The reaction to Ryan O'Donnell's article about Steig has been astonishing, and the rate of deletion of comments from Real Climate hasn't been this high for...well...days.
Some interesting stories have emerged from all the noise:
"Threats"
A commenter called CAGW_99 left a comment at RealClimate noting that Steig could find himself called to testify before the House of Representatives.
Eric, It seems that the authors have both scientific and ethical points that have been very well made on the referenced blog posts. I am one of many who are eagerly awaiting your response, although we have no expectation that you will actually choose to do so. Your “Team” will be changing the subject, creating straw men, ducking and weaving, and hiding behind moderation on this site.
There is a pretty good chance that you and your Team will get invitations from the new House committees which investigate matters like this. I wonder if your moderation works in front of a CSPAN camera? I wonder if you will speak openly or take the fifth?
The response from the moderator was to delete the comment and write:
[Edit. Resorting to threats of personal intimidation against scientists eh? Was only a matter of time frankly. Thanks for including your name in your email address.--Jim]
Fessing up
We learned yesterday that Steig had in fact been one of the reviewers of the O'Donnell et al paper. Now we learn that Steig went to great lengths to pretend that he wasn't. Having had the paper for the best part of a year, Steig left a comment a Lucia's Blackboard suggesting that he hadn't even seen it:
yan, if you don’t mind sending me a preprint, and a link to your reconstructed data, I’d appreciate it.
I will presumably have more to say after I get a chance to read the paper, but it’ll be a month or more as I’m simply too busy with current projects.
I would say that RealClimate now has a serious credibility problem. Mendaciousness on this level is going to be hard to ignore.