Jonathan Leake, The Sunday Times
The American government has suspended its funding of the University of East Anglia’s climate research unit (CRU), citing the scientific doubts raised by last November’s leak of hundreds of stolen emails.
The US Department of Energy (DoE) was one of the unit’s main sources of funding for its work assembling a database of global temperatures.
It has supported the CRU financially since 1990 and gives the unit about £131,000 ($200,000 USD) a year on a rolling three-year contract.
This should have been renewed automatically in April, but the department has suspended all payments since May pending a scientific peer review of the unit’s work.
The leaked emails caused a global furore. They appeared to suggest that CRU scientists were using “tricks” to strengthen the case for man-made climate change and suppressing dissent.
A spokesman for the DoE said: “The renewal application was placed on hold pending the conclusion of the inquiry into scientific misconduct by Sir Alastair Muir Russell.”
Muir Russell published his report earlier this month. It said that the rigour and honesty of the CRU scientists were not in doubt but criticised them for “a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness”.
The DoE peer review panel will now sift through the report and decide if American taxpayers should continue to fund the unit.
A spokesman for the university said: “We are still waiting to hear if the latest bid for funding to the US Department of Energy has been successful and would not comment or speculate in the meantime.”
The Sunday Times, 18 July 2010
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I rather hope the British government will do the same.
Wonderful! I hope DoE sends the memo to EPA head Jackson. Just think, a debate about climate science within our government. Will wonders never cease?
The scientists at DOE will soon be on the NAS blacklist if they do not stop this heretical behavior.
I would never have suspected a shortage of whitewash at Stephen Chu’s DoE.
I’m sure it’s just temporary, there’s a new bucket on the way right now.
So the whitewashes are clearly about keeping the cash flow from Uncle Sugar flowing.
I’ll note that BP was also one of the CRU’s biggest funders. Given Obama just raped BP for $30 billion, methinks their charitable giving office is going to be pruning donations for a few years.
Lean times ahead at the CRU. Phil and Keith are going to have to cut back on the caviar.
Lets hope that Dr. Steven Chu has not traded in his scientific integrity for political expediency. I have hope that he is a true scientist and curiosity will drive him to pursue the truth, against the faux religious forces pushing the AGW agenda.
Sorry guys!
The hole establishment sticks together. This is only to pretend that they care or bother. There is just to much prestige and vested intrests on the line here.
Do you really think that criminal (but prescribated) actions will affect anything?
That CRU used “official channels” to get rid of critics and auditors?
Isnt EPA and DoE the “official channels P Jones is referring to?
Or does P Jones mean Mr Watson personally when he rites the e mails?
And why Mr Anthony Watts isnt anybody asking Mr Jones what he is refering to?
Du you or anyone know??
Never fear. DoE will soon examine the quality of whitewash used and skill at application, then resume funding for the rotting refuse heap beneath it.
Hmm that explains why when I dropped my razor this AM it fell UP! this is a good thing…
“In an odd way this is cheering news !”
Another whitewash in the works. I predict that with the growing practice of whitewashing that the earth’s albedo will be increased and we will go into an extended period of cooling, probably lasting until at least 2035. By then, newly fatted out Himalayan glaciers can then start a new unprecedented melting, hippos that were turned back from their swim to Svalbaard will be returning (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/15/peer-reviewed-science-polar-bears-of-the-past-survived-warmth/ ), and beachfront property on Victoria Island will be reclaimed.
. . . the department has suspended all payments since May pending a scientific peer review of the unit’s work.
Why are my hopes for an impartial assessment not rising?
The DoE will give them a raise before it’s over
If the peer reviewers stand to get that $200k/year I think I know how this will turn out.
Does is strike anyone else as odd that the U.S. DOE is partially funding the CRU? I guess I’m glad to hear the U.S. and G.B. are “cooperating”, but can’t the Brits pay for their own propaganda? Or are they helping our own propaganda machine the GISS? And if they are, why would we be exchanging money in this manner?
Lean times ahead at the CRU. Phil and Keith are going to have to cut back on the caviar.
It’s not easy being green anymore:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpiIWMWWVco&hl=en_US&fs=1]
Mike McMillan says:
July 18, 2010 at 8:36 am
“Why are my hopes for an impartial assessment not rising?”
Uhmm, because experience is the best teacher?
Just another ploy to restore legitimacy to CRU.
Yet another official thumbs up that the science is sound – with a gratuitous slap on the wrist to make it look like it was a real investigation.
Quite the opposite of what it is advertised to be.
Thank you, America. I hope we are on the road to sanity. Perhaps we could have the DoE look into whether the US tax payers’ contribution to the IPCC is money well spent – given all the recent ‘gates’.
“The US Department of Energy (DoE) was one of the unit’s main sources of funding for its work assembling a database of global temperatures.”
Maybe Surfacestations.org could apply for the funding and maintain an honest database of surface temperatures.
If all else fails they’ll plead to the UK National Lottery. It seems to have a bottomless pit of cash for hopeless and lost causes.
One of the commentators (Mike Lorrey) points out the role of the ‘Beyond Petroleum’ company in funding CRU. There was another place heavily funded by BP: Lawrence Berkeley Lab, at the time when Dr. Steven Chu was head of that National Laboratory. Honi soi qui mal y pense.
I’m sure once Sorros, et Al, get wind of this. DOE willbe brought into line
US halts funds for climate unit – pg3 – Sunday Times – 18th July 2010.
Thought I’s pu this comment in the right article..
I think this is the same Times correspondent, that was at the Guardian ‘climategate’ following the Muir Russell. The one I heard saying it was ‘shocking’ that Muir Russell had not been part of the process interviewing Phil Jones (Head of CRU) after the inquiry panel had formed…
The article finsished with:
“The DoE peer review panel will now sift through the (Muir Russell) report and decide if American taxpayers should continue to fund the unit.”
——————————————
Perhaps someone in the USA could advice the DoE of the many and varied criticisms of the Muir Russell review. Not least that it was a total whitewash, documented at Climate Audit.
As outlined by Steve Mcintyre at the Guardian debate on climategate in London on Wednesday the 14th July 2010, that Muir Russell had only met with Phil Jones (head of unit) before the panel had been formed and the inquiry started. The Times correspondent asked Trevor Davis (UEA) to confirm whether this was the case, and Trevor Davis, eventually said Phil Jones met Muir Russell in January.. The panel convened in February..
Lots of detail about the Muir Russell review failings at, Climate Audit..
Another criticism being, Muir Russell had not EVEN contacted Steve Mcintyre, or a number of the other critics, let alone interviewed any of the critics of CRU discussed many times in the emails, whose complaints about data openess led to Illegal (in face of FOI request) deleteions of emails relating to IPCC AR4… ‘review saying ‘no evidence of deletions’!!
From the WSJ, on Muir Russell inquiry
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704075604575356611173414140.html
“It’s impossible to find anything wrong if you really aren’t looking. In a famous email of May 29, 2008, Phil Jones, director of East Anglia’s CRU, wrote to Mr. Mann, under the subject line “IPCC & FOI,” “Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4 [the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report]? Keith will do likewise . . . can you also email Gene [Wahl, an employee of the U.S. Department of Commerce] to do the same . . . We will be getting Caspar [Amman, of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research] to do likewise.”
Mr. Jones emailed later that he had “deleted loads of emails” so that anyone who might bring a Freedom of Information Act request would get very little. According to New Scientist writer Fred Pearce, “Russell and his team never asked Jones or his colleagues whether they had actually done this.”
—— my thoughts again below
These included senior AMERICAN scientists, so presumably funding for the AMERICAN scientist should be looked at by the DoE’s peer review panel as well.
Perhaps the DoE should request all correspondence from the American scientists that were communicating and working with CRU scientists, as both sets of scientists were co-authors and worked closely in the same ‘climate’ field and both very involved in the IPCC process.
http://climateaudit.org/2010/07/09/muir-russell-skipped-jones-interviews/
http://climateaudit.org/2010/07/10/bob-denton-on-muir-russell/
and more articles about Muir Russell at Climate Audit
Crime scene, Google Earth 52°37’18.32″N 1°14’18.77″E