From Channel 4 news in the UK:
‘Climate-gate’ review member resigns
By Tom Clarke
Within hours of the launch of an independent panel to investigate claims that climate scientists covered up flawed data on temperature rises, one member has been forced to resign after sceptics questioned his impartiality.
// In an interview last year with Chinese State Radio, enquiry panel member Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief of Nature said: “The scientists have not hidden the data. If you look at the emails there is one or two bits of language that are jargon used between professionals that suggest something to outsiders that is wrong.”
He went on: “In fact the only problem there has been is on some official restrictions on their ability to disseminate data otherwise they have behaved as researchers should.”
Dr Campbell, was invited to sit on the enquiry panel because of his expertise in the peer review process as editor of one of the world’s leading science journals.
The journal has published some of the leading papers on climate change research, including those supporting the now famous “hockey stick” graph, the subject of intense criticism by climate sceptics.
Dr Campbell has now withdrawn his membership of the panel, telling Channel 4 News: “I made the remarks in good faith on the basis of media reports of the leaks.
“As I have made clear subsequently, I support the need to for a full review of the facts behind the leaked e-mails.
“There must be nothing that calls into question the ability of the independent Review to complete this task, and therefore I have decided to withdraw from the team.”
The interview, posted on the Bishop Hill blog, run by climate sceptic Andrew Montford, will come as an embarrassment to the enquiry’s chair Sir Muir Russell.
At a press conference this morning to launch the panel, the experienced civil servant and former vice-chancellor of Glasgow University, emphasised his hand-picked panel’s impartiality.
A press release about the panel read: “They were selected on the basis that they have no prejudicial interest in climate change and climate science and for the contribution they can make to the issues of the review.”
Speaking this evening, Muir Russell said “I have spoken to Philip Campbell, and I understand why he has withdrawn. I regret the loss of his expertise, but I respect his decision.”
Read the complete story at Channel 4 News
I think this Nature story is so big that it has now been taken off Google news search. Please leave it here!
“JP (13:48:32) :
OT: Greenhouse effect is a constant
If this is true and holds water, it’s pure dynamite”
No if it’s true it means it holds LESS water…. sorry i had to 😉
The examiner’s article is very good. The most insightful writeup about Ferenc Miskolczi a newspaper has managed by now.
The most amazing part…
“The interview, posted on the Bishop Hill blog, run by climate sceptic Andrew Montford, will come as an embarrassment to the enquiry’s chair Sir Muir Russell.”
No longer can the powerful elites control the flow information. A guy typing away in his rec room just changed the course of the UK government’s planned whitewash.
I guess we can say that Campbell has taken one for the Team.
JP (13:48:32)
Milkoszi’s hypothesis has been around for a couple of years. It remains a hypothesis as far as I know.
It’s unfortunate and sad that the editors of New Scientist and Nature have lost their focus and fascination for science and instead started to act as politicians pushing an agenda. I am looking forward to a time when this “dark age” in modern science is history.
Thank goodness we haven’t been having historical blizzards here in Oregon. No problem going to the grocery store to buy more popcorn.
And sodas. Got to have that CO2 fizzy feeling while I watch Nature go through unnatural contortions.
Here’s a tip for Campbell. Want to rescue your circulation? Put Sarah Palin on the cover. Or Elvis waving hello from the alien mothership. Unbiased real science ain’t your thing anymore. Might as well go with the flow.
RC already has a post alleging that Miskolczi is deluded and that a paper that another author wrote in rebuttal of the RC review is similarly from the lunatic fringe.
He didn’t read the emails, just assumed the MSM reports were an in-depth evaluation?!
I wish the unraveling of this craptastic scam would slow down. I don’t even get a day to enjoy a scandal before another one hits.
my previous post should have been @ur momisugly JP (13:48:32)
Lord Lawson questions the openness of the CRU inquiry – BBC main news.
Bet Steve M. is not called.
Normally, Britain’s Royal Society would be the ideal body to forward a candidate for the now empty seat on the UAE Inquiry. Having recently read about its glories in centuries past, I am appalled to see how biased their website is on the Great AGW Debate.
Just one quote: “Once our actions have raised concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere, levels will remain elevated for more than a thousand years.”
This current generation of intellectual pygmies are not fit to walk in the footsteps of Hooke and Newton. They should rebadge themselves Royal Society for the Promotion of Scare Stories.
Peer review. It looks like Jones wanted his “peers” or buddies to review his integrity like they reviewed his papers. Clean it up or I will call Exxon. They have talent that can review these mental midgets.
Exxon has spent a couple billion cleaning up a spill. They can clean up a leak for less.
JP
Have read Examiner article and looked at the presentation. My maths does not allow me to judge the presenation, but this needs some profile. AGW is not scientific theory, only hypothesis. If Mikolczi’s work can be called scientific theory then it is already way ahead of AGW ‘theory’.
1/ Miskolci Theory is called the saturated CO2 effect.
2/ There are however at least two other approaches to the issue which are also, if not more, destructive of AGW:
a/ The first is the adiabatic theory of the “hothouse effect” (the 33C delta) by Sorokhtin and al. “Global Warming, Global Cooling” Evolution of Climate on Earth.”, Elsevier 2007.
Sorokhtin is a distinguished rusian scientist, a Member of the Russian Academy of Science.
and
b/ Gerlich, Tcheuschner paper on the “Impossibility of the greenhouse effect within the framework of physics.” But it is a very difficult theoretical paper and I am unable to follow their arguments, though I understand the main points.
I personally like a lot the Sorokhtin book. And on the basis of this book I consider the entire IPCC and not-IPCC radiative theory of the grenhouse effect deeply flawed – as there is no place in it (even in the sceptic’s version with lower CO2 sensitivity) for the adiabatic component in the calculation of temperatures. However, as the atmospheric gases have weight, the adiabatic effect nust exist, even if Sorokhtin et al. are not 100% right.
Regards.
Jerzy Strzelecki from Warsaw
Sigh, well, at least they are being transparent. (Their real efforts towards impartiality) If the rest are as impartial as Dr. Campbell, then this inquiry will be as effective as Penn State’s into Mann.
How anyone who has read Nature editorials on the topic could suggest that an editor of Nature in sufficiently impartial is beyond me. It is to the discredit of science journalism that they did not stated the obvious – that Nature, as the publisher of CRU research, has its huge reputation at state in the outcome of such inquiries. Surely there is a motivation here that is highly virtuous. Bravo to Bishop Hill for doing the work that these journalists are paided to do.
It would be impossible to find people totally impartial. Maybe they should hurry up and ask those people before Al Gore visits them…
Never mind what this guy stated in an interview with Chinese State Radio. Get a load of Nature’s editorial on the whole climategate mess.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/03/if-i-had-a-subscription-to-nature-id-cancel-it/
That a nature editorial would even be considered to participate in this inquiry is bizarre beyond belief.
Oslo (14:03:10) :
“David Eyton, BP group vice president, Research & Technology”
BP has been funding the CRU since 1974.
No conflict there.
JP – wow! Thanks for the heads up – this is gold.
“Dr. Miskolczi’s Constant was discovered with a program that is the result of a project started 25 years ago in Hungary. It was then he began the process of writing a high-resolution radiative transfer program which would describe the Earth’s climate using the TIGR Global radiosonde archive of the Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique, Paris database. With this information he was able to accurately describe mathematically how the atmosphere absorbs and releases heat using a long standing Equation called the Schwarzschild-Milne transfer equation to accurately calculate the Earths infrared optical depth. That is what Global climate is; the process by which Earth either holds onto or releases heat. The IPCC and the CRU scientists would have us believe that CO2 increases the heat the atmosphere holds on an infinite unlimited basis. That conclusion is absolutely false, and the CRU and the IPCC have had to falsify and invent data to make it appear that it does.”
This is the sort of thing that will now stick to this man’s reputation.
Though there is a nice positive spin put on the story, it is because his impartiality was called into question that he had to resign.
As another reader asks, isn’t it possible he could also resign as editor of Nature?
Perhaps that is not so unlikely.
How long can Nature retain his services?
Nature’s reputation is linked to the rputation of their editor.
His responsibility was to ensure the proper and effective wroking of the peer review process for Nature. If it is suspected that his partiality may have compromised this process or allowed others to manipulate it, then both his and Nature’s reputations are both at risk.
I’d say there are some at Nature who are already making this judgement and he may soon announce his “resignation” to take up other duties….
Of course, at this stage of the game there is no real incentive to do anything other than brush things under the carpet. There may be a great loss of “belief” in the scientific community (mainly in the climate community but possibly corroding its way out to related sciences) but so far no head have rolled. The IPCC chairman is still in place, the various climate scientists are still effectively in place (Phil Jones has “chosen” to step aside while the investigation/whitewash takes place) so there may still be a feeling that this is something that can be “ridden out”.
Of course, we can hope that if one goes, then like dominoes many more will follow, not just in the sciences but in the media as well and including especially the so called “peer reviewed” publications.
What is far less likely is that people like Al Gore will ever have to answer for their advocacy and exploitation. Sadly, we’ll get to see some of the expendables getting their just deserts, hopefully, but probably very few others.
“Brent Hargreaves (14:20:20) :
[…]
Just one quote: “Once our actions have raised concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere, levels will remain elevated for more than a thousand years.””
Well, they’re wrong. Man-made CO2 stays in the atmosphere for 100000000000000000000000000000 years. Man-made methane is even worse: 200000000000000000000000000000 years. I need 999999999999999999999999999999 dollars for more studies into this.
Nature belongs to MacMillan who belongs to Holtzbrink Publishing Group, a private German company. No one can hold them to account.