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Dr Campbell has now withdrawn his membership of the panel, telling Channel 4 News: “I made the remarks in good faith on the basis of media reports of the leaks.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Speaking this evening, Muir Russell said “I have spoken to Philip Campbell, and I understand why he has withdrawn.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
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WOW! Let’s go find insanely stupid comments by the rest of them…
Dr. Campbell removed himself from what I am sure would have been a painful experience. It’s clear from the Climategate e-mails that Jones was on very friendly terms with various Nature Editors. Any investigation worth the name would have to look into those links, especially allegations that referees were stacked against papers that didn’t agree with “the settled science”. So in retrospect, Dr. Campbell couldn’t have served impartially even if he was inclined to do so.
Everybody who has been through a scandal will tell you that the consequences of the cover up are always much worse than the original crime. When you make a mistake:
1. Admit it
2. Fix it
3. Don’t repeat it
Truly independent investigators are essential in a scandal. Dr. Campbell could never have been that.
Mike Ramsey
“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.'”
This does not sound good. If Muir really regrets the loss of Campbell, then he really regrets the loss of his not-guilty predetermination.
@RayG and Harry:
“Dr. Miskolczi first published his work in the Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Services in 2004, Volume 108, No 4. He published further statistical proof in the same Journal in 2007, Volume 111, No. 1. In the 5 years since he first published his results, not one peer review has come back disproving his theory, or his Constant. To date, not one scientist has come forward to disprove Miskolczi’s theory that the Earth’s climate is at equilibrium, and that Carbon Dioxide cannot be released in amounts great enough to upset that equilibrium.”
Any who can get BBC2, newsnight is covering the story tonight.
This is a shocking witch hunt by believers in the new religion.
Who will not stop until all leading scientists have been replaced by pygmies, folk who can be relied to parrot the full spectrum of flat-earth beliefs.
The editor of Nature would have been an ideal person to judge arguments between scientists, and his disqualification because he made comments about the e-mails doubtless applies to the other panel members.
Commenting is not a crime – should only folk who have said nothing about Iraq be involved in the current Inquiry?
I think they all the new panel should resign in protest.
Canada’s CBC, known as CBCPravda, has gone to air with this.
Looks to be a first for CBC.
…-
“This is the Current.
Glaciergate – Andrew Weaver
We started this segment with a clip of Rajendra Pachauri, the Chair of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He was speaking to the BBC late last month amidst a growing number of calls for his resignation. But Mr. Pachauri was unapologetic.
Since then, the backlash against the IPCC has grown. The latest criticism stems from a statement that appeared in its Fourth Assessment Report in 2007. Specifically that the Himilayan glaciers could melt away by 2035, threatening the water supply of hundreds of millions of people. The problem is that it was wrong.
And now, “Glaciergate,” as it has become known, has taken on a life of its own … and threatens to undermine the credibility of what had been one of the most respected scientific organizations in the world.
Andrew Weaver has worked extensively with the IPCC. He’s climatologist at the University of Victoria. He helped write the last three IPCC reports though not the sections in question. He was in Victoria.
Listen to Part One:”
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2010/201002/20100210.html
O/T
Live Q&A with Fred Pearce
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/feb/11/live-fred-pearce
Your chance to quiz the man who led the major investigation into the climate science emails on his interpretation of the scandal.
Join us this Friday at 1pm to chat with Fred Pearce, the environment reporter who led the Guardian’s investigation into the climate science emails stolen from the University of East Anglia.
Fred will be online from 1-2pm on 12 February to answer your questions on the email controversy: just post your questions below.
This is your chance to quiz him on his interpretation of the emails and their contents – how scientists dealt with freedom of information requests, how researchers tried to hide flaws in a key study – and ask about our collaborative online effort with experts and protagonists to tell the true story of the emails.
It appears there are TWO separate reviews, Sir Muir Russell’s panel is to review the appropriateness of CRU actions as revealed by the emails. But another panel in concert with the Royal Society is to review (apparently) the science issues. What? in addition to Parliament’s inquiry? Does anyone have a url for the Royal Society-linked review?
Meanwhile, look at the Links page for Muir Russell. Neutral, balanced? Wikipedia there but no Climate Audit? This surely deserves a complaint.
“JP (13:48:32) :
OT: Greenhouse effect is a constant
If this is true and holds water, it’s pure dynamite:”
I assume the pun was intended ….
Hmmm…
From: http://www.cce-review.org/Biogs.php
Professor Geoffrey Boulton OBE, FRS, FRSE
…Professor Boulton’s research is in the field of glaciology, glacial geology, Quaternary science and energy….
He put his name to this:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6950783.ece
Statement from the UK science community
We, members of the UK science community, have the utmost confidence in the observational evidence for global warming and the scientific basis for concluding that it is due primarily to human activities. The evidence and the science are deep and extensive. They come from decades of painstaking and meticulous research, by many thousands of scientists across the world who adhere to the highest levels of professional integrity. That research has been subject to peer review and publication, providing traceability of the evidence and support for the scientific method. The science of climate change draws on fundamental research from an increasing number of disciplines, many of which are represented here. As professional scientists, from students to senior professors, we uphold the findings of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, which concludes that “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal” and that “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations”.
Given the obvious dishonesty of glaciergate, either Professor Boulton didn’t read the IPCC report (with those findings he upheld), or he is not unbiased, or perhaps there are two Prof Geoffrey Boultons at Edinburgh University.
Well a cock-up for the CRU independent review panel before it’s even started! No surprise with Sir Muir Russell in the Chair – his seems to have had a somewhat chequered career!
Wiki says:-
“…Career civil servant who was seconded to the Cabinet Office in 1990. He was appointed Permanent Secretary at The Scottish Office in May 1998, and to the Scottish Executive since its establishment in 1999.
He was widely believed to be primarily responsible for the massive overspend on the new Scottish Parliament Building and was criticised by Lord Fraser of Carmyllie’s enquiry for failing to keep the politicians informed that the expenditure was far in excess of the budget.
He took office as Principal of the University of Glasgow on 1 October 2003, but attracted much criticism for his handling of the 2006 lecturers’ strike, as well as attempts to close the University’s Crichton Campus in Dumfries and for receiving pay rises which were much greater than the rate of inflation. He retired in October 2009.”
Sounds like a good choice of Chairman if you want the review to be a fiasco :-))
Who at Nature refused to publish McIntyre’s letter to Nature to reply to criticism of him? Or whatever that row was about?
JP (13:48:32) : OT: Greenhouse effect is a constant
I followed your link, and yes, it looks like some sort of explosive, but I also stumbled on these:
http://www.examiner.com/x-7715-Portland-Civil-Rights-Examiner~y2010m2d3-Open-Letter-to-NASA-director-Dr-James-Hansen-NASA-GISS
An open letter to NASA director Dr. James Hansen (NASA GISS) on the same subject, and this:
http://www.examiner.com/x-7715-Portland-Civil-Rights-Examiner~y2010m1d18-EPA-ignores-reality-in-scientific-breakthrough–unable-to-disprove-greenhouse-effect-in-equilibrium
“”” JP (13:48:32) :
OT: Greenhouse effect is a constant
If this is true and holds water, it’s pure dynamite: “””
Well some of us have been saying this for years. But the party line is that H2O is NOT a GHG; it is a CO2 feedback factor.
Sorry; the atmosphere cares not who it is that conveys energy to it, in the form of heating; and water has been doing that for as long as humans can remember; in fact for as long as dinosaurs can remember too.
Need I say it again; H2O is the only GHG that exists in all three phases in the earth’s atmosphere, and the balance between the vapor phase, and the other two (clouds) is what arrests any tipping point in its tracks.
Note to: Sir Muir Russell.
Everybody is watching.
(thanks to al gore).
Shameful:
“If you look at the emails there is one or two bits of language…that suggest something to outsiders that is wrong…they have behaved as researchers should.”
Then we find that he hadn’t looked at the emails himself, he was going on the basis of media reports.
“I made the remarks in good faith on the basis of media reports of the leaks”
Astonishing. So now we know why Nature was so biased in favour of ‘the Team’ and against sceptical scientists, and why it wrote such disgusting editorials. If ‘the Team’ and the Guardian say that sceptical scientists are a bunch of loony scumbags, and ‘the Team’ are first class scientists, then that’s gospel is it? And Nature can be used as a vehicle to impede science, slander scientists, and cover up malpractice – that’s OK is it?
“I made my remarks…on the basis of media reports”.
Yea, right, just like an editor of a prestigious journal ought to do. Campbell has NO credibility left whatsover now, and neither will Nature until he’s long gone and the journal has had a massive shake up and shake out.
A disgrace to science.
It’s a sorry state of British science that they can’t find a sceptical scientist in the climate field. After depriving anyone who questions global warming of funding for 20 years, what would they expect? Anyone who would have questioned global warming would have gone into other fields. No funding, no research. No research, no experts.
“George E. Smith (14:56:24) :
[…]
Well some of us have been saying this for years. But the party line is that H2O is NOT a GHG; it is a CO2 feedback factor.”
Which obviously leads to the conclusion that there is anthropogenic H2O in the atmosphere – caused by feedback through anthropogenic C2O. And just like anthropogenic CO2 will stay in the atmosphere for 1000 years, i expect at least the same from anthropogenic H2O. Oh the Humidity!
I love this AGW cult thing.
At least Philip Campbell has some integrity and recognises his own bias and the inadequate base on which he cast his initial opinion. Hopefully he takes this new-found honesty into his work.
Seriously, how does one choose an unbiased committee? Just about every “competent” person has a viewpoint on AGW. The task has all the difficulties of jury selection in a court of law.
Philip Campbell should promptly resign as editor-in-chief of Nature.
Astrology is more scientific than the consensus fairy tales published in Nature about the solar physics, astrophysics, cosmology, and nuclear physics.
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Emeritus Professor of
Nuclear & Space Studies
Former NASA PI for Apollo
Typo in the article, independent panel, should be in quotes: “independent panel”.
REPLY: repeated as excerpt from Channel 4, take it up with them – Anthony
“I made my remarks…on the basis of media reports”.
Finally we know how it works: LOL
“Nature” got the clues from the media, media from ICPP, ICPP from “Nature”
How lovely triangle, I bet is getting hot inside. And this is good thing
I should have followed my usual custom of logging in to ClimateAudit before stopping by here and commenting, above. CA discusses the committee’s terms of reference. Worth a look http://climateaudit.org/2010/02/11/a-muir-russell-avatar/
Andrew30 (14:27:56) :
Oslo (14:03:10) :
“David Eyton, BP group vice president, Research & Technology”
BP has been funding the CRU since 1974.
No conflict there.
—————–
Reply:
So here we have a petroleum-producing company supporting AGW?
Doesn’t this scuttle the idea of Big Oil supporting the deniers with big checks and research grants?
Are they trying to profit at least twice on the carbon they produce–first when they sell the fuel and on the carbon tax aspects once it sits in the atmosphere?
On the appointment of Philip Campbell to this board of inquiry, I just have to ask myself why he ever agreed to do it in the first place considering his cozy relationship w/ the CRU. Methinks he hasn’t read any of the hacked/whistleblown emails himself nor any critical analysis on the subject. That could be the only logical explanation.