
Former NOAA Scientist Confirms Colleagues Manipulated Climate Records - danjoc
https://science.house.gov/news/press-releases/former-noaa-scientist-confirms-colleagues-manipulated-climate-records
======
jessriedel
John Bates has an extensive blog post describing his allegations on Judith
Curry's well-known blog: [https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/04/climate-
scientists-versus...](https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/04/climate-scientists-
versus-climate-data/)

It was submitted to HN yesterday but got 4 points and 0 comments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13574012](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13574012)

Posts submitted to HN in the last month about the effort to back-up climate
data from a suspected erasure by the Trump administration got 448 and 85
points.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13488334](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13488334)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13487843](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13487843)

[EDIT]

Bates:

> I read with great irony recently that scientists are “frantically copying
> U.S. Climate data, fearing it might vanish under Trump” (e.g., Washington
> Post 13 December 2016). As a climate scientist formerly responsible for
> NOAA’s climate archive, the most critical issue in archival of climate data
> is actually scientists who are unwilling to formally archive and document
> their data. I spent the last decade cajoling climate scientists to archive
> their data and fully document the datasets. I established a climate data
> records program that was awarded a U.S. Department of Commerce Gold Medal in
> 2014 for visionary work in the acquisition, production, and preservation of
> climate data records (CDRs), which accurately describe the Earth’s changing
> environment.

[EDIT2]

Rebuttal post by Peter Thorne, who was in Karl's group, although was not an
author on the key paper:

[http://icarus-maynooth.blogspot.ca/2017/02/on-mail-on-
sunday...](http://icarus-maynooth.blogspot.ca/2017/02/on-mail-on-sunday-
article-on-karl-et-al.html)

~~~
jcranmer
If I may summarize the blog post to characterize the allegations more
accurately than the House press release:

NOAA scientist used as the basis for a major climate paper a data set which
was in an alpha stage in terms of post-processing. This preliminary data
should have been at least indicated as such but was not done in the paper
submission. The exact differences between the alpha version and released
version is not documented, and the dataset used for the paper hasn't
apparently been located, so finding the differences is difficult.

Notably, Bates doesn't seem to be accusing Karl et. al. of actually
manipulating the data to get spectacular results. Rather, the allegation is
that the rush to put out the paper induced Karl et. al. to bypass transparency
rules designed to prevent, well, suspicion of the data being manipulated.

------
gravelc
Worth a read for some background on this:

[http://www.popsci.com.au/science/the-house-science-
committee...](http://www.popsci.com.au/science/the-house-science-committee-
claims-scientists-faked-climate-change-data8212heres-what-you-should-
know,450206)

~~~
tangue
_" The source of their evidence, according to Committee spokesperson Thea
McDonalds, was a Daily Mail article."_

This is not politics, this is trolling and it takes trolling to a whole new
level. It feels as if the wildests redditors are in charge in the US.

------
jcranmer
[http://www.popsci.com/regardless-house-science-committee-
cla...](http://www.popsci.com/regardless-house-science-committee-claims-noaa-
scientists-probably-didnt-manipulate-climate-records) is another view of the
record which is certainly more detailed than the original press release, which
contains a single quote and 0 context.

------
karmelapple
The wording in the linked article is surprising and disconcerting:

"This fact has always been a thorn in the side of climate change alarmists, as
it became difficult to disprove the slowdown in warming."

That is some fairly loaded language, including "climate change alarmists."

I am disappointed that taxpayer dollars are being used to put out official
government writings that improperly vilify people with no context.

Someone who is concerned about climate change is not a de facto alarmist.

------
diyorgasms
Given the source of this release, I am incredulous, and suspect that the
internal disagreements referenced were more akin to bikeshedding or perhaps
just entirely fabricated for the purpose of political ax-grinding.

------
iamjono
Probably to do with the current administration's agenda to discredit climate
change...

------
Oletros
Agood account of this can be read on Ars Technica [0]

[0] [https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02/article-names-
whistl...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02/article-names-
whistleblower-who-told-congress-that-noaa-manipulated-data/)

------
stuckagain
The actual Karl paper:

[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6242/1469.full](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6242/1469.full)

------
gremlinsinc
All I have to say is look at the source... .gov might as well be .ch or .ru or
.tk links anymore. Since Trump took office it's quite hard to believe anything
is more than actual propaganda.

------
danjoc
quietly removed from front page

Edit: Not [Flagged], but not getting karma from further upvotes to story.

Edit2: Down voting comment has begun.

~~~
grzm
User flags affect rankings even prior to the '[flagged]' tag appearing. There
are plenty of submissions with higher and lower upvotes. As you're aware, the
ranking algorithm isn't public, in large part to prevent gaming of the system.

If you have questions or concerns about the ranking, contact the mods via the
Contact link in the footer.

Please stop with the conspiracy innuendos. You're likely getting downvotes
just for that, and now for commenting on downvotes.

~~~
danjoc
>Please stop with the conspiracy innuendos.

Simply documenting. Last time I pointed out a post had been "shadow flagged"
(because it didn't say [Flagged]) I got told off.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12473904](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12473904)

I'm sparing someone else from being told off if they notice my post before it
is [Flagged]

