From the Science and Technology committee of the UK Paliament press release here.
The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia
Terms of Reference
The Science and Technology Committee today announces an inquiry into the unauthorised publication of data, emails and documents relating to the work of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA). The Committee has agreed to examine and invite written submissions on three questions:
—What are the implications of the disclosures for the integrity of scientific research?
—Are the terms of reference and scope of the Independent Review announced on 3 December 2009 by UEA adequate (see below)?
—How independent are the other two international data sets?
The Committee intends to hold an oral evidence session in March 2010.
Background
On 1 December 2009 Phil Willis, Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee, wrote to Professor Edward Acton, Vice-Chancellor of UEA following the considerable press coverage of the data, emails and documents relating to the work of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU). The coverage alleged that data may have been manipulated or deleted in order to produce evidence on global warming. On 3 December the UEA announced an Independent Review into the allegations to be headed by Sir Muir Russell.
The Independent Review will:
1. Examine the hacked e-mail exchanges, other relevant e-mail exchanges and any other information held at CRU to determine whether there is any evidence of the manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice and may therefore call into question any of the research outcomes.
2. Review CRU’s policies and practices for acquiring, assembling, subjecting to peer review and disseminating data and research findings, and their compliance or otherwise with best scientific practice.
3. Review CRU’s compliance or otherwise with the University’s policies and practices regarding requests under the Freedom of Information Act (‘the FOIA’) and the Environmental Information Regulations (‘the EIR’) for the release of data.
4. Review and make recommendations as to the appropriate management, governance and security structures for CRU and the security, integrity and release of the data it holds .
Submissions
The Committee invites written submissions from interested parties on the three questions set out above by noon on Wednesday 10 February:
Each submission should:
a)be no more than 3,000 words in length
b)be in Word format (no later than 2003) with as little use of colour or logos as possible
c)have numbered paragraphs
d)include a declaration of interests.
A copy of the submission should be sent by e-mail to scitechcom@parliament.uk and marked “Climatic Research Unit”. An additional paper copy should be sent to:
The Clerk
Science and Technology Committee
House of Commons
7 Millbank
London SW1P 3JA
It would be helpful, for Data Protection purposes, if individuals submitting written evidence send their contact details separately in a covering letter. You should be aware that there may be circumstances in which the House of Commons will be required to communicate information to third parties on request, in order to comply with its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Please supply a postal address so a copy of the Committee’s report can be sent to you upon publication.
A guide for written submissions to Select Committees may be found on the parliamentary website at: www.parliament.uk/commons/selcom/witguide.htm
Please also note that:
—Material already published elsewhere should not form the basis of a submission, but may be referred to within a proposed memorandum, in which case a hard copy of the published work should be included.
—Memoranda submitted must be kept confidential until published by the Committee, unless publication by the person or organisation submitting it is specifically authorised.
—Once submitted, evidence is the property of the Committee. The Committee normally, though not always, chooses to make public the written evidence it receives, by publishing it on the internet (where it will be searchable), by printing it or by making it available through the Parliamentary Archives. If there is any information you believe to be sensitive you should highlight it and explain what harm you believe would result from its disclosure. The Committee will take this into account in deciding whether to publish or further disclose the evidence.
—Select Committees are unable to investigate individual cases.
Oral evidence
An evidence session will be announced in due course.
Press notices
22/01/10 Inquiry announced
h/t to Bishop Hill
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Actually, a finding that there was serious and significant manipulation of the science might give many AGW leaning politicians a viable exit strategy for extricating themselves from the grasp of the AGW followers and the ruinous policies they may have enacted and or planned.
______________________________________________________________________
Something like this me culpa:
“I stand before you as an elected representative of the people. I am a politician, not a scientist. I therefore had to rely on the veracity, honesty and integrity of scientists to help formulate the best possible policies to stop human-induced climate change, something I was assured was settled science. That sacred trust was broken by scientists who were not faithful to the basic tenants of scientific discipline. As any good leader would be expected to do, I acted in good faith in response to what I was led to believe was a crisis of epic proportions. I acted in compliance with what my oath of office demanded, in the best interests of the people, on the best information given me by the consensus of the scientific community. That information has since been proven to be patently false. I had no way of knowing this; I was duped like everyone else.
I plead guilty to discharging my duties as an elected representative of the people by doing everything I could do to to protect and serve their best interests, according to the laws of the land and of my office. I hope you will forgive me.”
______________________________________________________________________
Don’t know about the Brits, but here in the USA this sort of contrition, if given somberly and appearing heartfelt, plays pretty darned well to the voters.
Perhaps another positive with real time dividends…..If I’m one of the investigators at Penn State, my back just straightend on hearing of an investigation of the CRU with the power of a national government.
Veronica (13:14:14)
Big Oil, Nuclear and Food to Ethanol actually fund the CRU, so you are not so different from the ‘rest of the lefty veggie pinko commie hippies’. It is just that most of them do not realize what they are actually following.
—
At the bottom of this page
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/
From the Climate Research Units own web site you will find a partial list of companies that fund the CRU.
It includes:
British Petroleum, ‘Oil, LNG’
Broom’s Barn Sugar Beet Research Centre, ‘Food to Ethanol’
The United States Department of Energy, ‘Nuclear’
Irish Electricity Supply Board. ‘LNG, Nuclear’
UK Nirex Ltd. ‘Nuclear’
Sultanate of Oman, ‘LNG’
Shell Oil, ‘Oil, LNG’
Tate and Lyle. ‘Food to Ethanol’
Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, ‘Nuclear’
KFA Germany, ‘Nuclear’
But some people choose not to look.
“Ah… another left wing climate sceptic! Thought I was the only one. ”
Nope. And I lean so far I sometimes fall over.
I say that if they fail to provide any data saying it’s been lost or the dog ate it ect ( all findings should be concidered null and void) esp those used in peer reviewed journals or by COP 15 officials and especially al gore.
(I intend to make a submission to the Select Committee and to copy that submission to my MP.)
Sweet!!!! i was reading it last night and found myself getting ver agitated at Mr Manns actions reguarding the peer review process almost to the point of disbelief that someone could be that shallow and self serving.
This problem really needs to be fixed for the sake of the scientific community and science itself, mann failed to adhere to it’s princibles and ethics and should be exiled from his profession imo.
while its only a detail, and probably won’t be at heart of this Committee’s conerns, what I’d like to see highlighted in this enquiry is what is to me the major science-process-abuse of Jones et al (all other AGW-ers), the propsition ‘peer-reviewed = true’. Actually, peer-reviewed = worth publishing, might turn out to be rubbish, might not.
B. Smith
I think a lot of sceptics, including many posting here, were either convinced of or accepting of AGW on the assumption that we were being told the truth. I certainly went along in a general way without buying into the full alarmist case because I have long been aware of earlier historical warm periods.
In religion a new convert or somebody who has recanted an earlier belief is often the most strident in opposing what he formerly espoused. I should not be surprised to see some of that in the next few years.
You all seem to have overlooked the Noble Lord Monckton’s possible contribution to this enquiry. Given his erudition, eloquence and thorough knowledge of AGW and its ramifications, not to mention his intimate knowledge of the British Parliamentary system and its politics, he is more than ideally placed to drop not a few petards into the mix.
I can’t imagine Our Lord passing up such an opportunity to sparkle.
Veronica, your neuroses and identity crisis are not a concern of this forum. UKIP supporters have nothing for which ‘apologise’: if electors wish to vote for a party which is committed to getting us out of the EU, and to exposing the AGW scam, then they will vote UKIP – end of story.
Matt is correct: tempting though it is to bombard the Committee with submissions, esp if any of us is a constituent of any of these MPs, we must leave that to those sceptics who have been involved in the research (or scientists qualified to comment on it) and who can give chapter and verse on specific manipulations and abuses (if any).
We must hope that there are sufficient members of the Committee with the intelligence and scientific knowledge to understand the very complex matters , which have taken most of us many motnhs if not years to grasp. A scatter-gun approach will not help them to reach such an understanding: less in this case will definitely be more
Re the mea culpa:
The Australian Prime Minister added that he deliberately ignored any contrary advice as the policy prescriptions were going to deliver his government an enormous tax increase. In addition he said that he abused dissenters by saying that they failed to take into consideration the futures of their children and grand children.
He then added that he has come to the realisation that the decisions that governments make on matters that they know nothing about can have a catastrophic effect on their citizens and from this day forward he will be limiting the purview of the government to the protection of the lives, liberties and property of its citizens.
As he penned this apology the RAPS (Royal Australian Pigs Squadron) left the tarmac.
I think these are very interesting developments. The questions, the public statement, the openness to outside input are huge advances on the UEA enquiry, or at least its appearance, with its – what – “domestic terrorism” squad on the job.
Though I’m really grateful to Richard Courtenay for his historical input (very revealing) I disagree with his conclusions. I think times are changing. Ten years ago there was far more room for genuine concern and a reasonable desire to “face the worst”; there was also far less research racketeering on the back of hyped scares. Not that the former was totally wise nor that the latter was totally absent; it’s a subtle shift. Anthony Watts’ success here is clear witness to the fact that people want truth and care about integrity in Climate Science… And Climategate means that we are now fighting the battles for true Science with at least the possibility of winning the war.
Deadline 10 February. H’mmm.
I want it televised. I want to see jones briffa and the rest sweat under the evidence and probing qs of the committee. However the three main parties are all pro agw and the right qs will not be asked. The bankers took a beating from the sc, blair/brown will take a beating, the election will distract the voters as I said all parties are pro agw. Nobody( well very few) will take any notice.
I read the comments above on “whitewash” and they seem extremely premature. Can I please assure you that I have corresponded personally with some of those of the committee and I have been much reassured by their attitude that they are genuinely determined to investigate impartially.
Lets put it this way – this committee have themselves decided to investigate – so lets assume good faith and work with this committee by providing as much well written and well sourced material as possible.
Wouldn’t have been easier to have opened a Weblog that was open to the world? What a waste of perfectly good trees.
Hooray and damn well about time. Letting the institutions investigate themselves is lunacy. It’s time for the U.S. Congress and other national legislative bodies to do the same.
Bishop Hill has followed up with a report of letters from Congress to Energy Secretary Chu asking for information about CRU, including asking about DOE funded research which may have been manipulated or destoyed.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/1/22/pincer-attack.html
The most recent letter, sent today:
http://thehill.com/images/stories/blogs/chuletter.pdf
This was a followup to a letter sent in December.
What do we want more!
This is a great step forward and an opportunity that will be used by Lord Monckton.
It will be harder for other Governments to say no to a similar investigation.
Congratulations to the UK.
Veronica>> I’m not left wing, but I believe I can explain how it got this way anyhow. 🙂
Die Grüne, the German “Green Party” was founded by and assimilated a huge part of the extreme left supporters from the 60s/70s. You know, the ones that supported Rote Arme Fraktion (Baader Meinhof).
That’s where it started, and as extreme leftist ideologies became more and more unpopular during the 70s/80s, culminating in the breakdown of the European communist states and the revelations thereafter, more and more leftists saw fitting to assimilate ideas about “environmental justice” along with “economic justice” and eventually this all merged into “climate justice”. After all, climate does encompass just about everything on our earth, so there really is no contradiction. 🙂
Anyone can embrace the “fight for the climate” or “climate justice”, because nothing really is disconnected from the climate. 🙂
That’s probably why “climate change” is a term with which it’s much easier to recruit greentroopers than “global warming”.
In fact, “climate change” really doesn’t have very much to do with CO2 and it’s radiative properties anymore.
That’s where we sceptics often go wrong when we debate, I believe, the terminology is almost interchangeable with “solidarity” or simply “justice” these days.
When we believe that we’re discussing science, the other side is really discussing a political/philosophical idea.
That’s why the science really doesn’t matter for most of these people. They just need something to fight against. Preferrably something diffuse enough so that they can keep marching the streets with the same old, naïve, banners as always…
I’ve submitted a copy of the SPPI analysis, in the requested format, to the email address posted. I’m sure you all are doing something similar?
The CRU will lose impressively on point 2.. They don’t follow the scientific method:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
They readily admitted in their emails their disinclination to give up code and data to others, which is in breach of the method.
I’ve had a good look at all the members of the Committee, and although there are two or three who I would suspect of having swallowed the CRU/IPC line, there are enough on there who are likely to press hard for the truth for me to feel reassured. The Independent was formerly a member of UKIP by the way (and a Conservative before that)
I’m glad to hear from IsoTherm above that this enquiry was called at the Committee’s own instigation. Let’s hope all those who have material information have the time to submit it.
Anthony,
It would be great if WUWT could host a thread or archive of various submissions so that citizens around the globe have a record of what was submitted. Too often the public hear “we gave consideration to all submissions” without knowing what those documents or comments were. If it were known that there was to be a publicly accessible record of skeptical submissions, those involved in the inquiry may be encouraged to take greater care with their deliberations.
Thanks Sam,
Firstly PLEASE NOTE THE SHORT TIMESCALE: Wednesday 10 February: that’s only three weeks away.
Second, can I remind everyone commenting that if you can write a comment here, then you can contribute to the work of the committee. Their request for Written Evidence is:-
Written evidence should consist of the following documents:
* A covering letter containing:
o name and contact details
o any request to give oral evidence
o any request for information to remain confidential
* A memorandum containing:
o a summary of the main points you are making
o a brief introduction about you
o factual information you would like the committee to be aware of
o any recommendations that you would like the committee to consider including in its report
Please note: written evidence is often published and made available in a report and on the internet.
Evidence can be emailed to the committee at: scitechcomparliament.uk
FINALLY, REMEMBER MPs ARE VERY BUSY PEOPLE AND A LOT OF POORLY THOUGHT OUT SUBMISSIONS OR VERY FEW WILL LOOK THE CRITICS OF THE CRU LOOK LIKE A DISORGANISED RABBLE AND MAKE THE CRU LOOK GOOD IN COMPARISON!
If anyone want to contact me email mike ClimateMice.com
Those didn’t show
the committee email is: scitechcom (AT) parliament.uk
My email is: MIKE (AT) ClimateMice.com