2011/11/24

Confirmation of the Green House Effect

The Effect of CO2 on IR
The Setup
Volume of trapped air in Vacuum Flask 541ml
Air is in a vacuum thermal flask made of double skin stainless steel designed for isolation of liquid from external temperature influence

IR Absorber used to collect IR is 18g matt black anodised corrugated aluminium rectangular block 40mm by 44mm
Distance from end of tube to top of absorber is 128mm

IR Transmitter is 49mm diameter matt black aluminium
Thermal conduction isolation provide by 135mm tube with internal convection cooling internal diameter 49mm

Air exchange isolation provided by  low density polyethylene (LDPE “cling film”)
Test Set up



Method
1       Temperature recorded at 1 second intervals using an eight channel USB thermocouple interface
2       Apparatus set up as shown but with the IR transmitter isolated from the system. The Internal volume of the vacuum flask was filled with room temperature air (RH approx 50%). The flask then had 60ml of CO2 injected (3 lots of 20ml) (This increases the concentration of CO2 but not to the full 60ml as each injection would displace some of the already injected CO2).
3       IR Transmitter maintained at greater than 100C whilst thermocouple temperatures stabilised
4       When stability reached IR transmitter cooled to 101C and placed on top of tube
5       Temperature of IR transmitter maintained as stable as possible at approximately 100°C during the heating of the gas to greater than 25°C
6       The IR source was removed and the vacuum flask air replaced with room air (using a small fan).
7       The system was then cooled by placing ice cubes in a glass on the LDPE film on the vacuum flask.
8       The system was then reassembled but without the IR source.
9       The air temperature was the allowed to stabilise.
9       The test method was repeated until the air temperature was above 25°C
10     The Air in the flask was then enhanced with CO2 and cooled again, repeating the same method as above

11     The same method was also run (with CO2 and normal done in reverse order) on a previous occasion. 
The Results:
1       Using the last 2 runs (room air then CO2 enhanced room air) and measuring the slope of temperature rise per second at around 25°C shows a significant increase with more CO2
2       Also the temperature array record a smaller spread with increased CO2.





Conclusion
CO2 in these two instances caused between 6 and 10% greater heating rate
The temperature gradient of the "air" is the reverse of what would be expected with convection or radiation (the higer up the flask the probe the cooler the air)


http://www.spectralcalc.com/blackbody_calculator/blackbody.php
373K
Radiant emmittance: 1097.64 W/m2
Radiance: 349.389 W/m2/sr
Peak spectral radiance: 29.5722 W/m2/sr/µm
Wavelength of peak: 7.76877 µm

298k
Radiant emmittance: 447.186 W/m2
Radiance: 142.344 W/m2/sr
Peak spectral radiance: 9.62545 W/m2/sr/µm
Wavelength of peak: 9.724 µm

100C source is 135mm+125mm-45mm from top thermocouple
top thermocouple is 45 mm from re-radiator
The heating effect of the top 100C source is therefore reduced by 45^2/ 215^2

The green trace below is radiation from the 101C  source.
The Blue trace is the upward long wave radiation from the 25C collector.








CO2 3 times more absorption at 4um than 15um
BB radiation curve shows that 4um absorption and 16um absorption are similar when sensitivity is considered

101C curve always adds less energy to CO2 than 25C re-radiator at 45mm Sensor. The difference will increase as the sensor distance from the re-radiator decreseas







2011/11/05

Just How good Are Satellite Derived Temperatures (updated)

Many changes have been made to satellite derive temperatures ( I have asked Spencer to explain the differences and unrecorded adjustments on many blogs. BUT never has he bothered to explain).
With the current BEST surface temperature  slanging matches raging on the anti AGW blogs all eyes seem to be turning to the satellite record and opinions seem to suggest that these results are what everyone should be usingas the gold standard (mainly because they only show the last 8 year and these have a cooling trend!!)

What goes up must (in earth orbit) eventually come down.
NOAA-15 was once the satellite producing the temperature records (from 1998) however as the hardware progressively fails the data from the AQUA satellite has been used (data available from 2002)

This gave a 6 year overlap where the temperatures could be compared and corrected. This, according to Leif Svalgaard is what happens with the TSI measurements for solar activity.

My complaint is that there is a LARGE error in data between AQUA and NOAA-15 and no attempt to reconcile the differences is made or explanations given.
Indeed The UAH team handling the data seem to adjust data at a whim.
For example: for channel 05 AQUA between the dates of 2010-07-03 and 2011-10-01 data missing in the earlier plot suddenly appeared in the later plot  (from 2009-02-01 to 2009-02-03 and on 2010-11-25 and 2010-11-26 Why and how? Also in my data the earlier records were one day adrift !! (could have been me however)

People are quibbling about discrepancies of 0.12 K/decade  but looking at the comparison between NOAA-15 data and AQUA this 0.12K/decade is the discrepancies produced by the two satellites and modified by the same team.

Chan 05
.

From the above plot during the overlap period:
NOAA warming is 3.27e-5K/day = 0.119K/decade
AQUA warming is -1.95e-5K/day = -0.0712K/decade
Also of interest is the two plots for the same series but obtained at different times red and blue in the plot these seem to have been revised without explanation (by up to .08K)

Looking at CH 4 data, the current data on their web site runs from 2002 to 2008 (with the last 6 monts failing) The data that was available (NOAA?) went from 1998 to 2011 and despite this being the longer record  is not used on their Discover website.


Again the slope over the valid overlap period is:
AQUA 1.0404e-5K/day = 0.0380K/decade
NOAA 1.1879e-4K/day = 0.434K/decade


Another series CH06


AQUA -4.2323e-5K/day = -0.154K/decade
NOAA -1.7595e-4K/day = -0.642K/decade

Chan 10


AQUA -6.59e-5K/day = -0.2345K/decade
NOAA -9.58e-4K/day = -0.3411K/decade
Chan 13



AQUA -2.1174e-4K/day = -0.754K/decade
NOAA -1.4831e-4K/day = -0.528K/decade

Another plot shows that CHLT (NOAA defunct) and CH04 (recently AQUA defunct) had peaks and troughs occurring at the same time. However comparing CH04 to Sea Surface temperature the temperature of the sea changes BEFORE the air temperature by a couple of months. HOW?


Absolute temperature differences
CH4 NOAA) - (CH4 AQUA)=-2K
( CH5 NOAA) - (CH5 AQUA)=-0.11K
( CH6 NOAA) - (CH6 AQUA)=-0.99K
( CH10 NOAA) - (CH10 AQUA)=-0.279K
( CH13 NOAA) - (CH13 AQUA)=0.062K
Conclusion

There seems to be many more problems with satellite temperatures than with surface temperatures. Why then are these held up as being the golden standard???

2011/11/02

2011/09/21

WUWT Revisionism double standards - updated

Richard Allan says: September 20, 2011 at 9:27 am

I was surprised that this paper was mis-interpreted as suggesting negative cloud feedback. This is a basic error by the author of the post that has been highlighted by many contributors including Roy Spencer.

REPLY: Dr. Allan, thank you for visiting and for your correction. Please note that I’ve made an update to the post, removing the word negative from the headline and including why I interpreted the paper to demonstrate a negative feedback for clouds. I welcome your thoughts. It seems to me that if clouds had a positive feedback, the dips in 1998 and 2010 in your figure 7 would be peaks rather than deep valleys.
...- Anthony



Bishop Hill and the skeptical cookbook


Posted on September 20, 2011 by Anthony Watts

Oh this is fun, Bishop Hill catches John Cook’s “Skeptical Science” in a revisionism gaffe using The Wayback Machine.
===========================

And of course the factual post converted to a "learning" exercise:
Its snowing CO2 in the antarctic!!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/09/co2-condensation-in-antarctica-at-113f/


My post on Curry point out that watts and his ilk have been demanding peer review by blog. They get it with Best ... and then complain bitterly about Best  pre-publishing - you just cannot win!

thefordprefect
Watts
you/your accolytes have been calling for peer review by blog for a very long time (recent postings):
Peer review is dead, long live blog review
Posted on September 21, 2011 by Anthony Watts
By Marc Hendrickx writing in ABC’s The Drum
An opportunity for online peer review
Posted on March 27, 2011 by Anthony Watts
I have been asked to present this for review by readers here, and to solicit critical comments for the purpose of improving the presentation.
Now, apart from the press release what is the difference with the BEST release?
From my reading the press release is all about try to stop them misrepresenting the information (as happened with the CRU emails).
Why are you so critical of best when they seem to be doing what you want (e.g. listening to McIntyre)?

2011/09/19

More on Bart, FFTs and Cloud vs temperature

To me it seems that the plot has been lost on CA were discussions revolve around FFTs iFFT convolutions etc.

Is there a relation ship between cloud (Net_tot-SW_clr) and temperature or temperature and cloud?

How about a few simple plots:

The first uses data filtered with a Hodrick-Prescott filter of 1 and plots temperature anomaly against (Net_tot-SW_clr) sorted .
The second removes any filtering:



As can be seen the is a slight rising trend.

So now reverse the axis and plot cloud cover vs temperature anomaly (sorted) These are Duff!!


So there does seem to be a temperature and  (Net_tot-SW_clr) relationship. But which is the forcing????

2011/09/12

FFTs Cloud feedback and Stuff

Many "sums" have been done using FFTs and convolution.
It started out with Spencer:



Changed to this with "Bart"


However there seems to me to be problems with all of this.

1.  the data being used is from 10 years only
2.  the data from clear to cloudy sky is not simultaneous
3.  the  data is average over 1 month so can never be safely used to subtract clear from cloudy - the data is smeared over 1 month and can never be data from the same region.
3a. Albedo of soil and water are very different- cloud over water will show a large TOA flux difference wheras the cloud over land will show less outward going flux.
water albedo= 0.02 approx (at some angles)

ground albedo = 0.1 to 0.5
Clouds albedo = 0 to 0.8
Wiki
4.  What about the "insulating" effect of clouds at night. Shouldn't this be included in any flux calculations?
5.  There is no way the data available from Spencer/Dessler/Bart can show the accurate change in flux due to clouds

the Plots below are simple spectrums using the FFT function in excel. Note that any thing over 60 years period has very little resolutuion. and these are from 200 year records not 10 year!!.

Also when doing FFT on a non infinite series the trend should be removed before the fft transform is applied as the termination of data at either end causes problems. Using a FFT windowing function will also improve performance.

Comparison between data with a trend and detrended data:


Ocean albedo calc
http://snowdog.larc.nasa.gov/jin/rtset.html

Measurement of ground albedo
http://www.cuepe.ch/html/biblio/pdf/ineichen%201990%20-%20ground-reflected%20radiation%20and%20albedo%20(se).pdf

Variation/validation  of Albedo
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.64.6930&rep=rep1&type=pdf

2011/09/08

More on IR water penetration depth

Using a similar setup to the previous  posting different filtering methods have been used to see if pentration depth can be tested.
In test 1 a heat sink was placed in the tube preventing any visible light entering the water. The stable temperature of the heatsink was 100C The tube was ventilated from just above the transparent seal above the water to just below the heatsink. at the top of the tube. The bulk of radiation entering the water would be radiated from the bottom of the heatsink

In test 2 the heat sik was replaced with a 1cm deep tray of water. This should effectively remove any LW IR leaving only visible light. The tube was again ventilated.

The temperature plots with depth are shown together with the rate of change of temperature with depth.

Not very conclusive although it appears that 100C blackbody is significantly attenuated below 6mm of depth. (the final 2 thermocouples showing the leakage of the thermos heating the water (possibly)
The visible light seems to be adding significantly to the water at a depth of 55mm.

Note that there seems to be no explanation for the dips in reading of temperature. The apparatus was not disturbed and no light change occurred. (one of the dips - at 24mins was caused by the filter water being replaced with cool water)




 
 
2012-08-12
 

2011/09/04

McIntyre and Acolyte Vigilantyism

The unsupported accusations against Jones, Mann etc continues unabated on the "auditing " site
"Did he add any "
"The prima facie evidence "
"this particular finding of the Inquiry Committee clearly does not follow "
"Watch the pea here, "
"It seems to me that “Professor” Jones "
"I use *might* because it is still not clear that any offense was actually "
"The academics did not describe the conduct as it was. Instead, they misdescribed the conduct and then made findings unsupported by the evidence"

etc.
etc.

Never mind the evidence - Hang em High:


"thefordprefect Posted Sep 4, 2011 at 5:38 AM
Your comment is awaiting moderation.


Trial by Lynch Mob is just sooo American

------------------

thefordprefect Posted Sep 4, 2011 at 5:54 AM
Your comment is awaiting moderation.


Wiki


Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that arise in communities, such as charivari, riding the rail, and tarring and feathering. Lynchings have been more frequent in times of social and economic tension, and have often been means used by the politically dominant population to oppress social challengers.

=================

Then of course there is the poor Phil post.

This is just unbelievable. Apparently Jones lost kgs of weight, and aged 10 years just to comply with media management instigated by Neil Wallis.
This is a truly despicable post by someone who claims only to want the truth!!!!

================

If McIntyre is really a climate auditor then should he not be auditing papers such as the Spencer & Braswell paper?? The Cern Cloud report???

No, Perhaps his cognitive function has been clouded by hatred of all things Mann and Jones!

thefordprefect Posted Sep 4, 2011 at 6:21 AM
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
McIntyre if you really are a climate auditor then should he not be auditing papers such as the Spencer – Braswell paper?? The Cern Cloud report???
There are so many from both sides.
I suppose you will be reposting all the hide the decline emails soon. It must be over a week since you mentioned these!!!!!


=================
thefordprefect


Posted Sep 7, 2011 at 7:13 AM
Permalink
Reply

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Collected here are data from different past plots on the spencer and braswells discover page


There are many revisions:

Some due to satellite changes (but if temperatures from satellites are accurate then shouldn’t temperature a a fixed altitude be the same from satellite to satellite?)

Some just terminate

Some are just revised by a few 100ths K why? if this is such a clean data source?
Satellites do not give a global snapshot at a time they are a moving window taking hours? days? to complete a global sweep

Is the satellite data corrected for local time?



If satellites recording temp are so variable how can anyone use them to determine the effect of clouds? As far as I’m aware the global temperature derived from satellites is adjused for cloud cover!!!!



Temperatures are derived from someone’s models that derive temperature from radiation+mods for intervening layers etc. Is this really better than surface measurements

2011/08/22

How far does IR penetrate Water? (failed?)

An attempted experiment to measure how far IR penetrates (tap) water (UK variety)

Problem points:
  • The wide necked Vacuum flask turns out to be a wide necked flask!
  • The high frequency cut off of the IR pass filter is not known (this was purchased from Edmund Optical)
  • The High intensity Low votage Halogen lamp is not the sun and has a peak output at the red end of solar spectrum (3500K cf 5000K)
Test setup

Thermocouples are placed away from the light input at distances below the water surface of
  • 1mm
  • 3mm
  • 11.2mm
  • 18.5mm
  • 39.5mm
Tube and filter 50mm diameter

2 runs made with and without the IR pass (visible stop) filter:
These produce 2 outputs:




The Filter
Using a camera as a lightmeter and looking at the halogen source the filter reduces the exposure (mainly visible) by a factor of 110.
The light source.
20 watts = perhaps 10 watts into tube and 1 watt (unfiltered) into water


What they show
The spectrum of the bulb is not generated from a hot enough filament. The heating effect of filtered and unfiltered light is very similar.
Unfiltered heating does not predominate at greater depths (it is virtually the same as IR "only")
At a 39mm depth heating effect has little effect over the leakage throught the faulty vacuum flask.

What I would have thought.
Despite the limitations I would have expected significantly greater heat imput (faster temp rise ) at depth with unfiltered light.

Suggestions?

2011/07/31

More Arctic Sea Ice!

The plots below suggest that the rate of decrease is the same as previous years. However the starting area was lower over winter. This suggests a minimum extent of 4.6e6 sqkm

However comparing the 2 images from 2011 and 2007 created by
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
The seems to be more chance of a lower minimum than 2007 if the freeze does not start earlier.






2011/07/20

McIntyre - the downward spiral into the gutter + more posts that may never make it!

Just so much unsubstantiated crud. Climate AUDIT should audit itself!
Notice how McIntyre never ACTUALLY accuses anyone - innuendo is sufficient for the accolytes to pick it up and embelish it.

"Covert” Operations by East Anglia’s CRU


Steve McIntyre Posted Jul 15, 2011 at 7:47 AM
I wonder how much Outside Organisation contributed to misdirecting the police about international security services, and thus the involvement of Counter-Terrorism officers.

Posted Jul 14, 2011 at 3:47 PM
Remember the apparent disinformation about Russian intelligence agencies. 18 months later, there isn’t (to my knowledge) a shred of evidence for this theory. Nonetheless, this was fed into the press and quickly accepted as gospel by the climate science community. Remember Pierrehumbert’s fulminations at Dot Earth about this. And Andrew Weaver’s talk about international conspiracy. I wonder how much of this stemmed from Outside Organisation’s intervention.


Posted Jul 15, 2011 at 7:02 AM
I agree that the reference to “mobile phone conversations” – of which there isn’t a shred of evidence and was not under discussion at the time = suggests (but doesn’t prove) a connection to Neil Wallis and Outside Organisation, as this surely seems like a specific embellishment that they would have added to the legend being disseminated to the climate science community and to the public.


R.S.Brown Posted Jul 14, 2011 at 7:36 PM
It takes little, if any, imagination to join up the dots between Mr. Willis’s employment by the University of East Anglia’s (UEA) Climate Research Unit (CRU) and the spectacular failure of the East Anglia police in investigating the who, what, when and where of the unauthorized release of the Climategate materials
Steve McIntyre Posted Jul 14, 2011 at 10:10 PM
One of the main elements of the disinformation campaign in early December was what may have been the planting of stories that blamed Climategate on Russian security elements. One of the pieces of “evidence” that supposedly pointed to “sophisticated” hackers was East Anglia’s claims to have had a “sophisticated” security system – a claim that seems to be viewed now as a fabrication. I wonder how much Outside Organisation had to with disseminating the idea of “Russian security services”.

Posted Jul 18, 2011 at 5:12 PM
As I reported last year, I was interviewed by a Counter Terrorism officer who had been seconded to Norfolk Constabulary to work on the East Anglia emails. I wonder if Neil Wallis had any involvement in getting Counter Terrorism officers working on East Anglia emails rather than Al Qaeda or such.


pat Posted Jul 17, 2011 at 6:44 PM
the local norfolk newspaper, Eastern Daily Press, which covered wallis and UEA (only to give cover) is owned by a big media company called Archant. here’s the Board:
Richsrd Jewson, Chairman
He is HM Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk and also Chairs the Council for the University of East Anglia.
Richard chairs the remuneration and nominations committees
Adrian Jeakings Chief Executive
He is a governor of Norwich School and a member of the Audit Committee of the University of East Anglia…
Mike Walsh Director
He has had extensive involvement in the charity sector as Worldwide Board member of WWF, Vice Chairman of the British Red Cross, and completed his six-year term as Chairman of the UK Disasters Emergency Committee in March 2011.
http://www.archant.co.uk/about_board.aspx

mpaul Posted Jul 18, 2011 at 9:49 AM
It would seem that one of Wallis’ singular talents was is knowing how to pay-off the Police http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/07/17/158069.html . This raises important questions about the unusual and unaccounted for payment by UEA to the Norfolk Police Authority http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2011/6/22/whats-up-with-norfolk-police.html

. There needs to be a call for a complete explanation of Wallis’ activities while employed by the UEA.

my latest which seems to be in moderation again!!! I'm sure the only blogs to not censor comments (wuwt and ca) cannot be selecting posts!

Walt Man Posted Jul 20, 2011 at 12:48 PM
How do you KNOW that Neil Wallis was requested explicitly by UEA as you IMPLY in your header.
As far as any information is available UEA Employed Outside Organisation to get their point of view to the press.
Wallis was surely provided by Outside Organisation as a suitable person from OO to do the requested work. NOBODY KNEW that he was implicated in hacking at THAT TIME. Can you prove differently?
When your “mineral” prospecting company requires an accountant, do you check the future to see if the accountant provided by an accounting firm will be or has been (but not discovered yet) fiddling the books of another organisation?
Your talents must be amazing, or you are making unsubstantiated accusations!
----
Eric Posted Jul 20, 2011 at 1:19 PM
I read no such implication in the header. Wallis is toxic and we now have evidence that he was hired, through OO, as UEA’s reputation manager. That is all that the header says, and that is enough to merit further investigation.
----
thefordprefect Posted Jul 20, 2011 at 4:40 PM
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Eric Posted Jul 20, 2011 at 1:19 PM I read no such implication in the header. Wallis is toxic and we now have evidence that he was hired, through OO, as UEA’s reputation
University of East Anglia had used Neil Wallis”
“The University of East Anglia was not the only UK institution that employed Wallis”
“That their first instinct was to seek counsel from a former News of the World editor”
“reputation management” problem and the sort of advice that they needed could be obtained from a former News of the World editor (let alone one with Wallis’ baggage).”
Only the first statement has an ounce of truth. The rest are just wrong – the UEA employed OO, OO provided their consultant Wallis. As said above “When your “mineral” prospecting company requires an accountant, do you check the future to see if the accountant provided by an accounting firm will be or has been (but not discovered yet) fiddling the books of another organisation?”
=======
Another never to emerge from moderation perhaps!!!
-Walt Man Posted Jul 22, 2011 at 7:49 AM

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Martin Brumby Posted Jul 22, 2011 at 7:10 AM
Blimey Mate, you are now accusing the notw as a bunch of dishonest hacks before they were even KNOWN to be such.
My company has employed a firm of accoiuntants. I do not KNOW who is actually doing my accounts – it varies from year to year. They certainly do not send me the CVs of this person. The CV is not even likely to say “I have worked in phone hacking” is it? I put my trust in the accountants company. Not the tea boy who probably presses the button on the computer to roll out the 2 accounts documents and the submission to HMRC. I even managed to do it last year (saved £900!!)
UEA employed an agency to get their view to the press. OO has/had plenty of famous names on the books. Why should they not trust the person OO allocates to do this simple job? What is so difficult to understand about this?
===============
That one made it - how about this:
thefordprefect Posted Jul 23, 2011 at 4:29 AM | Permalink | Reply
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Richard Drake Posted Jul 23, 2011 at 2:21 AM | Permalink | Reply
What if the person ‘recruiting’ him for UEA knew some of the darker parts of his past, and that this would guarantee he wouldn’t step out of line? That’s the hunch I’ve had.

ZT Posted Jul 22, 2011 at 10:54 PM | Permalink | Reply
It appears that British officials are selected exclusively for blackmail potential these days. (Similar to the system employed at the UN).

hro001 Posted Jul 23, 2011 at 2:02 AM | Permalink | Reply
It seems that Wallis was … hmmm … not home alone.

“What if”
“Hunch”
“It appears”
“It seems”

Where’ the EVIDENCE for any of this.

I know for a fact Elvis may be alive
It is absolutely certain that area 51 possibly houses alien artifacts
There is incontrovertible evidence that the moon landings were possibly staged!

=====
Off moderation so posted but how long will it last before deletion!?

walt man
Posted Jul 23, 2011 at 5:27 AM | Permalink | Reply

How times change:

Steve McIntyre, posted on Jan 12, 2010 at 11:35 PM
You get to watch somebody named phil jones say that John daly’s death is good news.. or words to that effect.

This leads to indignation that such a comment can be made (no mention that it was presumed a private email.

Now you plaster all over the web comments where it is stated that Jones brush with suicide was a put up job to get the sympathy vote. Did no one see him present his case to parliament – was he shown by Wallis how to starve himself. Did Wallis show him how to dye his hair just the right side of grey to match his pallid complection. Did Wallis give him acting lessons to get just the right amount of quaver in his voice?

YOU PEOPLE AMAZE ME
and just recently
YOU PEOPLE DISGUST ME.
========
Well this got posted then everything got deleted and the whole thread now in disarray. Well done McIntyre!

walt man
Posted Jul 23, 2011 at 7:52 AM | Permalink | Reply
Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Run???? It took almost 3 months for this to surface. Wouldn’t it have been better to say this after perhaps 1 month for maximum impact?

From The Sunday Times February 7, 2010
Professor Phil Jones said in an exclusive interview with The Sunday Times that he had thought about killing himself “several times”. He acknowledged similarities to Dr David Kelly, the scientist who committed suicide after being exposed as the source for a BBC report that alleged the government had “sexed up” evidence to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Richard Drake Posted Jul 23, 2011 at 6:18 AM | Permalink | Reply
The very fact you equate someone’s death with a threat of suicide if someone asks someone too many awkward questions shows the moral vacuum in which you are operating.

What!!!
A natural death. A private comment to others:

“Mike,
In an odd way this is cheering news !”

That’s it, all of IT, how on earth do you misinterpret this comment? The moral vacuum that I work in is that I at least believe that my grandchildren deserve a better world to live in. That those equatorial dwellers deserve a homeland that is inhabitable.
I unfortunately also believe that it is probable that Man can destroy the environment!

2011/06/25

Revisionism in the satellite Temperatures

http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
 Dr. Roy Spencer and Dr. Danny Braswell, NSSTC Control the data

No problem with this (it presumably corrects errors from an older satellite) But if this had been done by CRU/Giss etc. it would have headlined on WUWT and CA with statements that this proves that the data and its controllers cannot be trusted!

One interesting one is CH4 (final plot) thewhole of the last years data (not shown on plot) has been deleted - why?






2011/06/18

Mcintyre and censorship

As McIntyre ages he becomes more irrascable. Just so many posts disappear from the blog that it eventually collapses in on itself with orphaned posts, and time-mixed posts, and confusion.

A post that will never see the light of day:!
in reply  to david jay who queried if I thought the IPCC should filter for conflicts of interest.

thefordprefect
Posted Jun 18, 2011 at 3:41 PM | Permalink | Reply
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
David Jay
It should be held to the same standards as blog writers.
from 2003
The Company has operations in Canada and Guyana, and its entire operating activities are related
to the exploration, development and production of petroleum and natural gas.
Stephen McIntyre, B.Sc., B.A.
Position Strategic Advisor
Age 56
Experience Steve has more than 28 years of experience in the mineral business. He is the former
President of Dumont Nickel Inc., and was President of Northwest Exploration Company
Limited, the predecessor company to CGX Energy Inc. During his career, Steve has
been the President and Chairman of other resource companies as well.

2011/06/12

Schnare vs UVA - The Impossible Request

The impossible request:




January 6, 2011

Dear Rector Wynne:

We the undersigned citizens and residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in coordination with the Environmental Law Center of the American Tradition Institute, ...

Subject Matter

We seek materials that Dr. Michael Mann produced and/or received while working for the University of Virginia and otherwise while using its facilities and resources, as specifically enumerated in the Attachment. We seek these records from a backup server identified already by the University as part of a related search, as detailed, below.

15. The scope of this request is to reach any and all data, documents and things in your possession, including those stored or residing on any of the specified or referenced (see FN 1, supra) computers, hard drives, desktops, laptops, file servers, database servers, email servers or other systems where data was transmitted or stored on purpose or as a result of transient use of a system or application in the course of day to day research or product processing work that is owned or contracted for by you or any of your officers, managers, employees, agents, board members, academic departments, divisions, programs, IT department, contractors and other representatives.

2. As used herein, the words "record", "records", "document" or "documents" mean the original and any copies of any written, printed, typed, electronic, or graphic matter of any kind or nature, however produced or reproduced, any book, pamphlet, brochure, periodical, newspaper, letter, correspondence, memoranda, notice, facsimile, e-mail, manual, press release, telegram, report, study, handwritten note, working paper, chart, paper, graph, index, tape, data sheet, data processing card, or any other written, recorded, transcribed, punched, taped, filmed or graphic matter now in your possession, custody or control.

...

1. All documents that constitute or are in any way related to correspondence, messages or e-mails sent by Dr. Michael Mann to, or received from, any of the following persons:
(a) Dr. Caspar Ammann,
(b) Dr. Raymond Bradley,
(c) Dr. Keith Briffa,
(d) Dr. John Christy,
(e) Dr. Edward Cook,
(f) Dr. Thomas Crowley,
(g) Dr. Roseanne D' Arrigo,
(h) Dr. Valerie Masson-Delmotte,
(i) Dr. David Douglass,
(j) Dr. Jan Esper,
(k) Dr. Melissa Free,
(l) Dr. Chris de Freitas,
(m) Dr. Vincent Grey,
(n) Dr. James Hack,
(o) Dr. Malcolm Hughes,
(p) Dr. Eystein Jansen,
(q) Dr. Phil Jones,
(r) Dr. Thomas Karl,
(s) Dr. Otto Kinne,
(t) Dr. A. T.J. de Laat,
(u) Dr. Murari Lal,
(v) Dr. Stephen Mackwell,
(w) Dr. Glenn McGregor,
(x) Stephen McIntyre,
(y) Dr. Ross McKitrick,
(z) Dr. Patrick Michaels,
(aa) Dr. Jonathan Overpeck,
(bb) Dr. Tim Osborn,
(cc) Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr.,
(dd) Dr. Benjamin Santer,
(ee) Dr. Gavin A. Schmidt,
ff) Dr. Stephen Schneider,
(gg) Dr. Olga Solomina,
(hh) Dr. Susan Solomon,
(ii) Dr. Kevin Trenberth,
(jj) Dr. Eugene Wahl,
(kk) Dr. Edward Wegman,
(ll) Dr. Thomas Wigley,
(mm) Dr. Vincent Gray, and
(nn) All research assistants, secretaries or administrative staff with whom Dr. Mann worked while he was at the University of Virginia.

========================

Response to the impossible request:
January 25, 2011
Mr. Christopher C. Horner
Dr. David W. Schnare
Del. Bob Marshall
Environmental Law Center at the American Tradition Institute
...
Dear Mr. Horner, Dr. Schnare and Del. Marshall:
I write in response to your request, dated January 6, 2011, under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for records relating to Dr. Michael Mann and others. The University previously informed you that it was taking the extension allowed by FOIA in which to respond to
your request.
After careful review, we have determined that your request does not comply with FOIA’s requirement to “identify the requested records with reasonable specificity.” Va. Code §2.2- 3704(B). The opening pages of your letter appear to direct the University to a specifically identified back-up server believed to contain certain e-mail relating to Dr. Mann. See Horner Ltr. at 1-2. Indeed, your letter appears to suggest that the fees associated with your request should be minimal because of the narrow target of your request. The Attachment to your letter, however, appears to request that the University conduct a broad search for documents encompassing more than a twelve-year period (Attach. Instr. ¶ 1); stored at any location (Attach. Instr. ¶ 14); and within a scope you describe as follows ...
As you likely know, the University of Virginia is made up of 11 schools in Charlottesville, and the College at Wise in southwest Virginia. It offers 51 bachelor's degrees in 47 fields, 84 master's degrees in 67 fields, six educational specialist degrees, two first-professional degrees
(law and medicine), and 57 doctoral degrees in 55 fields. The University currently has more than 14,000 employees and has had tens of thousands more “employees, agents . . . contractors and other representatives” during the past 12-year time period.
...

In response to your request for an estimate of costs, we believe it will cost at least $8,500 to process your FOIA request. We would request this minimum payment in advance of commencing our review of the requested records. There is no way for the University to predict the volume of records that are, in fact, responsive to your request and that are not protected from disclosure. Under FOIA, you will be responsible for the actual cost of producing the requested records, even if that cost exceeds the above estimate and the payment of your deposit.
...

====================

February 7, 2011



Dear Mr. Schnare:

I am responding to your January 31 letter, pursuant to the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, to the Rector of the University of Virginia. That letter was in response to our January 25 letter seeking clarification of your Freedom of Information Act request of January 6, 2011.

These issues undoubtedly are familiar to you. They are substantially the same issues we discussed with you in response to your FOIA requests for similar records on behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in May and June 2010. They also are substantially similar to the issues we discussed with your colleague, Delegate Marshall, in response to his FOIA request for similar records in October 2010. Indeed, you will note that the estimate of costs above is identical to the estimate we supplied to Delegate Marshall in October 2010 for searching the same records. In response to our prior cost estimates to both you and Delegate Marshall, we received no further communication or payment of the costs indicating a desire for the University

to proceed with those requests.

=================

After a phone call:

From: David Schnare [mailto:vvvvv@wwwww.com] Sent: Friday, February 11, 2011 11:51 AM To: Wilkerson, Elizabeth (epw3m) Cc: Chris.Horner@zzzzzz; DelegateBobMarshall@bbbbbbbbb

Subject: Follow up to Phonecon regarding VFOIA for records relating to Michael Mann
....

During our discussion I made the following points:

1. Having extensive experience in document production, we don't believe you will need to expend 340 hours to obtain, process and send us the documents on your server. Nevertheless, we will remit $8,500 and will seek return of unspent funds upon completion of the production.

The next UVA
From: Wilkerson, Elizabeth (epw3m) Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011 12:50 PM To: DWSchnare@gmail.com Subject: Your request to the University of Virginia -- Michael Mann

Dear Dr. Schnare:

Thank you for your e-mail of Thursday, Feb. 10. I write to confirm our telephone conversation and to provide some answers to your questions.

We will begin review of the materials on the server within a week after receiving your check for $8,500. Please make the check to Rector and Visitors, University of Virginia, and send it to Penney Catlett in the Office of Public Affairs at the address in the signature line below.
==============

A "lets scare them" document

The Law Center of the American Tradition Institute
...
February 15, 2011
VIA EMAIL
The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia
...

Dear Ms. Wilkerson:
...
As of this date, some 40 days after the initial request, the University affirms having identified the specific server upon which the documents we seek are stored. The department head of the unit using the server is on record with the media stating it would take no effort at all to produce the documents.

The University still, however, does not agree to initiate the required search and production until we provide a check for $8,500. Even in that instance, however, the University further refuses to offer or agree to a schedule upon which it will produce the records, instead indicating that it will only “begin” to access the documents with “a week” after receipt of the demanded fee, which on its face serves as a barrier to access and disclosure. Beyond that request for substantial, unsupported payment for an open-ended response with no schedule for production, the University offers us nothing more than that it would take over two months to

“review” those records if worked on full time, which the University also makes plain will not be the case. Further, the University refuses to commit to producing the records on a rolling basis, as we have requested.

At this point in the negotiations, and in light of the University's refusal to accede to any proposal we have made, we make a final request, after which we will be forced to seek judicial relief.

We would never seek to instruct you on the law, but bring to your attention Section 2.2-3704 of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, which states:

A public body may make reasonable charges not to exceed its actual cost incurred in accessing, duplicating, supplying, or searching for the requested records. No public body shall impose any extraneous, intermediary or surplus fees or expenses to recoup the general costs associated with creating or maintaining records or transacting the general business of the public body. (emphasis added)

In particular, we note the statute does not grant any reimbursement for the cost of reviewing or redacting the records.1

Regardless, the University demands charges that reflect “review of e-mails, and other documents on the server” and “review [of] them individually to determine whether they might be exempt from disclosure under state or federal law”. Elsewhere, you reaffirm that charges for these activities serve as the basis for much or most of your otherwise unsupported fee demand.

These activities are not reimbursable under the VFOIA, even though you admit they constitute the bulk of the fee you demand. As such, that demand is facially unreasonable and in contravention of the University's obligations under VFOIA.

We also note your express intention to provide Mr. Mann copies of the records that are being released under our request. Your decision to do so suggests that he is on an equal footing to we who seek these documents under the VFOIA, possibly because of some ownership of the records you ascribe to him. We would appreciate clarification of this but, regardless, as such, we expect that you will demand of him an equal fee for the records requested, and will assess us no more than half the actual cost of accessing, duplicating, supply and searching for the emails and related documents.



==========

February 17, 2011

David W. Schnare, Esq.

The Law Center of the American Tradition Institute

RE: Your Freedom of Information Act Request

Dear Mr. Schnare:

This will respond to your letter of February 15, 2011, to The Rector and Visitors of the University, John O. Wynne, Rector, and Elizabeth Wilkerson of our Office of Public Affairs. Before I bring you up to date on the University’s response to your Freedom of Information Act (“Act”) request, allow me to correct a number of mistakes and inaccuracies in your letter.

First, your second paragraph infers that the University delayed in notifying you of the “specific server upon which the documents [you] seek are stored.” This inference is incorrect. As you may recall, the University sought to have you state whether your request was University-wide, an enormously broad and unrealistic request that we informed you did not meet the specificity requirements of the Act, or whether it was limited to the server. The fact of the existence of the server had long been known and was disclosed to you early on. I’m not sure when the “department head” is supposed to have said that it “would take no effort at all to produce the documents,” but the only context in which this statement would make sense would be in the period prior to the server’s being discovered when it was thought we likely had little or no responsive information to a request for Professor Mann’s materials.

There has been a pervasive tendency in your correspondence to mischaracterize as a refusal or denial every instance in which the University does not reject one of your requests and informs you that it is considering it and taking time to determine its feasibility. The alleged refusals in the second paragraph of your letter are illustrative of this. The University has stated that we will not commence the actual review and production of responsive documents until we receive a payment. The other inferences in this paragraph are incorrect. We have not refused to produce a “production schedule”; we have stated that a realistic one cannot be considered until the process of review and production commences. Moreover, we have not refused to produce responsive documents on a rolling basis; rather we have simply not yet addressed whether that would be feasible.

Needless to say, the first paragraph of the second page of your letter, which states that the University has refused “to accede to any proposal we have made,” is simply untrue.

In response to your interpretation of Va. Code § 2.2-3704, implicit in the “supplying” of requested records is the necessary review to assure that documents or portions of documents that cannot be disclosed because of the requirements of other state or federal laws is done,1 and that available exemptions are considered. Any other interpretation would make no sense in the overall context of the Act. I would also note that your interpretation of the narrowness § 2.2-3704 is not shared by the Virginia Freedom of Information Act Advisory Council.

Your request that we would charge Professor Mann for copies of documents you have requested pursuant to the Act has no basis in the Act itself. Professor Mann has not requested any records pursuant to the Act; you have. Nonetheless, we have made no decision about under what circumstances we would furnish copies of responsive documents to Professor Mann or whether we would offer to make these documents available for a reasonable copying fee. It may interest you to know that we extended the same courtesies to Patrick Michaels when his documents were requested as we have with Michael Mann.

Neither has the University made any decision to hire an outside firm to assist in responding to your request. Rather, we have told you that this is something we are considering.

I am also puzzled as to why you would think that we “have no idea of the number of documents” potentially responsive to your request. We have repeatedly told you that our estimate of the cost for responding and supplying those documents is based upon the volume of material on the server.

Finally, it strikes me that many of your requests and demands are more consistent with requests for production of documents under the applicable discovery rules in litigation than they are in responding to a request for public records under the Act, but that is another issue (and not an uncommon one, I might add, when lawyers get involved in requests pursuant to the Act).

Having made all of the above clarifications, I have conferred with those here who have been dealing with your request and can offer the following to meet some of your objections and complaints about the University’s response:



We are willing to commence work with your submission of the check in the amount of $2,000, as requested, with the corollary understanding that this would be sufficient to allow for 80 hours of accessing, duplicating, supplying, and searching for documents responsive to your request. Once this work is concluded, we can see what additional potentially responsive material may still exist.



We can agree to a rolling disclosure of responsive, non-exempt documents during the 80 hours of accessing, duplicating, supplying, and searching for documents responsive to your request.

Please let me know if this is acceptable. If so, we will commence work after receiving your check in the amount of $2,000 consistent with the understanding stated in the letter.



===========

March 28, 2011

David W. Schnare, Esq.

The Law Center of the American Tradition Institute

...

RE: Your Freedom of Information Act Request

Dear Dr. Schnare:

I write to give you an update on the status of your Freedom of Information Act request and to seek further clarification from you as to how you wish to proceed.

As I noted would be the case in my letter to you of March 9, 2011, we commenced our review by limiting our initial search to messages sent by Michael Mann to, or received from, the persons identified on page 7 of your request and to the additional requested information on pages 10 and 11 of your request. Specifically, we have limited our initial search to paragraph 1(a) through 1(mm) on page 7 of your request, and to information requested in paragraphs 4 through 10 of that request. At this point we have segregated all potentially responsive documents from the 34,062 documents contained on the server. We have not yet begun review of those segregated documents to identify information that is truly responsive, exempt from disclosure, or confidential pursuant to other provisions of law. To date, the law students working on the project have worked a total of 40 hours, or half of the time covered by your initial payment of $2,000.

We will next proceed to conduct the review of the potentially responsive documents. I cannot estimate at this time how long that will take.

Regarding the other aspects of your request, I would note the following:



The information requested in paragraph 1(nn) of your request would involve a minimum of 200 additional people and would greatly expand the time needed for review and the potential cost of responding to your request. Because I would think that much of what would be discovered in the process of conducting the additional review called for by this subsection of your request would be redundant or trivial, I would urge you to withdraw this aspect of your request.



As noted in my letter to you of March 9, the different iterations of your request on pages 8 and 9 of that request appear redundant or overly general to allow for a focused response. Because of this, I would urge you to withdraw those aspects of your request as well.

We will proceed with review of the segregated potentially responsive documents until that task is either complete, or the remainder of your initial payment is exhausted



===========

April 6, 2011

David W. Schnare, Esq.

The Law Center of the American Tradition Institute

2020 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. # 186

Washington, D.C. 20006

RE: Your Freedom of Information Act Request

Dear Dr. Schnare:

I am writing to follow up on your Freedom of Information Act request of January 6, 2011, for a wide array of records and documents concerning former University of Virginia faculty member Michael Mann. As I previously informed you, the University has identified 34,062 potentially responsive documents on the server we have previously agreed to be the sole repository of any possibly responsive material. We have now segregated from that mass of documents approximately 8,000 that are potentially responsive to your request and have been reviewing these documents for possible disclosure. As of today we have exhausted in this effort the initial payment you have made. Consequently, we will undertake no further review unless you wish to pay another installment on our original estimate of $8,500 (or wish to pay the remaining amount of that estimate).

To date we have reviewed approximately 1,000 of the roughly 8,000 documents potentially responsive to your request. I anticipate that a first group of responsive, non-exempt documents which may be lawfully disclosed will be released to you shortly.

If you wish continued review pursuant to your request, I would note that we currently have three law students working on the project who are now familiar with this request and efficient in processing it. They will be able to work only the next two weeks, however, because of academic commitments. It would therefore be to your advantage, if you wish to pursue this request further, to send me the further reimbursement of cost by overnight mail.

Finally, I would note that when we last spoke on March 29, you expressed no disagreement with the narrowing of your original request outlined in my letter to you of March 9, 2011.



==================

David W. Schnare, Esq. Ph.D.

April 7, 2011

BY ELECTRONIC MAIL

Dear Mr. Kast:

Thank you for your April 6, 2011, update on our FOIA request. Per your letter, you indicate that “we will undertake no further review unless you wish to pay another installment on our original estimate of $8,500.” This letter indicates that we wish to and will pay an additional installment, and on that basis ask that you continue your work to produce the responsive documents.

Our Institute has issued a check which I expect to receive today or tomorrow and which I will have delivered to you by an overnight delivery. As such, and, as you indicate, because your law students might otherwise lose valuable time on this effort, we ask that you keep them engaged in reviewing the documents as we transmit the check to you.

With regard to the narrowing of our request, we have not dismissed your proposal, but we wish to see the fruit of the initial delivery of documents before we commit to that narrowing. We look forward to receiving those and to moving to completion on this FOIA request.

==================

2011/06/08

Reconstructions with limited signals

Firs Set is using trend and the second is using cycles only
The minimum amplitude used is 0.03


Period yearsamplitudeOffset
months
0.501208.47
0.839502.82
0.890701.13
1.769200.92
1.937302.77
1.990605.72
2.041709.62
2.1095010.57
2.256709.57
2.313906.72
2.541804.42
2.673502.47
2.760804.97
2.873702.52
3.164700.98
3.273406.37
3.469909.59
3.577703.07
3.768403.37
4.019206.87
4.724006.64
5.102005.57
5.267509.87
5.852806.67
5.978201.77
6.255804.37
6.619503.07
7.572703.22
8.395403.07
10.10270.0346375996.87
11.00000.043331925-75
11.878604.27
12.692204.77
14.89950.0331785424.87
21.10000.0469192374.37
35.083203.42
59.75000.1074479893.07
110.241705.37
118.50000.04880931595.17
290.27780134.32
310.36440-6.58
2508.249704.17
2508.333304.12








Period
years
amplitudeOffset
months
0.50120.0360548.3
0.839502.9
0.891001.23
1.769200.95
1.937302.7
1.991105.8
2.040909.55
2.1091010.55
2.256909.55
2.313906.75
2.541804.4
2.671402.35
2.760805
2.874602.55
3.163800.96
3.273406.55
3.469909.64
3.579403.15
3.768403.35
4.015006.75
4.724006.68
5.106105.5
5.246609.55
5.727406.65
5.978201.85
6.251604.35
6.615303
7.569303.2
8.427203.25
10.06930.0300616.7
11.00000.038659-69
11.753203.85
12.633604.55
14.94970.0300695
21.20830.0484144.45
35.685203.75
60.08330.1194323.05
101.8333096.15
110.216705.35
290.27780134.3
317.05330.3957012.3
2508.166104.15
2508.333304.1