Friday
Nov202009
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Climate cuttings 33
Nov 20, 2009 Climate Welcome Instapundit readers! Hope this is useful for you. If you are interested in more on global warming material, check out Caspar and the Jesus Paper and The Yamal Implosion, or check out the forthcoming book.
General reaction seems to be that the CRUgate emails are genuine, but with the caveat that there could be some less reliable stuff slipped in.
In the circumstances, here are some summaries of the CRUgate files. I'll update these as and when I can. The refs are the email number.
- Phil Jones writes to University of Hull to try to stop sceptic Sonia Boehmer Christiansen using her Hull affiliation. Graham F Haughton of Hull University says its easier to push greenery there now SB-C has retired.(1256765544)
- Michael Mann discusses how to destroy a journal that has published sceptic papers.(1047388489)
- Tim Osborn discusses how data are truncated to stop an apparent cooling trend showing up in the results (0939154709). Analysis of impact here. Wow!
- Phil Jones describes the death of sceptic, John Daly, as "cheering news".(1075403821)
- Phil Jones encourages colleagues to delete information subject to FoI request.(1212063122)
- Phil Jones says he has use Mann's "Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series"...to hide the decline". Real Climate says "hiding" was an unfortunate turn of phrase.(0942777075)
- Letter to The Times from climate scientists was drafted with the help of Greenpeace.(0872202064)
- Mann thinks he will contact BBC's Richard Black to find out why another BBC journalist was allowed to publish a vaguely sceptical article.(1255352257)
- Kevin Trenberth says they can't account for the lack of recent warming and that it is a travesty that they can't.(1255352257)
- Tom Wigley says that Lindzen and Choi's paper is crap.(1257532857)
- Tom Wigley says that von Storch is partly to blame for sceptic papers getting published at Climate Research. Says he encourages the publication of crap science. Says they should tell publisher that the journal is being used for misinformation. Says that whether this is true or not doesn't matter. Says they need to get editorial board to resign. Says they need to get rid of von Storch too. (1051190249)
- Ben Santer says (presumably jokingly!) he's "tempted, very tempted, to beat the crap" out of sceptic Pat Michaels. (1255100876)
- Mann tells Jones that it would be nice to '"contain" the putative Medieval Warm Period'. (1054736277)
- Tom Wigley tells Jones that the land warming since 1980 has been twice the ocean warming and that this might be used by sceptics as evidence for urban heat islands.(1257546975)
- Tom Wigley say that Keith Briffa has got himself into a mess over the Yamal chronology (although also says it's insignificant. Wonders how Briffa explains McIntyre's sensitivity test on Yamal and how he explains the use of a less-well replicated chronology over a better one. Wonders if he can. Says data withholding issue is hot potato, since many "good" scientists condemn it.(1254756944)
- Briffa is funding Russian dendro Shiyatov, who asks him to send money to personal bank account so as to avoid tax, thereby retaining money for research.(0826209667)
- Kevin Trenberth says climatologists are nowhere near knowing where the energy goes or what the effect of clouds is. Says nowhere balancing the energy budget. Geoengineering is not possible.(1255523796)
- Mann discusses tactics for screening and delaying postings at Real Climate.(1139521913)
- Tom Wigley discusses how to deal with the advent of FoI law in UK. Jones says use IPR argument to hold onto code. Says data is covered by agreements with outsiders and that CRU will be "hiding behind them".(1106338806)
- Overpeck has no recollection of saying that he wanted to "get rid of the Medieval Warm Period". Thinks he may have been quoted out of context.(1206628118)
- Mann launches RealClimate to the scientific community.(1102687002)
- Santer complaining about FoI requests from McIntyre. Says he expects support of Lawrence Livermore Lab management. Jones says that once support staff at CRU realised the kind of people the scientists were dealing with they became very supportive. Says the VC [vice chancellor] knows what is going on (in one case).(1228330629)
- Rob Wilson concerned about upsetting Mann in a manuscript. Says he needs to word things diplomatically.(1140554230)
- Briffa says he is sick to death of Mann claiming his reconstruction is tropical because it has a few poorly temp sensitive tropical proxies. Says he should regress these against something else like the "increasing trend of self-opinionated verbiage" he produces. Ed Cook agrees with problems.(1024334440)
- Overpeck tells Team to write emails as if they would be made public. Discussion of what to do with McIntyre finding an error in Kaufman paper. Kaufman's admits error and wants to correct. Appears interested in Climate Audit findings.(1252164302)
- Jones calls Pielke Snr a prat.(1233249393)
- Santer says he will no longer publish in Royal Met Soc journals if they enforce intermediate data being made available. Jones has complained to head of Royal Met Soc about new editor of Weather [why?data?] and has threatened to resign from RMS.(1237496573)
- Reaction to McIntyre's 2005 paper in GRL. Mann has challenged GRL editor-in-chief over the publication. Mann is concerned about the connections of the paper's editor James Saiers with U Virginia [does he mean Pat Michaels?]. Tom Wigley says that if Saiers is a sceptic they should go through official GRL channels to get him ousted. (1106322460) [Note to readers - Saiers was subsequently ousted]
- Later on Mann refers to the leak at GRL being plugged.(1132094873)
- Jones says he's found a way around releasing AR4 review comments to David Holland.(1210367056)
- Wigley says Keenan's fraud accusation against Wang is correct. (1188557698)
- Jones calls for Wahl and Ammann to try to change the received date on their alleged refutation of McIntyre [presumably so it can get into AR4](1189722851)
- Mann tells Jones that he is on board and that they are working towards a common goal.(0926010576)
- Mann sends calibration residuals for MBH99 to Osborn. Says they are pretty red, and that they shouldn't be passed on to others, this being the kind of dirty laundry they don't want in the hands of those who might distort it.(1059664704)
- Prior to AR3 Briffa talks of pressure to produce a tidy picture of "apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data". [This appears to be the politics leading the science] Briffa says it was just as warm a thousand years ago.(0938018124)
- Jones says that UK climate organisations are coordinating themselves to resist FoI. They got advice from the Information Commissioner [!](1219239172)
- Mann tells Revkin that McIntyre is not to be trusted.(1254259645)
- Revkin quotes von Storch as saying it is time to toss the Hockey Stick . This back in 2004.(1096382684)
- Funkhouser says he's pulled every trick up his sleeve to milk his Kyrgistan series. Doesn't think it's productive to juggle the chronology statistics any more than he has.(0843161829)
- Wigley discusses fixing an issue with sea surface temperatures in the context of making the results look both warmer but still plausible. (1254108338)
- Jones says he and Kevin will keep some papers out of the next IPCC report.(1089318616)
- Tom Wigley tells Mann that a figure Schmidt put together to refute Monckton is deceptive and that the match it shows of instrumental to model predictions is a fluke. Says there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model output by authors and IPCC.(1255553034)
- Grant Foster putting together a critical comment on a sceptic paper. Asks for help for names of possible reviewers. Jones replies with a list of people, telling Foster they know what to say about the paper and the comment without any prompting.(1249503274)
- David Parker discussing the possibility of changing the reference period for global temperature index. Thinks this shouldn't be done because it confuses people and because it will make things look less warm.(1105019698)
- Briffa discusses an sceptic article review with Ed Cook. Says that confidentially he needs to put together a case to reject it (1054756929)
- Ben Santer, referring to McIntyre says he hopes Mr "I'm not entirely there in the head" will not be at the AGU.(1233249393)
- Jones tells Mann that he is sending station data. Says that if McIntyre requests it under FoI he will delete it rather than hand it over. Says he will hide behind data protection laws. Says Rutherford screwed up big time by creating an FTP directory for Osborn. Says Wigley worried he will have to release his model code. Also discuss AR4 draft. Mann says paleoclimate chapter will be contentious but that the author team has the right personalities to deal with sceptics.(1107454306)
-
Update on Nov 22, 2009 by
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill
Updated to add links to the online database of the emails at Elegant Chaos.
Update on Nov 22, 2009 by
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill
)Here's more:
- Phil Jones having problems with explaining issues over the Lamb image of global temps in the early IPCC reports. Says it shouldn't be discussed openly at Real Climate. Says better left buried.(1168356704)
- Phil Jones emails Steve [Schneider], editor of Climatic Change [plus others, editorial board of the journal?], telling him he shouldn't accede to McIntyre's request for Mann's computer code. In later email to Mann ("For your eyes only, delete after reading") Jones says he told Jones separately [presumably meaning without saying to the rest of the board] that he should seek advice elsewhere and also consult the publisher and take legal advice.(1074277559)
- Briffa says he tried hard to balance the needs of the IPCC and science, which were not always the same.(1177890796)
- An anonymous source says that robustness problems with the Hockey Stick are known to anyone who understands his methodology. The source says that there will be a lot of noise over McIntyre's 2003 paper and that knowing Mann'svery thin skin he will react strongly, unless he has learned from the past.(1067194064)
- Giorgio Filippo (University of Trieste) says that IPCC is not an assessment of published science but about production of results. Says there are very few rules and anything goes. Thinks this will undermine IPCC credibility. Says everyone seems to think it's OK to do this.(0968705882)
- IPCC review editor John Mitchell says that the issue of why proxy data for recent decades is not shown (he says it's because they don't show warming) needs to be explained. [Note to readers, this was not done Let's say that the explanation was nuanced - it said that the divergence problem, as this issue is known, was restricted to a few areas]. Also says that Mann's short-centred PC analysis is wrong and that Mann's results are not statistically significant.(1150923423)
Reader Comments (181)
Curtis,
McIntire had nothing to do with this - He wasn't the hacker and he obviously wasn't the insider, whichever the case may be. The realclimate box you've been living in has distorted your reality. Obviously you haven't spent any time at Climate Audit - Everything he's done is there for all to see. His agenda is similar to all true scientists - let the science do the talking.
Ryan said: "1048799107 is interesting."
Here is who wrote that one. Had to search a bit since the original links were scrubbed.
http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/GlobalConst/
You can click on Germaine Dufour's picture to get his resume.
He's a Crackpot
For anyone interested in the BIGGEST argument against man made global warming have a glance at the actual THERMOMETER records that are the few that actually extend way back almost 400 years. Since the thermometer was not common in the rest of the world till recently, data for a global average only extends back a century or so. Here I demonstrate that Central England alone matches that global average (along with other long running records at http://www.tinyurl.com/climatereason):
http://i45.tinypic.com/iwq8a1.jpg
The point of this graphic is that there is NO controversy about dirt simple thermometer records. Well, unless you realize that Central England includes the huge city of London and its suburbs which might be creating more upswing than usual, not due to CO2.
So if there IS recent warming that is getting out of control, why doesn't it show up in those long running actual thermometer records that exist?
What ever happened to the scientific method? to peer review? You can be as hostile and angry as you want to defending your ideas, but to delete and hide information is against the very idea of scientific investigation. These people are not scientists at all, they don't believe in science.
If AGW is really true, these people have done more to destroy confidence in it than any skeptics ever could have.
I linked to the original CA post (mirror here because CA is bogged down). The exact request is for:
This issue, AGW, has made me so angry over the years. I think most reasonable people can accep this as a plausible theory, but know it is nowhere near being settled science. It has also been pretty clear that those screaming CLimate Crisis have had a political agenda. What has been aggravating is all this hitting the fan will only damage credible science in the public eye. I think we the public need to go after these people and their universities. Now that those who erased and hid data from FoI requests have been exposed, they should be prosecuted where FoI laws have been broken. I can not see a way a university can keep someone on staff if they first would not adhere to basic scientific methods of sharing data for peer review, then hid and destroyed the data requested in a FoI, then prosecuted for it. These people are a disease to science and need to be purged. I think mr. Mann whould be a good candidate yo begin with. An email with FoI as the subject asking to delete data. Please, if this was a car company hiding info, they would be toast.
Just a note referring to the Urban Heat Island Effect. If you match urban and rural sites in the US using data on sites that go continuously back 111 years, you see quite a difference.
Check Global Warming Urban Heat Effect on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcsvaCPYgcI
Even a 6th grader can understand it.
"What has been aggravating is all this hitting the fan will only damage credible science in the public eye."
To Thomas and others,
Science in many areas has been a complete joke for a good 30+ years. Sociology is basically a fictional play field and should really be named Naziology for it arguing more along the lines of what the nazi's believe then science...
Collectivists/Leftwingers have always tried to use selective "science" to further they're goals. Hitler turned it into an art form... and if you take the time to review the climate "debate" most of hitlers tactics were well used by the global warming nutters. Hitler, Stalin and many other left wingers have created science to further they're goals and its not surprising that its working once again as it has in the past.
One has to remember that the whole "green" movement is basically based on Communism/Nazism. People need to step up and fight back against not just global warming but against many areas of science which are infected with the disease that is known as collectivism... until people start telling sociologists and other science fields that they won't be fooled by the fake selective science that they produce to create the imagine that they believe is "best for the world/collective" its not going to stop.
Even if this stuff turns out to be real and even if more comes out, global warming "science" is but a drop in the bucket compared to the overall infection of leftism/collectivism throughout our current science systems. Its also unlikely that even if proven beyond any doubt that they have faked or tempered with the data most colleges/teachers/schools will still teach it as fact just in an underhanded way. Global warming "science" just happens to be at the forefront of the current major changes where many other fields are taking much slower and smaller actions.
Core sciences won't however really be effected... most sane people understand that this stuff is a joke and not to be taken overly seriously. The problem is that to many people today don't have much in the way of critical thinking skills and are easily "pushed" in the "proper" direction by colleges/teachers/schools. The end run is that in all things people must observe what is going on and be willing to challenge others opinions when they start asking/promoting/demanding huge sums of money/control/power be given to the government/them or its the end of the world... its normally the easiest way to see through any leftist ideology.
Here is a good one:
1213201481.txt
Michael Mann deliberately using a false H-index when nominating Phil Jones for the AGU. No wonder these people get into all kinds of organizations.
It doesn't read that way to me tty, but I'm shattered so I may just be being dim.
Curtis Fields: "Steve McIntyre is a gadfly who will twist any data or communications to maximize his political -- not scientific -- aims."
[snip - rise above it Fen]
"If (hopefully) these are authentic, they will cause extreme global warming for those involved." - Claud Hopper
Unprecedented warming in both hemispheres, I'd say! It's surely what they deserve.
Re the AGU nomination:
Phil Jones says his H-index is 62, but it should really be 52, because he has been credited for a number of papers by a biologist with the same name, whereupon Mann says he will use 62.
Incidentally this is a common problem with computer programs used for estimating H-index and other impact factors, you always has to check things manually.
I uploaded an access database to a free file uploading site with the contents of all 1000+ emails appended in a single table, with From, To, cc, subject, body and date all parsed into seperate fields. The original file name is also included.
This allows one to sort by date and read or filter by sender or keyword.
I created a simple form, Emails, which makes for easy browsing.
Here's the link: http://www.sendspace.com/file/4yl22f
BBC radio 4 just covered it in their midnight news. Roger Harrabin did a total white wash of it. I am sickened.
Eric mentions Trenberth coming out looking good. Actually if you ask Dr. Chris Landsea why he quit the IPCC you will find that Trenberth is as bad as the rest of them.
My only disappointment is that there is nothing there about Al Gore or James Hansen. Oh well, maybe someone will get around to hacking them one day.
In case some do not know about the SEARCHABLE DATABASE of the emails available at:
http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/index.php
Seems like a good project would be to group some of the emails by topic, esp. 1] FOI
2] Peer Review
It would be a really good idea for someone to compute a SHA-1 hash for the entire set of emails. That will help defend against accusations that the emails have been modified. It doesn't prove the very first captured emails were completely genuine, but at least it will protect against modification. With so many copies of the email log floating around, readers should have an easy way to check that the version they are looking at is the originals.
Wow!... Great summary. Gavin Schmitt is a scum bag in my humble opinion. His dirty little fingers are everywhere in this scandal. He's the Joseph Goebels of the Alarmists. I hope he burns for this.
Great work, Bishop!
I cherry picked some emails that you described and found your analyses to be spot on.
Be sure to delete this post as I fear FOIA investigations into your site!
/sarc
I think the whole notion that scientists can calculate average annual global temps hundreds of years ago, to an accuracy of 1/10 degree, using TREE RINGS, should be enough to discredit all these hucksters.
I see the MSM are giving this, probably the biggest story this year, a solid ignoring.
A sterling job you're doing your Ecclesiastical Eminence !
Thans Bishop. Excellent job.
The government should really set up an Inquiry into just what goes on at CRU, bearing in mind how much taxpayer's cash goes into the organisation.
In my opinion this is similar to the Acorn scandal in the US. This happened about 3 months ago.
I may have minor errors in this summary but I believe the pattern is exact. English is not my mother tongue so please forgive any awkward expressions or spelling/grammmatical errors
I realize that Bishop and many readers may not be American but they may be aware of this event. It unfolded in the following manner:
A videotape of a pimp and his prostitute was released on the web I believe at Breitbart (http://biggovernment.com/). The basic scenario is that the pimp wanted counseling on how to start a business in the neighbourhood of the Acorn office using underage – 13/14 year old prostitutes - from south America (illegal immigrants). The pimp and the prostitute were not really pimp and prostitute they just wanted to document Acorn’s illegal operations. Acorn’s staff were very helpful in counseling these 2 with recommendations on the paperwork and how to fill it, how to evade the IRS, how to protect the reputation of the pimp, etc – all the while knowing exactly the nature of the business (underage illegal immigrant prostitution).
A first video was released that brought denial from Acorn’s management – one bad apple does not make Acorn’s a hotbed of illegal activities – Acorn fired the pair of counsellors.
Acorn’s position was that this act was akin to entrapment and the person playing the pimp should be ashamed Acorn was contributing to save the poor people, etc
This got no press coverage mostly because of the fact that often the Acorn offices are in black neighbourhoods, Obama worked with Acorn and journalists want generally to save the world not specifically underage prostitutes.
The following day another video from another city – another Acorn pair fired – no press coverage except for Fox.
The third day another video – no press coverage but congress voted to stop funding Acorn and another Acorn employee on the street. The census bureau which was planning to use Acorn to conduct population census decided to cut them off.
The fourth day another video another pair fired, this time the Acorn employee embellished the story by adding that She had murdered her husband and got away with it. Acorn’s president announced that they were suspending operations and closing offices temporarily. No press coverage. Now we were in a situation that had the web over heating with videos and comments but no TV and press coverage except for Fox News. People were showing up at Acorn’s offices all across the US and finding them closed with no idea as to why this was.
This is still going on with one additional video just released since Congress wanted to reinstate funding to Acorn.
This is what I expect from the press and the governemnt with the CRU situation – I expect them to try to hide the fact that it is happening – then use strawmen (illegal acquisition of the info) – then fall back to ‘the science is solid’ – this is to ‘save the earth’
Congratulations on an excellent job and best wishes for the future.
If true it looks as if the mad it all up.
Trick or Treat
All together then "Who are the deniers now then"?
ps sorry for the typos and please keep up the good work.
■Phil Jones says he has use Mann's "Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series"...to hide the decline". Real Climate says "hiding" was an unfortunate turn of phrase.(0942777075)
Our Gav is so upset about all this but he is a great little lad and he can tell you exactly what Phil mean't.
Phil Jones tells a journalist how can he be expected to remember what he meant in an email from ten years ago. Well Phil I can tell you, you meant to hide the decline, just as your words say. That's why we use words and keep records.
I write TRICK or CHEAT I will know exactly what I mean't in ten years time ?
Dear Bishop,
Anything there you'd consider especially hot stuff for fraud?
What would you consider the most damning?
You know, these people are not the brightest bulbs; they can't even contrive a decent jibe. It's pretty feeble, "referring to McIntyre [as] Mr "I'm not entirely there in the head". I'd suggest "McEntirelybonkers", but I suspect that I'd need to explain why it's a better joke. They really are scientific mouth-breathers.
Your Grace, we are all in your debt.
Jobius, here is the "missing link", which, if we are not all being all being taken for a ride, shows that within a couple of hours of me sending further details of my formal EIR request, questions were being asked of Ammann whether his emails were confidential. And just two days later, again allegedly, and assuming we are not being duped, a very senior person was telling the "team" that CRU were going to delete their copies of the emails I had asked for and they should do the same.
The people involved in the MSM (especially here in America) are simply not intelligent enough and/or are too intellectually shallow to understand the nature, meaning, and impact of this scandal. Think of Dan Rather's imbecilic behavior at the conclusion of the 2004 presidential campaign, when he hawked a supposed document proving GWB's efforts to escape service in Vietnam. In short order (within 36 hours), the blogosphere conclusively demonstrated that the document, purportedly typed on a typewriter in the late 1960s, was actually a Word document created within the prior year.
The internet and its attendant blogosphere will, hopefully, be the saving grace of mankind. Truely democratizing information, it allows people such as yourselves to "speak truth to power". To me, a non-scientist, it is the best example of what is possible when scientific arguments compete with each other. To see the proponents of Global Warming attempt to hide, concoct, and lie about data would be shocking if I hadn't seen it (in books) before. During Galileo, for instance, or the many times when governments controlled science. This is another such instance.
Hopefully, it won't take scores or hundreds of years for this latest travesty to be recognised, for you and others like you are doing good work now to get at the truth of these matters. These matters are important, for they affect both our planet and our freedom.
Hats off to you.
aylamp's favourite!
From: Phil Jones
To: John Christy
Subject: This and that
Date: Tue Jul 5 15:51:55 2005
“If anything, I would like to see the climate change happen,
so the science could be proved right, regardless of the consequences.”
Bishop, I didn't see this one in your list. It is an exchange between Wigley and Jones where Wigley questions Phil Jones (then) recent contribution to hockeystickitis, and Phil Jones responds that it is not science:
To which Phil Jones replied (edited):
Number for the Wigley/Jones correspondence referred to above is 1098472400.
EJ's comparison with the UN [Iraq] Oil for Food scandal is perceptive. Political and media commentary on this comparison should get traction in Australia. This was a big issue in Australia which Kevin Rudd exploited before becoming PM and mounting the climate change/fear bandwagon.
Hi,
I posted your points on James Delingpole's blog at The Telegraph, but forgot to link to it (another has done so subsequently). I do apologise for the lack of attribution. It was not an attempt to take credit for this excellent summary.
Good work ;).
In 1231350711 Phil offers to be a reviewer of a paper he already knows about - and was rejected by Nature Geoscience - promising not to reject it on the same grounds:
In 1231350711 (a distinct e-mail) Phil complains about the wording of temperature reports to Chris (who works at the Met Office), trying to influence the news:
In 1214229243 they declare that they will turn down FOI requests if they are from a grassroot campaign - so in practice they acn turn down any request; they mention the web link to ClimateAudit:
There is also 1254832684 (they cannot be proven wrong otherwise they loose the funding from Siemens; also an outrage fromPhil Jones blaming the right wing and saying that the wrong handling of data is done by everybody), 947541692 ("right material" should be handled to potential sponsors), 1231166089 (neglected SO2 calculations might account for recent cooling), 1245943185 (a lame peer review will allow them to rebut the skeptic claims in a real article).
Many of us interested novices to the issues presented here are hampered by a lack of knowledge of what the numerous acronyms used in the emails stand for. It would be a great service if someone knowledgeable would compose a reference page defining them. A list of the people names mentioned and descriptions to place them would make following the skullduggery & obfuscation easier too.
Any takers?...or is there another such site which has done this I have missed?
I am an environmentalist and senior academic and have long been concerned about the poor quality statistics; failure to disclose code, research samples and other information relevant to legitimate scientific questions; excessively closed and self-protective networks and the willingness to sup using a short spoon with the media, aggressive green campaigners and politicians which have been revealed to be present in at least some areas of climate science by many sources. I worry that this will create a backlash against environmentalism in general. The fact is that the urgency of taking action to mitigate many of our serious environmental challenges such as resource depletion, species extinction, pollution etc is not dependent on high levels of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), and many of the measures currently being discussed will be necessary even in its absence. It is also the case that carbon emissions - irrespective of AGW - are a useful indicator of general environmental impacts as fossil fuel energy conversion and consumption e.g. in transport is a very resource-intensive and polluting activity. The danger is that when the world sees through the shoddiness of some climate work, and realises the quasi-political nature of the IPCC process, especially in recent years, it will cause a reaction not only against possibly genuine carbon-related issues (AGW could be real, as Steve McIntyre has always said + we can't definitely prove or disprove it for some years yet, and there is the other issue of ocean acidification) but also environmental measures in general e.g. the necessity of greatly increasing the energy efficiency of buildings and vehicles.
My own academic background tell me that what is going on here is an emerging internal discussion within climate science. People like Tom Wigley - a former director of CRU, and therefore very concerned with its reputation - are clearly stating their concerns about research quality in these emails. Younger researchers such as Rob Wilson are also realising that the interests lie in a genuine 'coming clean and working to resolve them approach' rather than being dragged along the coat tails of older researchers trying to enforce an increasingly fragile consensus, and starting to look discredited. The realisation is also dawning that the maxim 'sup with a long spoon with the devil' is very wise. Many other scientific areas would display a similar pattern of more or less prevalent poor practice, trying to evade criticism, supporting friends and blocking enemies, hustling for research grants etc - its otherwise known as human nature. Generally, there's enough time, and enough genuinely disinterested people, to overcome these problems to a good enough degree. But those scientific areas have not led - in very short time scales - to 'trillion-dollar' economic bets on the future, an emerging green-industrial complex, and demands that everyone has to change their lifestyle, in the way that AGW is doing. It is therefore not surprising that the world is starting to demand a higher level of evidence, statistical rigour and proof for this area of science than others. And when this level of scrutiny is applied it invariably demonstrates that conventional science and its mechanisms such as peer-reviewed journal publications struggle to cope with topics that are deeply enmeshed with economic and political issues. (There is a whole body of work known as sociology of science demonstrating this - see Thomas Kuhn, Brian Wynne and others. In Kuhnian terms, we are seeing the climate scientists defending a core 'paradigm' against iconoclasts who want to over turn it - and for the first time having access to the power of the Internet to do so).
This problem is made worse by the inherent politicisation of the IPCC. Those involved in the late 80s UK environmental discussions that led to the creation of the CRU - and ultimately the IPPC - know that the driver was an unholy alliance of greens and supporters (Prince Charles had some involvement) seeking a new weapon, Margaret Thatcher's desire to ensure that the smashed coal union never revived, and the nuclear industry's desire for a new argument for its existence. Arguably, the initial IPCC reports played a useful role in giving an overview of an issue which needed (and still needs) to be understood but it has now evolved into a biased and political organisation which is too wedded to a particular view, and too obviously a gravy train for supporting academics. The ultimate solution to this problem is an independent review body - with a genuinely open minded mission to explore key questions - comprising more than climate scientists e.g. eminent statisticians, geologists, and with a budget to fund a range of research channels, including those suggested by sceptics as well as the mainstream. The bets are so large here that is essential to test them to destruction (as well managed commercial organisations would with 'bet the company' decisions).
Finally, note how the UK is at the heart of this discussion. Partly as a reaction to loss of empire, Britain always wants a place at the international table + UK universities are (genuinely) very strong in science and want to be seen as being at the forefront of scientific practice. Climate science has delivered both these objectives in a very cost-effective way. It also allows politicians to make 'soundbite' pledges - 80% reduction in UK emissions by 2050 - that sound great but are meaningless (and possibly counter-productive) if nothing is really done to achieve them. It is therefore enmeshed with the political establishment in a much closer way than in almost any other country in the world. This will make it harder to deal with the problems than people think, but also create the possibility that - if it does transpire that AGW has been exaggerated - the issue of undermining the reputation of British science will come to the fore and create new pressures.
Welcome Shocked
I think I am an environmentalist too - low emission diesels, low energy light bulbs, loft and wall insulation, double glazing and the wife composts all our waste food and grows a few veg. However, my passion is science and what we have here (unless we are all being conned) is proof positive that what was once a little insignificant corner of science has become utterly corrupted.
It is a great shame you weren't able to attend the one-day conference held in Brussels last week, where Professor Segalstad might have changed some of your ideas on carbon dioxide being a pollutant and causing acidification of the oceans. On the other hand, if you think he is wrong, I would have liked to hear what you would say.
Nearer to home, it's a shame you were not at York last month to debate climate change with David Bellamy and others. The reality is that it is hard to get climate scientists to debate climate science. The IPCC, who have an office in Brussels, could not be bothered to put up a speaker, or even send an observer to Roger Helmer's conference, despite being asked with plenty of notice.
Re David Holland comments - Like you David I'm for good science. I go with Steve McIntyre in saying that the jury is still out, and that - for all the faults of poor climate science - there is much good work as well and, in some areas, useful IPCC discussions. That last sentence may be a surprise but Steve is on record as saying that if he were a policy maker he would use IPCC reports, their weaknesses notwwithstanding, as the best available source of advice on AGW. In his ideosyncratic, sometimes irritating but often devastating way he is genuinely trying to improve not just climate science but also the IPCC process. I think some climate scientists, dendros etc are starting to realise this, and understanding that their discipline, and associated policy discussions, would benefit greatly if there could be an 'acceptable' way of bringing him and his points into their ongoing scientific discussions. However, whilst I believe that Steve will be immortalised in the future history of science - the first serious amending/possibly overthrowing of a scientific paradigm through Internet enabled discussion outsdie conventional scientific channels - I also think that his biggest weakness is in not responding to such peace feelers by putting articles into the peer reviewed literature, which he could, either by himself or working with supporters. It has its weaknesses, but it does meet the expectations of conventional science and would surely make many more academics take his thinking seriously. In a way this is unfair because he doesn't have a paid position, but nonetheless it is the best way to go. He has sat on the Colorado tree samples he went to a lot of trouble to collect for a very long time, for example.
anyone interested: search nomination package in the email base. You'll notice how dishonest Mann was in that handling.
very nice
Skeptics and conspiracy buffs need to understand that even without any CRU data nor the publications of it scientists, there are MULTIPLE lines of evidence for AGW:
1) UAH, RSS, and GISS show warming
2) Rapidly warming Arctic
3) Rapidly decreasing sea ice extent
4) Rapidly thinning sea ice
5) Rising ocean heat content
6) Cooling stratosphere
7) Net increase in downwelling LW
8 ) Net decreasing TOA LW emission
9) Increased species migrations/extinctions
10) Increased severe weather occurrences
11) Glacier mass loss and retreats increasing
12) Rising sea levels
13) Most importantly: rapidly rising human emissions of GHGs that have not been seen in millions of years.
None of these things read emails and have decided to play along in a massive international conspiracy.
Scott A. Mandia, Professor - Meteorology
http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/
Oh come off it Dr Mandia. Even if 1-12 were true (and many are questionable) there is no logical connection to 13. Correlation is not proof of causation. You know perfectly well that many of your chosen objects would correlate quite nicely with the number of mobile phones in the world.
Or the decreasing number of pirates...
http://www.seanbonner.com/blog/archives/piratesarecool.jpg
Enough talk on Global Warming. Just sign the papers of Copenhagen Treaty ( UN21 Agenda) Today and NOW... Let us all be friends again. Get-er-Done for the sake of Science and animals for what we all are.
Re: Scott Mandia and 12 things:
1) all of the above are also consistent with a natural cause for warming, which the models simply leave out, such as cosmic rays and a reasonable value for solar forcing
2) An extrapolation of recent trends does NOT lead to the end of the world, only some minor annoyances and actual improvements in lifestyle for much of the world (e.g., warmer siberia). Only the models produce catastrophe. The models by the way are calibrated on Phil Jones data sets and on Mann's reconstructions (that is how they "prove" the models are valid).