This was just released by the AMS, source is here.
I’m reposting here in its entirety. h/t to Mark Johnson
Impact of CRU Hacking on the AMS Statement on Climate Change
AMS Headquarters has received several inquiries asking if the material made public following the hacking of e-mails and other files from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia has any impact on the AMS Statement on Climate Change, which was approved by the AMS Council in 2007 and represents the official position of the Society.
The AMS Statement on Climate Change continues to represent the position of the AMS. It was developed following a rigorous procedure that included drafting and review by experts in the field, comments by the membership, and careful review by the AMS Council prior to approval as a statement of the Society. The statement is based on a robust body of research reported in the peer-reviewed literature. As with any scientific assessment, it is likely to become outdated as the body of scientific knowledge continues to grow, and the current statement is scheduled to expire in February 2012 if it is not replaced by a new statement prior to that.
The beauty of science is that it depends on independent verification and replication as part of the process of confirming research results. This process, which is tied intrinsically to the procedures leading to publication of research results in the peer-reviewed literature, allows the scientific community to confirm some results while rejecting others. It also, in a sense, lessens the impact of any one set of research results, especially as the body of research on any topic grows. The AMS plays an important role in the scientific process through its peer-reviewed publications, as well as through its many other activities, such as scientific conferences. The Society strives to maintain integrity in the editorial process for all its publications.
For climate change research, the body of research in the literature is very large and the dependence on any one set of research results to the comprehensive understanding of the climate system is very, very small. Even if some of the charges of improper behavior in this particular case turn out to be true — which is not yet clearly the case — the impact on the science of climate change would be very limited.
The AMS encourages ethical behavior in all aspects of science and has established a record of affirming the value of scientists presenting their research results “objectively, professionally, and without sensationalizing or politicizing the associated impacts” (see AMS Statement on the Freedom of Scientific Expression).
Keith L. Seitter, CCM
Executive Director
Headquarters: 45 Beacon Street Boston, MA 02108-3693
DC Office: 1120 G Street, NW, Suite 800 Washington DC, 20005-3826
amsinfo@ametsoc.org Phone: 617-227-2425 Fax: 617-742-8718
© 2006 American Meteorological Society Privacy Policy and Disclaimer
I like the guy who called this statement a bunch of hooey. It’s all well and good to laud the peer review process. But that makes the assumption that the guardians at the doorway are being objective in their reviews. What if all the papers that are pro-global warming get a hardy backslap as they pass through the gate, but any anti-global warming papers get a knife in the back?
It also makes the assumption that under most circumstances, all other things being equal, that both pro- and anti-global warming research efforts are equally likely to get funded. But this is demonstrably not the case. Rather, there is a decided bias with regards to government funding of anti-global warming research.
How can you write a paper if you can’t get the funding to do the research? So the whole process is phony. They can point to a large body of research only because there is a large amount of government directed funding available.
Robin (14:57:09) :
studie among “peers”
don`t you know meenwhile, what peer review means in climate “science”
if m. mann is reviewing briffe or schmidt or someone else inside the club, what does it mean, hmmm?
forget “review”, try to get the raw date and do never believe anybody involved in this science criminalism, thank you.
These are the guys that we need to focus on. They should be called out on fox news and asked directly whether their statements match reality. Place one of the code segments in front of their faces and ask them directly for their opinion.
I also hope someone is building a tree of research papers that reference papers done by the CRU crew, Mann, etc.
The beauty of science ! AMO is one of the 18 leading US scientific organizations who send a letter to the U.S.A Senate, (21st Oct.2009) , saying: “As you consider climate change legislation, we, as leaders of scientific organizations, write to state the consensus scientific view…….. it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. “ .The entire letter at: : http://www.agu.org/outreach/science_policy/pdf/Climate_Letter.pdf
Is science beautiful if it is unable to define climate but is telling the general public that: “Climate change means the change of climate…”, as recently discussed at The Air Vent; http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/open-letter/
Yes, it would appear that “peer review” in the mouth of CRU is like the word “love” in the mouth of a prostitute.
“A rigorous procedure?”
Who, outside of the perpetrators (excuse me, authors) has peer-reviewed the code for the publications?
“A robust body of research?”
How robust is the body of research of 10 trees were cherry-picked to provide the dendrochronological results over the past 20 years?
“Independent verification and replication?”
Where is the verification? I must have missed it.
“Freedom of scientific expression?”
Just how many papers have been rejected for the simple reason of failing to adhere to the stipulated political viewpoint?
This AMS statement is hollow and has no verifiable content whatever.
You can be certain, that were any of the assertions above demonstrable, the AMS would have published an ample body of bibliography.
Where, by the way, is the documentation to confirm the assertion that carbon dioxide alone is the principal component of global warming? Where is the correlation between the documented increase in carbon dioxide and the documented decrease in temperature? Where is the demonstration that water vapor and cloud cover are irrelevant? Where is the computation proving that incident solar radiation (in all spectra) is 100% constant, and that the variability of the Sun is unrelated to global temperature? Last time I heard, the Sun is variable.
Where is the carbon dioxide worldwide budget? How much is absorbed by land and ocean plant life, and how much released from the same sources?
Where is the computer model which accurately forecasts cloud cover?
Ever seen a cat try to cover up its mess on linoleum?
The Hadley Centre leak constitutes a first-magnitude mess.
And the AMS has no defense against the charge that they have willingly participated in the propagation of scientific fraud, for reasons of the continued supply of government grant money.
“and the current statement is scheduled to expire in February 2012 if it is not replaced by a new statement prior to that.” Left themselves an out… “if it is not replaced by a new statement prior to that.”
We’ll see.
“…the current statement is scheduled to expire in February 2012 if it is not replaced by a new statement prior to that.”
So then the truth expires in Feb. 2012, and may be replaced by a new truth at that time?
Does this statement strike anyone as curious?
“Is it just me, or does it feel like a lot of statements are starting to get a little less absolutist? Not denial, but edging toward the exit a bit” – Robin
One of the problems we have getting AGW discounted is that pretty much all the “reputable” scientific organisations and journals have publicly signed up to and pushed the man-made climate change line. Now I’m sure (okay, I profoundly hope!) that at least some of the scientists there are now squirming as horribly as we are at what they’re seeing and wondering how the devil they’re going to get out of this mess without totally trashing the reputation of science.
I’m guessing there’s 3 ways this can go. One is they all say “la-la-la-we-can’t-hear-you, the Emperor’s clothes look marvellous – HEY SQUIRREL!” and pretend nothing has changed. One is that there comes a tipping point and a sudden domino collapse as they all pick a scapegoat or three for “deceiving them”.
More likely, I think, is we’ll see a steady continued affirmation of support for the scientific process whilst they simultaneously crack down on peer review and data openness in climate science. Except we can be pretty sure that AGW papers will then start getting rejected (or else more crass science come to light) and sceptic papers will start getting published, shifting the pendulum and reopening the argument. Plus if there’s then a domino collapse of support they can look all innocent and claim credit for their “scientific process” in helping reveal this.
(In all fairness, whilst they’ve been a useful idiot for the warmists, AIUI it was the Royal Society’s insistance on seeing some data that brought the Yamal scandal to light. So perhaps this was already in process…)
— Hide the decline!
Global warming is indeed man-made.
And it was made by surprisingly few men.
Positioneering to facilitate a tactical retreat later. Read his lips, it’ll be something like:
we didn’t know this was going on, hence nothing to do with us, gov.
Robin (14:48:58) :
“The beauty of science is that it depends on independent verification and replication as part of the process of confirming research results.”
Um, yeah, hasn’t that been the problem all along though? No one else can generate that kind of heat at room temperature. Err sorry, wrong scandal. Err, maybe not.
Ähmm,
never forgett, we are talking about some 1/10 °C in decades. Do you know what that means? I think, you don`t. You believe, that this is catastrophical and unusual, but you have no knowledge about climate stuff. If you go on like this, you will find your religion here:
http://i49.tinypic.com/2gy8w9v.jpg
” the current statement is scheduled to expire in February 2012″
I did not know science had an expiration date.
According to the AMS press release: “The statement [The AMS statement on climate change] is based on a robust body of research reported in the peer-reviewed literature”
Have they read any of the hacked/leaked E-mails? Warren Meyer said it perfectly: “We are now learning that when alarmist scientists claim that there is little peer-reviewed science on the skeptic’s side, this is like the Catholic Church enforcing a banned books list and then claiming that everything in print supports the Church’s position.”
Sounds more like “mirror-reviewed” than peer-reviewed.
What none of these sort of statements tackle is that a lot of people, a lot of scientists, have formed their views on the assumption that experienced scientists have told the truth and know what they are doing. The world is full of things that we can never check out ourselves so our world view starts with the assumption that we are being told the truth by people we trust.
How many climate change studies start from the premise that AGW is true and go on from there? We keep getting press releases along the lines that if temperature goes up 6 degrees in the next hundred years then disaster. Nothing there validates AGW, it simply assumes it is established and is looking at what happens next.
Another class of evidence is the evidence that things have warmed up. This includes melting ice sheets, changing animal and plant environments and milder winters. None of this provides evidence for AGW.
But I have lost count of the number of people on discussion forums who think that ‘deniers’ are denying that it got warmer in the last few decades of the 20th century. They think that ‘deniers’ are stupid, perverse and wrong because they are denying something for which there is a lot of evidence and is common knowledge.
They don’t appreciate that the ‘both sides’ recognise that warming has occurred and that the difference between them is what has caused the warming and how it fits into natural climate fluctuations, not the warming itself.
Robin (14:57:09) :
They did not just do a calibration of the thermometers based on tree rings (where it should be the other way around) but they also applied a high-pass filter, cutting out all the low temperatures and letting through just the high (and convenient) ones. Its scientific artifice, bamboozlement, barratry, cheat, chicane, chicanery, con, craft, deceit, double-dealing, dupery, duplicity, extortion, fake, flimflam, fourberie, fraudulence, graft, guile, hanky-panky, hoax, hocus-pocus, hoodwinking, hustle, imposture, misrepresentation, racket, scam, shakedown, sham, sharp practice, skunk, smoke, song and dance, spuriousness, sting, string, swindle, swindling, and treachery.
“The beauty of science is that it depends on independent verification and replication as part of the process of confirming research results.”
Unbelievable. Isn’t that EXACTLY what the ENTIRE CRU scandal is about. (I mean who cares if they are gleeful about the death of a sceptic)
This cabal of leading climate scientists did absolutely EVERYTHING in their power to PREVENT independent verification and replication that would have confirmed their research results (in this case probably would have debunked the entire scam).
Request for independent verification were met with obfuscation, dissimulation, out right refusal to provide raw data. Attempts to avoid FOI included the Head of CRU actually giving written instructions to DELETE emails…
But that is not all…they clearly INTERFERED with the Peer Review process too!!
OMG. Are they NO ETHICS in society at all anymore?
How can Keith Seitter claim that their position remains unchanged in light of a major cornerstone of Climate science having been completely undermined.
The ONLY possible ETHICAL answer would be for the AMS leadership to say that they continue to review their position in light of all new scientific evidence and that, as yet, it is far too early to speculate how the CRU scandal will affect their position. (This would be what any decent Scientist would say….sure I will look at this new evidence but I won’t change my position until I have had time to weigh up all this recent additional information)
If Keith L. Seitter is so keen on peer-review of data, perhaps he should peer a little closer at the data coming out of the CRU files and consider reviewing his stance. When the cold waves of truth comes swirling round his ankles he may wish he’d chosen a different place to make a stand.
The writers know that if the AMS ‘demanded’ ethical behavior from scientists, that would cut out basically every AGW promoter on the planet.
All too many progfessional organizations have been highjacked by tiny self-selecting groups of mostly lefties who have taken over the public poisitions of the membership in ways that do not at all represent the membership at large.
Sorry to see the AMS go this route.
These statements are not unexpected. Government money has simply become too seductive to ignore, regardless of principles of scientific investigation.
Eisenhower had it right in his farewell address in 1961. Everyone has been constantly reminded of his concern about the “military-industrial complex”, but almost no one knows what he said next.
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
“Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite”.
He also said, “Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity”.
Well, as Uncle Walter C. used to say, “And that’s the way it is”.
I resigned my membership in several earth-science professional organizations after commenting on “issue statements”, only to see them come out written like something from RealClimate.
Cut off the money. It’s the only way to make “change”.
BOTO (15:07:12) :
Good one!
“The statement is based on a robust body of research reported in the peer-reviewed literature.”
Which robust body of research would that be. This is one of those silly statements that they use as though it had meaning when in fact it does not. If they cannot point to any specific research from which they can derive their statement then they are just making meaningless geneneralizations about what they wish were the case, not about what represents reality. The facts are that the undermining of CRU data as well as that of all the research associates of Jones and his AGW in crowd does in fact knock the very base out of the AGW debate. You can’t build a case for global warming being a man made phenomena that threatens the earth without this group. This “robust body of research” that they constantly refer to has simply become an accepted myth, much like the myth that the climate debate is over.
If one organization, the CRU, is guility of cooking the data to suit a political agenda then is it not logical to conclude, given the enormous sums of hard earned taxpayer dollars being wasted to employ such people, the possibility of the very same thing is being done by other climate data gathers/researchers? Should it be discovered that the egregious behavior is also happening within NASA, NOAA, the EPA, etc., (and who denies little wisps of smoke have appeared from them from time to time?) – then is it not the role of the Supreme Court of the United States to review its CO2 decision and examine the possibility that testimony they heard may have been in fact perjurious? AGW is the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on humanity – and the ones who perpetuated it ought to be punished.
“The AMS encourages ethical behavior in all aspects of science and has established a record of affirming the value of scientists presenting their research results “objectively, professionally, and without sensationalizing or politicizing the associated impacts””
Even they can see the elephant in the room.
What about the peer review process that has systematically excluded the publication of scientific results that might if they ahd been pubished alter Mr Seitter’s opinion of the status of the science, or that of the membership in his society.
Seems like the Society’s position at least deserves an asterisk, rather than waiting till the Mayan calendar expires.