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A high-level whistleblower has told this newspaper that America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) breached its own rules on scientific integrity when it published the sensational but flawed report, aimed at making the maximum possible impact on world leaders including Barack Obama and David Cameron at the UN climate conference in Paris in 2015.
The report claimed that the 'pause' or 'slowdown' in global warming in the period since 1998 – revealed by UN scientists in 2013 – never existed, and that world temperatures had been rising faster than scientists expected. Launched by NOAA with a public relations fanfare, it was splashed across the world's media, and cited repeatedly by politicians and policy makers.
But the whistleblower, Dr John Bates, a top NOAA scientist with an impeccable reputation, has shown The Mail on Sunday irrefutable evidence that the paper was based on misleading, 'unverified' data.
It was never subjected to NOAA's rigorous internal evaluation process – which Dr Bates devised.
His vehement objections to the publication of the faulty data were overridden by his NOAA superiors in what he describes as a 'blatant attempt to intensify the impact' of what became known as the Pausebuster paper.
More details can be found in his own words here:
They promised to begin an archive request for the K15 datasets that were not archived; however I have not been able to confirm they have been archived. I later learned that the computer used to process the software had suffered a complete failure, leading to a tongue-in-cheek joke by some who had worked on it that the failure was deliberate to ensure the result could never be replicated.
https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/04/climate-scientists-versus-climate-data/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @06:09PM
I'm searching around a bit to see if I can understand what this story is really about, but all my search links that come up with when googling "NOAA John Bates" are a bunch of web sites that all seem to have at least one of these words in their name: conservative, liberty, christian, etc. Has any real news outlets provided a story yet, or is it all the same rehash of a rehash of a rehash off of some climate denier web site (like those "bombshell" Australian university emails that was all BS)?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @06:18PM
Ah, here's one [arstechnica.com], at least. Pretty much what I thought. Bates has no first-hand knowledge of anything and is disgruntled. Plus, the Daily Mail author is completely full of shit and just makes shit up.
But you fuckheads (I was going to say "you know who you are", but sadly you don't know; facts have no place in your world view, unless they are of the "alternative" kind) just go ahead and run with it like you will. Another "scandal" as big as the other ones you tout.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @06:25PM
That isn't much of a rebuttal other than "Nuh Uh!" from a person who would need to be covering his arse...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @06:25PM
Best quote from that article (after completely disassembling and refuting everything about it):
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Monday February 06 2017, @07:08PM
And here's an independent study confirming the NOAA findings.
UC Berkeley Researcher Debunks Claims Of Global Warming Pause [cbslocal.com]
Even if he doesn't like the original methodology it doesn't actually mean they are wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @08:34PM
Like in maths: it's easy to get the correct result once you know what the final number should be.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @10:12PM
actually, you have no clue what math is about. Several of the most difficult problems involve proving things that we already think is true.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ikanreed on Monday February 06 2017, @06:29PM
Well, The Daily Mail article includes a wonderful lie. Bates is not a NOAA scientist, he's the president of the American Geophyical Union, which is widely considered a fairly scientific propaganda instrument for Exxon Mobile.
Which is to say, their official positions tend to be close to scientifically sound but consistently towards the most extreme anti-climate-change positions that are within the bounds of reasonable interpretation. And their primary sources of funding, as an organization, are Exxon Mobil and the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program. So in my personal opinion, they're likely a front, but one whose approach is well away from the typical propaganda campaigns we associate with climate change denial.
That said, this article is out-and-out daily mail bullshit [lse.ac.uk]. Bates' only association with NOAA is that he wanted them to use his own methodology in interpreting the ocean termperature data, and they declined citing it as unreliable. He then "Blew the whistle" on the "lies".
It's dishonest, lying bullshit, when you sum together all the components of how this adds together as a piece, but I don't think I could cite any one piece as more than a misconstrued assertion along the way.
Guy with suspect ties complains about how his preferred methods weren't used: well, you could frame that as a disagreement within the science community about approaches.
Daily mail takes his complaints as assertions of malfeasance: sure, that's a little bit of a stretch, but not unheard of.
Tie those two pieces of context together: bullshit. Out and out bullshit. You were right to suggest this doesn't pass the smell test, but the amount of context it requires to understand why it's bullshit assures us that there will be no end to the endless parroting of this by right-wing sources.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday February 06 2017, @07:01PM
Guy with an agenda trumpets agenda to receptive new administration which will repeat without bothering to check.
Should be appointed to nice cushy job he's unqualified for any minute.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ikanreed on Monday February 06 2017, @07:08PM
Considering the hints that the current administration wants to "clean house" on people who've worked on climate change, you might legit be right.
Considering the reputation the president has for mindlessly following whatever he watches on right-wing cable news each night, Bates may actually be directly angling for a NOAA undersecretary appointment.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday February 06 2017, @10:21PM
If everyone talks to the president in the same way that the guy who "talked to the Chicago gangs" did, I'm really worried...
For those who missed it, it was a mix of blatant BS (he had to admit it later) and brownosing, which even the worst of my bosses would have thrown you out of the building for.
(Score: 5, Informative) by jelizondo on Monday February 06 2017, @07:37PM
From NOAA's own site [noaa.gov]: Dr. John Bates is NCDC Principal Scientist, i.e., he works for NOAA at the National Climatic Data Center...
(Score: 5, Informative) by jmorris on Monday February 06 2017, @07:48PM
Bates is not a NOAA scientist
And yet again you prove SJWs Always Lie , in this case your handle. From the end of the second link:
John Bates received his Ph.D. in Meteorology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1986. Post Ph.D., he spent his entire career at NOAA, until his retirement in 2016. He spent the last 14 years of his career at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (now NCEI) as a Principal Scientist, where he served as a Supervisory Meteorologist until 2012.
Now you will scream and deflect. Please prove me wrong... but you won't.
The most disturbing line for me was this one:
Some on the Science Council, particularly the younger scientists, indicated they had not known of the Science requirement to archive data and were not aware of the open data movement.
These people are in positions of responsibility in Science and apparently don't even know how Science works. Kinda confirms everything I have been saying about the state of Science today. So instead of a detailed post I'm just going to drop the mic.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Monday February 06 2017, @09:11PM
Meh
The article is riddled with "quoted phrases" and emotional language more fitting to rehtoric. It lacks detail, has no sources, and even the conclusions they draw themselves are nowhere near the emotional reaction they are trying to get:
For the period 2000 to 2014, the paper increased the rate of warming on land from 0.15C to 0.164C per decade.
....
Now, some of those same authors have produced the pending, revised new version of the sea dataset – ERSSTv5. A draft of a document that explains the methods used to generate version 5, and which has been seen by this newspaper, indicates the new version will reverse the flaws in version 4, changing the buoy adjustments and including some satellite data and measurements from a special high-tech floating buoy network known as Argo. As a result, it is certain to show reductions in both absolute temperatures and recent global warming.
....
Like Climategate, this scandal is likely to reverberate around the world, and reignite some of science’s most hotly contested debates.
The difference in the temperatures after being adjusted back down are not that great, the global average is still increasing by a wide margin. They admit that scientists are revising their models, as scientists do every year, and try and make it seem like a reaction to Mr. Bates "SHOCKING" claims. "It is certain to show.." so they are scientists now? They know the future? Uh huh... more like pandering to their target audience.
This scandal will reverberate only with ignorant people who think this confirms the university based illuminati trying to undermine oil and coal for... reasons...? The scientifically literate will say "Hmm, things are still warming quite a bit and we still need to get a handle on pollution and greenhouse gases." Worst case for NOAA, some inquiries into their process. If someone intentionally bumped the numbers up (I don't see why they should bother but ok) then I do hope it is addressed and NOAA is more careful in the future.
Overall result for deniers: crazies think their crazy is confirmed. Instead of seeing the small correction to the warming trend that this is, deniers will assume this somehow means all warming trends are false. The big bad government is doing stuff to harm energy companies because they are secretly in bed with China trying to help their solar market... for "reasons", and so Trump should join together with Russia and start WWIII with China.
Overall result for normal people: Global warming is still real, NOAA not immune to "possibly" (facts and sources please) manipulating data to promote a political position. I won't villify them though, as long as they aren't actually making the trend say the temperature is dropping when it isn't. I see this as trying to shock people into waking up and taking action on climate change. I don't like the idea that they would intentionally change data and relevant parties should be suspended or let go if that did happen.
More likely, Bates is politically fishing and we are only hearing the most outlandish version of this story. Were there valid reasons for adjusting buoy data with shipboard measurements? The air at sea level could have a warmer layer whereas the ships are much higher off the water and might have a more accurate reading for the local temperature. Intentional malfeasance, or simply data processing that requires some critical thinking to understand?
It is safe to ignore this report, the corrected data still upholds the warming trend so nothing has changed, just more click bait to outrage conservatives so they'll follow Trump even more blindly. Go ahead Jmorris, drop that mic and never pick it back up!
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 11 2017, @05:38PM
Hey, you're full of shit as usual. Bates himself confirmed this story is a giant steaming pile of lies / propaganda / fake news. Care to take back your I'll conceived notions?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @08:00PM
I have been in and out of membership with the AGU since 1990, and I can say your Exxon-influence and sympathetic stance description is entirely and completely off the mark. It is a full-on legitimate scientific society that has been around well before there was an Exxon and it runs a number of very prestigious journals, many of which were on the forefront of Open Access. Among its many members are the top people in the space and space weather communities (the ones of which I am intimately aware), and has included the likes of Carl Sagan and others. They are far different than other groups, such as the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) who had given Michael Crichton its 2006 Journalism Award for his novel State of Fear.
The AGU, like all scientific societies, takes donations from corporate entities such as ExxonMobil, who do employ a good number of Earth scientists. There was some soul-searching a while back among its members [eos.org] about whether they should take money from companies like ExxonMobil and others who act in ways that seem to pursue very public anti-science (at least on issues of the climate) views.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @08:05PM
Forgot to also add, Bates was never a president of the AGU [wikipedia.org]. I am quite sure he was a member, given that it would have been the scientific society someone with his background would belong.