efforts to pick these scabs apart.
This is the same organization (NASA) that sent a spacecraft full-tilt into Mars because someone didn’t convert MPH to Km/h.
I look forward to the day when government funded eggheads are jailed for fraudulently attaining grants and lying to the public.
I hear some inmates treat their bitches better than others…
According to the NASA site, the correction affected global temperature averages by -.001 degrees. Wouldn’t that make 2005 still the warmest year on record, globally?
The manoeuver has rendered all GISS datasets worthless, and therefore the corresponding assumptions and predictions. Correction of a dataset with full explanation of the manipulation is one thing (even then…, if the data is empirical), but in the absence of rigorous explanation, the entire set, historic,corrected, and consequence is now trash.
Arthur a wrote
According to the NASA site, the correction affected global temperature averages by -.001 degrees. Wouldn’t that make 2005 still the warmest year on record, globally?
Arthur,How can I possibly believe NASA, where do they get their info from?????? Who does the figuring??
Before I ventured out into the world of entrepreneurship I was employed as an editor by John Wiley & Sons Limited, a prestigious publisher of undergraduate and post-graduate textbooks and reference books. The company publishes some of the world’s most authoritative titles in accounting and engineering. Over the 20 years I spent there I met truck loads of engineering professors, engineers, accounting professors and accountants. Accomplished as many of these people were (and are), but based on my experiences in meetings and author dinners, I would never defer to them on anything except their areas of specialization. I don’t feel it’s important to elaborate any further except to note that a facility with higher mathematics is just that; it doesn’t automatically confer any special talents in other fields of thought and study.
To conflate degrees and professional accreditations (or designations) with expertise at large is a category error on your part that surprises me. I don’t think you would have to work very hard to uncover accountants and engineers in say, Jordan, who are Islamo-fascists. And I would guess (that’s silly: I decidedly know) that their opinions about politics, global warming, or the pornographic content of a Timothy Findlay novel would mean squat to you.
But I guess that’s not your real agenda anyway. I called the photo of the Weber Kettle next to the weather data collection device insipid. You then transfer the insipid comment to your own (professional) readers on my behalf. To engender more name calling? It’s getting difficult to ascertain what SDA is truly about – other than relentless name calling. At some point this “politics of resentment” should become a bit more constructive, don’t you think. Some days I wonder how you keep going, surrounded as you are by people of such unyielding bitterness.
Skip wrote: “The manoeuver has rendered all GISS datasets worthless, and therefore the corresponding assumptions and predictions. Correction of a dataset with full explanation of the manipulation is one thing (even then…, if the data is empirical), but in the absence of rigorous explanation, the entire set, historic,corrected, and consequence is now trash.”
You can’t be much of a fan of science, if admitting an error means everything is worthless, you don’t have much chance for self-correction or criticism do you?
This comment applies to Sic n’ Tyred as well.
“Before I ventured out into the world of entrepreneurship I was employed as an editor by John Wiley & Sons Limited,”
They publish dog training books as well, I take it.
There is a saying in the exact sciences, “torture the data set enough and it will confess”.
“It’s getting difficult to ascertain what SDA is truly about – other than relentless name calling.”
Or perhaps you edited texts on “personality cults”. Considering the nature of the first comment you made to this thread, the notion that you, of all people, would presume to lecture anyone on the practice of “relentless name calling” is a little rich, don’t you think?
Changing a data set without notice or explanation is as gross a breach of scientific ethics as is possible. If detected it usually results in the immediate exit of the perpetrator from his or her field, and from his or her position; yes, even a tenured faculty position at a university.
Wallen
If you really want to see name calling and profanities go to myblahg.com. Some of those lefties are out of this world.
Wallen,
Suzuki is a geneticist, not a climate scientist.
Gore is not a scientist at all.
NASA is a space agency, not a group of meteorologists or climate scientists. Most of the people preaching AGW from NASA and other sources are not discussing their area of expertise.
What the engineers and math guys know is modeling and statistics. So, it doesn’t matter what the field of study, a modeling pro will know when they’re being lied to and will be able to spot fraudulent data, manipulations and errors in procedure.
When you get to the bottom of a hole, the proper tool to extricate yourself from that sad position is a ladder – not a shovel.
“To conflate degrees and professional accreditations (or designations) with expertise at large is a category error on your part that surprises me.
And mistaking sarcasm for “a [conflation of] professional accreditation with expertise at large” is an error on your part that surprises me not at all.
Steve McIntyre !!
The Sheila Fraser of Climatology !!
To amplify a little on my previous post: it has for a long time been established that the lab books of an assayer working for a mine or whatever, containing raw data, are legal documents subject so subpoena; and woe to the assayer who attempts to erase or modify an entry.
A properly kept lab book, with pages “read and understood”, can constitute strong evidence for priority in patent cases. I myself have “read and understood” and signed many pages of a small high-tech company with which I once worked.
Following the Imanishi-Kari case (for which see the entry under “David Baltimore” in Wikipedia) it became established that lab notebooks in university or government research laboratories would be similarly subject to examination, and were to be kept properly (paginated notebooks with dated entries written in ink with no attempts at erasure or use of opaquing fluid). In many labs these days it is usual to lock away lab notebooks in safes when they are not in use.
So if NASA has modified data sets without acknowledgement and explanation it is very serious and deserves investigation. U.S. National Academy of Science, perhaps?
Wiley publishes the “For Dummies” series. Howz that for a straight line. Have at it.
What they need to publish is “Simple Logic for Liberals” to teach you how to think.
wallen , one can only surmise that you were the editor emeritus for that series.
John: The site does have comments up explaining the change. Even the site Kate links to acknowledges this, and so only complains that it took too long. Ok, fair enough, but it’s up now.
I don’t know for sure, but I’d guess that the real “raw” data, the stuff that is treated according the to strict standards you refer too is probably stored somewhere else, other than a website. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? So no, I don’t think the US National Academy of Science needs to investigate the record keeping habits of NASA’s website.
Kate,
You’re too busy trying to score points instead of making some.
The centre of your project is comprised of anti-matter: WL MacKenzie Redux says I affirmed global warming. I did nothing of the sort. Apropos of nothing whatsoever Warwick says I look foolish. About what? Another empty insult. Apropos of almost nothing comes your crack about dog training books. Then there’s the posting about ADSCAM for climatologists – a juxtaposition that whiffs on wit but accomplishes another empty insult. Oh, and according to Dan Moss the lefties are even worse at name calling which is the emotional equivalent of saying, “But Mom, TOmmy’s mother lets him cuss and swear.”
You guys must clear rooms at parties.
Arthur : Still !!!
where do they get their info from?????? Who does the figuring??
Wallen,
Perhaps you can invite us to your blog when important discussions are taking place.
(or is this another empty insult??)
Did John Cross perform a lateral pass to these clowns ??
At least he was a polite ‘muddy-the-water’ troll.
sda archives are chock full of very knowlegeable people squashing any and all latte trolls that come along.
In the case of the Kyoto Kult, the Quebec voters saw through the media scam and gave that denier, PM Harper, an astounding 36.9% of the popular vote !!
Dion, the dog Kyoto, suffered with only 14.2 %.
And head clansman E May, a pathetic 2.6
Says it all.
Robert,
Sure doesn’t read like an empty insult. Sounds like a friendly invite. Am I being naive?
I’m writing a blog actually. Haven’t launched it yet. It’s going to centre on the limit=infinity self commodification of Jian Ghomeshi. My guess is there won’t be a lot of important discussions coming my way.
Keep up the good work Wallen, I’m enjoying your input. I warn you though, I find they tend to confuse logic and reality easily, particularly when that reality involves climate science. When confused they anger easily, which leads to name-calling: “a lateral pass to these clowns”. It reminds me of monkeys in their cage hanging by their tail throwing feces, but these people have evolved just enough to have lost their prehensile tails.
I’ve also noticed fraises such as “tongue in cheek” tend confuse them as well.
Kate: A blogger always knows they are doing well if they attract trolls. Obviously from the crowd you are gathering at your feet trying to snipe would indicate you are doing not just well ….. rather, you are doing great.
Arthur A. Big fan of science. So much so, I spent 35 years studying it, playing with it, evaluating it. Know lots about the quality of collection of empirical data, its derivation, and its reductible quality.
As reducible data GISS data is on thin ice at the outset. Meddle with it, and science falls through.
Wallen. Lots of empty words about a peripheral career with a publisher – what exactly are you trying to say? Apparently, an editor, you weren’t.
“But being the scrupulous person that you are, you’ll spin it anyways. I preferred the pic of the wheeled barbecue next to the data collection device. That was insipid enough for your personality cult to grapple.”
Huh? lessee: drive-by slur, personal opinion, personal opinion, insult, slur.
Where’s the content? So you’re a self-employed dog trainer. Good, many need them. Kate is self-employed dog breeder AND Trainer. Upped you one, bud. Me, I used to just repair ’em.
“It’s getting difficult to ascertain what SDA is truly about – other than relentless name calling.”
Awww cummon Wallen… stop hiding behind that vacant facade of pseudo intellectual condescension and take your medicine like a man.
YOU were the one who started the name calling and making disingenuous innuendos about Kate’s motives and the character of SDA posters…you got tagged for it….can’t stand the heat? … Then don’t torque people the wrong way….you got busted for your ignorant and pompous condemnations….suck it up buddy and stop wimpering like a paper training puppy 😉
“WL MacKenzie Redux says I affirmed global warming. I did nothing of the sort.”
You implied the picture was somehow fraudulent as a symbol of lax NASA data collection used in GW fear mongering…what other conclusion can be made?…or are we to be clairvoyant to catch your intent?
I also said you had a Dion-like ability to mutilate meaning in what you are trying to enunciate…that seems correct at this point.
“”surrounded as you are by people of such unyielding bitterness””
Join the chorus then…seems to be a good deal of bitter vindictiveness pouring from that taunt.
Look I’m not TRYING to take a crap on you…I’m saying you best get used to the free for all of lightly moderated I-net debate….be prepared to defend everything you say because there is always someone who will take a run at your reasoning…secondly , clearly enunciate your position…nebulous statements and snide innuendo are not really all that courageous or intelligent..people pick up on maligning intent quickly and you usually get stomped for it where ever you go…so be up front even if you disagree, drop the condesceding attitude and address people (even those you disagree with) with a modicum of respect…it’s bad enough the internet texting is a terrible medium to be understood in the first place without making your intent unclear….and ferkissake don’t take everything so damn personal.
So there! A little condescending patronization right back atcha. 🙂
“I’ve also noticed fraises such as “tongue in cheek” tend confuse them as well.”
Yah, that’s good Alby. You go, lad. DEMONSTRATE that hier educayshun. That degree is really going to be worth something some day. Take it with you camping.
alby
ah, show me one, I say one program that can even modestly run a climate simulation, and then show a damn computer with the ability to run it
me thinks the likes of you and wallen haven’t the foggiest idea just how complex weather patterns realy are, nor how limited,comparatively, our computing ability actually is
Kate,
Just want to say your site keeps me amused and informed.
I too spent some time in a research lab and am disturbed by all the AGW data ‘tweaking and adjusting’ that seems to be going on.
Wallen, it seems to me that SDA has its share of qualified commenters that do apply some thought to their comments.
Your dismissing of them seems to me to take away from your arguments.
Debate on!
Wallen
a blog based on a CBCpravda has been shows limited opportunity, personally if I were to run a blog it would be on helical particle waves but thats just my thoughts. I think I’ll write one on bug genetics until Dr. Bono Suzuki cries uncle.
take the chance to view the Weblogs Awards 2006 winner sticker. something that you can only view here.
Thanks Kate.
Monty Python….. I’m just here for the argument….no your not!
Freekin’ idiot trolls…………what a waste of electrons!
Fraises. That’s classic. A real fox pas.
“I’ve also noticed fraises such as “tongue in cheek”
Other than tasting good on the tongue, what do strawberries have to do with this?