The Dirt
“I am sure it will make interesting reading for some, but unless you can find something that actually changes our understanding of AGW then it is just dirt.” john cross in my comments
The leaked CRU documents, so far as I can see, do not destroy the shaky theory of AGW. The do something far more fundamental: they call into question the integrity of the core group of climate scientist whose work and views have dominated the so called “consensus”.
Phil Jones, the CRU man to whom much of this trove was addressed has, apparently confirmed the leak.
What’s in it? Well it will take an Army of Davids the weekend to comprehensively catalog the material – and I would not be surprised to see the emails put into a searchable database. [Update: Well that was quick searchable database of climate emails here.] However, so far we have:
- evidence of suppression of data
Phil and I have recently submitted a paper using about a dozen NH records that fit this category, and many of which are available nearly 2K back–I think that trying to adopt a timeframe of 2K, rather than the usual 1K, addresses a good earlier point that Peck made w/ regard to the memo, that it would be nice to try to “contain” the putative “MWP”, even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back….
- evidence of conspiracy to destroy data subject to FOI requests
Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment — minor family crisis. Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address. We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
and:
From: Phil Jones
To: Tom Wigley
Subject: Re: FOIA
Date: Fri Jan 21 15:20:06 2005
Cc: Ben SanterTom,
I’ll look at what you’ve said over the weekend re CCSP.
I don’t know the other panel members. I’ve not heard any
more about it since agreeing a week ago.
As for FOIA Sarah isn’t technically employed by UEA and she
will likely be paid by Manchester Metropolitan University.
I wouldn’t worry about the code. If FOIA does ever get
used by anyone, there is also IPR to consider as well.
Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people,
so I will be hiding behind them. I’ll be passing any
requests onto the person at UEA who has been given a post to
deal with them.
Cheers
Phil - evidence of an organized subversion of the peer review process
Update: 1089318616.txt
From: Phil Jones
To: “Michael E. Mann”
Subject: HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL
Date: Thu Jul 8 16:30:16 2004I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!
Cheers
Phil#1051230500
“Since the IPCC makes it quite clear that there are substantial grounds for concern about climate change, is it not partially the responsibility of climate science to make sure only satisfactorily peer-reviewed science appears in scientific publications? – and to refute any inadequately reviewed and wrong articles that do make their way through the peer review process?” - evidence of the black listing of a scientific journal for purely political reasons
“This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the “peer-reviewed literature”. Obviously, they found a solution to that–take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board…What do others think?” “I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor.”“It results from this journal having a number of editors. The responsible one for this is a well-known skeptic in NZ. He has let a few papers through by Michaels and Gray in the past. I’ve had words with Hans von Storch about this, but got nowhere. Another thing to discuss in Nice !”
This is not how science is supposed to work.
[There is lots more and as I find it I will post updates above. That said, the FOI material alone should get a number of people fired. Not for breach of scientific ethics, rather for breach of the law.]
UPDATE: Bishop Hill has summaries of “the team” emails – for example
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]
November 20th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Jay: Science stands or falls on how well it faces up to analysis from others. It does not depend on how the scientists think or act.
However I am curious. What do you see as evidence of organized subversion of the peer review process and that is the scientific journal black listed for political reasons.
Regards,
John
November 20th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
JC - read here ( http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmE2MzdiZGE4ZDYyNDYzN2Y2Y2FmMTBlODEwY2E2OTk= ):
“And, perhaps most reprehensibly, a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority. ”
November 20th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Science stands or falls on how well it faces up to analysis from others
Yes – but when data sets are deliberately withheld in order to avoid that analysis, John, then what they are doing is not “scinece” – it is “politics.”
November 20th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
“It does not depend on how the scientists think or act.”
Well yeh, John, actually it does.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_ethics#Forms_of_scientific_misconduct
My prediction is that the Scientific Establishment is going to crucify these guys; a lot of reputable scientists boarded that bus. They aren’t going to be happy to discover their driver is the Shamwow Guy.
November 20th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
What do you mean our, Kemosabe?
I read through one of the files, HARRY_READ_ME.txt
It seems to be someones attempt to replicate the results from some analysis of weather data. You do this calculation on it, run it through this filter, then do this. Etc. It illustrates that the ‘understanding of AGW’ is quite tenuous and prone to error and extraordinarily prone to interpretation.
Are they right in their conclusion? Run your model up to 1990 with data, then predict 1990 -2009. If you are right, the data since then will match. If not, then it is worthless.
Derek
November 20th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
These e-mails are actually more of a sensation in the blogosphere than in the skeptical community, which was already convinced this was bad science, therefore by default, practised by bad scientists.
November 20th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Dcardno: I agree that data should be open and available. No question.
DaninVan: But if a scientist engages in scientific fraud, then others won’t be able to reproduce their work and it won’t be able to stand up.
My prediction is that the scientific community will by and large ignore this and this will be taken as evidence of a conspiracy.
Regards,
John
November 20th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Jay: I don’t see your first as evidence of suppression of data. Perhaps you could expand further?
In regards to subversion of the peer review process again I don’t see that in the part you quoted. Certainly papers that are flawed should not make it through the peer reviewed process.
In regards to your final point about evidence of the black listing of a scientific journal for purely political reasons, from what I read that refers to the Journal Climate Research publishing a paper in 2003 by Soon and Baliunas. In which case it is a valid statement since the paper in question had some severe methodological problems. How severe? The Journal took the unusual step of actually publishing a retraction and admitting that the paper never should have been published in its current form since the data did not back up the conclusions.
Regards,
John
November 20th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Dcardno: I agree that data should be open and available. No question.
Surely you are aware of the extraordinary efforts made to gain access to the data, and the equally extraordinary efforts made to prevent that access, including the breathtaking assertion by (IIRC) Phil Jones that he would not release raw data to a particular researcher since (and I paraphrase) ‘all you will do with it is discredit my work.’ Honestly, doesn’t it give you pause to reconsider when the leading proponents of the AGW hypothesis engage in such shenanigans?
November 20th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Hey, JC, is there any subversion of peer review in the following? I’ve bolded the line that really makes me itch.
From: Phil Jones
To: Kevin Trenberth , Grant Foster
Subject: Re: ENSO blamed over warming – paper in JGR
Date: Wed Aug 5 16:14:34 2009
Cc: “J. Salinger” , James Annan , ..., Gavin Schmidt , Mike Mann , ...
Hi all,
Agree with Kevin that Tom Karl has too much to do. Tom Wigley is semi
retired and like Mike Wallace may not be responsive to requests from JGR.
We have Ben Santer in common ! Dave Thompson is a good suggestion.
I’d go for one of Tom Peterson or Dave Easterling.
To get a spread, I’d go with 3 US, One Australian and one in Europe.
So Neville Nicholls and David Parker.
All of them know the sorts of things to say – about our comment and
the awful original, without any prompting.
Cheers
Phil
At 15:50 05/08/2009, Kevin Trenberth wrote:
… see below
Kevin
Grant Foster wrote:
Gentlemen,
I’ve completed most of the submission to JGR, but there are three required entries I
hope you can help me with.
…
3) Suggested Reviewers to Include
Please list the names of 5 experts who are knowledgeable in your area and could give
an unbiased review of your work. Please do not list colleagues who are close associates,
collaborators, or family members.
From mail/1249503274.txt
November 20th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
From the e-mails: “The responsible one for this is a well-known skeptic in NZ. He has let a few papers through by Michaels and Gray in the past.”
John’s interpretation: “...from what I read that refers to the Journal Climate Research publishing a paper in 2003 by Soon and Baliunas.”
‘Nuff said.
November 20th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
PMT, that was the post I was looking for. Thanks.
November 21st, 2009 at 4:18 am
But if a scientist engages in scientific fraud, then others won’t be able to reproduce their work and it won’t be able to stand up.
FOI requests were ignored; data was surpressed. How can another scientist reproduce the work, if their requests for data are dismissed and/or data is withheld? Real scientists who believe in their work have no problem with others trying to replicate their findings (or finding discrepancies).
See this document: Word file—“jones-foithoughts”—What kind of a legitmate scientist even considers options 2 and 3?
November 21st, 2009 at 4:43 am
DaninVan: Could you please elaborate on your point. I think I understand but I want to make sure before I reply.
Thanks,
John
November 21st, 2009 at 5:16 am
Jay / Punch My Ticket: Sorry, I am still not sure that this is the smoking gun that you think it is. You need to understand how the peer-review process works. The reviewers are there to decide if the paper is worthy of being put before the scientific community. However once a paper is published, then the real peer-review begins. If there are errors then the scientific community will usually find them. At that point it becomes an embarrassment to the Journal and the authors. So it is in everyone best interest to get the errors worked out before it gets published.
From the e-mail, as far as I can see, they were asked to supply some possible reviewers and they did.
Regards,
John
November 21st, 2009 at 5:23 am
Well, well, well, looks like what’s cooking in the AGW kitchen are the books. Tasty!
November 21st, 2009 at 7:39 am
Truly disgusting stuff for a profession that prides itself on objectivity and truth, ie, let the facts/data take us where we need to be.
These jokers in these emails are much less scientists/engineers than managers of scientists/engineer whose job is not to get to the truth, but to manage mistakes.
November 21st, 2009 at 7:41 am
...and save their own ‘Plan/Ass’.
November 21st, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Reading through those emails was absolutely fascinating. I couldn’t help thinking how much damage this exposure will do to their future collegial working relationships, well, that is if any of them have such a thing left.
It is really incredible that they felt as free as they did to discuss their activities, “Team” members and others through e-mail on work computers that, as they well knew, could come under FOI scrutiny. I’m more careful in personal correspondence with groups of friends over social interactions. Can’t imagine what they said to each other in person or by telephone.
I feel a bit sorry for some of them but I feel a whole lot sorrier for those whose careers and reputations they have damaged or destroyed and for the science they have prevented due to their apparent unwillingness to permit their work product to be challenged by anybody not on the “team” and thus in possession of the right game plan.
John, as I read it, there are examples throughout that demonstrate an unwillingness to share data, to get around the FOI process and to keep hidden certain observations that would not lend support to their conclusions. As Jim R says, truly disgusting stuff for career scientists.
November 21st, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Jay – you got linked on NRO’s The Corner: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzIzZmUyZWUzYjAyNmU4YWFiMzUyYWU2MTk4YjRjNmQ=
Congrats, mate.
November 21st, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Oh, John. Be still my heart. It seems I hardly knew ya’:
I have to hand it to you. At least you’re honest.
November 21st, 2009 at 4:23 pm
The problem for the climate scientists is that they chose the one type of science that most intelligent laypersons can still follow. If this were one of those debates about gravitation or sub-atomic particles, we might be interested in it but we would be relying pretty much on our chosen experts for any insights.
Climate science is relatively easy to follow. As bad luck would have it, I am actually a climatologist, except that about thirty years ago, I angered and bewildered (or maybe the other way around) my peers and got the boot from the profession (being a freelance climatologist is not exactly a good career move). So I have some insight into how that part of the profession works. Meteorologists get drawn into this question of climate change a lot nowadays, but meteorologists really don’t have that kind of background and will only comment if they are interested in climate. Otherwise what they tend to notice is how convoluted the arguments have become, and especially jarring are the comments about more frequent severe weather. Anyone who has been forecasting for many years just knows this is a big crock—severe weather, if anything, has been on a slight decline for decades now.
So I’ve been sitting back just waiting for this trainwreck to begin, knowing full well that climate science as applied to this quasi-religion of climate change is really quite fraudulent, as science it is really amateurish, taking conclusions first and then trying to generate data to support them, and as we now see with more evidence than ever before, sometimes manipulating the data, or the comments, or the process, to get the right “results.”
I wouldn’t trust these weenies to get me a coffee at Starbucks, let alone reshape the world’s economies on a wild hunch.
Whether this episode brings about their ultimate demise or just a reprimand for show, followed by more of the same after a few weeks or months go by, remains to be seen … it’s really all up to the scientific community, because the reality is, nobody has any control over scientists, they are more autonomous than politicians, bureaucrats or even religious leaders. Scientists are only subject to the discipline of other scientists. As we can see with climate science, that’s like having Todd Bertuzzi as chief of NHL discipline.
November 21st, 2009 at 6:02 pm
John Cross knows a lot about climatology.
That’s not the problem.
November 21st, 2009 at 6:38 pm
While I would hope the release of these documents would be a slap up the side of the head of governments and put some sense into their heads about all the time and money they has committed to this farce, but I somehow doubt it. The whole Copenhagen meeting has nothing to do with climate change – Mark Steyn pointed this out some weeks ago – it has to do with some developed countries lead by the liberal left wanting to prove our guilt for anything negative that has happened in the developing/undeveloped world (although a lot of the developing world’s problems can be laid at the feet of tyrants and brutes – but I digress!). The remedy for this guilt is to tax the developed world as much as possible (and more) and transfer that to the developing world (and what they would do with it is uncertain but I suspect a lot of it will end up in the bank accounts of the aforementioned tyrants!). The pretext to justify this transfer is global warming. But I fear that will continue regardless of what these documents show – the pretext will just change from global warming to some other hoax.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:05 pm
John; sorry, no.
Cheers,
-Dan
November 21st, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Well, this whole episode is going to break some new ground eventually, because it will force the revelation of some new power relationship in the world, one not seen before—who will gain authority over science, and how will they exercise that power? Because this can’t go on much longer before an answer has to come, the world isn’t likely to follow a highly dangerous course of action suggested by discredited scientists any more than it would follow a discredited religious or political leader.
But the actual power structure of science only allows for peer review as a check against unlimited ambition. There has not been a case in modern times where the establishment has turned against organized science. It’s always possible that God will have to step in to settle this one, and it would be quite consistent with Biblical prophecy in general terms.
Don’t want to give Stephen Harper a big head, but in this paradigm, he is sort of the number two choice.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Poor Phil I betcha he hasn’t slept in days. Poor Baybeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
November 21st, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Suppress your own evidence that doesn’t conform to your theory; try to block publication of scientific studies that don’t conform to your theory; sabotage the reputations of those who disagree with you; destroy evidence that my prove your analysis wrong (the 100 year world temperature data destroyed at the CLU); refuse to release your methodology applied to the 100 year temperature data set and used in the IPCC report as evidence of a 0.7C temperature increase in 20th century (still the case). This is just from one set of emails. Surely we can assume there is a lot more than this. Global warming is a fraud based on bad science and political motivations.
November 21st, 2009 at 11:33 pm
But wait, there’s more. How about threatening to destroy data rather than release it if a Freedom of Information Request is upheld?
HEY JC, CAN YOU READ!
November 22nd, 2009 at 1:44 am
Rob H, yup.
And there is,no doubt more. Lots more. But what needs to happen is for politicians to start digging. They’ve been sold a pup; now they need to know why and how.
November 22nd, 2009 at 5:49 am
Rob H: If you can point to specific we can look at them. You can see my comments regarding the FOI below, but in the mean time, based on what I presented above, do you think that Jay’s last point is valid – i.e. that a journal was blacklisted for political reasons.
Jay: With the exception of the FOI part, there is nothing you have posted that would support your statements. For example, your statement of a journal being blacklisted for purely political reasons is as false as you can get. It was “blacklisted” for publishing a scientific report where the data could not support the conclusions. Even the journal admitted the paper in question should never have been published because the data could not support the conclusions.
I excluded the FOI part because I do not know much about the FOI process and I have not seen the official FOI request that was filed. I understand that you are knowledgeable about FOI requests ;)
I am intrigues by your last post. If by “sold a pup” you mean the science of AGW, then what have they been sold and how does this change anything.
Regards,
John
November 22nd, 2009 at 7:39 am
JC,
Perhaps I can help you out. For many years, we had heard about a consensus among scientists about AGW. Now we hear how prominent researchers in the field conspired to manipulate data, delete original data records, and ban opposing views from journals. This is not the behavior of researchers confident of an established consensus—it is the behavior of scam artists.
Regardless of your opinion of the hypothesis of AGW, these emails have shattered any hope of “consensus.” That blessed day will now have to wait until real science is given time to re-establish it.
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:57 am
“Global warming is a fraud based on bad science and political motivations.”
Gee Rob? Aren’t you now making unsupported conclusions based on your GW theory?
November 22nd, 2009 at 1:26 pm
JC, surely if the Soon and Balunias paper had “data that didn’t support its conclusions” was bad enough, why then hasn’t there been a raft of resignations/firings over the publishing of Mann et all 1998 and 1999, plus Mann 2008 for starters ? MBH 98 in particular is at least as egregious a failure of the scientific method as S&B, and yet the methods for calculating the confidence intervals have still not been released, we’re still not in a position to truly evaluate how bad it was.
For what it’s worth I believe this article has it about right. The emails don’t undermine the AGW itself directly, but they do expose the clear facts that AGW is driven by an agenda, it has been treated as a campaign not as science, and certain members of the in-group have connived at unethical and sometimes criminal behaviour (evading FOI is a criminal offense) in order to promote the campaign.
November 22nd, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Bentley Strange: OK, that sounds like an interesting discussion. Let me quote from S&B 2003
So by their definition during the MWP if an area was wetter or dryer that was taken as evidence of warming while during the LIA if an area was wetter or dryer that was taken as evidence of cooling. So the same change in precipitation in the same area but 100 years different in time would be taken as evidence of both warming and cooling.
John
November 22nd, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Well, I am an FOI expert. If I ever came across such an e-mail, I would have it in our lawyer’s in-box in a few minutes.
And whoever wrote such an e-mail would have a career be measured in minutes as well…
November 23rd, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Jay, you’re getting links from Vox Day @ WND too. Congrats! The farther this reaches, the better.
December 2nd, 2009 at 6:45 pm
[quote]The leaked CRU documents, so far as I can see, do not destroy the shaky theory of AGW. The do something far more fundamental: they call into question the integrity of the core group of climate scientist whose work and views have dominated the so called “consensus”. [/quote]
What kind of person would say something like this?
They conspired to fraudulently produce false data; and the fundamentally important thing is that they are guilty of the conspiracy, but the data is still good? Has anyone ever heard of Dan Rather?
Besides which, when did it become ANYONE’S burden to [b]DISPROVE[/b] scientific theories?
Does no one on the entire planet understand anything .. ANYTHING AT ALL … about what science is? (or was? or was supposed to be?)