This statement was released by Penn State here. Oddly, while mentioning the NAS report, there is no mention of the Congressional commissioned Wegman report, which you can see here full report (PDF). Or for a quick read the fact-sheet (PDF).
University Reviewing Recent Reports on Climate Information
Professor Michael Mann is a highly regarded member of the Penn State faculty conducting research on climate change. Professor Mann’s research papers have been published in well respected peer-reviewed scientific journals.
In November 2005, Representative Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) requested that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) convene a panel of independent experts to investigate Professor Mann’s seminal 1999 reconstruction of the global surface temperature over the past 1,000 years. The resulting 2006 report of the NAS panel (http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11676) concluded that Mann’s results were sound and has been subsequently supported by an array of evidence that includes additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions.
In recent days a lengthy file of emails has been made public. Some of the questions raised through those emails may have been addressed already by the NAS investigation but others may not have been considered. The University is looking into this matter further, following a well defined policy used in such cases. No public discussion of the matter will occur while the University is reviewing the concerns that have been raised.
h/t Joe D’Aleo
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And as an fyi..I’m just as displeased with how CNN hasn’t covered this issue. It doesn’t mean that all of a sudden I’m going to be watching Fox news. They have their agenda as well and often don’t report or investigate important issues either.
Instead I try and look at a variety of news sources and blogs. Then piece together truth from all the crap. Not easy to do, but what choice do I have? There doesn’t seem to be any news organizations that actually investigate and report the news without severe bias and commentary. It makes me ill.
Here you go Dr. Curry — the whole mess in a nutshell. Why are skeptics so skeptical? Read the Wegman report and what a skeptic such as myself sees as the lack of any follow-up changes in the climate change community. And then Dr. Mann has the audacity to put out another fresh hockey stick this past Friday; a bit more twisted and warped than its predecessor, but still a hockey stick.
And then read all the preceding comments; skepticism seems to be turning into cynicism. {rhetorical question} I wonder why? {/rhetorical question}
You are all doing an astonishingly good job of managing all this information. As a suggestion a fascinating exercise would be to create a league table of which climate “scientists” are the authors of the most suspect work and the number of suspect papers and which institution is investigating/not investigating claims of fraud and deceit. Expose the Universities and the institutions that are condoning this pseudo-science. As a further link, highlight which countries’ climate data has been compromisd by the suspect methodology. In that sense a layman like myself would get an overview of how much of the globe is being mis-represented and which countries are doing it.
Perhaps after the investigation he will be given an award in the shape of a hockeystick. Whatever happens this endless publicly funded research by meteorologists into climate must be scaled back or ended.
Since Penn State is a state of Pennsylvania institution, it would be a appropriate for those citizens of Pennsylvania to immediately contact their state gov reps.
This then would not be a discussion just within academics, some state gov representatives would be a good add to the review mix. I do not see how it could hurt.
John
A.J. Abrams
Pamela Grey
Those of us on the right have had to develop thick skins because we or our political beliefs are regularly vilified in our respective institutions of higher learning: we’ve learned to keep our political affiliations to ourselves, or let on very subtly what we believe to be true. It is actually a relief to find a quasi-scholarly community that does not share the left-leaning biases found in our places of work. I regard both of your continual contributions very highly, but would suggest that you not whine about political comments. The facts are that the left-dominated media only reluctantly addresses Climategate or refuses to acknowledge it at all. Do you suggest that we should self-censor in the name of some form of political correctness and ignore the facts?
The ability of the Penn State folks to investigate thoroughly is belied by their misstatement of the NAS report.
They claim the NAS panel opined that “Mann’s results were sound.”
In fact, the NAS report said Mann’s results were, at best, “plausible.”
Here’s the part of the report summary that states their opinion of Mann’s hype:
“Based on the analyses presented in the original papers by Mann et al. and this newer supporting evidence, the committee finds it plausible that the Northern Hemisphere was warmer during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period over the preceding millennium. The substantial uncertainties currently present in the quantitative assessment of large-scale surface temperature changes prior to about A.D. 1600 lower our confidence in this conclusion compared to the high level of confidence we place in the Little Ice Age cooling and 20th century warming. Even less confidence can be placed in the original conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that “the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium” because the uncertainties inherent in temperature reconstructions for individual years and decades are larger than those for longer time periods and because not all of the available proxies record temperature information on such short timescales.”
So, they go from “plausible” (for the belief that the last few decades were warmer than any “comparable period” in the past 1000 years) to “even less confidence” in the most important (to Mann’s propaganda machine) claim by Mann–namely the purportedly unprecedented warming in the 1990s.
It’s too bad the NAS report didn’t simply say that Mann’s hype was “unsound,” so we could see whether the folks at Penn State can at least read, if not comprehend, the report.
AJ –
You make some fair points, so much so that I will noodle on them…
I understand what your core point is, but if in dropping the far “left” aspect we overlook how we ended up in this position, I’m not sure that’s healthy either ?
FYI – I’m neither right or left. As one of my favorite comedians once said “if you’ve gone too far to the left or too far to the right, you’ve gone ..too FAR”
Thanks for the response – Mk
The left/right discussion in this topic is missing one point. AGW began with leftist academics, but its main money source is Wall Street. The Carbon Credit Exchange was meant to be the next big bubble (especially appropriate term here) and many giant corporations see cap-n-trade as an excellent way to make life harder for small business. And the latter impulse is what drives Congress more than any ideology.
McCain was on the green bandwagon long before Obama, and New Scientist mag considered McCain the preferred candidate in ’08 for green fanatics.
My behind the scenes question is about the strange behavior of the Penn State Maths department. Just like the dog in the Sherlock Holmes’ story, the lack of any barking from a supposedly competent department is very strange.
Vigilantfish,
Why would you need to self censor anything? Whining? Why would I be whining? I’m not a democrat. If you really feel the need to make this an left versus right issue, have at it! I am pointing out that it’s not a good idea because it really isn’t the point. I am very sorry that you have been vilified because you are conservative on THIS issue. However, I’d submit to you that many lefties are vilified by conservatives on other issues. So what? Going to keep doing it ad nauseam? When does it end?
My point, which you obviously missed, is that if YOU, as a person, are really concerned about the bad science and what that has caused, then stick to the bad science as the talking point. If you are making it about conservatism versus liberal, then it says that you also don’t care about the bad science, only the politics. That is a shame.
To do anything else speaks of your bias, your agenda.
Free the data, free the code, free the debate. That isn’t a political statement.
Mk,
How it happened wasn’t about liberals versus conservative. So making that a talking point isn’t going to solve the problem. Talking about transparency in science will however help. That is my point. If you want to get through to the masses..all the masses…keep hammering home – Free the data, free the code, free the debate.
And thanks for your kind words. I’m neither right nor left. I am liberal of mind, but fiscally conservative, and a somewhat libertarian on my thoughts of a smaller government. What I am 100% is science orientated and that means questioning everything.
We need to be patient and allow this issue to develop (I think it is customary to say “like a good wine” at this point).
The UK recently had the MPs’ expenses scandal. UK newspaper, “the Telegraph” was masterful in keeping the issue in the public eye through a steady drip-drip of revelations. At first, it wasn’t really an issue in the public consciousness, but with the steady newsflow, the story followed a path of increasing public interest … and increasing outrage.
The MPs were too close to the issue for their own good and many failed to anticipate how it would develop. There are numerous MPs who will now stand down at the next election, and some of them werre damned by their own protestations.
The lesson for “climategate” is not to shoot all of the bullets too eagerly or too early in a mad dash for headlines. A drip-drip of revelations, concerns and debate will be better overall.
The goal is to get the public to appreciate our reasonable alternative views with regard to MMGW. Climategate is an opportunity to do that. But the public has had the AGW meme drummed into it for more than a decade, and a change of mind will take time.
Reviews and enquires are the necessary next stage. Penn State Uni will hold an internal enquiry and does not expect to enter into discussions while it is ongoing. Fair enough. But in the meantime, we should be patiently and diligently taking steps to add context to their findings and conclusions.
For example, their announcement and findings should be given maximum publicity and scrutiny. If that can be done, there should be little reason to have concerns about whitewash.
When are we going to hear about ‘McCarthyite persecutions of scientists?’
Oppenheimer, thou should’st be living in this hour!’
Here’s a list of the trustees of Penn State:
http://www.psu.edu/trustees/
Alumni should write to the Board fo Trustees at:
The Pennsylvania State University
Board of Trust205 Old Main
University Park, PA 16802-1571
Office: (814) 865-2521
Fax: (814) 863-4631
Email: bot@psu.edu
As an Alumni, you should indicate that you are concerned that Dr. Mann’s actions have hurt the reputation of the University and have diminished the value of a Penn State diploma.
They will try whitewashing it until it is so clear to everyone that fraud was involved that they have to get rid of him. There is talk of a senate investigation and there is almost certainly going to be a British Parlimentary investgation. If they have political sense at all they will throw Mann to the wolves to stay clean themselves. How long it will take them to come to that conclusion I have no idea.
PR Guy,
Penn State alumni should also remind the Trustees that the alumni give huge amounts of $$$$$ to the school – voluntarily. That will make the Trustees sit up straight and pay attention.
For info for newcomers on the North and Wegman reports, and how they were critically misreported so that folk thought Mann had been vindicated by both when he had not, see here
For a whole newcomers’ Climate Science primer, which also explains how I did a U-turn from warmist to sceptic, click my name. Slightly out of date, it’s a personal approach but with all the key science, explained with pictures.
As a non-scientist, here is what I got out of the 2005 review of the temperature reconstruction studies:
1. The field of developing temperature reconstructions from assorted proxy data is in its infancy
2. Much work is needed to review and refine the methodology in creating temperature time series from multiple proxy studies
3. The current state of the field of climate reconstruction is not yet solid enough to develop policy recommendations based on the studies to date.
AJ Abrams,
My apologies – I did misread you. I agree substantively with what you say to Mkurbo. But it has to be admitted that those with left-leaning political sympathies have been far more likely to buy into CAGW. I also believe that one way to get the attention of left-learning academics is to highlight the extent to which the political-economic agenda has been co-opted by major corporations and especially Big Oil as a route to higher profits. Once it becomes a “right”-wing conspiracy then the media will take more interest. In the meantime, indeed, science should have no politics and the only way forward is, as you say, to free the debate.
I imagine the authorities at Penn State (and UEA if it comes to that) are thinking about the potential legal implications. It appears that dissenting scientist may have been disadvantaged by a distorted peer review process and can thereby claim to have suffered damage to career and reputation ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703499404574557583017194444.html ). The leaked e-mails suggest this damage was intended and hence is an intentional tort attracting punitive damages.
If the scientists who have been discriminated against decide to sue I for one will contribute to a fighting fund.
It’s the legions of scientists who need to step up and get Penn to throw out the bad seed.
In the public consciousness, climatology is the flagship project of science. I garners the most press coverage, dominates policy discussions, and reaches the widest audience. If this highest of all prestige branches of science is based on nothing but a bunch of cheap card tricks, fakery, and sabotage of peer-review and the entire scientific process, then in the future what will the public attitude be toward the rest of science? Toward all of science?
Zen master Joe Six Pack say, “Science has lost face because its leaders are without honor.”
Penn State is a very good university and its administrators have a serious problem on their hands. They are in the middle of a PR disaster, and they don’t know if they should stand by Mann or deliver up his head. They will probably do an internal investigation taking heads from Statistics, Physics and Chemistry and then ask Mann to supply his data-sets to them.
Should he not persuade these people he has done nothing wrong; he and his department are toast.
Universities are typically merciless at these things, donations dry up at any wiff of scientific misconduct.
We should give the University the benefit of the doubt for 6 months and let them do their own investigation; they do after all have all his data.
Ask the fox: “Will you look into who killed these chickens?”
The Penn State internal investigation if driven to clarity by alumni might produce corrective results. But a full investigation representing the national taxpayers – whose money has been thrown at climate research in great heaps – needs to come from Congress. And Parliament in the UK, AU and NZ.
These are the nations that should lead the way to full disclosure of the malfeasance in ClimateGate.
Many of us have been vocal about questioning various conduct by the pro-AGW side over the years. A good synopsis of some historic concerns is provided on Lucy Skywalker’s site under the THE CHALLENGE OF CORRUPT SCIENCE IS SERIOUS sub-title.
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Curious.htm