From Dr. Roger Pielke Sr.
The release of the e-mails from Phil Jones further confirmed the attempts to suppress viewpoints of climate change issues, which conflict with the IPCC viewpoint.
In the example I present below, the issue is the robustness of the surface temperature trend record. The three main groups that compile and analyze this information are NCDC (directed by Tom Karl), GISS (directed by Jim Hansen) and CRU (directed by Phil Jones).
In 2005, as I document in
Pielke Sr., Roger A., 2005: Public Comment on CCSP Report “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences”. 88 pp including appendices,
strong arm tactics of the Editor of this report (Tom Karl, Director of the US National Data Climate Center) were used to remove information in the CCSP report which raised questions about the robustness of his (and Jim Hansen’s GISS and Phil Jones’s CRU) surface temperature data. Phil Jones was a National Research Council panel member in a review of an interim draft of the CCSP report. In my Public Comment, I provided e-mail documentation of how these questions were excluded. At the time, my Public Comment did not receive much attention.
However, in light of the exposure of the inappropriate attempts to prevent the presentation of alternative viewpoints of climate science as seen in the Phil Jones e-mails, I am posting below text from several relevant e-mails (the complete emails are in the Public Comment). Since Tom Karl was evaluating his own group’s surface temperature analysis, his conflict of interest is very clear.
E-mails
Subject: Chapter 6: an alternative? [email not for the faint hearted?]
Resent-From: CCSPTempTrendAuthors.NCDC@noaa.gov
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 13:22:32 +0100
From: Thorne, Peter <peter.thorne@metoffice.gov.uk>
To: CCSPTempTrendAuthors.NCDC@noaa.gov
Dear all,
Health warning: This mail does not hold its punches as the youngest member of this panel I suppose that I have the most to lose through Chapter 6 in its current form in terms of future research career. I also suspect that I am the most likely to run around making a pain in the proverbial of myself. My apologies for that! I’ve tried over the past few weeks to help others in the Chapter 6 redrafting, but I really think that the structure we had just will not work. Therefore I took the liberty of spending 3 hours this morning developing an alternative, which I attach. I will caveat that David has looked at this, but the rationale and most of the text is my responsibility, not his (in other words the buck stops here).
This is punchier, almost devoid of references (actually not bothered with a reference list yet – there are limits!), more tightly linked to the chapters, and contains fewer recommendations that are more focussed. I believe unless I am seriously mistaken that these are all points
others have made over the recent past in relation to this chapter. They also directly assess the NRC review comments.
very time we have put a redraft back in the past few weeks the same pet subjects have been re-inserted, lengthening the draft and destroying the flow. I’m sorry, but I for one am now utterly bored of this. You will note in the attached there are comments where I suspect this insertion of pet subjects may happen, but, in my opinion, is not justified. I have, however, been scrupulously fair in targeting surface and upper-air records in all sections in line with the balance of the rest
of this report and with Roger’s concerns. I would be particularly interested in thoughts from the editorial team and other CLAs as to whether they think this is an improvement. My sincere apologies if this causes offence to Roger or anyone else. My sole interest is in seeing us get an excellent report out. I will now don my flame proof jacket, but please can everyone take the time to calmly consider this mail and the attachment first.
Peter
My suspicion is that Tom Karl encouraged or asked Peter Thorne to write this e-mail [for a more recent comment on the poor professional ethics of Peter Thorne; see]. Thorne only required 3 hours to write his version, as he wrote in his e-mail, while we had spent several months writing ours.
Tom Karl quickly followed up Thorne’s e-mail with
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 08:53:44 -0400
From: Thomas R Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@noaa.gov>
To: Roger Pielke <pielke@atmos.colostate.edu>
Subject: [Fwd: Chapter 6: an alternative? [email not for the faint
hearted?]]
Roger — let me know what you think
Tom
However, I had not even seen what Tom Karl was talking about, which implies that this was discussed between Tom Karl and Peter Thorne beforehand. I replied to Karl’s e-mail with
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 06:55:54 -0600 (MDT)
From: Roger Pielke <pielke@atmos.colostate.edu>
To: _NESDIS NCDC CCSP Temp Trends Lead Authors
<CCSPTempTrendAuthors.NCDC@noaa.gov>
Subject: Re: Chapter 6: an alternative? [email not for the faint hearted?]
Resent-Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 07:04:06 -0600
Resent-From: CCSPTempTrendAuthors.NCDC@noaa.gov
Peter
Since I was not even sent a copy of this suggested revision, it would be appreciated if you did so I can comment.
Roger
I e-mailed the following to Peter Thorne
Peter
In order for us to track down the problem, please send us the e-mail as it actually bounced, so that we can use the tracking information that always appears on these.
Roger
Peter Thorne replied
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 09:04:53 +0100
From: “Thorne, Peter” <peter.thorne@metoffice.gov.uk>
To: Roger Pielke <pielke@atmos.colostate.edu>
Cc: Thomas R Karl <Thomas.R.Karl@noaa.gov>
Subject: Email that bounced
Roger,
I no longer have the bounced mail itself I’m afraid, but I have the
saved DNS error message which is attached below [DNS message is in Appendix C of my Public Comment]:
Is it possible that your server machine was temporarily down or having a patch applied at this time? That could explain it. For everyone else there was no bounce.
The clear suspicion is that I was deliberately left off. If my e-mail bounced, why did not he resend it to me?
Tom Peterson (who was on the Committee also; and the same Tom Peterson who ridiculed me in the Phil Jones e-mail collection; see) wrote
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 09:05:52 -0400
From: Thomas C Peterson <Thomas.C.Peterson@noaa.gov>
To: Roger Pielke <pielke@atmos.colostate.edu>
Subject: Re: Chapter 6: an alternative? [email not for the faint hearted?]
Roger, it was attached to Peter’s email that went out to the whole team
earlier today. Did you not get it?
More e-mails followed, which are reproduced in Appendix C my Public Comment. The question of whether they actually sent me the original e-mail was, of course, not the substantive problem with the process (it just suggests they were communicating about this via e-mail and inadvertently left me off the final e-mail communication that disseminated Peter Thorne’s draft.
The end of the e-mail exchange, which forced me to resign from the Committee, is clear in the text and tone of the e-mail below from Tom Karl
From the Entire Editorial Staff: Roger, please do not take this request lightly. We politely ask you take Peter’s version, since everyone so far has indicated it is easier to understand, balanced, and does better represent their views and indicate where you would differ (small minorities views ok, but not desirable). This would be your opportunity to highight specific issues or points that are not adequately addressed in the version that Peter has put out on the Table. It seems you are representing yourself, at the expense of all the other authors who have weighed in on this. We do not understand your intransigence on this.
In other words, since I would not acquiesce to the view of Tom Karl, with regards to the robustness of his surface temperature data and other issues, he was pressuring me to accept the replacement chapter which does not raise the issues with its robustness. There was also no poll of the Commttee with respect to his claim that everyone accepted Peter Thorne’s chapter, as I document in my Public Comment).
I replied
Tom
Lets accept that Peter’s e-mail bounced. As a primary person involved in Chapter 6, as soon as this was found out, efforts should have been made to contact me, as it was clearly recognized by the header of the e-mail that this was going to result in a significant response.
In regards to the more serious issue, it is quite easy for me to document your intransigence on this, rather than you trying to spin the history of this issue so that it is my fault. Peter is invited to contribute to the process in the defined framework as everyone else has, using the existing Chapter draft as the template. It is clear from your published work that you have much to offer scientifically but you also have a conflict of interest, and, in my view, are inappropriately exercising it in your capacity as Editor. By repeatedly stating that I am representing only myself in this debate mischaraterizes the diversity of views of others which exist in our community, and which is reported in the peer-reviewed literature
Using your words, I hope you and the Editorial Staff do not take this controversy lightly. It is documentable that you are seeking to produce a document that is not balanced in its perspective on the issues of surface and tropospheric temperature changes.
I will continue to work on Chapter 6, and look forward to resolving this by encouraging authors to work within the framework of the existing Chapter.
Roger
With a further response from Tom Karl
Roger,
Thank you for your speedy reply. Once again, “We politely ask you take Peter’s version …. to highlight specific issues or points that are not adequately addressed in the version that Peter has put out on the Table.”
Tom, Bill, Chris and Susan
I then decided that the CCSP report process led by Tom Karl is not interested in assessing the science issue with the surface and tropospheric temperature data. He wanted a rubber stamp of the robustness of his data analysis.
Here is my resignation e-mail which I then sent
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2005 01:14:59 +0000
From: pielke_r@comcast.net
To: james.r.Mahoney@noaa.gov, james.r.Mahoney@noaa.gov
Cc: _NESDIS NCDC CCSP Temp Trends Lead Authors
<CCSPTempTrendAuthors.NCDC@noaa.gov>; richard.moss@pnl.gov,
<richard.moss@pnl.gov>
Subject: Resignation
Dear Dr. Mahoney
I am resigning effective immediately from the CCSP Committee “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere-Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences”. For the reasons briefly summarized in my blog (http://ccc.atmos.colostate.edu/blog/), I have given up seeking to promote a balanced presentation of the issue of assessing recent spatial and temporal surface and tropospheric temperature trends. The NY Times article today was the last straw. This entire exercise has been very disappointing, and, unfortunately is a direct result of having the same people write the assessment report as have completed the studies.
Their premature representation of aspects of the report to the media and in a Senate Hearing before we finalized the report has made me realize that, despite the claims of some of them to the contrary, only the minimal representation of the perspective that I represent will be begrudgingly included in the report. I also learned earlier this week that a member of the Committee drafted a replacement chapter to the one that I had been responsible for and worked hard toward reaching a consensus, which was almost complete. This sort of politicking has no place in a community assessment. If such committees are put together with no intention of adequately accommodating minority, but scientifically valid perspectives, then it would be best in the future not to invite such participation on CCSP committees I will be submitting a statement as part of the public record when the report appears documenting the specific process and science issues I have with this report. On the science issues, the community at large can made a decision as to whether or not they have merit.
Respectively
Roger A. Pielke Sr.
Professor and State Climatologist
Department of Atmospheric Science
Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado 80523-1371
phone:970-491-8293/fax:970-491-3314
As a direct result of my inability to present issues associated with uncertainties and possible systematic biases with the surface temperature record, I invited a number colleagues to co-author a peer reviewed paper which raises these issues. The peer reviewed paper appeared in 2007
Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, S. Foster, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S08, doi:10.1029/2006JD008229.
As of today’s data, 4 years after the completion of the report, Tom Karl and his associates as NCDC continue to ignore these issues. As Phil Jones wrote to Ben Santer and Tom Wigley in his August 22 2005 e-mail with respect to my resignation
”I almost missed the one with Pielke’s resignation in. Is this going to make your CCSP task easier or harder? Presumably now you’ll get all his comments to officially deal with. Maybe
you’ll be able to ignore them?
Cheers
Phil”
[from http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=584&filename=1124742148.txt]
Phil Jones also wrote in an e-mail dated January 29 2009, with respect to a Comment/Reply with respect to our 2007 JGR paper
> …He is a prat. He’s just had a response to a comment
> piece that David Parker, Tom Peterson and I wrote on a paper
> they had in 2007. Pielke wouldn’t understand independence if it
> hit him in the face. Both papers in JGR online. Not worth you
> reading them unless interested.
>
> Cheers
> Phil
>Prat
Where the Comment he is referring to is our JGR paper and the Comment/Reply that he was involved in. The referees of the Comment/Reply supported the conclusions of our JGR paper (see).
The issues of the conflict of interest illustrated by the sample of e-mails from Phil Jones, as well as the above e-mails from Tom Karl, illustrate the extent that this corruption of climate assessements has permeated climate science.
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The science is unsettled
Ditto Nos Da
From “Rules of the Game.pdf”
Many of the oft-repeated communications methods and messages
of sustainable development have been dismissed by mainstream
communicators, behaviour change experts and psychologists.
Before we go into what works, our principles make a ‘clean sweep’
of what doesn’t:
1. Challenging habits of climate change communication
Don’t rely on concern about children’s future or human
survival instincts
Recent surveys show that people without children may care more
about climate change than those with children. “Fight or flight” human
survival instincts have a time limit measured in minutes – they are of
little use for a change in climate measured in years.
— attack/break up the family —
Don’t create fear without agency
–trust IPCC and CRU instead —
Fear can create apathy if individuals have no ‘agency’ to act upon
the threat. Use fear with great caution.
–clearly they have beat the drum of fear heavily–
Don’t attack or criticise home or family
It is unproductive to attack that which people hold dear.
— did that stop them…NO —
2. Forget the climate change detractors
Those who deny climate change science are irritating, but
unimportant. The argument is not about if we should deal with climate
change, but how we should deal with climate change.
— and blacklist thier papers —
3. There is no ‘rational man’
The evidence discredits the ‘rational man’ theory – we rarely weigh
objectively the value of different decisions and then take the clear
self-interested choice.
— we are useless stupid sheep to them —
4. Information can’t work alone
Providing information is not wrong; relying on information alone to
change attitudes is wrong. Remember also that messages about
saving money are important, but not that important.
— so when you hand them bogus information, do it with a heavy dose of guilt.
Or, better yet, the old saying: If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS.
K: See here for studies that support the contention that the MWP was worldwide:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/what_hockey_stick.html
Pages 16-29 summarize eleven scientific papers that provide evidence of warming elsewhere on the planet during the MWP (along with ten papers dealing with Europe and the North Atlantic). Each summary occupies about half a page and contains a graph that illustrates key data points.
Are these “clever” announcements to make as a President in the middle of Climategate?
http://hypsithermal.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/obama-fnma-and-fmac-to-offer-carbon-credit-spread-swaps/
K, so is Mann is trying to marginalize both the LIA and the MWP to put more weight on current measurements that emphasize AGW? That sounds just like a political move that Progressives have used in the US to claim that opponants are simply “fringe” and do not represent the “concensus”. Mann has his Science and Politics mixed in a blender.
Methow Ken (10:25:34) : ‘As of 10:15 hours US PST Thursday 26 Nov, Google finds:
7100K hits on ”climategate”;
749K hits on ”anthropogenic global warming”;
10100K hits on ”global warming”;
22000K hits on ”climate change”.’
Here’s another Google search string to track during weeks to come:
climategate, treason
8,070 hits as of 12:30 US PST
JonesII, very interesting that this was WIRED blog but coming from MediaMaters.org. For those outisde the US, Media Matters.org was created by the Center for American Progress and is funded by wealthy liberals (think Progressives, leftists) with connections to John Podesta – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Podesta
Self defined as “a web-based, not-for-profit, progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.” Anything that makes the left look silly is considered “misinformation”.
IPCC “Global Warming” Parallel Universe Unaffected by CRU Data Fraud
UN says Science untarnished by “Climategate”
The head of the U.N.’s panel of climate experts rejected accusations of bias on Thursday, saying a “Climategate” row in no way undermined evidence that humans are to blame for global warming.
Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), stood by his panel’s 2007 findings, called the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). “This private communication in no way damages the credibility of the AR4 findings,” he told Reuters in an email exchange. This report helped to underpin a global climate response which included this week carbon emissions targets proposed by the United States and China, and won the IPCC a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
Pachauri said a laborious selection process, using only articles approved by other scientists, called peer review, and then subsequently approving these by committee had prevented distortion. “The entire report writing process of the IPCC is subjected to extensive and repeated review by experts as well as governments,” he added in a written statement to Reuters. “There is, therefore, no possibility of exclusion of any contrarian views, if they have been published in established journals or other publications which are peer reviewed.” This thoroughness and the duration of the process followed in every assessment ensure the elimination of any possibility of omissions or distortions, intentional or accidental.”
“It is unfortunate that an illegal act of accessing private email communications between scientists who have been involved as authors in IPCC assessments in the past has led to several questions and concerns,” said Pachauri.
…So that’s OK then. Business as usual at the IPCC, no matter what.
Alvin:
You are correct. Mann is containing the Medieval Warm Period by renaming it as the “Medieval Climate Anomaly.”
As with the Truth about Acid Rain, the MSM Wants to Bury Climaquiddick
But this time they won’t succeed thanks to alternative media like Fox and the Internet Blogs.
http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWFiODVhMzMwNGE3OThmODFhYjhlNGM4NjdkZDUxNjk=
@ur momisugly Lucy Skywalker
re: the poor state of science education in our schools
It truly is a travesty, what passes for ‘science’ education in our schools!
I was asked to prepare an afternoon hands-on presentation for a Grade 5 class on ‘Conservation of Energy’. I prepared fun, hands-on experiments on ‘conservation of momentum’ and worked the presentation from conservation of momentum to conservation of energy…
When I presented the material for approval, the educator said: “No, not THAT type of ‘Conservation of Energy’! The science curriculum says they are supposed to learn how important it is to turn off lights and such, to ‘conserve energy’….”
Needless to say, I did not do the presentation….
climatebeagle (10:47:19) :
Pick up any one of the exhaustive works of H.H. Lamb on the subject. I’d suggest “Climatic history and the future”, Princeton U. Press. It has some pretty convincing photographic plates with one showing large trees in the Canadian Arctic dated to 8000 ybp up where only tundra exists now. It was warm in the Arctic at the Holocene climate optimum.
Roger Knights (12:27:22) : Here’s another quote (from a German general circa 1941): “We’ll win and win until we lose.” Climategate is the greenshirts’ Stalingrad
Today is the anniversary of the battle of Stalingrad 1942, if I’m not mistaken. The year the weather, the Russian winter, gave the Russians victory over Hitler. Just like the Russian winter gave the Russians victory over Napoleon. And now it’s Yamal’s extremophile trees, able to survive the Siberian Arctic. Third lucky break with Russian weather.
UK is waking up at last
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100018056/climategate-this-is-our-berlin-wall-moment/
… oh heck, missed my line again… no, it’s the encounter with the quality of persistence that is typified by the Russian ability to live with Siberian winters.
It looks like a sequel to “How to lose friends and alienate people” – climate science version.
@Squidly asked:
“Should not the AGW believers now be overwhelmed with relief at even the prospect that mother Earth may not be in such proclaimed peril?”
The condition you’ve observed is called “Münchausen syndrome by proxy”, which Wikipedia describes as “the involuntary use of another individual to play the patient role. For example, false symptoms are produced in children by the caregivers or parents (almost always mothers), to produce the appearance of illness, or they may give misleading medical histories about their children. The parent may falsify the child’s medical history or tamper with laboratory tests in order to make the child appear sick.” See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factitious_disorder
In specific cases, where people have used a pet as the proxy, the illness has been classified as “Münchausen syndrome by proxy: pet”. See here for details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munchausen_syndrome_by_proxy
Therefore, in light of the pro-AGW alarmist types who continue to assert that “Mother Earth” is dying (despite there being overwhelming evidence to the contrary), I hereby propose a new sub-classification–“Münchausen syndrome by proxy: Planet”. Or perhaps–“Münchausen syndrome by Tree Ring proxy”. What do you think?
Hi,
The following is excerpted from: Letter to a ‘co-conspiracy theorist’: Reflections on Modernity, Climategate, Peer Review, and Science in the Service of Empire
print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2009/11/let-co-conspiracy-theorist-climategate.html
“In any event, as the political science thesis contained in my aforementioned Letter to Editor argues, there is indeed a prime reason for “cooking that science”. And that is to fabricate plausible sounding justifications for legally ushering in the architecture of ‘carbon credit’, regardless of whether there is global warming, global cooling, or no significant temperature change.
That is the real heart of the matter and the focus of heated debates for the past ten years being whether or not there is global climate change, as now in the climategate that there isn’t, is a gigantic red herring.
The point of focus shouldn’t be the unraveling of the deception, but the unraveling of the crucial agendas behind the deception for which mantras are so painstakingly fabricated and consent manufactured.”
And that is necessary in order to resist when resistance can have an impact. After fait accompli, protest cannot bring back the decimated tabula rasa of Messapotamia for instance, nor its despoiled DNA. The same will occur if the focus is not shifted from temperature changes, of which Global Warming is one mantra, to the agenda of ‘carbon credit’. Tomorrow they will invent a new mantra, Global Cooling, and end up having some very intelligent people spin on their intellect showing that to be false. And then another will be spinned. All the while, baby-step fait accompli is seeded.
Thanks for a very informative site.
Regards,
Zahir Ebrahim
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org
Let’s start swinging at Pachauri’s piñata. (New thread?)
Pal review ot better, self review!
BOTO (09:11:02) :
Oh I see, Gavin’s not at work so no moderation?
DaveE.
Why is it whenever I see Pachauri’s name I wanna say ‘gesundheit’.
Let the mocking begin.
We’ll find our own Monty Python so be afraid, be very afraid.
I went over to RealClimate and had a look at the Copenhagen Diagnosis document that was linked from there. In light of the emails recently exposed, it makes a very sobering read. Every ‘trick’ i.e. statement, that appears to be credible but is actually based on a dodgy paper is in there. Even the proxy stuff. Steig et al. The Jesus Paper. It feels like a bid document or a manifesto rather than an objective report. It does feel like it’s been generated by a club.
For example, there’s a great diagram of Antarctic ice loss showing that loss was high in the 50’s but no real mention of context with the reported low levels at the moment (I’m not sure if this is correct or not). There’s no talk of radiative-convective coupling i.e. one of the fundamental processes for heat transfer in the atmosphere, and the still unmeasured (experimental) values of CO2 forcing in a representative environment (hence more uncertainty as to the magnitude of it)
But it ‘reads like’ a scientifically based report. So I expect that journos will jump on it.
After recent events I’m reminded more and more of Shakespeare: There is something rotten in the Kingdom of Denmark
roger, thank you for posting this. The happiness I feel for your vindication is even greater than the satisfaction of seeing the arrogant fall. May you always be allowed to stand tall!
I have seen this e-mail archive from Roger Pielke Sr. as he had posted this on his web site previously, but I’m glad to see it emerge again in light of the CRU e-mail scandal. Please read the entire exchange – it shows you how very political the IPCC review process had become at that time. The attitudes, biases, and conflicts of interest are identical to those exposed in the CRU e-mails.
It really is a “travesty” what Tom Karl has done here and done elsewhere.
The NCDC is supposed to be charge of collecting/archiving all the climate data yet the people in charge of it have been shown to have little scientific integrity.
The true scientists in the climate research community and in science in general have to step up the plate now and correct this mistake. And it appears a lot of them will be required to do so since there are so many others that are perfectly willing to go along with this lack of scientific integrity culture. If you are reading this, that means you.