One of our readers asked how it was to read a thermometer. I’ve got a slightly different question: if I can locate daily maximum and minimum readings for Dulan airport on the internet, why can’t NOAA? This is not as trivial a point as it might seem, as it turns out that Dulan airport is one of a very few stations contributing to a lurid blotch of big temperatures on the NOAA gridded March map. Continue reading →
A standard technique of dendroclimatologists is to calculate coefficients between ring width chronologies and monthly temperature and precipitation for 12-18 months relevant to the annual growth. twq has reiterated to us that Gou et al 2007, which is a few minutes off the press, has claimed high correlations to temperature of a site in the upper reaches of the Yellow River that is within several hundred miles of Dulan. Today I report on response functions reported by other authors in the area, which consistently report positive correlations with spring precipitation and negative correlations with summer temperature – what you’d expect from precipitation limited growth in arid and semi-arid regions like Dulan. I reiterate that I’m not trying to adjudicate between specialists here – I’m only observing that the results of Gou et al 2007 are inconsistent with authors reporting on Dulan junipers. Continue reading →
Willis Eschenbach asked the editor of Climate Dynamics to require the authors of Wilson et al 2007 to archive their data. The editor wrote back that, since the authors had provided the latitude and longitude of the samples, this was sufficient information to permit another laboratory to replicate their results and that it was not the responsibility of journals to ensure that data was archived.
Dear Sir,
The manuscript “Cycles and shifts: 1,300 years of multi-decadal temperature variability in the Gulf of Alaska”, by Rob Wilson, Greg Wiles, Rosanne D’Arrigo, Chris Zweck contains a table providing the location of the dendrochronological series, so that any laboratory can go to the place and duplicate the work.
Archiving raw data is a normal process and should follow accepted practices, but this is not the responsibility of journal editors.
Sincerely
Jean-Claude Duplessy
Climate Dynamics will be a terrific journal for Lonnie Thompson to publish in. He can always say: I’ve provided the latitude and longitude of the Dunde ice core. If you want to verify our statistics, go drill your own f- ing ice core.
It’s interesting that Duplessy’s position as a journal editor is that ensuring that data is archived is not the “responsibility of journal editors”. When I asked Susan Solomon about archiving at a CCSP Workshop, she gave the lame excuse that IPCC did not make authors archive data because that would be “interfering with journals”. Here are my contemporary notes:
I asked Susan Solomon why IPCC did not require authors to archive data and methods. (I have had previous correspondence with her on this topic, which I’ll discuss some time, as it’s rather amusing.) She said that that would be interfering with journals, as “I well knew”. Later, I asked Margaret Leinen of NSF the same question. Leinen said that NSF did require authors to publish in peer-reviewed journals. I pointed out that this was not responsive to my question. She said that I should pay attention to the NSF website as there might be forthcoming changes.
Here’s another gridcell where CRU has truncated high early values. This is the gridcell that contains the important Jacoby Mongolian tree ring series. If untruncated gridcell information is used, then the ring width chronology has a negative correlation to gridcell temperature. What a swamp. Continue reading →
I’ve described in the past how the U.S. government has adequate policies for data archiving on paper, but that NSF had been totally co-opted by non-compliant scientists and their administration of data archiving could be described only as ineffective or non-existent. Doug Keenan wrote in on some calls to NSF:
NSF grant conditions are specified here: http://www.nsf.gov/awards/managing/general_conditions.jsp
There are different grant conditions depending on the year in which the award was granted. In fact, though, all grants made since 1995 (possibly earlier—conditions prior to 1995 are not listed) include a condition entitled “Sharing of Findings, Data, and Other Research Products”. My interpretation of the condition is that researchers must share their data.
So, I telephoned the NSF and spoke with someone in the Policy Office about this. (The person was Beth Strausser.) I was informed that my interpretation was correct, although there could be some dispute about how raw the shared data had to be. Apparently, partially-processed data might suffice; it seemed unclear as to how that would be judged. I then asked what should be done if a researcher refused to share data. Strausser said that in principle the program manager might get involved, but that in reality the sharing policy was “self policed” by scientists in the field. She briefly elaborated: the NSF relied on other scientists in the field to put (social) pressure on a researcher who refused to share data.
I can imagine rare cases where that approach might not be fully effective. Perhaps the FOI Act would be of use in such cases? I telephoned the Justice Dept. and spoke with an attorney in the Office of Information and Privacy (which deals with FOIA matters). (The attorney was Anne Work.) I was informed that because the NSF does not have the data, there is very little chance that a request made under the FOIA would be achieve anything.
Obviously “social pressure” has not accomplished anything with Lonnie Thompson or other non-compliant scientists. What a ridiculous way to produce and verify results being relied on for climate policy?
Here’s another strange CRU gridcell in which warm early values of Huhehaote aren’t used. Continue reading →
Yesterday, we had two curiosities from comparing GHCN data to HadCRU3 data – the apparent inconsistency between the HadCRU3 version in some gridcells e.g. 27.5N 117.5E and the apparent termination of much GHCN station data in 1990. Accordingly I collected all stations in the GHCN v2 data base from this gridcell and compared them with, as so often in climate science, surprising results in even the most mundane task. Continue reading →
A couple of days ago, I reported on the comparison of Jones et al 1990 data to the TR055 data archived at NCDC, noting that the data was the same for all but one series. I’ve now been comparing the TR055 versions to GHCN v2 and HadCRU3 and noticing some puzzling aspects to both GHCNv2 and HadCRU3. Continue reading →
No one will accuse me of arguing that Dulan junipers are a proxy for temperature. But twq has been to Dulan and says that they are. So let’s take twq’s assertion at face value and, a la O.J. Simpson, let’s reluctantly explore what happens if Dulan junipers were a temperature proxy as twq says. A post put up under duress, so to speak. Continue reading →
Willis has posted a beautiful satellite photograph of the Dulan region upon which I’ve marked the locations of Delingha, Dulan and the Gou et al 2007 sample location. I’ve also posted up several location maps discussed recently which are clarified by reference to the satellite photo.
Something fun about this picture – the Dunde ice cap is to the NW of Delingha west of the little lake N of Delingha. I hadn’t fully appreciated the degree to which Dunde was off in the desert.
Continue reading →
Climate Audit 
