Climatic Research Unit update – November 24, 3.30pm
The University of East Anglia has released statements from Prof Trevor Davies, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, Prof Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit, and from CRU.
Statement from Professor Trevor Davies, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Research
The publication of a selection of the emails and data stolen from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) has led to some questioning of the climate science research published by CRU and others. There is nothing in the stolen material which indicates that peer-reviewed publications by CRU, and others, on the nature of global warming and related climate change are not of the highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation. CRU’s peer-reviewed publications are consistent with, and have contributed to, the overwhelming scientific consensus that the climate is being strongly influenced by human activity. The interactions of the atmosphere, oceans, land, and ice mean that the strongly-increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere do not produce a uniform year-on-year increase in global temperature. On time-scales of 5-10 years, however, there is a broad scientific consensus that the Earth will continue to warm, with attendant changes in the climate, for the foreseeable future. It is important, for all countries, that this warming is slowed down, through substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to reduce the most dangerous impacts of climate change. Respected international research groups, using other data sets, have come to the same conclusion.
The University of East Anglia and CRU are committed to scientific integrity, open debate and enhancing understanding. This includes a commitment to the international peer-review system upon which progress in science relies. It is this tried and tested system which has underpinned the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is through that process that we can engage in respectful and informed debate with scientists whose analyses appear not to be consistent with the current overwhelming consensus on climate change
The publication of a selection of stolen data is the latest example of a sustained and, in some instances, a vexatious campaign which may have been designed to distract from reasoned debate about the nature of the urgent action which world governments must consider to mitigate, and adapt to, climate change. We are committed to furthering this debate despite being faced with difficult circumstances related to a criminal breach of our security systems and our concern to protect colleagues from the more extreme behaviour of some who have responded in irrational and unpleasant ways to the publication of personal information.
There has been understandable interest in the progress and outcome of the numerous requests under information legislation for large numbers of the data series held by CRU. The University takes its responsibilities under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Environmental Information Regulations 2004, and the Data Protection Act 1998 very seriously and has, in all cases, handled and responded to requests in accordance with its obligations under each particular piece of legislation. Where appropriate, we have consulted with the Information Commissioners Office and have followed their advice.
In relation to the specific requests at issue here, we have handled and responded to each request in a consistent manner in compliance with the appropriate legislation. No record has been deleted, altered, or otherwise dealt with in any fashion with the intent of preventing the disclosure of all, or any part, of the requested information. Where information has not been disclosed, we have done so in accordance with the provisions of the relevant legislation and have so informed the requester.
The Climatic Research Unit holds many data series, provided to the Unit over a period of several decades, from a number of nationally-funded institutions and other research organisations around the world, with specific agreements made over restrictions in the dissemination of those original data. All of these individual series have been used in CRU’s analyses. It is a time-consuming process to attempt to gain approval from these organisations to release the data. Since some of them were provided decades ago, it has sometimes been necessary to track down the successors of the original organisations. It is clearly in the public interest that these data are released once we have succeeded in gaining the approval of collaborators. Some who have requested the data will have been aware of the scale of the exercise we have had to undertake. Much of these data are already available from the websites of the Global Historical Climate Data Network and the Goddard Institute for Space Science.
Given the degree to which we collaborate with other organisations around the world, there is also an understandable interest in the computer security systems we have in place in CRU and UEA. Although we were confident that our systems were appropriate, experience has shown that determined and skilled people, who are prepared to engage in criminal activity, can sometimes hack into apparently secure systems. Highly-protected government organisations around the world have also learned this to their cost.
We have, therefore, decided to conduct an independent review, which will address the issue of data security, an assessment of how we responded to a deluge of Freedom of Information requests, and any other relevant issues which the independent reviewer advises should be addressed.
Statement from Professor Phil Jones, Head of the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia.
In the frenzy of the past few days, the most vital issue is being overshadowed: we face enormous challenges ahead if we are to continue to live on this planet.
One has to wonder if it is a coincidence that this email correspondence has been stolen and published at this time. This may be a concerted attempt to put a question mark over the science of climate change in the run-up to the Copenhagen talks.
That the world is warming is based on a range of sources: not only temperature records but other indicators such as sea level rise, glacier retreat and less Arctic sea ice.
Our global temperature series tallies with those of other, completely independent, groups of scientists working for NASA and the National Climate Data Center in the United States, among others. Even if you were to ignore our findings, theirs show the same results. The facts speak for themselves; there is no need for anyone to manipulate them.
We have been bombarded by Freedom of Information requests to release the temperature data that are provided to us by meteorological services around the world via a large network of weather stations. This information is not ours to give without the permission of the meteorological services involved. We have responded to these Freedom of Information requests appropriately and with the knowledge and guidance of the Information Commissioner.
We have stated that we hope to gain permission from each of these services to publish their data in the future and we are in the process of doing so.
My colleagues and I accept that some of the published emails do not read well. I regret any upset or confusion caused as a result. Some were clearly written in the heat of the moment, others use colloquialisms frequently used between close colleagues.
We are, and have always been, scrupulous in ensuring that our science publications are robust and honest.
CRU statement
Recently thousands of files and emails illegally obtained from a research server at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have been posted on various sites on the web. The emails relate to messages received or sent by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) over the period 1996-2009.
A selection of these emails have been taken out of context and misinterpreted as evidence that CRU has manipulated climate data to present an unrealistic picture of global warming.
This conclusion is entirely unfounded and the evidence from CRU research is entirely consistent with independent evidence assembled by various research groups around the world.
There is excellent agreement on the course of temperature change since 1881 between the data set that we contribute to (HadCRUT3) and two other, independent analyses of worldwide temperature measurements. There are no statistically significant differences between the warming trends in the three series since the start of the 20th century. The three independent global temperature data series have been assembled by:
• CRU and the Met Office Hadley Centre (HadCRUT3) in the UK.
• The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Asheville, NC, USA.
• The Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS), part of the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) in New York.
The warming shown by the HadCRUT3 series between the averages of the two periods (1850-99 and 2001-2005) was 0.76±0.19°C, and this is corroborated by the other two data sets.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its 4th Assessment Report (AR4) published in 2007 concluded that the warming of the climate system was unequivocal. This conclusion was based not only on the observational temperature record, although this is the key piece of evidence, but on multiple strands of evidence. These factors include: long-term retreat of glaciers in most alpine regions of the world; reductions in the area of the Northern Hemisphere (NH) snow cover during the spring season; reductions in the length of the freeze season in many NH rivers and lakes; reduction in Arctic sea-ice extent in all seasons, but especially in the summer; increases in global average sea level since the 19th century; increases in the heat content of the ocean and warming of temperatures in the lower part of the atmosphere since the late 1950s.
CRU has also been involved in reconstructions of temperature (primarily for the Northern Hemisphere) from proxy data (non-instrumental sources such as tree rings, ice cores, corals and documentary records). Similar temperature reconstructions have been developed by numerous other groups around the world. The level of uncertainty in this indirect evidence for temperature change is much greater than for the picture of temperature change shown by the instrumental data. But different reconstructions of temperature change over a longer period, produced by different researchers using different methods, show essentially the same picture of highly unusual warmth across the NH during the 20th century. The principal conclusion from these studies (summarized in IPCC AR4) is that the second half of the 20th century was very likely (90% probable) warmer than any other 50-year period in the last 500 years and likely (66% probable) the warmest in the past 1300 years.
One particular, illegally obtained, email relates to the preparation of a figure for the WMO Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 1999. This email referred to a “trick” of adding recent instrumental data to the end of temperature reconstructions that were based on proxy data. The requirement for the WMO Statement was for up-to-date evidence showing how temperatures may have changed over the last 1000 years. To produce temperature series that were completely up-to-date (i.e. through to 1999) it was necessary to combine the temperature reconstructions with the instrumental record, because the temperature reconstructions from proxy data ended many years earlier whereas the instrumental record is updated every month. The use of the word “trick” was not intended to imply any deception.
Phil Jones comments further: “One of the three temperature reconstructions was based entirely on a particular set of tree-ring data that shows a strong correlation with temperature from the 19th century through to the mid-20th century, but does not show a realistic trend of temperature after 1960. This is well known and is called the ‘decline’ or ‘divergence’. The use of the term ‘hiding the decline’ was in an email written in haste. CRU has not sought to hide the decline. Indeed, CRU has published a number of articles that both illustrate, and discuss the implications of, this recent tree-ring decline, including the article that is listed in the legend of the WMO Statement figure. It is because of this trend in these tree-ring data that we know does not represent temperature change that I only show this series up to 1960 in the WMO Statement.”
The ‘decline’ in this set of tree-ring data should not be taken to mean that there is any problem with the instrumental temperature data. As for the tree-ring decline, various manifestations of this phenomenon have been discussed by numerous authors, and its implications are clearly signposted in Chapter 6 of the IPCC AR4 report.
Included here is a copy of the figure used in the WMO statement, together with an alternative version where the climate reconstructions and the instrumental temperatures are shown separately.
Heated email moments.. sustained for 10 years
thats original
Oh “hiding the decline” was written in haste. What he meant to say was “showing the decline”….. right
Unfortunately, running their source code does not seem to confirm that their published work was “of the highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation”.
/snark
Circle the wagons–
standard procedure for fraudsters.
That is one seriously long press release – just shows how much cr*p they are in.
Unfortunately for them, we’ve seen the emails and files – it’s all there in b/w.
The Hockey Stick re-appears as evidence for the defence. That simply beggars belief.
What a stupid stance by UAE and CRU, it makes them look incompetent.
heat of the moment is something you do in the back seat of your car with your high school girlfriend….writing several emails spanning years telling people to rid themselves of dissenters and eliminate/manipulate data in order to acheive your own goals?…sounds a bit pre-meditated to me…
As I said elsewhere, to paraphrase Emile Zola:
“If you bury truth in the ground, it will grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way.”
Much could be said about the above official statements.
I choose to focus on just one; where Phil Jones sez:
”My colleagues and I accept that some of the published emails do not read well.”
Do not ”READ WELL” ?!?! . . . . Do ya think ??. . . .
There must be some version of the yearly Darwin Awards (or if there isn’t there should be); for which this qualifies as a leading contender.
How can they write this with a straight face:
“There is nothing in the stolen material which indicates that peer-reviewed publications by CRU, and others, on the nature of global warming and related climate change are not of the highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation.”
“That the world is warming is based on a range of sources: not only temperature records but other indicators such as sea level rise, glacier retreat and less Arctic sea ice.”
How to make a Hockey Stick:
Find a system that has a critical threshold such as the fact that ice doesn’t melt at all until T rises above zero C.
Realize that T has risen steadily for the 350 years that thermometer records are available for (http://i47.tinypic.com/261oktj.jpg), so each decade will indeed be the “hottest in recorded history!”
Find that point on the planet where average temperatures are just now rising above zero C in summer.
Plot a graph of ice loss there over the few hundred years.
So if the “peer-reviewed publications by CRU” are of the “highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation” “on the nature of global warming and related climate change” I can only imagine how bad the rest of the scientific investigation and interpretation on global warming must be.
You guys are joke and disgrace to science. Congratulations, you are dismissed…
How utterly disgusting!
Maybe I’m ignorant, but if the tree ring data is shown to not be an accurate representation of temperature after 1960, how can it be a good representation of temperature before 1960? It would seem to me that if tree ring growth is a function of temperature before 1960 that it should continue to be a function of temperature after 1960.
Somebody should give them a basic statistics review and remind them that correlation does not indicate causality.
The first sentence of paragraph 2 had me laughing though. Apparently UEA’s version of scientific integrity involves hiding data, pressuring peer reviewers and journal editors to ignore opposing viewpoints and avoiding FOIA requests.
I read in Statement from Professor Trevor Davies, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Research the following statement :
”
There is nothing in the stolen material which indicates that peer-reviewed publications by CRU, and others, on the nature of global warming and related climate change are not of the highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation.
”
Unfortunately for AGW activists his statement is plainly false. The material does indicate that peer-reviewing process is cheated with, the curves and data altered or cherry-picked for preventing truth to appear, the consensus wrong, doubts hidden, the temperature of 2000s fundamentaly unexplained by CO2, and more.
If you say things often enough, long enough, with a straight enough face and under a good academic title, then you’re right.
“The use of the term ‘hiding the decline’ was in an email written in haste…”
yes we know, you are allways in haste, because money rans you if the temperature not follows modell simulation.
therefore you are in pretty haste to copenhaben, because 2 more cooling years and all your agw modell theory smells like a dog at the very behind…
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The fact that a divergence exists between tree-rings and measured temperatures since 1960, if anything, proves that the tree rings are not good proxies for temperature. Knowing this, you can use the temperatures, or you can use the tree-rings, but you cannot mix them to draw a full picture. If you want to tell the story that tree-rings tell, fine. But tell all of it. Because if we know now that temperatures are higher than the rings indicate, then you cannot ignore the posibility that this also happened in the past. You cannot sugest that we have never in the past had temperatures like today’s. Because the tree rings DO have had the same ring widths that they have now. What is valid today could be valid in the past. What is not valid today could also have been not valid in the past. The assumption that the proxies were perfectly perfect until 1960 and then something happened, doesn’t hold up. Especially when you do not know what happened and cannot explain the divergence. You cannot assure that there wasn’t any divergence problem also in the past.
Should anyone understand the political underpinnings of the Wizard of Oz and Mr. Baum’s mindset regarding the symbolic man behind the curtain, one would wonder if the above statements were actually from the original text of that children’s classic tale.
Hmmmm, no mention of avoiding FOI requests in there, or trying to get an editor fired, or gaming the review process against certain authors, or complaining about contrariness in press articles. Lots of arm waving though. I liked the science bit. I have no idea if it’s true or not, but I’m much less likely to believe it now.
If there ever was a quote waiting for status, that one would be it, “…do not read well.”
So what to do when you are caught red-handed in scientific fraud and deceit? Continue to lie! Yeah, that should do the ‘trick’ (pun intended).
Dear Phil,
If you feel that these emails don’t read well and don’t do justice to your skills of composition, we will always be happy to consider reading those that you have not yet released to us.
Aha – this addresses hiding the decline, but this:
suggests there may be problems with tree-ring data (and noted by dendrochronologists in the leaked Emails).
I guess I better check out chapter 6. Anyone have a handy link for the relevant section?
Appeal to peer-review. Push the metrics which currently, inconveniently and oh so temporarily go against our belief system. Attempt to wriggle off the hook.
There, that’s better. Now, where did I put that beaker of kool-aid.?
They keep saying the emails were stolen. Perhaps they should say allegedly stolen. The emails may have been leaked. They may have been carelessly left on an ftp site where anyone could just pick them up. The people claiming they were stolen are the people with the most to lose.
P Wilson (08:59:57) :
> Heated email moments.. sustained for 10 years
> thats original
Poor Harry’s Diary is certainly three years of heat of the moment, weekends included!
…….not of the highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation.
“There is nothing in the stolen material which indicates that peer-reviewed publications by CRU, and others, on the nature of global warming and related climate change are not of the highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation.”
This is peer reviewed. We have all things in common. we hate John daly and Love Algore.
I am sorry. They admit to tweeking the data and pushing the math.
Considering that we have seen the code and the comments which show that much of the climate reconstruction had as much scientific rigour as “making up as we go along”, and further considering that claims made by sceptical climate scientists of poor peer review practices are backed up by these emails demonstrating the abuse and “rigging” of the peer review process, then the statement above that,
“There is nothing in the stolen material which indicates that peer-reviewed publications by CRU, and others, on the nature of global warming and related climate change are not of the highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation. CRU’s peer-reviewed publications are consistent with, and have contributed to, the overwhelming scientific consensus that the climate is being strongly influenced by human activity.”
Reminds me of the cartoon where a mouse is about to be eaten by a cat and it just stands there with one middle finger raised showing complete defiance to the end!
I have it on good sources that when Ben Santer was “tempted, very tempted, to beat the crap” out of sceptic Pat Michaels, what he really mean’t was that he felt courteous to help him with his constipation problem.
P Wilson (09:02:22) :
Oh “hiding the decline” was written in haste. What he meant to say was “showing the decline”….. right
Well his programmer obviously did’t get the memo:
I wonder if the UAE, the CRU, the Met Office and Phil Jones collectively know how to spell either the words “rubbish” or “baloney”. In any event, I can smell them from a very long distance!
Another CYA moment…gotta love it when they are on their heels trying to get traction.
Having pored over the hacked emails, here’s my impression (as already posted on the Daily Telegraph site):
1. A relatively small number of eminent scientists dominate the climate research field.
2. This small group has an inordinate influence over the scientific advice submitted to the IPCC, which in turn has a huge influence over government policies around the world.
3. This group fiercely protects its data and methodologies. It attempts to avoid submitting them to external scrutiny by evading Freedom of Information requests, and colluding to delete emails.
4. There is a strong suggestion that, either consciously or unconsciously, data is massaged to fit the AGW theory, rather than vice versa. They will not admit to gaps in their knowledge or inconsistencies in the data.
5. They attempt to ‘rubbish’ dissenting or sceptical views by influencing e.g., journal editors and media journalists. Sceptical views of other scientists are subjected to quite vicious rebuttals and their academic reputations impugned.
6. They consolidate their position by ‘peer reviewing’ each others papers.
What a joke. I like the way the Phil Jones refers to the IPCC AR4 report in his defense. Does he think nobody knows that the chapter of the IPCC report on temperatures, chapter 3, was written by a certain Phil Jones?
Amazingly, he still seems to think he can fool people.
He needs to resign, or the University will have to fire him.
Re: hiding the divergency problem
– it just shows how good a job they have done on this
– I am sure that 99.99% of the population (I made that statistic up, BTW), have no idea that the hockey-stick is basically fiction & that the ‘proxy’ data fails to track the real-temp in last 50 years!
(tree-ring proxy data in the NH, BTW)
– and also, AFAIK, the CRU team have no good explaination for it…
and when Ben Santer says he’d like to take those Climate Audit folks into a dark Alley – its just to show them that there’s nothing to be afraid of apart from a few stray cats.
Respected international research groups, using other data sets, have come to the same conclusion.
“Other data sets.” Like for instance? Nice try. Now about that raw data . . .
“As for the tree-ring decline, various manifestations of this phenomenon have been discussed by numerous authors, and its implications are clearly signposted in Chapter 6 of the IPCC AR4 report.”
Here is the relevant IPCC text:
There is always a possibility
that non-climate factors, such as changing atmospheric CO2 or
soil chemistry, might compromise the assumption of uniformity
implicit in the interpretation of regression-based climate
reconstructions, but there remains no evidence that this is true
for any of the reconstructions referred to in this assessment.
A group of high-elevation ring width chronologies from the
western USA that show a marked growth increase during the last
100 years, attributed by LaMarche et al. (1984) to the fertilizing
effect of increasing atmospheric CO2, were included among the
proxy data used by Mann et al. (1998, 1999). However, their
tree ring data from the western USA were adjusted specifi cally
in an attempt to mitigate this effect. Several analyses of ring
width and ring density chronologies, with otherwise wellestablished
sensitivity to temperature, have shown that they do
not emulate the general warming trend evident in instrumental
temperature records over recent decades, although they do track
the warming that occurred during the early part of the 20th
century and they continue to maintain a good correlation with
observed temperatures over the full instrumental period at the
interannual time scale (Briffa et al., 2004; D’Arrigo, 2006). This
‘divergence’ is apparently restricted to some northern, highlatitude
regions, but it is certainly not ubiquitous even there. In
their large-scale reconstructions based on tree ring density data,
Briffa et al. (2001) specifi cally excluded the post-1960 data in
their calibration against instrumental records, to avoid biasing
the estimation of the earlier reconstructions (hence they are not
shown in Figure 6.10), implicitly assuming that the ‘divergence’
was a uniquely recent phenomenon, as has also been argued by
Cook et al. (2004a). Others, however, argue for a breakdown
in the assumed linear tree growth response to continued
warming, invoking a possible threshold exceedance beyond
which moisture stress now limits further growth (D’Arrigo
et al., 2004). If true, this would imply a similar limit on the
potential to reconstruct possible warm periods in earlier times
at such sites. At this time there is no consensus on these issues
(for further references see NRC, 2006) and the possibility of
investigating them further is restricted by the lack of recent tree
ring data at most of the sites from which tree ring data discussed
in this chapter were acquired.
“When they finally get to Emerald City and meet the Wizard, he, like all good politicians, appears to be whatever people wish to see in him. He also plays on their fears…. But soon the Wizard is revealed to be a fraud–only a little old man `with a wrinkled face’ who admits that he’s been `making believe.’ `I am just a common man,’ he says. But he is a common man who can rule only by deceiving the people into thinking that he is more than he really is.
“`You’re a humbug,’ shouts the Scarecrow, and this is the core of Baum’s message. Those forces that keep the farmer and worker down are manipulated by frauds who rule by deception and trickery; the President is powerful only as long as he is able to manipulate images and fool the people.
“Finally, to save her friends, Dorothy `melts’ the Wicked Witch of the West (just as evil as the East), and the Wizard flies off in a hot-air balloon to a new life. The Scarecrow (farmer) is left in charge of Oz, and the Tin Woodsman is left to rule the East. This populist dream of the farmer and worker gaining political power was never to come true, and Baum seems to recognize this by sending the Cowardly Lion back into the forest, a recognition of Bryan’s retreat from national politics.
“Dorothy is able to return to her home with the aid of her magical silver shoes, but on waking in Kansas, she realizes that they’ve fallen off, representing the demise of the silver coinage issue in American politics.”
Source: Michael A. Genovese, _Los Angeles Times_, 19 March 1988.
For further studies see:
http://www.amphigory.com/oz.htm
Now we know what Gavin was doing yesterday when comments on RC were closed.
Jones’ statement about the tree ring divergence strikes me as being weasily to say the least.
The Vice Chancellor’s comments on the FOI issue are pure CYA – and clearly are at odds with the behavior advocated in the emails.
Somebody has made a big mistake putting this out. It seems to me that they are giving the hangman more rope.
Just plain silly public statements.
Saying that the emails “do not read well” is about like saying that receiving a diagnosis of terminal cancer is “a bit unpleasant”. But the extreme arrogance, hubris, and immaturity conveyed by the email messages is the least of the problems.
These statements do not address the most important issues raised by the emails:
1) The clear appearance of efforts to suppress/discredit any research contrary to that done by CRU and their close associates, by any means possible, including a range of improper means that appear tantamount to professional misconduct.
2) Multiple statements of intent to never comply with FIO requests for data, made long before any such requests were received.
3) Requests to have associates delete email messages that might be subject to FIO requests.
4) An obvious confirmation bias (“no science, I just know in my gut”) with regard to projections of extreme global warming.
The email messages paint a very sorry picture of most those involved, raise legitimate questions about the ability of many well known climate scientists to fairly evaluate data, and most certainly bring into question whether these well known scientists should be holding the positions they hold.
These are simply individuals who are not worthy of trust, and so should not be receiving public funds for their work.
“Where appropriate, we have consulted with the Information Commissioners Office and have followed their advice.”
Oh, indeed.
“The skeptics will try to hang on to something, but I don’t want to give them something clearly tangible. Keith/Tim still getting FOI requests as well as MOHC and Reading. All our FOI officers have been in discussions and are now using the same exceptions not to respond – advice they got from the Information Commissioner. As an aside and just between us, it seems that Brian Hoskins has withdrawn himself from the WG1 Lead nominations. It seems he doesn’t want to have to deal with this hassle.
The FOI line we’re all using is this. IPCC is exempt from any countries FOI – the skeptics have been told this.
Even though we (MOHC, CRU/UEA) possibly hold relevant info the IPCC is not part our remit (mission statement, aims etc) therefore we don’t have an obligation to pass it on.
Cheers
Phil”
What is amazing to me is that in the first couple of paragraphs they completely gloss over the “if” of AGW and start right in on the, and I quote:
The publication of a selection of stolen data is the latest example of a sustained and, in some instances, a vexatious campaign which may have been designed to distract from reasoned debate about the nature of the urgent action which world governments must consider to mitigate, and adapt to, climate change.
The nature of the urgent action? You mean you expect people to just take your word on things?
The hubris is simply astounding.
“…these aren’t the droids you’re looking for…..”
“…Me thinks thou dost protest too much…”
“…but the Watergate break-in was illegal…”
Boy this is fun to watch!!
I sent another post regarding further information on the wizard and it appears to have been round filed. Could you please retrieve it?
Get a lawyer.
More specifically, I’m sure 99.99% of the population do not know that CRU are using tree-ring data to tell us the temperature of the earth to an accuracy of better than 0.1C, 1000 years ago, when the same data cannot be used to tell us the temperature in the present day, or in the last 50 years…
(even though it has been callibrated so to do..)
In the statement above, Phil Jones says
“We have been bombarded by Freedom of Information requests to release the temperature data that are provided to us by meteorological services around the world via a large network of weather stations. [b]This information is not ours to give without the permission of the meteorological services involved[/b].”
It seems he is still hiding behind agreements he signs with people.
From: Phil Jones
To: Tom Wigley
Subject: Re: FOIA
Date: Fri Jan 21 15:20:06 2005
Cc: Ben Santer
Tom,
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 [b]agreements we sign with people,
so I will be hiding behind them.[/b] I’ll be passing any
requests onto the person at UEA who has been given a post to
deal with them.
Cheers
Phil
Did anyone see this: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/17183
Is Obama’s Climate Czar Holdren involved? Is he in the emails CC?
tl;dr
but does this mean CRU is now a denier?
Well, I think that confirms there is no forgery in the content.
borepatch – that is an excellent spoof, have twittered it.
I think this Vice Chancellor is the same person who is allegedly complicit in the FOIA obstruction. They seem to be viewing the FOI requests as vexatious simply because it would take them time to comply.
I really liked the deconstruction of the spliced graph. Just look at the divergence of the proxy records from the ‘temperature’ record immediately pre- and post- the ‘calibration’ period. It looks like someone has eyeballed this for maximum effect! Ho hum when in a hole the best advice is to stop digging.
Does the repeated emphasis on peer review mean that they are going to take others down with them?
Where appropriate, we have consulted with the Information Commissioners Office and have followed their advice.
Too funny.
You can’t make this stuff up, folks.
The CRU statement is obvious baloney. There’s plenty in the emails that shows the scientific process was completely compromised. That was also obvious to anyone without a political agenda in the first place. I’m with Michael Crichton on this. Greatest scientific scandal of all time.
Any help with titles here (for those of us on the western edge of the Atlantic), e.g. what is a “Pro-Vice-Chancellor” (esp. the “Pro” part)?
A) Is there a “Chancellor” and
B) Why did he not speak?
.
.
Unbelievable BS!
But I bet you that THIS crap is what will be Trotted out on the BBC et al!
New article in the Guardian with Jones quotes
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/24/climate-professor-leaked-emails-uea
What they said:
What they really mean:
Who are the deniers, now.
As a retired UK academic, I would expect this sort of response from the Vice-Chancellor. The University of East Anglia is not one of the UK’s leading academic institutions. I suspect that a very large proportion of its research income and thus its research standing comes from the CRU and associated research groups. To disown Jones would be economic suicide for the university
However, the attempts to manipulate the peer review process, the crude dismissal of those perceived as enemies and the refusal to divulge publically funded data, even considering destroying data, are despicable. Once the UEA perceives Jones as a liability, they will drop him like a hot brick.
The data manipulation/enrichment/enhancement which seems to have been going on does not strike me as in accord with good science. Tree rings either predict temperature or they don’t. If they do before 1960 and don’t afterwards, doesn’t it suggest that the previous correlation was chance?
My thanks to Anthony and his team for producing one of my must-read websites. I learn something new at every visit.
Need to excerpt that portion of [was it] Wegman’s association chart showing the linkage btw these ppl, maybe yellow-highlight those involved here …
.
.
Holdren:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=374&filename=1066337021.txt
“…if we are to continue to live on this planet…”
You’d all get irritated, too, if you kept getting distracted from saving humanity.
The only correct response would be:
1. Phil Jones to step down immediately. Others placed on notice pending outcome of investigation.
2. Call in outside investigators to perform a full archive of the facility.
3. Full disclosure of all research.
4. Full investigation into practices of CRU / UEA looking for violations of ethics and criminal activity.
5. Issue formal apology.
The responses are as expected, but also WRONG, POLITICALLY STUPID AND SUICIDAL, DISHONEST (AND OUTRIGHT HILLARIOUS IN ONE SENSE)!
“of the highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation”
Yes, if your universe is inside out and upside down.
“This includes a commitment to the international peer-review system upon which progress in science relies. It is this tried and tested system which has underpinned the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”
Clearly the VC hasn’t read the emails…
It’s difficult to believe that, having shot themselves in one foot, they are now, it seems, shooting themselves in both feet. However, Wikipedia on Group Think helps me understand:
1. Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
2. Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions.
3. Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
4. Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, disfigured, impotent, or stupid.
5. Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of “disloyalty”.
6. Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
7. Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
8. Mind guards — self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.
standard textbook spin-control.
Translation: “NOTHING MORE TO SEE HERE. RETURN TO YOUR HOMES!” – Officer Barbrady
The University of East Anglia and CRU are committed to scientific integrity, open debate and enhancing understanding. This includes a commitment to the international peer-review system upon which progress in science relies. It is this tried and tested system which has underpinned the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is through that process that we can engage in respectful and informed debate with scientists whose analyses appear not to be consistent with the current overwhelming consensus on climate change
No they aren’t; we can read for ourselves. They’re committed to pushing an ideology, shutting down criticism and generally covering their arses.
Fire…them…all.
Yes, Professors, we might listen when you help to:
1. Free the data
2. Free the code
3. Free the debate
So say it all together: Free the data. Free the code. Free the debate.
Insteresting the Dr. John P. Holdren should come up:
1066337021.txt
You quote them from the NYT in 1998, referring to a study Mann and co-authors
published in that year, as saying
“Our conclusion was that the warming of the past few decades appears to be closely
tied to emission of greenhouse gases by humans and not any of the natural factors.”
and you ask “Does that seem to be careful in the nature of a claim?” My answer is:
Yes, absolutely, their formulation is careful and appropriate. Please note that they
did NOT say “Global warming is closely tied to emission of greenhouse gases by humans
and not any of the natural factors.” They said that THEIR CONCLUSION (from a
particular, specified study, published in NATURE) was that the warming of THE PAST FEW
DECADES (that is, a particular, specified part of the historical record) APPEARS (from
the evidence adduced in the specified study) to be closely tied… This is a carefully
specified, multiply bounded statement, which accurately reflects what they looked at and
what they found. And it is appropriately contingent –“APPEARS to be closely tied” —
allowing for the possibility that further analysis or new data could later lead to a
different perspective on what appears to be true.
With respect, it does not require a PhD in science to notice the appropriate boundedness
and contingency in the Mann et al. formulation. It only requires an open mind, a
careful reading, and a degree of understanding of the character of scientific claims and
the wording appropriate to convey them that is accessible to any thoughtful citizen.
__________________________________________________
After further review, in light of the acts of data expunging, peer-review hijacking, blacklisting from publication and other nefarious acts, the aspect of Mann et al monopolizing the soapbox to the extent of ensuring that they have the preponderance is the position of ‘settled science’ to be proven wrong is concocted.
In a level playing field, Mann et al would never have gotten as far as holding the scientific preponderance of expertise high ground to be disproven. They got there by rigging the process.
Can you imagine the skit that could be created by SNL or Jon Stewart using the content of this PR statement together with interleafed snippets from the emails and comment files?
I can believe this use of the word “trick” to mean a clever method. Harder to explain is the use of the phrase “hide the decline” and this is the one that made Professor Watson blush when Paxo asked him about it on Newsnight:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/newsnight
His answer was a bit odd too – apologising and conceding that they needed to change their language when he should have been able to hold his head high and explain what the phrase meant.
Another classic piece of body language he displays (especially in the VT clip) are the quick little shrugs of the shoulders. You can see this same behaviour in other television interviews with people who later turned out to be lying. For example, Shannon Mathews’ mother and Falcon Heene’s parents. Its a subconscious gesture that adds distance and ambiguity as if saying “hey – I don’t know everything…”
To criticise Newsnight, there are much juicier emails Newsnight they could have asked about and the mantras of consensus and models is beyond a joke now. They do deserve credit though for giving this subject air time.
Well the CYA statement from those two eminent Professors, can be said to be generally consistent with the range of quality of the highly regarded output of carefully manipulated data construction that the Institute is known for; and is in conformance with the usual high standards of academic cloud formation.
The two gentelmen are to be commended for their forthright statement, under difficult circumstances.
It must be stressful beyond belief for such distinguished educators to operate normally, with Scotland Yard personel climbing all over the institution; and getting in the way of renowned scientologists seeking further revelations of Nature’s wonders.
It is so generous of these eminent academicians to take time out from their busy schedules of scientific data doctoring; to explain the nature of the serious mishap that has befallen such a noble establishment.
“…Go back to sleep america(UK,World)…go back to sleep…..your government is in control……go back to sleep…..”
The MSM is still skating over the importance of this, and until it does there is a risk that these people won’t have to answer to public opinion via an investigation.
For my part, naively, I’d assumed that, although they agreed with the AGW camp, Revkin and Richard Black of the BBC were regular reporters. Froom the emails it looks like a certain Associate Professor in the US believes he can pull their chain whenever he wants.
As for the UEA I have just been to Norwich today, it is a fine university whose name will go down in history as the University that supported scientists found fiddling the books. The best approach the VC could have taken would be to stay quiet, or rather put out a statement saying that they were looking into the leak of the emails and documents and the associated allegations. This rebuttal makes sure that if the ship does go down then the VC will go with it.
I feel sorry for Trevor Davies, he’s an academic, not a politician, or a businessman, and would probably think that by denying any malfeasance which subsequently came to be proved he could say he did so in good faith and will get into the lifeboats. Sorry Trev, you’ve now put yourself four square into the conspirators’ camp and you’ll be called to account with them.
It seems to me that the three different statements were written, or edited, by the same person (who has a real problem with writing decent prose, and has particular difficulties when punctuating dependent clauses).
It’s too bad that SNL and Jon Stewart (along with most other media outlets) are hopelessly left-aimed and would never make such a skit about this.
And you can see Russia from my house!
It’s entirely likely that Phil Jones wrote the piece attributed to the VC. The VC was happy to go with it until he realises that he is riding the tiger and wants to get off.
No need for a skit;
Here is Professor Julia Slingo, Chief Scientist of the Met Office, in an interview on this morning’s ‘Today programme’, defending AGW. It is really amusing:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00nxcrz
She appears about 2 hrs 50 minutes in, and ironically it is the last item at the end of the show, and is about the end of the world …..
She actually admits that the ‘science’ is not actually settled.
“There is nothing in the stolen material which indicates that peer-reviewed publications by CRU, and others, on the nature of global warming and related climate change are not of the highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation. CRU’s peer-reviewed publications are consistent with, and have contributed to, the overwhelming scientific consensus that the climate is being strongly influenced by human activity.
I am so happy to hear that Baghdad Bob not only survived but has found gainful employment.
Did they mention, how the whole UEA agreed in stonewalling the FOIA requests? [Snip] them.
Cheers
Phil
Address the illegality, call it vexatious, whinge about the bombardment of FoI requests — in fact, anything to avoid addressing the substantive points. Typical, entirely unexpected, and very, very sad!
I note that they have now increased the release of the data to the category of “stolen”. To be sure the data was not officially released, but stolen may be substantially less than correct. The Pwince of Whales, Pwince (Up)Chuck must be having a bad moment of it.
Hmm…..could one of their “peer-reviewed publications” include the Journal of Irreproducible Results? No offense intended to JIR or its readers.
Its a shame they did not study the laws of geology….
Allen’s Laws of Field Geology
General scientific laws which apply:
1. The Basic Law (Murphy’s Law): If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong.
2. Law of Recognition: The more you know, the more you will see.
a. First corollary: You see what you are looking for.
b. Second corollary: You don’t see anything that you aren’t looking for.
Laws of Field Geology
1. Law of Complexity:
a. Coat’s First Law: The geology of an area is always more complicated than you think it is going to be.
b. The complexity of the geology is directly proportional to the area that is outcrop.
2. Law of Accuracy (Callaghan’s Law): The accuracy of mapping is inversely proportional to the distance from the main roads and the edge of the map.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
What a fool Trevor Davies is. His best chance of survival would have been to condemn Phil Jones et al and force him to resign. Distance himself and perform some damage control as fast as possible.
The way I see it Trevor’s head will inevitably roll also – simply for making such a stupid denial and publically supporting Phil when the facts speak so plainly.
It conflates the whole scandal – it is no longer possible to claim that this is teh work of a few rogue scientists who need to be punished – Trevor’s support mean that this whole pattern of systematic fraudulent behaviour is backed at the highest level of East Anglia University.
What a complete and utter fool.
Worth noting that Prof Trevor Davies is not the Vice Chancellor, but the Pro-Vice Chancellor – Research; presumably the Vice Chancellor, a historian (an Acton, no less) is being held in reserve.
But Trevor Davies is not just anyone: he was, for five years, the head of the CRU, until 1998, and has amongst other things a directorship of something called the Carbon Connections Development Fund, also based at UEA. So not exactly a disinterested superior, then. Maybe he’s the Al Gore of the East of England?
The subject is about to be covered by C4 News (UK), it was given a short “heads-up” segment at the start of the news at 7pm…
How much overhead does UEA get from the CRU grants? I don’t think they are going to bite the hand that feeds them.
Phil Jones says:
“the world is warming is based on a range of sources: not only temperature records but other indicators such as sea level rise, glacier retreat and less Arctic sea ice.”
Oh yeah. That’s right. I forgot. The sea levels are rising. Didn’t Al Gore tell us that? And, oh yeah, the glaciers are melting. So you must not have been trying to mislead anyone, or keep real data from anyone, etc. And we’ll take it for granted, because Al Gore does, that humans make glaciers melt.
Phil Jones is appealing to the popular sentiment of whose who want to believe that AGW is happening. He’s fighting for global warming as a means of explaining away his emails. In other words, he’s saying “The glaciers are melting, so I must not be hiding anything or deceiving anyone.” In effect: The hypothesis proves the experiment.
He betrays the fact that this is about perception, “consensus”, media noise, hype, grant money, faith, etc.
Phil Jones is hardly a scientist, much less a person of integrity.
Scottie’s post says it all.
The response from the CRU regarding this is astonishing in its ignorance of the ramifications that these emails pose to their activities as climate “scientists”……however I must admit I am not in the least suprised as it is a typical admin response to the situation..ie: deny deny until the boat goes down.
This is great stuff, but on this blog we are preaching to the converted…we need to take this out into the world and tell everyone…the best I have heard is from Soylent Green who says “”To base a re-making of the global economy on disastrously and hopelessly messed up data like this would be insanity”…
Well, that wasn’t bad coverage, a bit of a laugh at Glenn Beck mispronouncing “East Anglia” but quite balanced overall on the substantive matter, Benny Peiser got to say his piece about the importance of releasing the data to other scientists.
For non-UK folk, C4 News is one of the “biggy” TV news programs here. I’m not sure if it’s available on-line but if so the segment is around 25-30 minutes in after a piece about UK bank funding.
jre: pkatlarge
Bingo!
The Vice Chancellor can see funding walking away from his University as can Phil Jones and whoever wrote the CRU statement. These are not statements that generate any confidence in the participants they are there to try and stem the outward flow of funds. If these people were really trying to make amends and prove their scientific credentials they would immediately release all their data and the rest of their programmes to broader scientific scrutiny
It’s beginning to look like CRU is transferring total ownership of this gaffe over to Dr. Jones.
Its clear what happened here. Briffa was/is an honest researcher who found himself up against Mann and Jones. “Don’t worry Keith, We’ll help you come to the right result”
or am I the only one who sees, apart from the Yamalgate, that Briffa hasn’t committed anything untoward as ascientist?
Here is a rebuttal i sent to some email fellows who kept saying it is best to use prudent judgement when addressing global warming anyway:
The debate is not about Global Warming. And haven’t we all noticed it is called Climate Change now?
The debate is about the role of man made carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, caused by man’s ingenuity, and it’s effects on the temperature of our globe. And do not forget our ability to and need for a reason to tax said carbon, the building block of life.
There are not many people out there who will refute that the Earth has warmed. They are only going to refute the how and why it, the Earth, has warmed. And there are many who have a different opinion than those who get all the media attention. Especially those that have retired from the natural sciences rat race and no longer need to vie and lobby for the next grant.
If the science was settled then why not release all the “science” so someone can try and pick it apart and refute it? Isn’t that the true nature of science?
The CO2 house of cards is coming down. Can’t wait to see what they make up next to keep us thinking the sky is falling.
Being a good steward of the environment does not mean you have to agree with the global warming cadre or the carbon tax bologna.
They should really stop hiding behind the “peer-reviewed” excuse. They manipulated and contaminated the peer-revision process, therefore it is not valid and does not apply to most of their peer-reviewed published work… Corrupted science by corrupted people.
The statement “I am not a crook” in the plural form, I would say!
“There is nothing in the stolen material which indicates that peer-reviewed publications by CRU, and others, on the nature of global warming and related climate change are not of the highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation.”
And Santa Claus will be dropping down my chimney.
The only way two people can keep a secret is if one of them is dead. And there’s a whole lot of people with skeletons in the climate closet.
Sooner or later one of them will get scared. Scared of losing a job, being sued, doing time, whatever, and will leave his fellows out to hang. It’s human nature.
And once one domino falls….
Just keep the pressure on and be patient.
There is nothing in the stolen material which indicates that peer-reviewed publications by CRU, and others, on the nature of global warming and related climate change are not of the highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation.
The forthcoming investigations and lawsuits are not about “peer-reviewed” data. They are about UEA employee’s knowing violation of moral and ethical standards, scientific method, academic integrity and intent to circumvent law.
In this statement Professor Davies aligns himself as a principle in a burgeoning cover-up of facts. Since we have clear statements of intent and agreement to manipulate, hide or destroy data in many leaked documents, Davies becomes a spokesman for what is a violation of British, U.S. and international law.
In other words, Professor Davies will now become a defendant in the civil and criminal actions to come.
So they are basically saying we did nothing wrong, and theirs is the, “highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation.” Oh, and they are the victims.
The following charge is inappropriate:
“vexatious campaign” (UEA Pro-Vice-Chancellor Davies)
Alarmists continue to incorrectly paint all nonalarmists with a broad “nutjob denier” brush.
—
Jones: “That the world is warming is based on a range of sources […]”
Here again we see the same old tired “trick” of trying to confuse the issue.
The issue is not “whether or not” there has been warming; it is, rather, whether or not distant future PDO, SOI, AO, AMO, NAM, etc. can be predicted accurately …and climate science is nowhere even remotely near achieving this feat.
“Bagdad Bob” — priceless.
I love the smell of lyin’, cheatin’ desperation in the morning.
Although I would like to know what Professor Trevor Davies is using as a mind altering substance . . . .
It’s interesting that the CRU statement singles out the “trick” email and ignores all of the more problematic ones. It will be impossible for them to rationalize collusion to prevent skeptical papers from being published, deleting emails, defrauding governments of money, and intentionally keeping publicly funded data from public scrutiny. As my 12 year old daughter would say, these guys are so BUSTED!!!
How many “cover your ass” lawyers were involved in writing of these “press releases” from UEA/CRU?
It seems that if tree ring data wasn’t “good” after ~1960 then why was it good before then? Sounds like something isn’t “reliable” about tree ring data as a temperature proxy. Sounds like Phil Jones and his teams are reading a wee too much soothsaying from their tree ring entrails. How about some actual factual science and a lot less (i.e. none) magic in your papers oh Nostradamus wanna be Phil Jones?
What a crock of …
“There is nothing that indicates peer-reviewed publications by CR&Y and other are not of the highest quality” […including the ones we arranged to have rejected]
“CRU’s peer-reviewed publications are consistent with, and have contributed to, the overwhelming scientific consensus that the climate is being strongly influenced by human activity” [… though of course it’s easier to get a consensus if you find excuses not to print anyone who disagrees with you or show your data to anyone who might dare to tell you what you did wrong]
“Respected international research groups, using other data sets, have come to the same conclusion” […they had to, or we wouldn’t let them get published and they wouldn’t have got any more research funding]
“The University of East Anglia and CRU are committed to scientific integrity, open debate and enhancing understanding” [… as can be seen in RealClimate’s liberal moderation policy and Dr Jones’s “about 0.15 degrees sounds right – any more would look suspicious”]
“It is this tried and tested system [of selective publication and abuse of data] which has underpinned the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.” [but don’t ask for the emails as we deleted them – we think]
“a vexatious campaign which may have been designed to distract from reasoned debate” [… by telling us that some of our data was upside down, that red noise produced the same graph shape, and that some of our data points were on the wrong continent]
“We are committed to furthering this debate ” [we’ve nearly spent this year’s money]
“No record has been deleted, altered, or otherwise dealt with in any fashion with the intent of preventing the disclosure of all, or any part, of the requested information” [Oh sorry, the cat’s had it]
“Much of these data are already available from the websites of the Global Historical Climate Data Network and the Goddard Institute for Space Science” [provided of course you don’t want to see what it looked like before we tweaked it to get rid of the bits we found inconvenient”
“determined and skilled people, who are prepared to engage in criminal activity, can sometimes hack into apparently secure systems” [especially if people email usernames and passwords to each other]
It’s just pathetic. And sad, so very sad, that so many seem to fall for it.
All very Baghdad-Bobesque. “The Americans are completely surrounded and are about to surrender to Saddam Hussein (In a sort of a way.)”
OK, I understand the standards MUCH better now.
When Nixon did it, it was stone-walling, when “climate-change scientists” do it, its CONSENSUS.
Get those FOI requests off to EAU quick, before they have a 13 year gap
East Anglia comment on the FOI is worthy of Bart Simpson: “I didn’t do it”…
All this is fodder for MSM. Interestingly Le Figaro, French newspaper center-right, today published news on the Postdam IPCC pre-Copenhagen report assembled by Oh surprise, Mann, Rhamstorf, Steig, Weaver etc…
On the blog, warmist, they confirm that their London reporter and one of their science writer will publish something on Thursday, almost one week after the news. Clearly I can imagine that now even Thomson-Reuters Globemedia will be tempted to forage the UEA, CRY and the good doctor Jones statements and report a trivial, no substance, evicerated paper on the subject.
This affair has revealed blattantly the bias and the protection of green interests by multibillion dollar media groups. the obfuscation these groups are getting away with influences our democracy. In clear, there is no more democracy in the western world, only the resistence that technology allows us, at least for now.
Yesterday, militants occupied the Canadian Minsiter for the Envrionment. The comment from the Globe and Mail Shawn McCarthy was:
“Their genteel act of civil disobedience is meant to amplify their message…”
AND
“The Calgary action is likely the first of many over the next two weeks, leading up to the opening of international climate change summit…”
This is no different that the Russian press pre-1917 inciting to civil war and taking side of terrorists. The ecototalitarist society is pushing hard now because all their business opportunities are in place, only waiting for politicians to make them law.
Reuters announced yesterday on the Financial Post the creaton of some Green Fund in Canada, stating that “[carbon credits] contributions in Canada are on a voluntary basis”. What they meant is really FOR NOW.
In consequence, the world civil war has started. We are all targets.
It was pointed out that Jones authored AR4 Chap 3, he did so with Trenberth.
Was going to make a comment after re-reading Chap 3, now that things are REALLY in context, but….I’m speachless. Jones should do jail time.
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch03.pdf
“In the frenzy of the past few days, the most vital issue is being overshadowed: we face enormous challenges ahead if we are to continue to live on this planet”
Phil Jones
Politics Politics Politics
Thats what it’s all about, do the hockey cokey, do the hockey cokey.
The statements are absolutely pathetic the justification given on a par of the excuses made by UK MP’s caught fiddling their expenses.
I agree with others. Some UEA mucky muck should have simply announced two investigations:
I agree with others. Some UEA mucky muck should have simply announced two investigations: one into the leak/hack/whatever; and another into the ramifications of the material released. This attempt to argue over what it all means at this point does not read well at all.
Quote from above:
As for the tree-ring decline, various manifestations of this phenomenon
have been discussed by numerous authors, and its implications are clearly
signposted in Chapter 6 of the IPCC AR4 report.
So, Mr. Jones, can you send us all the emails dealing with AR4…
Oh wait, we have the e-mail where you asked everyone in the “group” to delete any emails dealing with AR4. Now, if AR4 shows how wonderful everything is with tree rings, why would you have deleted this e-mail?
Key Policies
The University of East Anglia’s Royal Charter commits it to ‘advance learning and knowledge by teaching and research and to enable students to obtain the advantages of university education.’ As a modern institution in a global economy the university is also committed to ensuring that it operates at the highest standards with appropriate policies that meet the needs of staff, students and the wider public.
This section of our website has links to some of the key policies that underpin the University’s activities. As issues emerge and good practice develops the University is committed to ensuring that these policies are amended and new ones developed as necessary.
<<<<they have the highest standards. I like these "mission statements"
UEA policy on FOIA
http://www.uea.ac.uk/is/foi/guidance
Guidance for staff
5 key facts that all staff should know about Freedom of Information
•The Act gives everyone both in and outside UEA a right of access to ANY recorded information held by UEA
•A request for information must be answered within 20 working days
•If you receive a request for information which mentions FOI, is not information you routinely provide, is unusual, or you are unsure of, you should pass the request to your FOIA contact or the Information Policy and Compliance Manager
•You should ensure that UEA records are well maintained and accessible to other staff, so that they can locate information needed to answer a request when you are not there
•As all documents and emails could potentially be released under the Act, you should ensure that those you create are clear and professional
The CRU had no intention of compliance with school rules.
“In the frenzy of the past few days, the most vital issue is being overshadowed: we face enormous challenges ahead if we are to continue to live on this planet”
Oh what profundity
“There is nothing in the stolen material which indicates that peer-reviewed publications by CRU, and others, on the nature of global warming and related climate change are not of the highest-quality…”
I. Am. Rolling. On. The. Floor. Laughing. My. Head. Off.
–Ahrvid
Phil Jones, Michael Mann, et. al. how about your resignation
(1) for Scientific Fraud, and
(2) for using aggressive and unethical Politics to interfere with the independent scientific work of others in the climate science field, and
(3) for messing with scientific journals, and
(4) for stacking the decks of the peer review process for your selected friends, and
(5) for leading and waging a smear campaign against anyone with a dissenting point of view, and
(6) for being juvenile, vindictive, mocking and outright nasty to your fellow scientists who might disent from your point of view, and
(7) for data “mannipulation” to futher your career, and
(8) for suggesting the crime of deleting data to prevent it’s publication, and
(9) for treating concerned members of the public with derisiveness and childish behaviors, and
(10) for soothsaying tree entrails when you knowingly knew they are unreliable, and
(…) and,
(N) the list goes on, where N is a very large number.
Phil Jones and Michael Mann, et. al., if the tactics you’ve employed are any indication of the “quality” and level of “integrity” of your science then there isn’t any place for you in science. Now all of your papers and all the papers that they are based upon are suspect and must be peer reviewed again this time by people outside of your cabal of insiders trading peer review favors.
Clearly any scientist who stacks the deck in the peer review process is afraid of what might happen to their, ahem, science if it’s put into the hands of other scientists whom they don’t control.
Science is supposed to stand on it’s own with the chips falling where they may with Nature (the mother not the magazine) being the final judge of which science results prevail and which are tossed into the dust bins of history.
Unfortunately Phil Jones and Michael Mann et. al. you’ve failed as professional scientists since you choose to play the unethical games revealed in your now public emails.
Shame on you. Shame. Resign. Face the consequences of your unethical actions.
I’m a little puzzled….when did the meme change from “we were hacked” to “illegally obtained” and “stolen” email and data?
Does this mean they’re coming to the realization or admitting it likely it was an inside job?
“Sign it or else, Jones!’
Stacey (12:22:26) ““In the frenzy of the past few days, the most vital issue is being overshadowed: we face enormous challenges ahead if we are to continue to live on this planet”
Phil Jones”
Maybe he has had a premonition about asteroid impacts.
@Stacey
“In the frenzy of the past few days, the most vital issue is being overshadowed: we face enormous challenges ahead if we are to continue to live on this planet”
Phil Jones
He is most correct. If he were forced to perform honest science he would starve to death and not continue to live on this planet.
Hopefully–and I do mean that– he has a tell-all memoir and a hot-shot agent.
Arijigoku (10:18:50) ,
Watson also agreed at the end of the interview that the public could well think that they had been misled by the scientists and that a full inquiry was necessary.
Does that strike you as a statement of support for Jones et al or even an attempt at some kind of defence?
Well, as others have pointed out, UEA Pro-Vice Chancellor-Research Trevor Davies has now nailed his colours to Phil Jones’s mast.
I am irresistably reminded of the famous quote from Mandy Rice-Davies [No relation, surely?] during the Stephen Ward trial [The Profumo Scandal, 1962] when told in cross-examination that Viscount Astor had denied having had an affair with her:-
“Well, he would, wouldn’t he?”
Fine, Davies should be kicked out, as well, as a complete disgrace to scientific research.
Vexatious enough for you, Trev?
To all concerned UK citizens, there’s a petition up at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/UEACRU/
I don’t know how much it’ll help, but the more signatures the better.
congratulations to all for the pertinent comments. This story takes place (or is unravelling) in England. Many of you excolonials won’t appreciate its particular political and legal nuances, and won’t understand our typically English way of dealing with things (i.e. cringing in a corner and hoping the problem will go away).
Here’s part of a comment I made at Harmless Skies, one of the few British blogs dealing with such things.
The UEA statement, together with Jones’s defence, is published at WUWT, with 124 comments so far. The Guardian carries an “exclusive” interview with Jones, which is simply a rehash of his statement on the University website, which links to the UEA statement – 68 comments, of which 16 have been removed.
Did any of those Guardian commenters point out the absurdity of the University announcing that it would conduct an impartial investigation of the affair, and on the same website allowing Jones to justify himself in the most pathetically feeble manner? We shall never know.
An English sceptic who wants to express his opinion to more than a dozen like-minded people has to cross the Atlantic like some latterday Tom Paine. (Anyone here know who he was?)
I shall be interested to see who they get to do this “independant review”, and how long it takes to do it.
I posted my earlier comment with some improvements as an article calling for the resignation of Phil Jones and Michael Mann et. al. here: http://pathstoknowledge.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/call-for-resignation-of-phil-jones-michael-mann-et-al.
A good summary of the news video coverage is here: http://pathstoknowledge.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/mannian-global-warming-climate-scientists-exposed-as-scientific-fraud-artists. It also has some words of wisdom from Homer Simpson.
Trevor Davis is an alarmist, activist and “geo-engineering” nutcase:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5870729.ece?print=yes&randnum=1151003209000
“Professor Davies, Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of East Anglia (UEA), where the Tyndall Centre is based, shares this assessment and regards geoengineering schemes as a potential insurance policy.
The GeoEngineering Assessment and Research initiative (Gear) has now been set up at UEA to assess the projects that have been suggested. Among the geoengineering solutions that have been proposed are putting mirrors into orbit to reflect sunlight away from Earth, and encouraging the growth of plankton by pouring nutrients into the oceans.
“An increasing number of scientists are talking about Plan B now, the big, global geoengineering things,” Professor Davies said. “That’s one of the reasons we’ve set up this centre – not that we think many of the aspects are sensible but because we think it’s necessary to assess them.”
So mind bogglingly stupid it’s funny – like watching a disaster movie in slow motion.
These people are obviously still in such a state of shock they are behaving like automatons as if the world hasn’t changed and they can continue business as usual.
Doctor Jones
Doctor Jones, Jones
calling Doctor Jones
Doctor Jones, Doctor Jones
get up now (wake up now)
Doctor Jones, Jones
calling Doctor Jones
Doctor Jones, Doctor Jones
wake up now (wake up now)
Ah yippie yi yu
Ah yippie yi yeah
Ah yippie yi yu ooooh
Ah yippie yi yu
Ah yippie yi yeah
Ah yippie yi yu ooooh
“The principal conclusion from these studies (summarized in IPCC AR4) is that the second half of the 20th century was very likely (90% probable) warmer than any other 50-year period in the last 500 years and likely (66% probable) the warmest in the past 1300 years.”
So, on a mere balance of probabilities, we might be experiencing a milder climate than the last 40 generations. Not exactly dramatic, is it?
Chris H (09:53:02) :
Sorry Chris, couldn’t disagree more! He knows where the skeletons are, he won’t go down alone. 😉
DaveE.
Coincidence, the chairman of the Hadley Centre at the UEA and the Met Office are unsurprisingly the same person and he is a well known climate activist.
What concerns me the most is that – if I read the above documents correctly – all of the argument is about a rise in temperature of either 0.17 to 0.19 of a degree C, I mean exiting an iceage, that is extraordinary isnt it.
Pseudo scientist nonenities who chanced upon a way of exerting power and influence on a largely disinterested population and it would have stopped there had it not been for a group of politically aspirational in dividuals notably in the UN and the EU aided and abetted by the greens and the environmentalists searching for a new regime to replace sustainable development, caring for the environment and conservation to keep their cash registers ringing and their political aspirations alive.
The EU needed a platform to further its ambitions and climate change must have seemed like the holy grail, the EU can now save the World and gain a global concensus, they had found their place in history.
Once one political party proclaims they are the saviour they all have to follow suit whether they like it it not like Boots pinching Body Shops caring conservationist product and marketing.
Most of the warming fraternity appear to forget that the only reason we have an atmosphere at all is because of all of the crap planet Earth threw into the sky at the beginning of time. If we were to inhabit Mars, joke, the first thing we would need to do is find a way of exporting all of the pollution we produce here all of the way to Mars and then wait a few million years until an atmosphere was created.
You dont really need leaks to expose a bunch of greedy coniving muppets all of you ever needed was a modicum of common sense, Co2 is less than half of one percent, even now and in 150 years temperature has – and I disbelieve it – only risen by the smallest of fractions all of which could easily be explained by statistical error and all of the complicated algorithms needed just to try and qualify all of the data into a degree of consistency.
Until I actually see the 50 high waves beating a path to my drive I will carry on as usual, the only sure thing in this life is death and the planet will survive long after we all get our comeuppance and good riddance.
David Wells
I am both a Ph.D. in geophysics, and currently a college professor, and, yes, I do use the word “trick” to mean a clever method. The problem here is that these boys use something that is not a clever method, but rather a ruse, and then are embarrassed to explain it. When I use a clever method, I always explain it. You see it helps me convince people that I really am sometimes clever.
Just as bad are those ruses to hide data, methods, code; the perversion of peer review; blackballing of honorable people. I have had my issues with peer review, but this shows what a sham it becomes at its very worst.
Finally, there are the journalists–those directly involved, and those now who wish this story might vanish. I wish I could find the source of this quote, but someone once defined “conventional wisdom” as what you get with a combination of journalists and science celebrities.
“The interactions of the atmosphere, oceans, land, and ice mean that the strongly-increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere do not produce a uniform year-on-year increase in global temperature.”
1. If the above ‘science’ is well handled by the models, why would Trenberth find the absence of warming for the past 10 years so puzzling? Did he not get the memo?
2. If the above ‘science’ is NOT well handled by the models, what the hell good are the models?
“There is nothing in the stolen material which indicates that peer-reviewed publications by CRU, and others, on the nature of global warming and related climate change are not of the highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation. CRU’s peer-reviewed publications are consistent with, and have contributed to, the overwhelming scientific consensus that the climate is being strongly influenced by human activity”
And that wouldn’t be because the peer -review was always done by buddies, would it? With the corollary that anything that wasn’t peer-reviewed by them/buddies didn’t count; and if the paper seemed convincing , then it didn’t count because it was published in a journal which was not a ‘climate-science journal’ (ie them + buddies); or the journal’s peer review standards were ‘unacceptable’ [ie, not them+ buddies] – of course, Nature’s peer-review standards, which allowed the publication of Mann et al, were entirely acceptable. The very fact that it published the paper itself shows how high its peer review standards must have been, does it not? If Nature accepted it, Wegman must be nuts or in the pay of Exxon.
Jones was offered the opportunity to participate in peer review regarding a paper in Energy & Environment (written off as a joke because of its tendency to publish sceptical papers, notably M&M) by Keenan. He declined. Wigley, in one of the hacked emails, notes Keenan might be on to something. A subsequent e-mail by a clearly panicked Wigley, around May 2009, is well worth a read. Which is all to say that even if journals like E&E aren’t part of the inside track, its a fallacy to write off everything they publish – in fact its a tactic, not a mistake – and the Global Warmers apparent enthusiasm for peer review is only apparent when they believe it to be a system they can work for their own advantage. Be the ends ever so good, bad means never justify them.
“There is nothing in the stolen material which indicates that peer-reviewed publications by CRU, and others, on the nature of global warming and related climate change are not of the highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation.”
But everything in the exposed emails shows that these scientists refuse to abide by the Scientific Method.
Karl Popper condensed a lifetime of work studying the Scientific Method into the following rules. You can see the refusal to follow the Scientific Method by Mann, Jones, Santer, et al throughout Popper’s rules:
But the AGW clique led by Jones and Mann still refuse to provide the raw data and methods that they used to construct their CO2=CAGW hypothesis. You can read their scheming and maneuvering to deny data requests in their exposed emails. Thus, they deliberately violate the Scientific Method. Instead, they have opted for AGW propaganda.
“”” woodentop (11:39:17) :
Well, that wasn’t bad coverage, a bit of a laugh at Glenn Beck mispronouncing “East Anglia” but quite balanced overall on the substantive matter, Benny Peiser got to say his piece about the importance of releasing the data to other scientists.
For non-UK folk, C4 News is one of the “biggy” TV news programs here. I’m not sure if it’s available on-line but if so the segment is around 25-30 minutes in after a piece about UK bank funding. “””
Well that Glen Beck “East Anjeela” comment isn’t so hard to understand. The minimum wage ethnically disadvantaged typist, who input the story into the Teleprompter simply made a simple typing dylsexia error, and Beck just plowed on through it; much like President Obama just read right on through a speech praising himself, that was meant for the British PM to read.
Glen’s only choice would have been whether to say Gila like Glen, or Jeela like Jorge.
But it certainly was a scream. it really is totally funny listening to people read words, when they clearly have no idea what the word even means, and are probably encountering it for the first time.
Just think about the Angles, and Saxons Glen, and you’ll get it right next time.
To
Sir Brandon Gough,
Chancellor of University of East Anglia
One of your employees has called the death of a fellow human being as
“cheering news”.
Is this behavior acceptable at your institution? How do the high standards set by the University of East Anglia compare to other Universities in your country?
We have a saying in Australia. It’s rough Latin translation would be “Taurus excreta”.
“Isn’t it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortune tellers take economists [and climate forecasters] seriously?”
Charles/Moderator
Please resize the figure shown to show the full width.
Please include the 2nd figure posted at CRU.
“Hide the data” is described in “Mike’s Nature Trick”
REPLY:??????
Have they not heard the saying…
“When you’re in a hole, STOP DIGGING!”
DaveE.
Holdren said this about Mann’s AGW finding:
“Please note that they
did NOT say “Global warming is closely tied to emission of greenhouse gases by humans
and not any of the natural factors.” They said that THEIR CONCLUSION (from a
particular, specified study, published in NATURE) was that the warming of THE PAST FEW
DECADES (that is, a particular, specified part of the historical record) APPEARS (from
the evidence adduced in the specified study) to be closely tied… This is a carefully
specified, multiply bounded statement, which accurately reflects what they looked at and
what they found. And it is appropriately contingent –“APPEARS to be closely tied” —
allowing for the possibility that further analysis or new data could later lead to a
different perspective on what appears to be true.”
I read that as reducing Mann’s entire contribution to climate science to a simple observation of a mere correlation that may or may not be meaningful.
I go further. It reduces Mann’s findings to a statement of the bleeding obvious with no diagnostic value whatever.
How can one possibly base global policy decisions on such a tentative premise ?
Holdren trashes Mann.
How about that for a headline ?
Thank you for the clarification.
.
.
What else are these guys going to say, when confronted with such emails, computer code, and comments to such code? I am not surprised that they maintain that the science is sound.
Still, those Vikings found a place to plant a garden in Greenland. For decades. One simply cannot do that today – it is far too cold.
It was very, very cold during the Little Ice age. For decades. London’s Thames River froze solid.
For CO2 to have the effect these scientists claim it has, there must have been more CO2 during the Vikings’ adventures, and much less CO2 to cause the Thames to freeze. One cannot have a valid control system otherwise – ask any controls engineer. If CO2 is causing warming today, it must have been causing the Vikings’ warming too.
If the warmists dispute this, (and they will), they must admit that natural forces caused the Vikings’ warming, and the Little Ice Age. Then they must explain why natural forces are NOT causing any recent warming. This they cannot do.
CRU, Hadley and IPCC are obviously closely connected. Hadley is IPCC Working Party No.1. CRU and Hadley jointly (whatever that means) produce HadCRUT. Does anyone have any details on the relationship between the 3 please ?
Twisting slowly in the wind.
The independant investigation can go either way –exoneration, or lever to force Phil Jones out of his directorship. The findings can give UEA the “cover” to do either.
I want to see who will be in charge of that, however, and what their background and past affiliations are.
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (13:10:34) :
Doctor Jones
You missed the last verse..
Please please Cure Me.
Please please Cure Me.
Please please Cure Me.
Please please Cure Me.
Any amateur surgeons in the audience up for some lobotomy practice?
I honestly can’t believe this statement.
The Pro-Vice Chancellor – Research is going down with them. How he could make that statement about peer review with a straight face I don’t know.
I guess he doesn’t even understand the irony of his statement.
I have signed the petition and urge anyone in the UK to do so as well. Don’t let this fade away. It’s a much, much bigger story than the MPs expenses.
The IPCC have been utterly discredited. Time to start afresh – with clarity and impartiality.
“Don’t give up the { … blub … }!”
Sanctimonious hypocrisy.
The notion of regulatory capture is well known to economists. In this case it is perfectly clear that the CRU has successfully subverted the FOI administrators at the university such that they identify with it rather than with the public they are intended to serve.
Just something else for the university to sort out if it ever gets round to addressing its augean mess.
Somebody asked about “Pro-Vice Chancellor”. In the UK University system the top job is nominally Chancellor, but that has become an honorary post (top universities in the pecking order get a royal) and the Vice-Chancellor is the effective CEO. Pro-Vice-Chancellor is effectively the next rung down and is a member of the management board – think “Executive Vice-President in charge of . . . ” in US Corporate speak.
To quote Francis Urquart: “He would say that, wouldn’t he?”
I find it particularly galling that they use HadCRUt to justify GIStemp (despite all the Crap I’ve demonstrated in it) then they turn around and use GIStemp to justify HadCRUt (despite the crap we’ve seen that they are “up to”…)
My God Man, do you think we are that DUMB?
All that statement tells me is that I need to run a roto-router up NCDC next.
(And isn’t all this just the same GHCN data set that has been cooked with thermometer deletions, being spun this way and that by minor variations on a fudge theme? Hmmm? )
Next stop ought to be NCDC and GHCN, IMHO.
The UEA should begin an immediate investigation…as to why they let this scientific imposter continue at their institution. “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can”…make the data say what I want! I hope it is not to late to stop Obama and cap and trade legislation! THANK YOU HACKERS!@
Looks to me like Trevor Davies wants to go down with the sinking ship. His choice.
I found this particularly interesting
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=304&filename=1048799107.txt
especially this part
8.0 Articles
A) How women matter in decreasing world population
B) The energy we need
C) Mining the impacts
D) Symbiotical relationship of religion and global life-support systems
E) Celebration of Life Day
F) The hidden agenda: China
G) Earth Government now a priority
H) The splitting of America into separate independent states living at peace for the
good of all
I) The war industry: the modern evil at work in the Middle East
J) Earth security
K) Earth governance
L) The Earth Court of Justice holds the people of the U.S.A. and Britain as criminals
M) Foundation for the new world order, Earth Government
” well they would say that wouldn’t they”
Warmists use the word “consensus” like “whatever!”. So annoying.
Is it possible that an agreement with a third party can over ride national law. Why the need for permission from third parties to share the data. In essense it was never possible to keep to those agreements given the presense of the FOI act. This is an error on CRU’s part and shouldn’t be used to restrict others from getting access to the data.
I think it is important that we understand the motivation for these “constructs” used by IPCC researchers. The problem they faced is that the sea temperatures and the land temperatures diverge: there is increasing temperature on land, and static temperature in the seas.
The problem with land temperatures is that the “heat island” effect “might” be the source of increasing temperatures. As cities grow larger, the additional mass with walls at height, more transportation heat and CO2 emissions, leads to higher temperatures locally. Include the fact that there are few city temperature measurements that are not biased by their contructions in asphalt parking lots, etc.
The essential issue with using proxies for temperature measurement with time is that the “heat island” effect cannot analytically be integrated with the sea temperature measurements, thus forcing climatologists to use proxies, isolated from civilization, to make imputed judgements about global temperature.
The problem with sea temperatures is that these do not support the thesis of AGW, at all, and must be disclaimed because of the problem with land temperatures, thus (illogically) neither sea nor land temperatures can be used to justify AGW.
The fact of using tree ring widths and x-ray densities from isolated areas like northern Russia and Alaska, should take care of the problem since trees are “assumed” averaging temperature proxies and there are no nearby cities to confound the data.
So, now, the reseachers can defend against using land and sea temperature databases because of the land “heat island” effect. They can abandon the sea temperatures that do no support their AGM theory because of the conflict with land temperatures.
So, we have a group of researchers who, in desperation, use tree ring data (and other arcane data like sea shell annual growth widths and oxygen isotope ratios, annual deposition of sediments in northern rivers, etc.) to prove their cases.
The beauty of this focus, accepted by the IPCC who have little or no scientific knowledge, and completely acceptable to the general public who have no scientific knowledge, is that once invoked, there are few that can counter their claims since the science is incredibly arcane and limited.
Frankly, the focus on tree ring width and x-ray density as proxies for temperature was a master stroke since no one in the science community knows anything about these supposed scientifically-based observations.
The only reason they were caught out, was that Steve McIntyre, et al, fortunately had both the time and skill to show that the IPCC research was a scam of huge, monumental proportions.
By all means, keep Phil Jones. Please. It just makes things easier.
“I AM OZ! THE GREAT! THE POWERFUL! YOU MUST SURRENDER YOUR ECONOMY TO ME! ONLY I KNOW THE TRUTH AND CAN SAVE THE PLANET…Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! Stop tugging on my pant cuff, nasty little dog…Didn’t you hear me? I am Oz…”
[emphasis mine]
They just can’t get away from this “consensus” B.S. Science is not done by consensus.
…and that “consistent manner” is to stonewall releasing anything under FOI until the corpse of AGW is twisting slowly in the wind.
…but not until we have rammed through legislation to produce astronomical taxes on any CO2 produced throughout the world.
/rant off
I notice that they are not even bothering to suggest that the material might be falsified in any way.
Anyway, the reputation of the University of East Anglia must be plumetting, so I’ll give them some gratuitous advice. Hide the Decline!
Oh my God, these people are in full denial. How incredibly vain do you have to be to claim that:
>
> The publication of a selection of stolen data is the
> latest example of a sustained and, in some instances,
> a vexatious campaign which may have been designed
> to distract from reasoned debate
>
“Reasoned debate?” The emails show that this is precisely what these people were trying to stop! They wanted to stifle anyone who disagreed with them.
This idiot then goes on:
>
> the nature of the urgent action which world
> governments must consider to mitigate, and adapt
> to, climate change.
>
thus justifying what the skeptics have been claiming, that is, that they are not doing dispassionate, objective
science, but are looking for data, facts, and possible interpretations that justify an ideological goal.
I can only say, “wow,” this is absolutely pathological.
–DD
Robert Townshend (15:33:56) :
To quote Francis Urquart: “He would say that, wouldn’t he?”
‘You might very well think that; I couldn’t possibly comment’
They love spouting “consensus” whenever they can. Don’t they?
Where’s the updated graph that is supposed to show what the WMO report front cover would look like if the proxy record was fully plotted?
Statement at CRU linked at the beginning of the article is all text, with both figures missing.
Ignore/delete my post. I just figured out that somehow I had triggered the “high contrast” mode on the CRU website.
“stolen from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU)”
No, the data was leaked, the millions upon millions spent on this farce was stolen.
“some of the published emails do not read well.”
No, elementary school poetry does not read well. Some of the published e-mails are evidence of fraud, intent to violate the law regarding Freedom of Information, and intent to circumvent tax law (and then depend on data from tax criminals).
Oh, and Trevor Davies is what is commonly known as a liar. I for one am tired of the politesse, dude is just plain lying.
Hide the Decline (hide the decline) -Climategate Hit Material:
I think UEA assigns this textbook in its Climatology classes.
A cautious response.
Having worked for a couple of decades in some highly technical fields (electrochemistry, petroleum refining, petrochemicals production, and associated engineering of those), I can somewhat relate to the concept of not having to take the time to explain every last detail to everyone who asks. Instead, one merely hopes to explain sufficient detail to others who are reasonably competent in the subject so that one’s work can be verified or not.
U.S. patent law has a similar standard, that is, a patent must be written so that it discloses sufficient detail so that a person of “ordinary skill in the art” will understand and be able to make and use the invention. The exact language of the patent statute, 35 USC 112, is “The [patent] specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains…to make and use the same. . . ”
Having said that, it appears that what Drs. Jones, Mann, and the others have done is to simply say the equivalent of “trust me,” as they refused for years to produce their data or methods.
I am reminded of the “science” behind the “cold fusion” breakthrough of a few years ago. Bad science was exposed, and no fusion occurred.
Gee, it sure is getting colder lately. As CO2 continues to increase.
Btw…here is a link to a PhD climate researcher who writes that CO2 was between 1000 and 2000 ppm 40 million years ago, and that many ice ages came and went during those 40 million years. Odd, isn’t it, that the earth did not catastrophically heat up with CO2 at 2000 ppm. Especially odd, knowing that the climate warmists today insist that doubling CO2 to 700 ppm will cause catastrophic warming. see
http://www.nbi.ku.dk/english/sciencexplorer/golden_spike_in_ice_core/spoergsmaal_svar1/
“I never had sex with that woman!”
….”where did you you get that blue dress from?”
The great beneficiary of all this are all those compulsory English classes at school that still use George Orwell novels. Makes it easier to explain the meaning of Doublespeak to our youth and enables them to better understand that all of this is Not Evil, Just Wrong…and just a little paranoid, vindictive and massively arrogant.
It will be interesting how many A-list politicians get flu preventing them from attending Copenhagen given the propensity for politicos to launch ships rather than sink with them.
Mac (09:04:52) :
The Hockey Stick re-appears as evidence for the defence. That simply beggars belief.
What a stupid stance by UAE and CRU, it makes them look incompetent.
They may realize it’s better to be thought of as incompetents than as accomplices.
Expose the code and bust the Anti-Trust Climate Team
Busted not Robust!
Shiny
Edward
Phil Jones: “In the frenzy of the past few days, the most vital issue is being overshadowed: we face enormous challenges ahead if we are to continue to live on this planet.”
Translated: “Look at the ball. Don’t look at my hands, focus on the ball. Look at the amazing magical ball.”
@ Cromagnum (09:41:14) :-SNIP- Is Obama’s Climate Czar Holdren involved? Is he in the emails CC?
—–
Oh yeah. Just search on Holdren (or any other word or phrase you like) at: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/search.php
Holdren gets you six emails – and recall, there’s another 100MB or so of zipped data yet to be released supposedly, so this may not be all. In the first, Holdren is emailing the CRU as if he’s one of the boys, right in the circle. I’ve copied that below, its an arrogant smarmy email about how he’s proceeded to smear two of his Harvard colleagues – to the entire school from the sounds of it – who dared to write a paper contrary to the accepted position, while supporting Mann et al.
He’s just sending it along for their entertainment, now isn’t that nice? (lookie here, I just demolished a couple of your enemies for you and humiliated them to the entire university! Aren’t I a great guy, isn’t this fun?!!) Ad hominem, appeal to apparent authority/credibility in the climatology community, all the standard stuff [of two year olds in the sand box].
The others are him being cc’d on some emails early this year where they are scrambling around desperately trying to come up with some plausible rationale for why temperatures haven’t been rising the past decade – this set postulating that perhaps increased SO2 emissions from China and India may account for an offsetting cooling to the obviously still occurring Global Warming. I don’t know the players well enough, however, to be sure how the person(s) who cc’d him fit into all of this.
From: “Michael E. Mann”
To: Malcolm Hughes , Tim Osborn , Keith Briffa , Kevin Trenberth , Caspar Ammann , rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, tcrowley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, omichael@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, jto@u.arizona.edu, Scott Rutherford , p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Tom Wigley
Subject: Fwd: Correspondence on Harvard Crimson coverage of Soon / Baliunas views on climate
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 16:43:41 -0400
Dear All,
Thought you would be interested in this exchange, which John Holdren of Harvard has been
kind enough to pass along…
mike
Delivered-To: mem6u@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
X-Sender: jholdren@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.0.2
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 13:53:08 -0400
To: “Michael Mann” , “Tom Wigley”
From: “John P. Holdren”
Subject: Correspondence on Harvard Crimson coverage of Soon / Baliunas
views on climate
Michael and Tom —
I’m forwarding for your entertainment an exchange that followed from my being quoted in
the Harvard Crimson to the effect that you and your colleagues are right and my
“Harvard” colleagues Soon and Baliunas are wrong about what the evidence shows
concerning surface temperatures over the past millennium. The cover note to faculty
and postdocs in a regular Wednesday breakfast discussion group on environmental science
and public policy in Harvard’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences is more or
less self-explanatory.
Best regards,
John
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 11:02:24 -0400
To: schrag@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, oconnell@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, holland@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,
pearson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, eli@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, ingalls@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,
mlm@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, avan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, moyer@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,
poussart@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, jshaman@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, sivan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,
bec@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, saleska@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
From: “John P. Holdren”
Subject: For the EPS Wednesday breakfast group: Correspondence on Harvard Crimson
coverage of Soon / Baliunas views on climate
Cc: jeremy_bloxham@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, william_clark@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,
patricia_mclaughlin@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,
Bcc:
Colleagues–
I append here an e-mail correspondence I have engaged in over the past few days trying
to educate a Soon/Baliunas supporter who originally wrote to me asking how I could think
that Soon and Baliunas are wrong and Mann et al. are right (a view attributed to me,
correctly, in the Harvard Crimson). This individual apparently runs a web site on which
he had been touting the Soon/Baliunas position.
While it is sometimes a mistake to get into these exchanges (because one’s interlocutor
turns out to be ineducable and/or just looking for a quote to reproduce out of context
in an attempt to embarrass you), there was something about this guy’s formulations that
made me think, at each round, that it might be worth responding. In the end, a couple
of colleagues with whom I have shared this exchange already have suggested that its
content would be of interest to others, and so I am sending it to our “environmental
science and policy breakfast” list for your entertainment and, possibly, future
breakfast discussion.
The items in the correspondence are arranged below in chronological order, so that it
can be read straight through, top to bottom.
Best,
John
At 09:43 PM 9/12/2003 -0400, you wrote:
Dr. Holdren:
In a recent Crimson story on the work of Soon and Baliunas, who have written for my
website [1]www.techcentralstation.com, you are quoted as saying:
My impression is that the critics are right. It s unfortunate that so much attention is
paid to a flawed analysis, but that s what happens when something happens to support the
political climate in Washington.
Do you feel the same way about the work of Mann et. al.? If not why not?
Best,
Nick
Nick Schulz
Editor
TCS
1-800-619-5258
From: John P. Holdren [[2]mailto:john_holdren@xxxxxxxxx.xxx]
Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 11:06 AM
To: Nick Schulz
Subject: Harvard Crimson coverage of Soon / Baliunas controversy
Dear Nick Schultz —
I am sorry for the long delay in this response to your note of September 12. I have
been swamped with other commitments.
As you no doubt have anticipated, I do not put Mann et al. in the same category with
Soon and Baliunas.
If you seriously want to know “Why not?”, here are three ways one might arrive at what I
regard as the right conclusion:
(1) For those with the background and patience to penetrate the scientific arguments,
the conclusion that Mann et al. are right and Soon and Baliunas are wrong follows from
reading carefully the relevant Soon / Baliunas paper and the Mann et al. response to it:
W. Soon and S. Baliunas, “Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000
years”, Climate Research, vol. 23, pp 89ff, 2003.
M. Mann, C. Amman, R. Bradley, K. Briffa, P. Jones, T. Osborn, T. Crowley, M. Hughes, M.
Oppenheimer, J. Overpeck, S. Rutherford, K. Trenberth, and T. Wigley, “On past
temperatures and anomalous late-20th century warmth”, EOS, vol 84, no. 27, pp 256ff, 8
July 2003.
This is the approach I took. Soon and Baliunas are demolished in this comparison.
(2) Those lacking the background and/or patience to penetrate the two papers, and
seriously wanting to know who is more likely to be right, have the option of asking
somebody who does possess these characteristics — preferably somebody outside the
handful of ideologically committed and/or oil-industry-linked professional
climate-change skeptics — to evaluate the controversy for them. Better yet, one could
poll a number of such people. They can easily be found by checking the web pages of
earth sciences, atmospheric sciences, and environmental sciences departments at any
number of major universities.
(3) The least satisfactory approach, for those not qualified for (1) and lacking the
time or initiative for (2), would be to learn what one can about the qualifications
(including publications records) and reputations, in the field in question, of the
authors on the two sides. Doing this would reveal that Soon and Baliunas are,
essentially, amateurs in the interpretation of historical and paleoclimatological
records of climate change, while the Mann et al. authors include several of the most
published and most distinguished people in the world in this field. Such an
investigation would also reveal that Dr. Baliunas’ reputation in this field suffered
considerable damage a few years back, when she put her name on an incompetent critique
of mainstream climate science that was never published anywhere respectable but was
circulated by the tens of thousands, in a format mimicking that of a reprint from the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in pursuit of signatures on a petition
claiming that the mainstream findings were wrong.
Of course, the third approach is the least satisfactory because it can be dangerous to
assume that the more distinguished people are always right. Occasionally, it turns out
that the opposite is true. That is one of several good reasons that it pays to try to
penetrate the arguments, if one can, or to poll others who have tried to do so. But in
cases where one is not able or willing to do either of these things — and where one is
able to discover that the imbalance of experience and reputation on the two sides of the
issue is as lopsided as here — one ought at least to recognize that the odds strongly
favor the proposition that the more experienced and reputable people are right. If one
were a policy maker, to bet the public welfare on the long odds of the opposite being
true would be foolhardy.
Sincerely,
John Holdren
PS: I have provided this response to your query as a personal communication, not as
fodder for selective excerpting on your web site or elsewhere. If you do decide that
you would like to propagate my views on this matter more widely, I ask that you convey
my response in its entirety.
At 11:16 AM 10/13/2003 -0400, you wrote:
I have the patience but, by your definition certainly, not the background, so I suppose
it s not surprising I came to a different conclusion. I guess my problem concerns what
lawyers call the burden of proof. The burden weighs heavily much more heavily, given
the claims on Mann et.al. than it does on Soon/Baliunas. Would you agree?
Falsifiability for the claims of Mann et. al. requires but a few examples, does it
not? Soon/Baliunas make claims that have no such burden. Isn t that correct?
Best,
Nick
From: John P. Holdren [[3]mailto:john_holdren@xxxxxxxxx.xxx]
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 5:54 PM
To: Nick Schulz
Subject: RE: Harvard Crimson coverage of Soon / Baliunas controversy
Nick–
Yes, I can see how it might seem that, in principle, those who are arguing for a strong
and sweeping proposition (such as that “the current period is the warmest in the last
1000 years”) must meet a heavy burden of proof, and that, because even one convincing
counter-example shoots the proposition down, the burden that must be borne by the
critics is somehow lighter. But, in practice, burden of proof is an evolving thing —
it evolves as the amount of evidence relevant to a particular proposition grows.
To choose an extreme example, consider the first and second laws of thermodynamics.
Both of these are “empirical” laws. Our confidence in them is based entirely on
observation; neither one can be “proven” from more fundamental laws. Both are very
sweeping. The first law says that energy is conserved in all physical processes. The
second law says that entropy increases in all physical processes. So, is the burden of
proof heavier on somebody who asserts that these laws are correct, or on somebody who
claims to have found an exception to one or both of them? Clearly, in this case, the
burden is heavier on somebody who asserts an exception. This is in part because the
two laws have survived every such challenge in the past. No exception to either has
ever been documented. Every alleged exception has turned out to be traceable to a
mistake of some kind. This burden on those claiming to have found an exception is so
strong that the US Patent Office takes the position, which has been upheld in court,
that any patent application for an invention that violates either law can be rejected
summarily, without any further analysis of the details.
Of course, I am not asserting that the claim we are now in the warmest period in a
millennium is in the same league with the laws of thermodynamics. I used the latter
only to illustrate the key point that where the burden is heaviest depends on the state
of prior evidence and analysis on the point in question — not simply on whether a
proposition is sweeping or narrow.
In the case actually at hand, Mann et al. are careful in the nature of their claim.
They write along the lines of “A number of reconstructions of large-scale temperature
changes support the conclusion” that the current period is the warmest in the last
millennium. And they write that the claims of Baliunas et al. are “inconsistent with
the preponderance of scientific evidence”. They are not saying that no shred of
evidence to the contrary has ever been produced, but rather that analysis of the
available evidence as a whole tends to support their conclusion.
This is often the case in science. That is, there are often “outlier” data points or
apparent contradictions that are not yet adequately explained, but still are not given
much weight by most of the scientists working on a particular issue if a strong
preponderance of evidence points the other way. This is because the scientists judge it
to be more probable that the outlier data point or apparent contradiction will
ultimately turn out to be explainable as a mistake, or otherwise explainable in a way
that is consistent with the preponderance of evidence, than that it will turn out that
the preponderance of evidence is wrong or is being misinterpreted. Indeed, apparent
contradictions with a preponderance of evidence are FAR more often due to measurement
error or analysis error than to real contradiction with what the preponderance
indicates.
A key point, then, is that somebody with a PhD claiming to have identified a
counterexample does not establish that those offering a general proposition have failed
in their burden of proof. The counterexample itself must pass muster as both valid in
itself and sufficient, in the generality of its implications, to invalidate the
proposition.
In the case at hand, it is not even a matter of an “outlier” point or other seeming
contradiction that has not yet been explained. Mann et al. have explained in detail why
the supposed contrary evidence offered by Baliunas et al. does NOT constitute a
counterexample. To those with some knowledge and experience in studies of this kind,
the refutation by Mann et al is completely convincing.
Sincerely,
John Holdren
At 08:08 AM 10/15/2003 -0400, you wrote:
Dr. Holdren:
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I genuinely appreciate you taking the time.
You are quite right about the laws of thermodynamics. And you are quite right that Mann
et al is not in the same league as those laws and that s not to take anything from their
basic research.
You write to those with knowledge and experience in studies of this kind, the refutation
by Mann et all is completely convincing. Since I do not have what you would consider
the requisite knowledge or experience, I can t speak to that. I ve read the Mann papers
and the Baliunas Soon paper and the Mann rebuttal and find Mann s claims based on his
research extravagant and beyond what he can legitimately claim to know. That said, I m
willing to believe it is because I don t have the tools necessary to understand.
But if you will indulge a lay person with some knowledge of the matter, perhaps you
could clear up a thing or two.
Part of the confusion over Mann et al it seems to me has to do not with the research
itself but with the extravagance of the claims they make based on their research.
And yet you write: Mann et al. are careful in the nature of their claim. They write
along the lines of A number of reconstructions of large-scale temperature changes
support the conclusion that the current period is the warmest in the last millennium.
And they write that the claims of Baliunas et al. are inconsistent with the
preponderance of scientific evidence .
That makes it seem as if Mann s not claiming anything particularly extraordinary based
on his research.
But Mann claimed in the NYTimes in 1998 that in their Nature study from that year Our
conclusion was that the warming of the past few decades appears to be closely tied to
emission of greenhouse gases by humans and not any of the natural factors.” Does that
seem to be careful in the nature of a claim? Respected scientists like Tom Quigley
responded at the time by saying “I think there’s a limit to how far you can ever go.” As
for using proxy data to detect a man-made greenhouse effect, he said, “I don’t think
we’re ever going to get to the point where we’re going to be totally convincing.” These
are two scientists who would agree on the preponderance of evidence and yet they make
different claims about what that preponderance means. There are lots of respected
climatologists who would say Mann has insufficient scientific basis to make that claim.
Would you agree? The Soon Baliunas research is relevant to that element of the debate
what the preponderance of evidence enables us to claim within reason. To that end, I
don t think claims of Soon Baliunas are inconsistent with the preponderance of
scientific evidence.
I ll close by saying I m willing to admit that, as someone lacking a PhD, I could be
punching above my weight. But I will ask you a different but related question How much
hope is there for reaching reasonable public policy decisions that affect the lives of
millions if the science upon which those decisions must be made is said to be by
definition beyond the reach of those people?
All best,
Nick
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 08:46:23 -0400
To: “Nick Schulz”
From: “John P. Holdren”
Subject: RE: Harvard Crimson coverage of Soon / Baliunas controversy
Nick–
You ask good questions. I believe the thoughtfulness of your questions and the progress
I believe we are making in this interchange contain the seeds of the answer to your
final question, which, if I may paraphrase just a bit, is whether there’s any hope of
reaching reasonable public-policy decisions when the details of the science germane to
those decisions are impenetrable to most citizens.
This is a hard problem. Certainly the difficulty is not restricted to climate science
and policy, but applies also to nuclear-weapon science and policy, nuclear-energy
science and policy, genetic science and policy, and much more. But I don’t think the
difficulties are insurmountable. That’s why I’m in the business I’m in, which is
teaching about and working on the intersection of science and technology with policy.
Most citizens cannot penetrate the details of what is known about the how the climate
works (and, of course, what is known even by the most knowledgeable climate scientists
about this is not everything one would like to know, and is subject to modification by
new data, new insights, new forms of analysis). Neither would most citizens be able to
understand how a hydrogen bomb works (even if the details were not secret), or what
factors will determine the leak rates of radioactive nuclides from radioactive-waste
repositories, or what stem-cell research does and promises to be able to do.
But, as Amory Lovins once said in addressing the question of whether the public deserved
and could play a meaningful role in debates about nuclear-weapon policy, even though
most citizens would never understand the details of how nuclear weapons work or are
made, “You don’t have to be a chicken to know what to do with an egg.” In other words,
for many (but not all) policy purposes, the details that are impenetrable do not matter.
There CAN be aspects of the details that do matter for public policy, of course. In
those cases, it is the function and the responsibility of scientists who work across the
science-and-policy boundary to communicate the policy implications of these details in
ways that citizens and policy makers can understand. And I believe it is the function
and responsibility of citizens and policy makers to develop, with the help of scientists
and technologists, a sufficient appreciation of how to reach judgments about
plausibility and credibility of communications about the science and technology relevant
to policy choices so that the citizens and policy makers are NOT disenfranchised in
policy decisions where science and technology are germane.
How this is best to be done is a more complicated subject than I am prepared to try to
explicate fully here. (Alas, I have already spent more time on this interchange than I
could really afford from other current commitments.) Suffice it to say, for now, that
improving the situation involves increasing at least somewhat, over time, the scientific
literacy of our citizens, including especially in relation to how science works, how to
distinguish an extravagant from a reasonable claim, how to think about probabilities of
who is wrong and who is right in a given scientific dispute (including the question of
burden of proof as you and I have been discussing it here), how consulting and polling
experts can illuminate issues even for those who don’t understand everything that the
experts say, and why bodies like the National Academy of Sciences and the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change deserve more credibility on the question of
where mainstream scientific opinion lies than the National Petroleum Council, the Sierra
Club, or the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal.
Regarding extravagant claims, you continue to argue that Mann et al. have been guilty of
this, but the formulation of theirs that you offer as evidence is not evidence of this
at all. You quote them from the NYT in 1998, referring to a study Mann and co-authors
published in that year, as saying
“Our conclusion was that the warming of the past few decades appears to be closely
tied to emission of greenhouse gases by humans and not any of the natural factors.”
and you ask “Does that seem to be careful in the nature of a claim?” My answer is:
Yes, absolutely, their formulation is careful and appropriate. Please note that they
did NOT say “Global warming is closely tied to emission of greenhouse gases by humans
and not any of the natural factors.” They said that THEIR CONCLUSION (from a
particular, specified study, published in NATURE) was that the warming of THE PAST FEW
DECADES (that is, a particular, specified part of the historical record) APPEARS (from
the evidence adduced in the specified study) to be closely tied… This is a carefully
specified, multiply bounded statement, which accurately reflects what they looked at and
what they found. And it is appropriately contingent –“APPEARS to be closely tied” —
allowing for the possibility that further analysis or new data could later lead to a
different perspective on what appears to be true.
With respect, it does not require a PhD in science to notice the appropriate boundedness
and contingency in the Mann et al. formulation. It only requires an open mind, a
careful reading, and a degree of understanding of the character of scientific claims and
the wording appropriate to convey them that is accessible to any thoughtful citizen.
That is why I’m an optimist.
You go on to quote the respected scientist “Tom Quigley” as holding a contrary view to
that expressed by Mann. But please note that: (1) I don’t know of any Tom Quigley
working in this field, so I suspect you mean to refer to the prominent climatologist Tom
Wigley; (2) the statements you attribute to “Quiqley” do not directly contradict the
careful statement of Mann (that is, it is entirely consistent for Mann to say that his
study found that recent warming appears to be tied to human emissions and for Wigley to
say that that there are limits to how far one can go with this sort of analysis, without
either one being wrong); and (3) Tom Wigley is one of the CO-AUTHORS of the resounding
Mann et al. refutation of Soon and Baliunas (see attached PDF file).
I hope you have found my responses to be of some value. I now must get on with other
things.
Best,
John Holdren
JOHN P. HOLDREN
—————————————————————————–
Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy
& Director, Program in Science, Technology, & Public Policy,
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs,
John F. Kennedy School of Government
—————————————————————————-
Professor of Environmental Science and Public Policy,
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
—————————————————————————-
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
—————————————————————————-
mail: BCSIA, JFK School, 79 JFK St, Cambridge, MA 02138
phone: 617 495-1464 / fax 617 495-8963
email: john_holdren@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
assistant: Patricia_McLaughlin@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, 617 495-1498
——————————————————————————
JOHN P. HOLDREN
—————————————————————————–
Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy
& Director, Program in Science, Technology, & Public Policy,
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs,
John F. Kennedy School of Government
—————————————————————————-
Professor of Environmental Science and Public Policy,
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
—————————————————————————-
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
—————————————————————————-
mail: BCSIA, JFK School, 79 JFK St, Cambridge, MA 02138
phone: 617 495-1464 / fax 617 495-8963
email: john_holdren@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
assistant: Patricia_McLaughlin@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, 617 495-1498
“”” Roger Sowell (21:08:53) :
A cautious response.
Having worked for a couple of decades in some highly technical fields (electrochemistry, petroleum refining, petrochemicals production, and associated engineering of those), I can somewhat relate to the concept of not having to take the time to explain every last detail to everyone who asks. Instead, one merely hopes to explain sufficient detail to others who are reasonably competent in the subject so that one’s work can be verified or not.
U.S. patent law has a similar standard, that is, a patent must be written so that it discloses sufficient detail so that a person of “ordinary skill in the art” will understand and be able to make and use the invention. The exact language of the patent statute, 35 USC 112, is “The [patent] specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains…to make and use the same. . . ” “””
So Roger,
How many patents have you read that comply with 35 USC 112 (to the letter) ?
Well a lot of Optics (Lens design) patents do, because they literally list the complete optical element prescription of the lens. If they don’t, they don’t survive the Examiner’s red pencil; and of course , only that exact prescription is protected; so they aren’t a whole lot of use. They can however reveal the success of some new architecture from what has been seen in the past.
I designed a special type of scanning lens for a TV set; and then had to pass it over to a new designer, because I was not able to follow the task to completion because of prior agreement obligations. The new designer went ape, because I happened to use a particular architecture that was totally unknown for that type of lens application; so I had to explain to him why I used it (the optimisation routines said it worked better than the classical architecture).
Then of course there are always those folks who say; “if this “new” idea isn’t obvious to you, then you clearly don’t have “ordinary skill” in the art.
Now there is a “peer review” process for you; the US patent office.
@ Cromagnum (09:41:14) :-SNIP- Is Obama’s Climate Czar Holdren involved? Is he in the emails CC?
—–
Oh yeah. Just search on Holdren (or any other word or phrase you like) at: http://www.eastangliaemails.com/search.php
Holdren gets you six emails – and recall, there’s another 100MB or so of zipped data yet to be released supposedly, so this may not be all. In the first, Holdren is emailing the CRU as if he’s one of the boys, right in the circle. I’ve copied that below, its an arrogant smarmy email about how he’s proceeded to smear two of his Harvard colleagues – to the entire school from the sounds of it – who dared to write a paper contrary to the accepted position, while supporting Mann et al.
He’s just sending it along for their entertainment, now isn’t that nice? (lookie here, I just demolished a couple of your enemies for you and humiliated them to the entire university faculty (or more even?) all under the guise of trying to so graciously help educate some num-nut! Aren’t I a great guy, isn’t this fun?!!) Ad hominem, appeal to apparent authority/credibility in the climatology community, all the standard stuff [of two year olds in the sand box /sarc off].
The others are him being cc’d on some emails early this year where they are scrambling around desperately trying to come up with some plausible rationale for why temperatures haven’t been rising the past decade – this set postulating that perhaps increased SO2 emissions from China and India may account for an offsetting cooling to the obviously still occurring Global Warming. I don’t know the players well enough, however, to be sure how the person(s) who cc’d him fit into all of this.
From: “Michael E. Mann”
To: Malcolm Hughes , Tim Osborn , Keith Briffa , Kevin Trenberth , Caspar Ammann , rbradley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, tcrowley@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, omichael@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, jto@u.arizona.edu, Scott Rutherford , p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Tom Wigley
Subject: Fwd: Correspondence on Harvard Crimson coverage of Soon / Baliunas views on climate
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 16:43:41 -0400
Dear All,
Thought you would be interested in this exchange, which John Holdren of Harvard has been
kind enough to pass along…
mike
Delivered-To: mem6u@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
X-Sender: jholdren@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.0.2
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 13:53:08 -0400
To: “Michael Mann” , “Tom Wigley”
From: “John P. Holdren”
Subject: Correspondence on Harvard Crimson coverage of Soon / Baliunas
views on climate
Michael and Tom —
I’m forwarding for your entertainment an exchange that followed from my being quoted in
the Harvard Crimson to the effect that you and your colleagues are right and my
“Harvard” colleagues Soon and Baliunas are wrong about what the evidence shows
concerning surface temperatures over the past millennium. The cover note to faculty
and postdocs in a regular Wednesday breakfast discussion group on environmental science
and public policy in Harvard’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences is more or
less self-explanatory.
Best regards,
John
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 11:02:24 -0400
To: schrag@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, oconnell@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, holland@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,
pearson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, eli@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, ingalls@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,
mlm@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, avan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, moyer@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,
poussart@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, jshaman@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, sivan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,
bec@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, saleska@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
From: “John P. Holdren”
Subject: For the EPS Wednesday breakfast group: Correspondence on Harvard Crimson
coverage of Soon / Baliunas views on climate
Cc: jeremy_bloxham@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, william_clark@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,
patricia_mclaughlin@xxxxxxxxx.xxx,
Bcc:
Colleagues–
I append here an e-mail correspondence I have engaged in over the past few days trying
to educate a Soon/Baliunas supporter who originally wrote to me asking how I could think
that Soon and Baliunas are wrong and Mann et al. are right (a view attributed to me,
correctly, in the Harvard Crimson). This individual apparently runs a web site on which
he had been touting the Soon/Baliunas position.
While it is sometimes a mistake to get into these exchanges (because one’s interlocutor
turns out to be ineducable and/or just looking for a quote to reproduce out of context
in an attempt to embarrass you), there was something about this guy’s formulations that
made me think, at each round, that it might be worth responding. In the end, a couple
of colleagues with whom I have shared this exchange already have suggested that its
content would be of interest to others, and so I am sending it to our “environmental
science and policy breakfast” list for your entertainment and, possibly, future
breakfast discussion.
The items in the correspondence are arranged below in chronological order, so that it
can be read straight through, top to bottom.
Best,
John
At 09:43 PM 9/12/2003 -0400, you wrote:
Dr. Holdren:
In a recent Crimson story on the work of Soon and Baliunas, who have written for my
website [1]www.techcentralstation.com, you are quoted as saying:
My impression is that the critics are right. It s unfortunate that so much attention is
paid to a flawed analysis, but that s what happens when something happens to support the
political climate in Washington.
Do you feel the same way about the work of Mann et. al.? If not why not?
Best,
Nick
Nick Schulz
Editor
TCS
1-800-619-5258
From: John P. Holdren [[2]mailto:john_holdren@xxxxxxxxx.xxx]
Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 11:06 AM
To: Nick Schulz
Subject: Harvard Crimson coverage of Soon / Baliunas controversy
Dear Nick Schultz —
I am sorry for the long delay in this response to your note of September 12. I have
been swamped with other commitments.
As you no doubt have anticipated, I do not put Mann et al. in the same category with
Soon and Baliunas.
If you seriously want to know “Why not?”, here are three ways one might arrive at what I
regard as the right conclusion:
(1) For those with the background and patience to penetrate the scientific arguments,
the conclusion that Mann et al. are right and Soon and Baliunas are wrong follows from
reading carefully the relevant Soon / Baliunas paper and the Mann et al. response to it:
W. Soon and S. Baliunas, “Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000
years”, Climate Research, vol. 23, pp 89ff, 2003.
M. Mann, C. Amman, R. Bradley, K. Briffa, P. Jones, T. Osborn, T. Crowley, M. Hughes, M.
Oppenheimer, J. Overpeck, S. Rutherford, K. Trenberth, and T. Wigley, “On past
temperatures and anomalous late-20th century warmth”, EOS, vol 84, no. 27, pp 256ff, 8
July 2003.
This is the approach I took. Soon and Baliunas are demolished in this comparison.
(2) Those lacking the background and/or patience to penetrate the two papers, and
seriously wanting to know who is more likely to be right, have the option of asking
somebody who does possess these characteristics — preferably somebody outside the
handful of ideologically committed and/or oil-industry-linked professional
climate-change skeptics — to evaluate the controversy for them. Better yet, one could
poll a number of such people. They can easily be found by checking the web pages of
earth sciences, atmospheric sciences, and environmental sciences departments at any
number of major universities.
(3) The least satisfactory approach, for those not qualified for (1) and lacking the
time or initiative for (2), would be to learn what one can about the qualifications
(including publications records) and reputations, in the field in question, of the
authors on the two sides. Doing this would reveal that Soon and Baliunas are,
essentially, amateurs in the interpretation of historical and paleoclimatological
records of climate change, while the Mann et al. authors include several of the most
published and most distinguished people in the world in this field. Such an
investigation would also reveal that Dr. Baliunas’ reputation in this field suffered
considerable damage a few years back, when she put her name on an incompetent critique
of mainstream climate science that was never published anywhere respectable but was
circulated by the tens of thousands, in a format mimicking that of a reprint from the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in pursuit of signatures on a petition
claiming that the mainstream findings were wrong.
Of course, the third approach is the least satisfactory because it can be dangerous to
assume that the more distinguished people are always right. Occasionally, it turns out
that the opposite is true. That is one of several good reasons that it pays to try to
penetrate the arguments, if one can, or to poll others who have tried to do so. But in
cases where one is not able or willing to do either of these things — and where one is
able to discover that the imbalance of experience and reputation on the two sides of the
issue is as lopsided as here — one ought at least to recognize that the odds strongly
favor the proposition that the more experienced and reputable people are right. If one
were a policy maker, to bet the public welfare on the long odds of the opposite being
true would be foolhardy.
Sincerely,
John Holdren
PS: I have provided this response to your query as a personal communication, not as
fodder for selective excerpting on your web site or elsewhere. If you do decide that
you would like to propagate my views on this matter more widely, I ask that you convey
my response in its entirety.
At 11:16 AM 10/13/2003 -0400, you wrote:
I have the patience but, by your definition certainly, not the background, so I suppose
it s not surprising I came to a different conclusion. I guess my problem concerns what
lawyers call the burden of proof. The burden weighs heavily much more heavily, given
the claims on Mann et.al. than it does on Soon/Baliunas. Would you agree?
Falsifiability for the claims of Mann et. al. requires but a few examples, does it
not? Soon/Baliunas make claims that have no such burden. Isn t that correct?
Best,
Nick
From: John P. Holdren [[3]mailto:john_holdren@xxxxxxxxx.xxx]
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 5:54 PM
To: Nick Schulz
Subject: RE: Harvard Crimson coverage of Soon / Baliunas controversy
Nick–
Yes, I can see how it might seem that, in principle, those who are arguing for a strong
and sweeping proposition (such as that “the current period is the warmest in the last
1000 years”) must meet a heavy burden of proof, and that, because even one convincing
counter-example shoots the proposition down, the burden that must be borne by the
critics is somehow lighter. But, in practice, burden of proof is an evolving thing —
it evolves as the amount of evidence relevant to a particular proposition grows.
To choose an extreme example, consider the first and second laws of thermodynamics.
Both of these are “empirical” laws. Our confidence in them is based entirely on
observation; neither one can be “proven” from more fundamental laws. Both are very
sweeping. The first law says that energy is conserved in all physical processes. The
second law says that entropy increases in all physical processes. So, is the burden of
proof heavier on somebody who asserts that these laws are correct, or on somebody who
claims to have found an exception to one or both of them? Clearly, in this case, the
burden is heavier on somebody who asserts an exception. This is in part because the
two laws have survived every such challenge in the past. No exception to either has
ever been documented. Every alleged exception has turned out to be traceable to a
mistake of some kind. This burden on those claiming to have found an exception is so
strong that the US Patent Office takes the position, which has been upheld in court,
that any patent application for an invention that violates either law can be rejected
summarily, without any further analysis of the details.
Of course, I am not asserting that the claim we are now in the warmest period in a
millennium is in the same league with the laws of thermodynamics. I used the latter
only to illustrate the key point that where the burden is heaviest depends on the state
of prior evidence and analysis on the point in question — not simply on whether a
proposition is sweeping or narrow.
In the case actually at hand, Mann et al. are careful in the nature of their claim.
They write along the lines of “A number of reconstructions of large-scale temperature
changes support the conclusion” that the current period is the warmest in the last
millennium. And they write that the claims of Baliunas et al. are “inconsistent with
the preponderance of scientific evidence”. They are not saying that no shred of
evidence to the contrary has ever been produced, but rather that analysis of the
available evidence as a whole tends to support their conclusion.
This is often the case in science. That is, there are often “outlier” data points or
apparent contradictions that are not yet adequately explained, but still are not given
much weight by most of the scientists working on a particular issue if a strong
preponderance of evidence points the other way. This is because the scientists judge it
to be more probable that the outlier data point or apparent contradiction will
ultimately turn out to be explainable as a mistake, or otherwise explainable in a way
that is consistent with the preponderance of evidence, than that it will turn out that
the preponderance of evidence is wrong or is being misinterpreted. Indeed, apparent
contradictions with a preponderance of evidence are FAR more often due to measurement
error or analysis error than to real contradiction with what the preponderance
indicates.
A key point, then, is that somebody with a PhD claiming to have identified a
counterexample does not establish that those offering a general proposition have failed
in their burden of proof. The counterexample itself must pass muster as both valid in
itself and sufficient, in the generality of its implications, to invalidate the
proposition.
In the case at hand, it is not even a matter of an “outlier” point or other seeming
contradiction that has not yet been explained. Mann et al. have explained in detail why
the supposed contrary evidence offered by Baliunas et al. does NOT constitute a
counterexample. To those with some knowledge and experience in studies of this kind,
the refutation by Mann et al is completely convincing.
Sincerely,
John Holdren
At 08:08 AM 10/15/2003 -0400, you wrote:
Dr. Holdren:
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I genuinely appreciate you taking the time.
You are quite right about the laws of thermodynamics. And you are quite right that Mann
et al is not in the same league as those laws and that s not to take anything from their
basic research.
You write to those with knowledge and experience in studies of this kind, the refutation
by Mann et all is completely convincing. Since I do not have what you would consider
the requisite knowledge or experience, I can t speak to that. I ve read the Mann papers
and the Baliunas Soon paper and the Mann rebuttal and find Mann s claims based on his
research extravagant and beyond what he can legitimately claim to know. That said, I m
willing to believe it is because I don t have the tools necessary to understand.
But if you will indulge a lay person with some knowledge of the matter, perhaps you
could clear up a thing or two.
Part of the confusion over Mann et al it seems to me has to do not with the research
itself but with the extravagance of the claims they make based on their research.
And yet you write: Mann et al. are careful in the nature of their claim. They write
along the lines of A number of reconstructions of large-scale temperature changes
support the conclusion that the current period is the warmest in the last millennium.
And they write that the claims of Baliunas et al. are inconsistent with the
preponderance of scientific evidence .
That makes it seem as if Mann s not claiming anything particularly extraordinary based
on his research.
But Mann claimed in the NYTimes in 1998 that in their Nature study from that year Our
conclusion was that the warming of the past few decades appears to be closely tied to
emission of greenhouse gases by humans and not any of the natural factors.” Does that
seem to be careful in the nature of a claim? Respected scientists like Tom Quigley
responded at the time by saying “I think there’s a limit to how far you can ever go.” As
for using proxy data to detect a man-made greenhouse effect, he said, “I don’t think
we’re ever going to get to the point where we’re going to be totally convincing.” These
are two scientists who would agree on the preponderance of evidence and yet they make
different claims about what that preponderance means. There are lots of respected
climatologists who would say Mann has insufficient scientific basis to make that claim.
Would you agree? The Soon Baliunas research is relevant to that element of the debate
what the preponderance of evidence enables us to claim within reason. To that end, I
don t think claims of Soon Baliunas are inconsistent with the preponderance of
scientific evidence.
I ll close by saying I m willing to admit that, as someone lacking a PhD, I could be
punching above my weight. But I will ask you a different but related question How much
hope is there for reaching reasonable public policy decisions that affect the lives of
millions if the science upon which those decisions must be made is said to be by
definition beyond the reach of those people?
All best,
Nick
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 08:46:23 -0400
To: “Nick Schulz”
From: “John P. Holdren”
Subject: RE: Harvard Crimson coverage of Soon / Baliunas controversy
Nick–
You ask good questions. I believe the thoughtfulness of your questions and the progress
I believe we are making in this interchange contain the seeds of the answer to your
final question, which, if I may paraphrase just a bit, is whether there’s any hope of
reaching reasonable public-policy decisions when the details of the science germane to
those decisions are impenetrable to most citizens.
This is a hard problem. Certainly the difficulty is not restricted to climate science
and policy, but applies also to nuclear-weapon science and policy, nuclear-energy
science and policy, genetic science and policy, and much more. But I don’t think the
difficulties are insurmountable. That’s why I’m in the business I’m in, which is
teaching about and working on the intersection of science and technology with policy.
Most citizens cannot penetrate the details of what is known about the how the climate
works (and, of course, what is known even by the most knowledgeable climate scientists
about this is not everything one would like to know, and is subject to modification by
new data, new insights, new forms of analysis). Neither would most citizens be able to
understand how a hydrogen bomb works (even if the details were not secret), or what
factors will determine the leak rates of radioactive nuclides from radioactive-waste
repositories, or what stem-cell research does and promises to be able to do.
But, as Amory Lovins once said in addressing the question of whether the public deserved
and could play a meaningful role in debates about nuclear-weapon policy, even though
most citizens would never understand the details of how nuclear weapons work or are
made, “You don’t have to be a chicken to know what to do with an egg.” In other words,
for many (but not all) policy purposes, the details that are impenetrable do not matter.
There CAN be aspects of the details that do matter for public policy, of course. In
those cases, it is the function and the responsibility of scientists who work across the
science-and-policy boundary to communicate the policy implications of these details in
ways that citizens and policy makers can understand. And I believe it is the function
and responsibility of citizens and policy makers to develop, with the help of scientists
and technologists, a sufficient appreciation of how to reach judgments about
plausibility and credibility of communications about the science and technology relevant
to policy choices so that the citizens and policy makers are NOT disenfranchised in
policy decisions where science and technology are germane.
How this is best to be done is a more complicated subject than I am prepared to try to
explicate fully here. (Alas, I have already spent more time on this interchange than I
could really afford from other current commitments.) Suffice it to say, for now, that
improving the situation involves increasing at least somewhat, over time, the scientific
literacy of our citizens, including especially in relation to how science works, how to
distinguish an extravagant from a reasonable claim, how to think about probabilities of
who is wrong and who is right in a given scientific dispute (including the question of
burden of proof as you and I have been discussing it here), how consulting and polling
experts can illuminate issues even for those who don’t understand everything that the
experts say, and why bodies like the National Academy of Sciences and the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change deserve more credibility on the question of
where mainstream scientific opinion lies than the National Petroleum Council, the Sierra
Club, or the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal.
Regarding extravagant claims, you continue to argue that Mann et al. have been guilty of
this, but the formulation of theirs that you offer as evidence is not evidence of this
at all. You quote them from the NYT in 1998, referring to a study Mann and co-authors
published in that year, as saying
“Our conclusion was that the warming of the past few decades appears to be closely
tied to emission of greenhouse gases by humans and not any of the natural factors.”
and you ask “Does that seem to be careful in the nature of a claim?” My answer is:
Yes, absolutely, their formulation is careful and appropriate. Please note that they
did NOT say “Global warming is closely tied to emission of greenhouse gases by humans
and not any of the natural factors.” They said that THEIR CONCLUSION (from a
particular, specified study, published in NATURE) was that the warming of THE PAST FEW
DECADES (that is, a particular, specified part of the historical record) APPEARS (from
the evidence adduced in the specified study) to be closely tied… This is a carefully
specified, multiply bounded statement, which accurately reflects what they looked at and
what they found. And it is appropriately contingent –“APPEARS to be closely tied” —
allowing for the possibility that further analysis or new data could later lead to a
different perspective on what appears to be true.
With respect, it does not require a PhD in science to notice the appropriate boundedness
and contingency in the Mann et al. formulation. It only requires an open mind, a
careful reading, and a degree of understanding of the character of scientific claims and
the wording appropriate to convey them that is accessible to any thoughtful citizen.
That is why I’m an optimist.
You go on to quote the respected scientist “Tom Quigley” as holding a contrary view to
that expressed by Mann. But please note that: (1) I don’t know of any Tom Quigley
working in this field, so I suspect you mean to refer to the prominent climatologist Tom
Wigley; (2) the statements you attribute to “Quiqley” do not directly contradict the
careful statement of Mann (that is, it is entirely consistent for Mann to say that his
study found that recent warming appears to be tied to human emissions and for Wigley to
say that that there are limits to how far one can go with this sort of analysis, without
either one being wrong); and (3) Tom Wigley is one of the CO-AUTHORS of the resounding
Mann et al. refutation of Soon and Baliunas (see attached PDF file).
I hope you have found my responses to be of some value. I now must get on with other
things.
Best,
John Holdren
JOHN P. HOLDREN
—————————————————————————–
Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy
& Director, Program in Science, Technology, & Public Policy,
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs,
John F. Kennedy School of Government
—————————————————————————-
Professor of Environmental Science and Public Policy,
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
—————————————————————————-
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
—————————————————————————-
mail: BCSIA, JFK School, 79 JFK St, Cambridge, MA 02138
phone: 617 495-1464 / fax 617 495-8963
email: john_holdren@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
assistant: Patricia_McLaughlin@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, 617 495-1498
——————————————————————————
JOHN P. HOLDREN
—————————————————————————–
Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy
& Director, Program in Science, Technology, & Public Policy,
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs,
John F. Kennedy School of Government
—————————————————————————-
Professor of Environmental Science and Public Policy,
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
—————————————————————————-
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
—————————————————————————-
mail: BCSIA, JFK School, 79 JFK St, Cambridge, MA 02138
phone: 617 495-1464 / fax 617 495-8963
email: john_holdren@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
assistant: Patricia_McLaughlin@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, 617 495-1498
George E. Smith,
“So Roger,
How many patents have you read that comply with 35 USC 112 (to the letter) ?”
George, I have read many hundreds of patents and patent law cases, as my intent upon entering law school was to be a patent attorney. I have had several patent law classes in law school, and today follow the subject as best I can given certain time constraints. I found a higher calling, though, as I endeavor to repeal climate change and global warming laws. I am not a patent attorney at this time.
My belief is that almost all the patents issued in the U.S. comply with 35 USC 112 – and those that do not are challenged. The reported cases on this subject are rather esoteric (but fascinating to me). The central questions become: 1) what is adequate disclosure under 112 to enable one to make and use the invention – and there is a further court-added requirement, of “without undue experimentation.” 2) what is the expected knowledge of the person of ordinary skill in the art? Patent attorneys argue these things at great lengths.
Under US patent law, the inventor seeking a patent is not required to reveal every minute detail, and thus a mild amount of experimentation is expected for those who want to copy the patent. The question becomes how much experimentation is reasonable, and at what point does the experimentation burden become “undue.”
see http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/2100_2164_01.htm
What moral fibre has that professor got. He wants us to commit to an enormously expensive world changing policy but says he needs approval to release data. He knows everyone has been looking for it for years – why would the people who submitted it want it covered up. Spare me professor – the issue is too big to hide behind niceties and precious protocols. Peer review means nothing, zilch, zippo without data – he knows it and all his cronies know it. The prof should sleep easy now because he knows the game is up – he doesn’t have to cover up anything now – what a relief
Hasn’t the Chancellor learned, Jedi mind tricks only work on the weak. “There is nothing that indicates…”
I can only assume that the Chancellor is in on it too….
@Geoff Chambers (12:59:31) :
-SNIP-The Guardian carries an “exclusive” interview with Jones, which is simply a rehash of his statement on the University website, which links to the UEA statement – 68 comments, of which 16 have been removed.
Did any of those Guardian commenters point out the absurdity of the University announcing that it would conduct an impartial investigation of the affair, and on the same website allowing Jones to justify himself in the most pathetically feeble manner? We shall never know.-SNIP-
——————-
Hi Geoff,
Hum, you know, sounds to me like there’s a FOI request right there. In other words, request all email, correspondence, etc., related to the removal of those posts, along with copies of each of the posts themselves. Now, would that be one of those harassing FOI’s they referred to? Would serve to document a continued pattern of cover-up on their part.
“In the frenzy of the past few days, the most vital issue is being overshadowed: we face enormous challenges ahead if we are to continue to live on this planet.”
–Phil Jones
Yes, I did cook the books, suppress info, fix peer review, defraud the taxpayer, etc.. But you want to “continue to live on this planet,” don’t you?!
Is he trying for some kind of Chutzpa award?
If true this puts a new slant on the hacked versus leaked quetion
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2009/11/climategate-cru-hacked-into-an.shtml
I cannot believe that it has not been removed by the BBC.
Odd that Deep Climate should send some of the files to the BBC first
The “Hacked” argument is pointless anyways. All the material was created as a part of a publicly funded organization and subject to FOI requests.
Therefore it ALL should have been already public. They were (illegally) fighting to keep this all secret (obviously), and destroying it would have been a criminal offence.
So maybe obtaining the material that was was illegal, but reading it certainly isn’t…
I am astounded that for the past decade, they’ve been publicly screaming that warming was happening even faster than they though it would… while privately complaining about not being able to explain the lack of warming!…
If tree ring density data cannot properly reflect, and negatively influences temperatures after 1960, so much so that it needed to be kept out. No matter HOW you put it… SIMPLE reasoning makes it OBVIOUS that it cannot be used to reflect past temperature data! Saying anything else… is retarded! I don’t care how many fancy titles and PHd’s you have… you can’t possibly be 100% sure your results will be in any way accurate!
Not one single climate computer model they have ever had…EVER, could run backwards for more that a few decades before going completely off… how could anyone with any ethics claim that they could be totally accurate going forward???
Gawed I HATE religion.
Dave Andrews (12:53:20) :
Again: he is trying to add ambiguity and distance himself so later he has plausible deniability. He’s trying to be careful about what he says but it only amplifies his tells. I’d like to play him at poker. Look at the way he nods when people present arguments opposite to what he’s saying and shakes his head when he gives his own story. Textbook. The look he gives to the camera when Professor Singer mentions the public’s perception at 11.35 in the Newsnight clip:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00p6bn0/Newsnight_23_11_2009/
says more than I could on the subject.
Welcome to the: Nutty Professor’s Ball:
New Game. New Rules. Called: Frauds and Liars
1. Where they forever pretend to know everything there is to know, and-
2. NEVER admit they were, or can ever be, wrong, and-
3. When caught fiddling the facts, and therefore the accounts, which is fraud,
4. To ‘tough it out’ – because
5. Admitting to their sins means jail-time at worst and/or losing their cushy fantasy jobs at best.
All done for never-ending FUNding to party, party, party – at the expense of every man, woman and child no planet earth.
FIRE THE LOT and CALL THE POLICE! NOW!