Saturday
May072011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill NZ scientists refuse too
May 7, 2011 Climate: Surface FOI Scientists in New Zealand are refusing to release information about a new temperature index they have published (H/T andyscrase). They have argued that technical details of how the new index was constructed and papers relating to the peer review that is alleged to have been performed are all exempt from the country's freedom of information legislation.
Is there no end to the corruption?
Reader Comments (42)
In a word - NO. The ends justify the means (in their minds).
Thanks for posting this Bish. There is a two-way blockage of information from both NIWA, and BoM who audited the review of the seven station record.
There appears to be some issues with the NZ and Aussie FOI laws that prevent release of this information.
The NZ Climate Science Coalition have been pressing for a review of the series (which shows a warming trend that is two times global rates, but only after adjustments).
Arrogant, stupid , or corrupt take you pick for the reason .
These people are crooks. Simple as that.
@ andyscrase
Amazing result for only 16 people per square kilometre.
If they will not validate their results by releasing the data to the people who payed for it then the results are unable to be validated therefore invalid
@May 7, 2011 at 8:38 AM | andyscrase
"There appears to be some issues with the NZ and Aussie FOI laws that prevent release of this information."
Allegedly.
But if the "information" was even remotely "robust" and clearly showed that NZ was warming at twice the "global rate", the information would be out in a heart beat.
Dishonest parasites.
@Martin Brumby and others
NIWA et all were stonewalling requests to see a validation of their seven station series for years, denying that there was ever an issue. Then they released a "revised version" that looked exactly the same as the original, yet refused to disclose methods, and blocked FOI requests to see the peer review correspondence between Australian BoM and NZ NIWA
Draw your own conclusions.
Please note my FOI request was to the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia. Although the BoM were open about seeking the approval from NIWA to release docs. NIWA must have refused. It has been a plus to get their Schedule of 159 docs - 1600 pages - listed with descriptions. There are appeal options for me.
Kiwi sceptics have tried FOI in New Zealand to no avail yet.
Well done, Warwick!
In New Zealand, NIWA refused my OIA request for information, so I appealed to the ombudsman, whose investigation is under way. How great to have Warwick trying for information from his end that might help us over here. But then, the whole world shares the one climate engine, after all, so we're all in the same boat, aren't we?
So far the only new information revealed by the BoM is that NIWA paid nothing for the peer review. At least there's nothing to add to the $70,000 of taxpayer's funds they spent on the temperature review itself.
NIWA claim the BoM correspondence is protected by legal professional privilege. But I am advised that could only be the case if the Review was undertaken for the purpose of defending the legal proceedings we have mounted against them. However, sadly for NIWA, the Review was announced in February 2010 but our proceedings weren't filed until August 2010.
I don't know what moves the legal team may or may not have up their sleeves, nor for that matter what the science team might have found in their review of the scientific material — although I have heard some excited conversations among the scientists, so it might pay to keep an eye on our Climate Conversation!
Cheers,
Richard.
Out, out, damned spot!
======
Is there no end to the corruption?
It all depends on your point of view. Anything short of total transparency by the scientists is viewed as corruption by Andrew Montford. But try asking how much Andrew Montford's appearance fee was on Newsnight and that's entirely different and none of your business.
You're absolutely right, Hengist. What the Bishop got paid for his appearance on Newsnight, or indeed anything else to do with his income from any source, is none of my business or yours or anybody's but HMRC.
Deliberately concealing data from research paid for by the taxpayer and blocking FOI requests for information that will allow the taxpayer to decide whether the data holders are honest, competent, or possibly a bunch of lying toerags is a different matter entirely.
And if you don't understand that then you are even more obtuse than your normal standard of comment would indicate.
Do you have a reasoned case to make as to why this temperature data should not be available to the public? If so, we -- and a number of New Zealand taxpayers -- would be delighted to hear what it is.
Or put another way, why don't you put up or shut up.
I'm a private citizen and no public policies depend on my utterances. The scientists are public servants and they say we have to change the way we live because of what they say.
I'm amazed I have to explain this, particularly as I've told you this before IIRC.
You haven't had a lot of luck over the years with data requests to climate scientists have you Warwick?
@Mike Jackson
Well antipodean FOI law isn't my field but try this
A reasoned case seems to have been made by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. "The rationale for the maintenance of confidentiality and anonymity is to facilitate free and unfettered feedback to be given to the author of the research study and to robustly test a fellow scientist's proposed hypothesis. The principles and conventions which enable scientists to do this is the understanding that all communications, workings, raw data, test results and working drafts of papers are held in confidence." or more succinctly in point 19 "the long standing convention that the process is universally accepted to be undertaken on a confidential basis."
"the long standing convention that the process is universally accepted to be undertaken on a confidential basis."
So part of your defence is 'We have always done it this way'
Hardly argument winning stuff, wonder if it works for speeding tickets.
@ Breath of Fresh Air
Huh ? Part of my defence? What am I accused of ? Mike Jackson said we would be delighted to hear a reasoned case as to why this data should not be available to the public. I presented one. Thank me later.
No, Hengist, you provided a lot of bureaucratic waffle which just for fun I ran through the Flesch-Kincaid Test.
On a scale of 0-100 (the higher the easier) it came in at 8.3 on the Reading Ease Scale and the Grade Level is 23.0 which makes it far and away the most obscure piece of English I have had the misfortune to have thrown at me in years. As a further test I tried the Gunning Fog Index which came in at 20.37.
Try googling these and see what you come up with; different interpretations have slightly different figures (bit like temperature data sets, really).
For your information The Times and The Guardian are reckoned to be about 14. Anything over 15 needs a degree and is usually confined to academic papers. According to juicystudio.com, "over 20: only government sites can get away with this, because you can't ignore them. Over 30: the government is covering something up". Worth knowing that.
So to get back to the point, Hengist. What you have given me, if I understand it correctly, is the Australian BoM's excuse for not releasing the figures which it might just at a pinch be able to support. Now try to defend the NIWA's justification, if any, for withholding the data.
I'll give you 8/10 for at least engaging in the debate. Unfortunately you get docked 5 points for talking s***te.
Try again.
If they were seeking to convince, they would be delighted to demonstrate.
If they are reluctant to demonstrate they are not seeking to convince.
I do not know why anyone would support their reluctance to demonstrate.
I'll need to think about it.
Funny how apologists such as Hengist dredge up such specious bollocks to attempt a justification for NIWA's behaviour.
Of interest to me is the manner in which NIWA and the CRU at UEA are joined at the hip and have been for many years by the UEA/CRU training graduates who went off happily to work at NIWA and it's antecedent; each organisation mirrors the unacceptable behaviour of the other as regards FOI requests. Apart from the ramifications for the NZ climate record, what really angers me as a Kiwi is the damage this does to the usually-excellent reputation my country has for principled and ethical behaviour at most levels of our society.
Alexander K
Yours is a just bit of bureaucratic bother - though you are right to regard it as a warning. This sort of thing has pervaded the UK for many years and at many levels. Now we only pretend to be shocked and stunned.
Now, if only they had super-injunctions on this sort of issue!
Hengist
You were flat out wrong about tropical cyclones.
You were caught out blatantly distorting what BH and (bizarrely) even Keith Briffa said.
You have scuttled away from those threads without a backward glance, but the problem is, your credibility is now completely gone. Had you not noticed?
The difference between 'sparring', as you once put it, and trolling, is that you punch back when you are sparring.
You are a troll. Disruptive, dishonest and vexatious, and always fleeing your last irruption on the way to the next.
Anyway, here's a thought: why don't you open up comments on your blog so people here can drop in and share their views as easily as you do here?
What's stopping you? What are you afraid of?
A thought occured to me, is this kind of secretive behaviour unique to climate science or is it the way that scientists in general behave nowadays? What I am getting at is, if it were some other field of science that this blog and others like it were sceptical about, would we find openness or would we find that researchers in that field held their cards very close to their chests as well? I find it interesting that the more general science blogs toe the AGW line and in some cases are excessively hostile to the sceptic point of view. If the secretive behaviour of climate researchers was really out of the ordinary, you would expect it to raise a few eyebrows among scientists in other fields surely.
Having said all that, I think that the best hope of bursting the AGW bubble is to focus on predictions that were made upwards of ten years ago. Recording hysterical predictions and then reporting on them when they fail to happen must surely be highly effective. It is also extremely good fun which means that the tabloid press are likely to enjoy reporting it.
It's amazing how they manage to sound triumphant about 'beating' the FOI requests - they should be hiding under a table in shame.
The default position for sceptics should be: 'sorry old boy, can't discuss that paper, they haven't released the data, methodology or computer codes - so it's not valid'
From the Ecclesiastical Uncle an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
Sorry, Hengist at 2.39pm, I don't understand. The first sentence you quote seems to be a bit of an oxymoron because the opening words seem to make everybody involved into conspirators with opposite intentions to those laudably extolled in the rest. Are not good scientists meant to revel in the cut and thrust of falsification? What bureaucrat wrote that stuff and hobbled the organisation? Bet it was an outsider!
@Mike Jackson
It's not New Zealand scientists nor the NIWA witholding the documentation , it's the Bureau of Meteorology.
And if you read my first comment you'll see my premise wasn't about the rights and wrongs of the Bureau of Meteorology's decision.
@BBD
Who said the art of the ad hom was dead?
Comments are open on my own blog and always have been.
Only if you have a google account. You can't even be straight about this.
And Hengist, don't trouble to address any of the points in my earlier comment, will you?
Mike Jackson @4:03
Spot on. Our mutual friend's MO is misrepresentation and obfuscation. He is obliged to do this because he rarely has a valid point.
Most of us have the sense to keep quiet when we have nothing to say, but Hengist just cannot help himself.
That's why he's a laughing stock on this blog (remember that, Hengist?).
Is there a chronology of events? I followed some of the links and saw that an explanation of adjustments was originally requested. I presume that this was never provided, but it would be nice to see a summary of events
Hengist
Read Warwick Hughes' post at 10.36 a.m. and you'll understand.
Perhaps.
And I'm not sure which of your comments you're referring to, the ad hom attack on Bishop Hill, maybe?
Change this for
"NZ investment managers refuse to open books on new investment fund", to get a feel for just how sleazy these faux scientists are.
Stonyground May 7, 2011 at 5:53 PM |
Steve Goddard at http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/
does a fair job on past predictions and other headlines
Steve re: background
These provide a useful background:
http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/niwa.ct.docs.pdf
http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/nztr%20-%20brief%20history.pdf
[Sbip - venting]
matthu - neither of these sources provide a chronology of efforts to obtain the adjustments.
Steve - this link here
http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=14&Itemid=47
gives details of letters between Coalition chairman Barry Brill and NIWA chairman Chris Mace bwteeen March and june 2010 leading up to the Coalition taking NIWA to the High Court in August 2010.
It is my understanding that the original temperature record was then "disowned" by NIWA who then produced a replacement temperature series "peer-reviewed" by Australian BoM which is now the subject of FOI requests.
I am going to try to put together a clearer chronology for Steve M and other interested parties. I'll keep you posted as to progress.
Do these people not learn!
Their research is paid for by taxpayers; the taxpayers are the OWNERS of their research; they cannot say it's "our secret". They cannot say "scary things will happen if you do not do what we say, and we have the data to prove it" and then not let you look at the data that you paid for and are, therefore, the owner of.