Guest Post by Steven Mosher
All processes are subject to hacking, both from external and internal entities. The IPCC process is no exception, neither is the process of writing for science journals exempt. As recent reports show Pachauri hacked the IPCC processes to make them work against themselves and bend the system to his financial ends. An inside hacker, like Pachauri, can be especially dangerous since he plays a role in structuring the very system that they hack. Not only do they exploit a system they were meant to protect, but they also act in ways to prevent detection of their hacks.
What the recent disclosures about Pachauri show is that the IPCC process is now totally compromised, compromised from the inside. Like a system exploited by a destructive hack, that system may be beyond repair. It’s time to reformat the hard drive and start from scratch, as climate scientist Hulme, spotted 101 times in the Climategate files and closely tied to Pachauri, suggested–perhaps in a moment of clarity after the discovery of the emails:
Just how was the CRU system hacked? And can such hacks be prevented or are they a very part of the nature of authoritarian systems? As discussed in our book “Climategate: The Crutape Letters , now available on Kindle and in Ebook format, the “hacks” were focused on the publication process.
The IPCC reports were intended to be summaries of the science, both what we know and what we don’t know. These summaries were written for policy makers who would use the science and its findings to take action: action to prevent climate change, mitigate it, adapt to it, and to fund new studies where knowledge was uncertain. And action is where the money is. Every hack of the system cashes out into some form of compensation to the hackers: more money for their organizations or more prestige for themselves.
As the mails show the hacking of the CRU process and the scientific process itself was exposed primarily because of the “pressure” put on the hackers by the FIOA process. And as the mails also show, the hackers moved to thwart the FOIA process by corrupting FOIA officers. In fact, the most egregious hack of the system, Jones’s request that people delete mails, came as the direct result of trying to cover up a hack of the process, the hack surrounding the ‘Jesus Paper.’
During the course of writing the account of Climategate, we noticed that Pachauri, was named directly in the files 11 times and he’s mentioned by title in others. Before canvassing those mails it’s key to understand how the hackers worked to subvert the IPCC process and the scientific publishing process. And finally, it’s important to understand that they are planning counter measures that will allow them to continue hacking the system with the upcoming fifth assessment report due in 2013. As Jones indicates in late 2009 ,Pachauri and Thomas [Stocker] an IPCC Co Chair took up the issue of FOIA with the full IPCC. One can’t imagine that they argued for full disclosure or full compliance with disclosure laws. As detailed in this mail Jones’ alerts Stocker, who works at Bern in Switzerland, to measures Holland suggests for the next IPCC report. Jones alerts Stocker to specific comments on Climate Audit, arming him for the next battle.
Tricks of the Trade.
The high level hacks of the IPCC system include the following: changing chronologies, altering the appearance of graphics to tell a different story making up science out of whole cloth , and citing non peered reviewed literature when they could not keep contrarian papers out of the IPCC documents.
The IPCC reports are supposed to be objective summaries of the state of the science and are supposed to reference only works that are published in the peer reviewed science that met specific time deadlines. The deadlines are critical to have a fair and open process, ensuring that papers referenced have, in fact, been published and reviewed by others. Jones, however, finds such procedures to ensure fairness an impediment to his determining what is important.
Hacking the deadlines to get the ‘Jesus paper’ into Chapter 6 of the 4th assessment report of the IPCC was easiest hack to uncover. As the hackers left a paper trail of their activities that exists outside of the climategate mails. The mails, merely confirm what Steve McIntyre had already figured out. The mails of course add some background that strengthens the case, including the hacker’s knowledge that McIntyre was on to their game as well as Jones suggestion to cover up the hack by changing the “received date” on the paper.
By hacking the deadlines of the process, and shoe horning in a paper that would not be fully reviewed and published for over a year, a paper that contains references to another paper published after the fact, the hackers could ensure that lead author Briffa had the ammunition he needed to write the chapter the way Overpeck, his overlord, wanted it written: with a punch line more compelling than the ‘Hockey Stick’, that iconic figure of the global warming religion which “shows” that the current warming is “unprecedented in human history.” This hack is akin to check kiting or akin to planting older fossils with younger fossils as occurred in the Piltdown Man hoax.
To further the promotion of the ‘Hockey Stick’ message the Chapter 6 team also manipulated graphics, “hiding the decline,” even when one reviewer explicitly demanded that they show the graphic as it appeared in the original science. And finally, after keeping one skeptical paper out of the first two drafts of the report, as they had threatened to, the scientists finally resorted to making up facts on the fly.
Those are the user level hacks, but they go deeper. At the IPCC level the hacking is open to scrutiny, and as we see, the journalists following the references in the IPCC document are now finding these user level exploits. The deeper hacks, like a rootkit hack, involve the operating system of science, the science journals themselves. Manipulation of the science at the IPCC level is easy to document, but corrupting the journal process, the process that is supposed to feed the IPCC process with “trusted” information, is tougher to document.
Without the mails which detail how these hacks work, one could imagine that the IPCC could be made “hack proof” merely by adopting more controls and a more open process. The mails, however, indicate that the science publishing process has also been hacked. Editors have been compromised, and the system of peer review has been corrupted. Very simply, one can make the IPCC process as open and transparent as one likes, but as long as it is fed by a corrupt journal process, you will still get garbage science out of the IPCC process. And further, you could reform the journals all you like and the process can still be corrupted by the individual influential researcher who hides his data and his code.
Eleven Mails
The 11 mails mentioning Pachauri by name, only give hints at how the system was worked to his advantage. Reading them now in hindsight is instructive. The first from Rob Stewart to Pachauri in 1998, before Pachuari’s tenure begins, details the process of communicating about IPCC matters. As it notes, all communication should happen within the structures set up so that a traceable chain of evidence can be created. As the Climategate files show, this policy was violated, violated precisely so that the 4th assessment could be shaped in a way not reflective of the underlying science.
In the second mail Pachauri invites Hulme to a conference, initiating a relationship with Hulme that will culminate in Pachauri and Hulme working together to on UEA’s effort to win a government bid on the creation of a climate change center in England, as detailed in the third mail in the stack. That effort results in the founding of the Tyndall Centre, a center named no less than 11 times in the mails.
The interests of Hulme and Pachauri are clear. Use the science arm at CRU to drive conclusions in the IPCC that will drive funding into Tyndall and drive money into TERI, Pachauri’s organization, and CRU. The importance of funding should not be underestimated. Money works to corrupt science, not by changing the answer, but by changing the questions that get asked.
The fourth mail shows some of the TERI organization’s interests and one can see from the articles promoted in their newsletter that the agenda is clearly one of using the threat of climate change to drive a particular developing nation’s agenda.
The fifth Pachauri mail is interesting for a variety of reasons. The mail contains other mails, notably mails from Tom Wigley and Phil Jones who question the appointment of Pachauri, as they apparently believed that Pachauri was put in place by political forces, namely Bush, to serve corporate interests. This typical kneejerk reaction of the Union of Concerned Scientists, who alerted Wigley to the issue, on reflection, is somewhat laughable now. Hulme, as the mail show, defends Pachauri, his Indian partner, in the bid to get the Tyndall center, on rather odd grounds. Simply: Wigley points out that the “bushies” are behind this and Hulme defends Pachauri by arguing that perhaps Watson ,a Brit and the previous IPCC secretariat, has gone too far; and Hulme wonders why an Indian and an engineer should not be considered. Hulme strangely turns a political attack on Pachauri into an attack on his back ground. The defense seems entirely misplaced, unless of course there has been some other communications where these concerns were raised.
So why does Hulme go “racial?” Whatever the reason it’s apparent that discussions about Pachauri’s appointment don’t continue. Hulme played the race card and issue ends there. Perhaps Hulme played the race card so he would not have to explain how having Pachauri “on board” would be beneficial. Hulme’s partner is now in charge of the IPCC; and as Hulme writes, recalling the language of the conference Pachauri invited him to back in 1998, it will be a good thing to have someone in charge who understands that climate change is a North/South issue. It will also be good to have someone in charge who can funnel benefits your way.
The sixth Pachauri mail is from Tom Wigley in 2003. The topic of the mail is the strategy for responding to a single paper by Soon and Baliunas. It’s hard to fathom why a scientist would include the head of the IPCC as well as many other scientists on a mail that lays out the strategy for responding to lone contrarian paper. The Soon and Balinunas paper, did have the notoriety of being a skeptical paper accepted by the peer review science, but it was hardly a crushing blow to “the science.” Still, Wigley lays out for Pachauri, what the goal is. Rebut the paper to make the job of writing the next IPCC report, due years down the road, easier. So, the practices of just letting bad science die, or of letting individual scientists rebut the bad paper as they see fit are brushed aside. Wigley believes that there must be some sort of orchestrated effort to provide the future writers of the IPCC reports with specifically targeted ammunition. Science gets turned to producing papers to make the job of the science summarizers easier.
In the seventh mail in the stack Michael Mann appears to weigh in with his opinion. Included in the mail, is Stephan Schneider. Schneider, whose name appears at least 71 times in the mails, will later prove instrumental in getting the Jesus Paper into Chapter 6 of the 4th Assessment. He is a Trojan horse inside the journal system. But for Schneider, who “knows the drill” , the Jesus paper would never make it into the report. What Schneider and Pachauri see, of course, is that Mann is making the contrarian paper a political issue and David Halpern of the OSFT has been contacted. In the eighth mail, Jim Salinger will add his voice to the choir of those suggesting that the “bad” science be refuted rather than merely ignored. Again, one has to ask what is the head of the IPCC doing on these mails? Why do Mann and Salinger think that he will be remotely interested in the fate of a single paper?
In the ninth Parchuari mail, we see Hulme and Pachauri starting to take advantage of their connection through the Tyndall Centre, and Hulme suggests a joint publishing project. So we have Hulme, who brushed off Wigley and Jones’s political concerns about his partner Pachauri, actively engaging with the head of the IPCC to work on projects that both of their organizations will benefit from.
The 10th mail is interesting for one reason. It provides some rich irony and it shows what men of character do when a publishing process is subverted. The file contains an email from Mann and from Salinger, and both reference the turmoil cause by the Soon paper. Notably Hans Von Storch is reckoned a hero for resigning his editorship at Climate Research over the incident. The journal that he worked for had published the suspect paper, and his response and the response of other editors was resignation. Simply put, those who worked on the IPCC reports took the same stance as Von Storch, they would take their names off the IPCC report. Just as Climate Research erred in publishing the flawed Soon paper, the IPCC process has also published bogus science, even invented science where there was none.
In 2003 that one simple error was enough to get men of character to resign. Authors of the IPCC report would do well to follow their example. The incident bears some striking similarities to what we see today. The Wall Street Journal editorial by Antonio Regalado, is included in the mail from Mann.
“This week, three editors of Climate Research resigned in protest over
the journal’s handling of the review process that approved the study;
among them is Hans von Storch, the journal’s recently appointed
editor in chief. “It was flawed and it shouldn’t have been
published,” he said”
And most importantly, the flawed science found its way into an EPA document much as flawed science has made its way into the IPCC report:
“A reference to Dr. Soon’s paper previously found its way into
revisions suggested by the White House to an EPA report on
environmental quality. According to an internal EPA memorandum
disclosed in June, agency scientists were concerned the version
containing the White House edits “no longer accurately represents
scientific consensus on climate change.” Dr. Mann’s data showing the
hockey-stick temperature curve was deleted. In its place,
administration officials added a reference to Dr. Soon’s paper, which
the EPA memo called “a limited analysis that supports the
administration’s favored message.”
In 2003 the journal Climate Research let through a bad piece of science that challenged the “hockey stick.” That bad science made its way into an EPA document because it favored the administrations view. Clearly this was wrong. And Von Storch took the right action. And now, with the evidence that bad science has made its way into the IPCC report, its time for the responsible parties to follow the fine example of Von Storch.
The 11th mail which mentions Pachauri is important for understanding the events leading up to Phil Jones’ refusal to give data to Warwick Hughes, but its relation to Pachauri is tangential, except for the hint it contains about the kind of rhetoric Pachauri would use to further his cause, an early clue into his character. Buried in a series of editorials about Michael Mann forward by Briffa to Jones, we find the following 2005 gem from Steven Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute:
“Not long ago the IPCC’s chairman, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, compared
eco-skeptic Bjorn Lomborg to Hitler. “What is the difference between Lomborg’s view of humanity and Hitler’s?” Pachauri asked in a Danish newspaper. “If you were to accept Lomborg’s way of thinking, then maybe what Hitler did was the right thing” Lomborg’s sin was merely to follow the consensus practice of economists in applying a discount to present costs for future benefits, and comparing the range of outcomes with other world problems alongside climate change. It is hard to judge what is worse: Pachauri’s appalling judgment in resorting to reductio ad Hitlerum, or his abysmal ignorance of basic economics. In either case, it is hard to have much confidence in the policy advice the IPCC might have.”
Looking at the Pachauri mails in the Climategate files doesn’t provide any new examples of wrongdoing. We don’t need any. What it does do is give a sense of how the men who hacked the climate science operated. How they reasoned, how they strategized and what they viewed as threats and opportunities. If we want to improve the science in climate science and build a trusted system, we need to understand the “black hats.”
Building a trusted system for climate science
With the IPCC’s reputation in tatters, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion of Pachauri’s man at CRU, Hulme. Perhaps the IPCC has run its course. If trust is to be rebuilt in climate science it must start from the bottom up, with the fundamental data and code of climate science. The IPCC process will always be hackable, and so to will the climate science journals. Cleaning up the mess must start at the foundation of science with open access to the data and the code used in climate science.
The notion that science can move forward while individual climate scientists hide data from their critics is antithetical to the dictates of reason. CRU and others have no more excuses. All and any data used in climate science should be published under a Creative Commons like license, free for anyone to view and use. Confidential data should not be used; it is not necessary to the science. Phil Jones should be removed as an advisor to NOAA on data archiving and access. That’s having a black hat hacker in charge of the hardware. The code of climate science should likewise be freely available. In particular, we should press climate science to adopt a GPL license, one that enforces sharing of code. In part GPL is required because on more than one occasion some climate scientists have used the public code of others without re-sharing it. For example, they have used public code, modified it in undocumented ways, and refused to share the derivative work.
At the level of the journals trust can only be rebuilt by changes in people and principles. The list of people who need to go is easy to draw up. More importantly the Journals need to adopt principles of reproducible research. If a reviewer or official “replication” expert cannot recompile the science from source, both data and code, the science needs to be rejected.
Above the journal level at the IPCC level of course Pachauri needs to go. But the risk of him being replaced with a less crude hacker is high. The issue is that trust cannot be blindly placed in people. The entire IPCC process must be opened. We want to watch that process first hand and be eyewitness to every word.
The Hackers
All processes are subject to hacking, both from external and internal entities. The IPCC process is no exception, neither is the process of writing for science journals exempt. As recent reports show Pachauri hacked the IPCC processes to make them work against themselves and bend the system to his financial ends. An inside hacker, like Pachauri, can be especially dangerous since they play a role in structuring the very system that they hack. Not only do they exploit a system they were meant to protect, but they also act in ways to prevent detection of their hacks.
What the recent disclosures about Pachauri show is that the IPCC process is now totally compromised, compromised from the inside. Like a system exploited by a destructive hack, that system may be beyond repair. It’s time to reformat the hard drive and start from scratch, as climate scientist Hulme, spotted 101 times in the Climategate files and closely tied to Pachauri, suggested–perhaps in a moment of clarity after the discovery of the emails:
Just how was the IPCC system hacked? And can such hacks be prevented or are they a very part of the nature of authoritarian systems? As discussed in our book “Climategate: The Crutape Letters , now available on Kindle and in Ebook format, the “hacks” were focused on the publication process.
The IPCC reports where intended to be summaries of the science, both what we know and what we don’t know. These summaries were written for policy makers who would use the science and its findings to take action: action to prevent climate change, mitigate it, adapt to it, and to fund new studies where knowledge was uncertain. And action is where the money is. Every hack of the system cashes out into some form of compensation to the hackers: more money for their organizations or more prestige for themselves.
As the mails show the hacking of the IPCC process and the scientific process itself was exposed primarily because of the “pressure” put on the hackers by the FIOA process. And as the mails also show, the hackers moved to thwart the FOIA process by corrupting FOIA officers. In fact, the most egregious hack of the system, Jones’ request that people delete mails, came as the direct result of trying to cover up a hack of the IPCC process, the hack surrounding the ‘Jesus Paper.’
During the course of writing the account of Climategate, we noticed that Pachauri, was named directly in the files 11 times and he’s mentioned by title in others. Before canvassing those mails it’s key to understand how the hackers worked to subvert the IPCC process and the scientific publishing process. And finally, it’s important to understand that they are planning counter measures that will allow them to continue hacking the system with the upcoming fifth assessment report due in 2013. As Jones indicates in late 2009 ,Pachauri and Thomas [Stocker] an IPCC Co Chair took up the issue of FOIA with the full IPCC. One can’t imagine that they argued for full disclosure or full compliance with disclosure laws. As detailed in this mail Jones’ alerts Stocker, who works at Bern in Switzerland, to measures Holland suggests for the next IPCC report. Jones alerts Stocker to specific comments on Climate Audit, arming him for the next battle.
Tricks of the Trade.
The high level hacks of the IPCC system include the following: changing chronologies, altering the appearance of graphics to tell a different story making up science out of whole cloth , and citing non peered reviewed literature when they could not keep contrarian papers out of the IPCC documents.
The IPPC reports are supposed to be an objective summary of the state of the science and are supposed to reference only works that are published in the peer reviewed science that met specific time deadlines. The deadlines are critical to have a fair and open process, ensuring that papers referenced have, in fact, been published and reviewed by others. Jones, however, finds such procedures to ensure fairness an impediment to him determining what is important.
Hacking the deadlines to get the ‘Jesus paper’ into Chapter 6 of the 4th assessment report of the IPCC was easiest hack to uncover. As the hackers left a paper trial of their activities that exists outside of the climategate mails. The mails, merely confirm what Steve McIntyre had already figured out. The mails of course add some background that strengthens the case, including the hacker’s knowledge that McIntyre was on to their game as well as Jones suggestion to cover up the hack by changing the “received date” on the paper.
By hacking the deadlines of the process, and shoe horning in a paper that would not be fully reviewed and published for over a year, a paper that contains references to another paper published after the fact, the hackers could ensure that lead author Briffa had the ammunition he needed to write the chapter the way Overpeck, his overlord, wanted it written: with a punch line more compelling than the ‘Hockey Stick’, that iconic figure of the global warming religion which “shows” that the current warming is “unprecedented in human history.” This hack is akin to check kiting or akin to planting older fossils with younger fossils as occurred in the Piltdown Man hoax.
To further the promotion of the ‘Hockey Stick’ message the Chapter 6 team also manipulated graphics, “hiding the decline,” even when one reviewer explicitly demanded that they show the graphic as it appeared in the original science. And finally, after keeping one skeptical paper out of the first two drafts of the report, as they had threatened to, the scientists finally resorted to making up facts on the fly.
Those are the user level hacks, but the hacks go deeper. At the IPPC level, the hacks are open to scrutiny and as we see journalists now following the references in the IPCC document they are finding these user level exploits. The deeper hacks, like a rootkit hack, involve the operating system of science, the science journals themselves. Manipulation of the science at the IPCC level is easy to document, but corrupting the journal process, the process that is supposed to feed the IPCC process with “trusted” information, is tougher to document.
Without the mails which detail how these hacks work, one could imagine that the IPCC could be made “hack proof” merely by adopting more controls and a more open process. The mails, however, indicate that the science publishing process has also been hacked. Editors have been compromised, and the system of peer review has been corrupted. Very simply, one can make the IPCC process as open and transparent as one likes, but as long as it is fed by a corrupt journal process, you will still get garbage science out of the IPCC process. And further, you could reform the journals all you like and the process can still be corrupted by the individual influential researcher who hides his data and his code.
Eleven Mails
The 11 mails mentioning Pachauri by name, only give hints at how the system was worked to his advantage. Reading them now in hindsight is instructive. The first from Rob Stewart to Pachauri in 1998, before Pachuari’s tenure begins, details the process of communicating about IPCC matters. As it notes, all communication should happen within the structures set up so that a traceable chain of evidence can be created. As the Climategate files show, this policy was violated, violated precisely so that the 4th assessment could be shaped in a way not reflected in the underlying science.
In the second mail Pachauri invites Hulme to a conference, initiating a relationship with Hulme that will culminate in Pachauri and Hulme working together to on UEA’s effort to win a government bid on the creation of a climate change center in England, as detailed in the third mail in the stack. That effort results in the founding of the Tyndall Center, a center named no less than 11 times in the mails.
The interests of Hulme and Pachauri are clear. Use the science arm at CRU to drive conclusions in the IPCC that will drive funding into Tyndall and drive money into TERI, Pachauri’s organization, and CRU. The important of funding should not be underestimated. Money works to corrupt science, not by changing the answer, but by changing the questions that get asked.
The fourth mail shows some of the TERI organization’s interests and one can see from the articles promoted in their newsletter that the agenda is clearly one of using the threat of climate change to drive a particular developing nation agenda.
The fifth Pachauri mail is interesting for a variety of reasons. The mail contains other mails, notably mails from Tom Wigley and Phil Jones who question the appointment of Pachauri, as they apparently believed that Pachauri was put in place by political forces, namely Bush, to serve corporate interests. This typical kneejerk reaction of the Union of Concerned Scientists, who alerted Wigley to the issue, on reflection, is somewhat laughable now. Hulme, as the mail show, defends Pachauri, his Indian partner, in the bid to get the Tyndall center, on rather odd grounds. Simply: Wigley points out that the “bushies” are behind this and Hulme defends Pachauri by arguing that perhaps Watson ,a Brit and the previous IPCC secretariat, has gone too far; and Hulme wonders why an Indian and an engineer should not be considered. Hulme strangely turns a political attack on Pachauri into an attack on his back ground. The defense seems entirely misplaced, unless of course there has been some other communications where these concerns were raised.
So why does Hulme go “racial?” Whatever the reason its apparent that discussions about Pachauri’s appointment don’t continue. Hulme played the race card and issue ends there. Perhaps Hulme played the race card so he would not have to explain how having Pachauri “on board” would be beneficial. Hulme’s partner is now in charge of the IPCC; and as Hulme writes, recalling the language of the conference Pachauri invited him to back in 1998, it will be a good thing to have someone in charge who understands that climate change is a North/South issue. It will also be good to have some one in charge who can funnel benefits your way.
The sixth Pachauri mail is from Tom Wigley in 2003. The topic of the mail is the strategy for responding to a single paper by Soon and Baliunas. It’s hard to fathom why a scientist would include the head of the IPCC as well as many other scientists on a mail that lays out the strategy for responding to lone contrarian paper. The Soon and Balinunas paper, did have the notoriety of being a skeptical paper accepted by the peer review science, but it was hardly a crushing blow to “the science.” Still, Wigley lays out for Pachauri, what the goal is. Rebut the paper to make the job of writing the next IPCC report, due years down the road, easier. So, the practices of just letting bad science die, or of letting individual scientists rebut the bad paper as they see fit are brushed aside. Wigley believes that there must be some sort of orchestrated effort to provide the future writers of the IPCC reports with specifically targeted ammunition. Science gets turned to producing papers to make the job of the science summarizers easier.
In the seventh mail in the stack Michael Mann appears to weigh in with his opinion. Included in the mail, is Stephan Schneider. Schneider, whose name appears at least 71 times in the mails, will later prove instrumental in getting the Jesus Paper into Chapter 6 of the 4th Assessment. He is a Trojan horse inside the journal system. But for Schneider, who “knows the drill” , the Jesus paper would never make it into the report. What Schneider and Pachauri see, of course, is that Mann is making the contrarian paper a political issue and David Halpern of the OSFT has been contacted. In the eighth mail, Jim Salinger will add his voice to the choir of those suggesting that the “bad” science be refuted rather than merely ignored. Again, one has to ask what is the head of the IPCC doing on these mails? Why does Mann and Salinger think that he will be remotely interested in the fate of a single paper?
In the ninth Parchuari mail, we see Hulme and Pachauri starting to take advantage of their connection through the Tyndall Center, and Hulme suggests a joint publishing project. So we have Hulme, who brushed off Wigley’s and Jones’ political concerns about his partner Pachauri, actively engaging with the head of the IPCC to work on projects that both of their organizations will benefit from.
The 10th mail is interesting for one reason. It provides some rich irony and it shows what men of character do when a publishing process is subverted. The file contains a mail from Mann and from Salinger, and both reference the turmoil cause by the Soon paper. Notably Hans Von Storch is reckoned a hero for resigning his editorship at Climate Research over the incident. The journal that he worked for had published the suspect paper, and his response and the response of other editors was resignation. Simply put, those who worked on the IPCC reports took the same stance as Von Storch, they would take their names off the IPCC report. Just as Climate Research erred in publishing the flawed Soon paper, the IPCC process has also published bogus science, even invented science where there was none.
In 2003 that one simple error was enough to get a men of character to resign. Author’s of the IPCC report would do well to follow their example. The incident bears some striking similarities to what we see today. The Wall Street Journal editorial by Antonio Regalado, is included in the mail from Mann.
“This week, three editors of Climate Research resigned in protest over
the journal’s handling of the review process that approved the study;
among them is Hans von Storch, the journal’s recently appointed
editor in chief. “It was flawed and it shouldn’t have been
published,” he said”
And most importantly, the flawed science found its way into an EPA document much as flawed science has made its way into the IPCC report:
“A reference to Dr. Soon’s paper previously found its way into
revisions suggested by the White House to an EPA report on
environmental quality. According to an internal EPA memorandum
disclosed in June, agency scientists were concerned the version
containing the White House edits “no longer accurately represents
scientific consensus on climate change.” Dr. Mann’s data showing the
hockey-stick temperature curve was deleted. In its place,
administration officials added a reference to Dr. Soon’s paper, which
the EPA memo called “a limited analysis that supports the
administration’s favored message.”
In 2003 the journal Climate Research let through a bad piece of science that challenged the “hockey stick.” That bad science made it’s way into an EPA document because it favored the administrations view. Clearly this was wrong. And Von Storch took the right action. And now, with the evidence that bad science has made its way into the IPCC report, its time for the responsible parties to follow the fine example of Von Storch.
The 11th mail which mentions Pachauri is important for understanding the events leading up to Phil Jones’ refusal to give data to Warwick Hughes, but it’s relation to Pachauri is tangential, except for the hint it contains about the kind of rhetoric Pachauri would use to further his cause, an early clue into his character. Buried in a series of editorials about Michael Mann forward by Briffa to Jones, we find the following 2005 gem from Steven Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute:
“Not long ago the IPCC’s chairman, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, compared
eco-skeptic Bjorn Lomborg to Hitler. “What is the difference between Lomborg’s view of humanity and Hitler’s?” Pachauri asked in a Danish newspaper. “If you were to accept Lomborg’s way of thinking, then maybe what Hitler did was the right thing” Lomborg’s sin was merely to follow the consensus practice of economists in applying a discount to present costs for future benefits, and comparing the range of outcomes with other world problems alongside climate change. It is hard to judge what is worse: Pachauri’s appalling judgment in resorting to reductio ad Hitlerum, or his abysmal ignorance of basic economics. In either case, it is hard to have much confidence in the policy advice the IPCC might have.”
Looking at the Pachauri mails in the Climategate files doesn’t provide any new examples of wrong doing. We don’t need any. What it does do is give a sense of how the men who hacked the climate science operated. How they reasoned, how they strategized and what they viewed as threats and opportunities. If we want to improve the science in climate science and build a trusted system, we need to understand the “black hats.”
Building a trusted system for climate science
With the IPCC’s reputation in tatters, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion of Pachauri’s man at CRU, Hulme. Perhaps the IPCC has run its course. If trust is to be rebuilt in climate science it must start from the bottom up, with the fundamental data and code of climate science. The IPCC process will always be hackable, and so to will the climate science journals. Cleaning up the mess must start at the foundation of science with open access to the data and the code used in climate science.
The notion that science can move forward while individual climate scientists hide data from their critics is antithetical to the dictates of reason. CRU and others have no more excuses. All and any data used in climate science should be published under a Creative Commons like license, free for anyone to view and use. Confidential data should not be used; it is not necessary to the science. Phil Jones should be removed as an advisor to NOAA on data archiving and access. That’s having a black hat hacker in charge of the hardware. The code of climate science should likewise be freely available. In particular, we should press climate science to adopt a GPL license, one that enforces sharing of code. In part GPL is required because on more than one occasion some climate scientists have used the public code of others without re–sharing it. For example, they have used public code, modified it in undocumented ways, and refused to share the derivative work.
At the level of the journals trust can only be rebuilt by changes in people and principles. The list of people who need to go is easy to draw up. More importantly the Journals need to adopt principles of reproducible research. If a reviewer or official “replication” expert cannot recompile the science from source, both data and code, the science needs to be rejected.
Above the journal level at the IPCC level of course Pachauri needs to go. But the risk of him being replaced with a less crude hacker is high. The issue is that trust cannot be blindly placed in people. The entire IPCC process must be opened. We want to watch that process first hand and be eyewitness to every word.
Dear Mr. Gazelle,
You say to me that you’re too busy to read the papers I have cited and that I should explain them to you. On the other hand you cite Mann’s papers and then expect me to pont out errors in them whilst you ignore mine. This seems very one sided to me, but since you ask me to explain mine to you, I am assuming your request is sincere, and therefore I have posted some brief summaries below.
1. Lonnie Thompson et al (2003) analyzed decadally-averaged δ18O records derived by him and his colleagues from three Andean and three Tibetan ice cores, and concluded that peak temperatures of the MWP were warmer than those of the last few decades of the 20th century.
2. Gonni et al (2004) determined that the highest sea surface temperatures at that location over the past 6000 years “were measured during the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), and that evident that peak MWP temperatures were approximately 0.35°C warmer than peak Current Warm Period temperatures, and that they were fully 0.95°C warmer than the mean temperature of the last few years of the 20th century.
3. Sepulvada et al (2009). The authors derived alkenone-based spring/summer sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) from a marine sedimentary record obtained from Jacaf Fjord in northern Chilean Patagonia. They observed two different regimes of climate variability in their record: “a relatively dry/warm period before 900 cal yr BP (higher runoff and average SST 1°C warmer than present day).
4. Holmgren K, et al (2001). Maximum annual air temperatures in the vicinity of Cold Air Cave (24°1’S, 29°11’E) in the Makapansgat Valley of South Africa were inferred from a relationship between color variations in banded growth-layer laminations of a well-dated stalagmite and the air temperature of a surrounding 49-station climatological network developed over the period 1981-1995, as well as a quasi-decadal-resolution record of oxygen and carbon stable isotopes (MWP: AD 800-1100): Peak warmth of the Medieval Warm Period was as much as 2.5°C warmer than the Current Warm Period (AD 1961-1990 mean).
5. Wilson A. T et al (1979). Temperatures derived from an 18O/16O profile through a stalagmite found in a New Zealand cave (40.67°S, 172.43°E) revealed the Medieval Warm Period to have occurred between AD 1050 and 1400 and to have been 0.75°C warmer than the Current Warm Period.
6. Dansgard W., et al (1975). They used oxygen isotope analysis based on an ice core retrieved from Crête, Central Greenland to derive a proxy temperature record for the region for the past 1400 years. They estimated that peak Medieval Warmth was about 0.6°C greater than it is presently.
You ask me why I should trust these papers over Mann. Good question. First, note that I have cited only a tiny proportion of available papers – there are hundreds of papers co-authored by 800 scientists. Secondly, these paleoclimatic research papers draw conclusions which are supported by research from historians and archeologists, and its this convergence of conclusions from diverse sources that gives us confidence in their accuracy. Thirdly, all these studies pass the test of “independence” at every level. The researchers are independent and large in number, and the proxies themselves are diverse and independent.
So, in order to ignore the MWP, here’s what you have to do. You have to walk pass this mountain of evidence that attests to it being a real, global event in order to pick up this tiny mole hill by a tiny number of scientists, some of whom have had previous work debunked (Mann vs Wegman, Mann vs McIntyre). You claim that Mann’s previous (MBH98) research was sound. I’m sorry, I don’t believe you for the same reason that I don’t believe that Mann’s 2008 paper can overturn a generation of multi-disciplinary evidence. Even if it contains no obvious errors, it just isn’t enough to overturn the scientific consensus. Call me old fashioned, but I like my science to be evidence driven not agenda driven.
Gazelle
Well forgive me davidmhoffer, if I didn’t respond properly to your cogent “arguments” about gazelles accelerating forever and radiation numbers apparently pulled from a random number generator, etc., >
Wow. I explained the physics and your response clearly indicated that you didn’t understand. I used an analogy to illustrate the point, which you also dismissed. In both cases though, you failed to adddress the points, ask clarification questions, or provide reasons why they weren’t valid. As for radiation numbers…. radiation comes from the decay of elements like uranium. Radiance is the energy emitted by a body based on its temperature. As for the numbers being random, they were calculated using stefan boltzman which you are so find of bringing up when it is convenient to, and I said so in our discourse. If you believe any specific number is wrong, then state which one you think is wrong and why. That’s how evidence is either confirmed or discredited. Simply claiming it was generated by random adds nothing to the discussion accept to high light once again your avoidance of confronting directly any facts that don’t agree with your position. But frankly, what are you attempting to accomplish here?
Last summer a drunken hooker stumbled into the side of my parked car. She promptly accused the car of having tried to run her over and began kicking the door. When I attempted to stop her, she told me to eff off. Then (I kid you not) she told me I owed her $50 for the oral sex she had just given me. While her facts and conclusions were all in dispute, I could at least follow her logic. Yours not so much. I conclude that you are either SO far over your head that you don’t know you are drowning, or you are a skeptic in disguise attempting to discredit AGW by doing a bad job of supporting it.
si (02:22:15) :
You’re very selective on this blog. You show a graph of artic temperatures on from the Centre for Ocean and Ice the right hand side there- would you like to see their graph of sea ice coverage?
Here’s another graph from a different source. It doesn’t match yours, but it does the one on this blog.
Two out of three makes a consensus. You must toe the line./sarcasm
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover_30y.uk.php
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
Inspector Thompson’s Gazelle (23:21:33) :
I assume you have had a 300 level ” plant physiology for dendrologists” course (probably also true for Mann). I’ve had at least seven post graduate courses in physiology or closely related courses (plant response to environment, ecology, two plant physiology – one master – one doctoral level, physiology of crop production, dendrology, molecular genetics (physiological alterations). I think you need to dig a little deeper. For example:
Effects of seasonal and interannual climate variability on net ecosystem productivity of boreal deciduous and conifer forests.
M. A. Arain, T. A. Black, A. G. Barr, P. G. Jarvis, J. M. Massheder, D. L. Verseghy, and Z. Nesic
Abstract: The response of net ecosystem productivity (NEP) and evaporation in a boreal aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) forest and a black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.) BSP) forest in Canada was compared using a newly developed realistic model of surface-atmosphere exchanges of carbon dioxide (CO2), water vapor, and energy as well as eddy covariance flux measurements made over a 6-year period (1994-1999). The model was developed by incorporating a process-based two-leaf (sunlit and shaded) canopy conductance and photosynthesis submodel in the Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS). A simple submodel of autotrophic and heterotrophic respiration was combined with the photosynthesis model to simulate NEP. The model performed well in simulating half-hourly, daily, and monthly mean CO2 exchange and evaporation values in both deciduous and coniferous forests. Modeled and measured results showed a linear relationship between CO2 uptake and evaporation, and for each kilogram of water transpired, approximately 3 g of carbon (C) were photosynthesized by both ecosystems. The model results confirmed that the aspen forest was a weak to moderate C sink with considerable interannual variability in C uptake. In the growing season, the C uptake capacity of the aspen forest was over twice that of the black spruce forest. Warm springs enhanced NEP in both forests; however, high mid-summer temperatures appear to have significantly reduced NEP at the black spruce forest as a result of increased respiration. The model suggests that the black spruce forest is a weak C sink in cool years and a weak C source in warm years. These results show that the C balance of these two forests is sensitive to seasonal and interannual climatic variability and stresses the importance of continuous long-term flux measurement to confirm modeling results.
Mann’s tree ring analysis is based on a linear relationship between temperature and growth. There is no such thing. A linear relationship exists between growth and water.
More references are at the end of this paper. When you wade through these, you can re-enter the discussion.
http://treephys.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/29/1/1
Davidmhoffer,
” I conclude that you are either SO far over your head that you don’t know you are drowning, or you are a skeptic in disguise attempting to discredit AGW by doing a bad job of supporting it.”
Previous comments suggest that the elusive gazelle is a scientist involved in coring trees. After several attempts to agrandize Michael Mann, I opin that they are in fact one and the same person.
tree rings from dave’s back yard:
I have about a dozen native red oak in my back yard. They were here before the house was built, so they are over 100 years old. They tower over the house, so probably in the 150 to 200 foot range. About 20 years ago we had a very nasty late spring frost. The base of the leaves mostly survived, but the outer 2/3 died. One of the oaks stands well apart from the others at the edge of an open field. The frost hit it much harder than the others. There was barely anything green on that tree that year, I thought it would die. It didn’t, but it took a good ten years for it to recover and show normal year to year growth.
Now if someone cores that tree a thousand years from now, they would have absolutely no way of knowing that. Any conclusions that they drew from suppressed tree ring growth regarding climate for that 10 year period would be dead wrong.
I refuse to disclose the location of the trees, the year in which the frost occured, what method I chose to conclude that the recovery period was 10 years, and I will not provide any data on the growth of the other oak trees during the same period to compare to. As a result, my conclusions cannot be disputed and must be accepted as fact once they have been peer reviewed. I will disclose the required information to qualified peers for review provided that they sign a non-disclosure in advance, and agree to publish their peer review only in the event that their conclusions agree with mine.
NOW do you see the problem with tree rings Gazelle?
Vincent – the image of a gazelle trying to core a tree….
I admit that I am not an expert in dendrochronology. I am able to have a decent discussion on the subject with the knowledge I do have. My sincere hope is that the general public will gain the ability to understand a lot of what is presented to them in regards to climate. You do not need a Phd to grasp the essence of most papers, but you do need to have some knowledge of the basics. Gazelle offered to have me join him whilst taking core samples. I would love to do that! As many here are aware, I have spent the majority of my life in the great outdoors. I would invite Gazelle to join me in some winter camping up in the “great white North”. Should we make it for a month or so? I think the producers of “Survivor” should do a challenge on “Lake of the Woods” in January. That would be a real challenge. Many of you have also noticed that I am not that computer savvy. My access to a computer has only been in the last half dozen years, and I accept my less than stellar computing skills as a consequence of my time outdoors. Wouldn’t change it for the world, as I have memories that I intend to add to. Have you ever seen a “cinnamon” bear? They are the color of a deer. Very cool. Two young bald eagles play fighting at about 500 feet in the air. A lynx taking a jack rabbit up in a tree for lunch. Pack of wolves crossing a frozen lake in winter. Obviously, I have a deep rooted love, respect and understanding of nature. Gazelle has made many assumptions about who he was talking to. He was wrong.
si – on the sea ice extent graph you point to, is there a more detailed plot that references the years better? I am interested in that big spike upwards betwixt the ’96 – ’99 dates.
Thanx
Vincent (06:10:33) said:
Yes, I was also wondering whether Inspector Thompson’s Gazelle was actually Mann.
David Ball – { I would invite Gazelle to join me in some winter camping up in the “great white North”. Should we make it for a month or so? I think the producers of “Survivor” should do a challenge on “Lake of the Woods” in January.}
Go one better, partner up with him for an episode of Mantracker!
David Ball (07:48:13) :
Lake of the Woods? Hmmm… we might be neighbours (well on a global scale anyway). I think a couple of months of continuous ice fishing might be a big one time step, better start him off in a hotel in Kenora and just go out a couple of days at a time.
I once watched two 6 point bucks have it out in my back yard. Almost an hour and less than 50 feet away from my deck. I would trade it though for the eagles play fighting at 500 feet. THAT must have been AWESOME!
sorry, can’t buy into the gazelle is mann theory. Mann could do a lot better job of defending his position and can certainly hold an argument together for more than a couple of ripostes. Perhaps a student of? er… is that the right word? Disciple?
Mr Gazelle
I have access to the paper that I referred you to. I hadn’t read and digested the whole thing when I was posting here.
It is germane to the discussion. Which is why I posted the link.
Regards
Anand
“Yes, I was also wondering whether Inspector Thompson’s Gazelle was actually Mann.”
If true, It would be even more hilarious since he just got owned on all possible fronts in his argument.
Not even Michael Mann can defend Michael Mann.
To all;
An apology is in order.
It seems that our Inspector Thompson has been having a bit of fun at your expense. He is a colourful lad and quite the savant. An unlimited source of entertainment for both the staff and his fellow inpatients. We will endeavour to supervise his access to computer/internet resources with more diligence in the future.
Once again, I apologise.
Ian Fordyce, PhD.
AMHF/IMDb
Hehe.
Mark
It seems that our Inspector Thompson has been having a bit of fun at your expense. He is a colourful lad and quite the savant. An unlimited source of entertainment for both the staff and his fellow inpatients. We will endeavour to supervise his access to computer/internet resources with more diligence in the future.
No, no, no, bring him back! It was a lot of fun. I felt like I was in a Monty Python skit about an argument….
davidmhoffer (08:53:55) : It was awesome!! It was at a place called Black Sturgeon Lake. North of Kenora, Ontario by about 40 minutes. It was like they were laughing as they were playing. The only people I encountered over the 2 weeks I was there was a family of people from the White Dog Reservation very near there. Oh, and howdy neighbor ( I live in Calgary now) but I have a special place in my heart for eastern Manitoba and North Western Ontario. Rugged country, but a fellow who knew what he was doing would have NO problem toughing it out. I would like to add that I enjoy your posts and agree that it is unlikely that our Gazelle would have been the ubiquitous Dr. Mann. I raise a toast to all who posted on this thread, and may the Gazelle be fleet of foot. Cheers
The phrase should read ” a family of Ojibway People from the White Dog Reservation.
Re: davidmhoffer (Jan 28 15:24),
BINGO.
I recall reading a CEJ blog comment some time back referring to the same Monty Python skit…
Ah Ha… You can read it HERE.
Who wrote that comment? Someone named Gavin with a link back to Realclimate.org.
Add this to the other clues contained herein (well versed on the topic, supporting the same tired AGW viewpoint, born and educated in England therefore a Monty Python fan by default) and I think we can deduce who Gazelle is…
Given the recent path of events wrt climate science, can anyone blame
Gavin Schimdt for wanting to blow off some steam at a “sceptics” blog?
You guys are mad ! 😉
Inspector Thompson’s Gazelle is Inspector Thompson’s Gazelle.
Anand, you are 6 for 6.
Correct that is, ..
Interesting name choice as a Thompson’s Gazelle jumps frantically left and right to evade the lions at its heels. Wonder if it was a choice relating to subconcious feelings of guilt at misleading those around him,….