UPDATED: By Douglas J. Keenan – special for WUWT
Phil Jones tried to hush my paper. SUNY Albany won’t discuss the investigation my paper initiated. And QUB ignored my three FOI requests for their data.
I used to do mathematical research and financial trading on Wall Street and in the City of London; since 1995, I have been studying independently (for more details, please see my web site). Some of the e-mails leaked in Climategate discuss my work. Following is a comment on that and on something more important.
In 2007, I published a peer-reviewed paper alleging that some important research relied upon by the IPCC (for the treatment of urbanization effects) was fraudulent. The e-mails show that Tom Wigley, one of the most highly-cited climatologists and an extreme warming advocate, thought my paper was “valid”. They also show that Phil Jones, the head of the Climatic Research Unit, tried to get the journal editor to not publish my paper.
After my paper was published, the State University of New York, where the research was conducted, carried out an investigation. During the investigation, I was not interviewed: contrary to the university’s policies, federal regulations, and natural justice. I was allowed to comment on the report of the investigation, before the report’s release, but I was not allowed to see the report: truly Kafkaesque.
Relatedly, my paper (§2.4) demonstrates that, by 2001, Jones knew there were severe problems with the urbanization research. Yet Jones continued to rely on that research in his work, including in his work for the latest report of the IPCC.
The biggest concern with global warming is, arguably, that warming itself will cause further warming. For example, the polar ice caps reflect sunlight back into space (thereby cooling Earth); if the caps shrink, due to warming, then they will reflect less sunlight, and so Earth will warm further. It is claimed to be possible that Earth warms so much that it reaches what is called a “tipping point”, where the global climate system is seriously and permanently disrupted—like when a glass of water has been tipped over, and the water cannot realistically be put back into the glass.
There is much scientific debate over how much Earth has to warm before it reaches a tipping point. No one knows for sure. About a thousand years ago, though, there was a time known as the “Medieval Warm Period”, when much of Earth appears to have been unusually warm. It is not currently known just how warm the Medieval Warm Period was. Clearly, though, the warmth then was below the tipping point, because Earth’s climate continued without problem.
Suppose that during the Medieval Warm Period, Earth was 1°C warmer than today. That would imply that the tipping point is more than 1°C higher than today’s temperature. For Earth’s temperature to increase 1°C might take roughly a century (at the rate of increase believed to be currently underway). So we would not have to be concerned about an imminent disruption of the climate system. Finding out how warm the Medieval Warm Period was is thus of enormous importance for the study of global warming.
It turns out that global (or at least hemispheric) temperatures are reflected by the climate in western Ireland; for a short explanation of that, see here. Trees grow in western Ireland, of course, and each year, those trees grow an annual ring. Rings that are thick indicate years that were good for the trees; rings that are thin indicate the opposite. If many trees in western Ireland had thick rings in some particular years, then climatic conditions in those years were presumably good. Tree rings have been used in this way to learn about the climate centuries ago.
Queen’s University Belfast has data on tree rings that goes back millennia, in particular, to the Medieval Warm Period. QUB researchers have not analyzed the data (because they lack the expertise to do so). They also refuse to release the data. I have been trying to obtain the data, via the UK Freedom of Information Act, since April 2007. The story is scandalous.
As the above illustrates, the problems in global-warming science are with more than just the few directly involved in Climategate. Indeed, I think it would be unreasonable to suppose such.
Finally, in light of all the slander going around, maybe I should add this: I have received no payment of any kind from any entity for any work that I have done since 1995.
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If I were Mr Keenan I would consult with a lawyer. If the efforts of the Team prevented him from gaining grant money, employment, etc… a civil suit could be in order. Keenan’s lawyer could then supeona documents, emails, and depose an entire host of individuals.
I can just imagine the fear that must be steadily growing amongst many of the Team as this entire affair continues to gain notice.
Kudos to Doug Keenan for his multi-year pursuit of these miscreants. It reads like something that, I don’t know, a Michael Crichton would have written.
Surely there are grown-ups around who realize that this type of lying, cheating and manipulation erodes trust and is very dangerous for democratic policy-making institutions?
Douglas,
My understanding is that you had uncovered fraud in Wang’s research but the university has whitewashed Wang’s research and dismissed your claims. However, since you had found the evidence of the fraud yourself and published that in your paper, I presume there must have been some sort of reaction from the scientific community. And I presume you still have the evidence available. Why don’t you post your findings on WUWT or CA so it at least reaches a wider audience?
Of course ‘Climategate’ could have been a completely different story.
Instead, we could all be discussing how doomed we are because the leaked emails document how the earth is really warming uncontrollably and that we are already too late to stop it. And other messages showing the scientist’s ongoing concern about the word getting out to the general public that there really is nothing we can do.
But no. The messages do not back up the demands that we must act now. Instead we have the experts discussing internally their inability to document the threat they are proclaiming is upon us.
The Dutch agricultural university of Wageningen joins in for it needs help in obtaining 100 million euros in grants.
From: Mike Hulme
To: “Kabat, dr. P.” , “Schellnhuber (E-mail)”
Subject: Re: Letter of Support
Date: Wed Feb 12 15:45:03 2003
Cc: “Alex Haxeltine (E-mail)”
Pavel
I will certainly make sure a letter reaches you for Friday. And Good Luck!
Mike
At 14:07 12/02/03 +0100, Kabat, dr. P. wrote:
Dear Mike, John, Alex:
referring to out tel. conversation yesterday with Alex, hereby our request for a letter of support/recommendation on behalf of Tyndall for our national Global Change Initiative programme proposal called “Climate changes the spatial planning”, (“Climate for Spatial Planning Spatial Planning for Climate); unofficially known to you I guess as as “Netherlands Tyndall-like initiative…)
After we have successfully passed the first round of the selection last year with the Dutch Government, we are know in final stages of submitting the final proposal/business plan (deadline 17/2/03 – next Monday). The proposed programme has a total budget of 100 million Euro, of which 49 million is requested from the Government, rest contribution of public and private institutions. As a part of this programme we are aiming to set up Netherlands Centre of Excellence (partly virtual) institute, modelled after Tyndall. Leading parties in this effort are all well known to you:
Wageningen (kabat)
VU Amsterdam (vellinga)
RIVM (metz)
KNMI (Komen)
ICIS (Rotmans)
ECN (Bruggink)
plus another almost 50 parties.
Could you pls send us a short letter of support, in which you indicate the importance of this initiative for advancing this type global change science, European dimension, UK – NL collaboration, etc, etc? We need to receive this by Friday, so send also by fax pls (apologies for the rush). Letter is to be addressed as follows:
Prof. Dr Pavel Kabat
Science Director
Netherlands National Research Initiative “Climate changes the spatial
planning”, (ICES KIS 3)
I attach 3 documents as background of our proposal
Many thanks for your kind help!
Pavel, Pier en colleagues
<> <> <>
Rich (09:48:15) :That text appears only if you are running an updated windows version, check with an older version in other computer and it will not appear.
The State Broadcaster in Ireland ,RTE ,has failed to mention Climategate in any of its shapes and forms and failed to respond to my email of November 23rd. Today the published and broad cast this http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/1130/climate.html
I have again emailed them at newsonline@rte.ie with this
“Your Environment Correspondent Paul Cunningham has failed to deal with the small matter of corruption and manipulation of data by the CRU and University of East Anglia which is the subject of widespread condemnation in Scientific circles. Not to inform the general public of this other side to the story is a failure to provide balanced information. Will RTE rectify this bias? ”
to be continued……..
An interesting article in Fox News about the UN Agenda for riding the climate change horse.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,577827,00.html?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a16:g2:r5:c0.040549:b29144456:z10
tarpon (10:18:46) :
There is nothing useful in the whole climategate affair, a total reset is needed, after the UN IPCC is disbanded and buried.
The wealth transfer scam has been fully exposed.
You forgot to mention the Obama Administration and the entire European Union and all those that have infiltrated our scientific institutions, government bodies and MSM to “serve the case”.
At the same I am extremely grateful for the world wide web and the blogs.
Without them we are dead meat.
************
JonesII (10:44:30) :
Rich (09:48:15) :That text appears only if you are running an updated windows version, check with an older version in other computer and it will not appear.
************
Or better yet, switch to Ubuntu. If you want, it can be booted from and run from a CD.
The Earth is flat. By spewing more carbon into the atmosphere, mankind is making it even flatter. Keep this up and it will soon become concave, then when it rains, we will all drown! STOP BREATHING, EVERYONE BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!
OT – I know WUWT had a post on this, but Google is all over the board on this climategate issue. They are blocking several links and the total number of hits has been acting like a loose speedometer ?
http://searchengineland.com/of-climategate-googlegate-when-stories-get-too-long-30755
Just a sincere expression of support for you Douglas. I followed your efforts and hope that they can still help to focus more light on the ClimateCoverUp.
Big News: AP is reporting that Phil Jones is stepping down until the “independent” investigation has reached its conclusion:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_BRITAIN_CLIMATE_HACKED_E_MAILS?SITE=TNJAC&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
OT
For anyone who’s interested.
Live Broadcast of Munk Debate on Climate Change.
18:45 EST (6:45 PM)
Panel Discussion with Elizabeth May, George Monbiot, Bjørn Lomborg, and Lord Nigel Lawson.
http://www.cigionline.org/events/cigi-debate-series-live-broadcast-munk-debate-climate-change
To sign up, go to:
http://www.munkdebates.com/debates/climate_change/
Bjorn
How will Gore, the “god” of Gorebull warming be implicated. He is making 10’s of millions of dollars on this scam.
Lord Stern, 50/50 chance to stop a catastrophe.
I think he has totally lost it.
He should be locked.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6701810/Copenhagen-climate-summit-5050-chance-of-stopping-catastrophe-Lord-Stern-says.html
Anthony:
The very best thing about this whole Climate’fruad’gate is? It’s the coverup not the crime that will do these people in. It appears that they are and were covering up the fraud while at the same time taking in boat loads of research money. Somebody should be burned at the stake for this one.
Obama: “I just want to spread the wealth around.”
“Climate science email controversy headed for Capitol Hill airing”
Will Holden and Lubchenco parrot RealClimate?
Of course. Nearly verbatim. They’re rehearsing right now.
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/69795-climate-email-controversy-headed-for-capitol-hill-airing
Climate science email controversy headed for Capitol Hill airing
By Ben Geman – 11/30/09 02:28 PM ET
A House hearing Wednesday will likely provide a forum for debating what widely-circulated emails among climate scientists do or don’t reveal about the state of global warming research.
The Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming hearing on climate science will feature two top administration officials: White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren, and Jane Lubchenco, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Look for Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who co-sponsored the sweeping House climate bill that passed in June, to solicit testimony about the strength of research showing dangerous warming trends.
The committee will “explore with climate scientists from the Obama administration the urgent, consensus view on our planetary problem: that global warming is real, and the science indicates that it is getting worse,” the hearing notice this afternoon states.
But also look for Republicans to ask about emails among climate scientists that were hacked from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the U.K.
Climate change skeptics say the messages show an effort to squelch findings that undercut the case that global warming is occurring. The scientists and their supporters, however, say they have been intentionally taken out of context.
“Rich (09:48:15) :That text appears only if you are running an updated windows version, check with an older version in other computer and it will not appear.”
Nothing here W7 x64.
UK climate scientist to temporarily step down
(AP) –
LONDON — Britain’s University of East Anglia says the director of its prestigious Climatic Research Unit is stepping down pending an investigation into allegations that he overstated the case for man-made climate change.
The university says Phil Jones will relinquish his position until the completion of an independent review into allegations that he worked to alter the way in which global temperature data was presented.
The allegations were made after more than a decade of correspondence between leading British and U.S. scientists were posted to the Web following the security breach last month.
The e-mails were seized upon by some skeptics of man-made climate change as proof that scientists are manipulating the data about its extent.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j_dt9Bjj5yVV7k1PAyDnVHKvKtgAD9CAM0VG0
I don’t see the need to restrict this to “Research” institutions. I can think of several political institutions that are also involved. John Holdren comes to mind, as well as his boss, and various other political organisations and NGO’s.
Someone in this thread quoted Lord Stern as if he was an expert on climate science.
Lol.
Carlo (11:13:03) :
UK climate scientist to temporarily step down
(AP) –
LONDON — Britain’s University of East Anglia says the director of its prestigious Climatic Research Unit is stepping down pending an investigation into allegations that he overstated the case for man-made climate change.
The university says Phil Jones will relinquish his position until the completion of an independent review
Heh, good stuff!!
I am calling BS on the lost raw data claim … given that to get to their “value-added” data they would have had to run their programs/hacks against digital data … that means someone converted the paper and magnetic tape data into a database of some sort, most likely a simple text file … but a text file on a hard drive … later this was converted to a real database I’m sure …
The point being that there is no way the actual data is gone … They are hiding it …
[REPLY – I agree completely. I made the same point in WSJ comments. ~ Evan]