This is the final report, which has been embargoed until 5:01 PM PDT / 00:01 GMT March 31st.
Below is the emailed notice to MP’s sent with the PDF of the report.
Date: 30 March 2010 10:30
Subject: EMBARGOED REPORT: CLIMATE SCIENCE MUST BECOME MORE TRANSPARENT SAY MPs
To: [undisclosed recipients]
Phil Willis MP, Committee Chair, is available for embargoed interviews today. Please let me know if you wish to bid (I will be at the embargoed briefing until approx 1pm but will respond once I return).
Embargoed press briefing for science, environment and news corrs at Science Media Centre (21 Albemarle Street London, W1S 4BS), 11.30 am today.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE
Select Committee Announcement
[X]
31 March 2010
***EMBARGOED UNTIL 00.01 WEDNESDAY 31 MARCH 2010***
CLIMATE SCIENCE MUST BECOME MORE TRANSPARENT, SAY MPs
The Science and Technology Committee today publishes its report on the disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. The Committee calls for the climate science
community to become more transparent by publishing raw data and detailed methodologies.
Phil Willis MP, Committee Chair, said:
“Climate science is a matter of global importance. On the basis of the science, governments across the world will be spending trillions of pounds on climate change mitigation. The quality of the science therefore has to be irreproachable. What this inquiry revealed was that climate scientists need to take steps to make available all the data that support their work and full methodological workings, including their computer codes. Had both been available, many of the problems at CRU could have been avoided.”
The focus on Professor Jones and CRU has been largely misplaced. On the accusations relating to Professor Jones’s refusal to share raw data and computer codes, the Committee considers that his actions were in line with common practice in the climate science community but that those practices need to change.
On the much cited phrases in the leaked e-mails-“trick” and “hiding the decline”-the Committee considers that they were colloquial terms used in private e-mails and the balance of evidence is that they were not part of a
systematic attempt to mislead.
Insofar as the Committee was able to consider accusations of dishonesty against CRU, the Committee considers that there is no case to answer.
The Committee found no reason in this inquiry to challenge the scientific consensus as expressed by Professor Beddington, the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, that “global warming is happening [and] that it is induced by human activity”. But this was not an inquiry into the science produced by CRU and it will be for the Scientific Appraisal Panel, announced by the University on 22 March, to determine whether the work of CRU has been soundly built.
On the mishandling of Freedom of Information (FoI) requests, the Committee considers that much of the responsibility should lie with the University, not CRU. The leaked e-mails appear to show a culture of non-disclosure at CRU and instances where information may have been deleted to avoid disclosure, particularly to climate change sceptics. The failure of the University to grasp fully the potential damage this could do and did was regrettable. The University needs to re-assess how it can
support academics whose expertise in FoI requests is limited.
Ends.
NOTES TO EDITORS:
Further details about this inquiry can be found at:
http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/science_technology/s_t_cru_inquiry.cfm
Media Enquiries: Becky Jones: 020 7219 5693 Committee Website:
http://www.parliament.uk/science Publications / Reports / Reference
Material: Copies of all select committee reports are available from the
Parliamentary Bookshop (12 Bridge St, Westminster, 020 7219 3890) or the
Stationery Office (0845 7023474). Committee reports, press releases,
evidence transcripts, Bills; research papers, a directory of MPs, plus
Hansard (from 8am daily) and much more, can be found on
www.parliament.uk<http://www.parliament.uk/>.
Rebecca Jones
House of Commons Select Committee Media Officer Children, Schools &
Families; Health; Science & Technology; Northern Ireland; Scotland; Wales
===================================================
UPDATE:
Steve McIntyre has a few points to make, which I encourage reading here at Climate Audit
So , they kicked the question of scientific validity back to the university
No UAE members will assess CRU scientific validity.
Private emails? They were discussing their publicly funded research using their publicly funded email accounts..
Which email accounts did they use?
The redacted address from the leak/hack is:
p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Clearly the X’s replace the real letters. Does this fit with Phil Jones’ University email address? The university address is:
…XXX@uea.ac.uk
Regardless, private correspondence, even on the University email account, is not public property. No personal correspondence is, of any type. The water cooler and the corridor in which it sits is likewise publicly funded. Conversations around it are likewise not public property.
Didn’t the CODE prove they deliberately modified data to hide the decline and increase warming?
The code was not used for any published product. It was used to test data (not to adjust it) and not incorporated into final analyses.
Wow. They investigated the meaning of ‘hide the decline’? What a joke.
Seeing as this was one of the most widely quoted excerpts – perhaps the most widely quoted – it’s quite responsible of them to investigate the meaning. Imagine the response here if they hadn’t.
In other words, it’s regrettable they broke all the rules.
The report makes quite clear that it is not able to judge whether FOI rules were broken, agrees that there is prima facie evidence of wrongdoing, and refers the matter to the following inquiries.
In a court of law, innocence is presumed until otherwise proven. The court of public opinion has no such standard, unfortunately.
How can they say there was no purposeful attempt at obfuscation of the data then say that data was deleted in order to avoid disclosure?
They do not say that data was deleted, just that ‘information’ may have been deleted. Most of the email correspondence on deleting emails was not about station data.
That there was a culture of non-disclosure to persistent skeptics is not in doubt. Whether any actual station data (or millennial reconstruction data) was deleted from emails remains to be seen.
With not a word about the good doctor’s conspiracy to stack the “peer review deck”
Did you read a different report? Page 21 of the report is titled “Perverting the peer review process.”
Sceptics have not been surprised to find that almost all the members of the ‘Climategate’ inquiry are committed advocates of global warming
That article you linked is about a different report and names no one from the House of Commons report – the subject of this thread.
So, they weren’t actually looking at the “science” but are confident in saying there is no problem with the aforesaid “science.”
No. They said:
Who would be comfortable with politicians determining the validity of science?
But, what about the data, methodology and codes that DOESN’T support their work!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Spencer, Christy, Soon and Baliunas etc are at liberty to make all their code open access. If they have not, flooding them with FOI requests seems to work.
Once again the point is missed. It is not that they used the word “trick” it is what the trick was. It figures politicians would not care about tricks.
They define what they think trick means and leave the scientific exploration of that issue to the scientific inquiry. Who would be comfortable with politicians doing science?
————————————
There seems to be a fundamental miscomprehension of the remit of the House of Commons review and of what is contained in that document.
ac patriot (18:47:30) :
Nice personal attack, but you’ll be happy to know that my day job as a university professor is quite secure, I have spent several years researching AGW, I lecture on the scientific method and have a professional interest in society and technology with thirty years of business and computer technology experience. Some people even take me seriously.
Umm, sounds like a good book, but not relevant here
The book and the links deal directly with your sneering reference to conspiracy theorists and the New World Order influencing Parliament. It’s obvious you have never heard of the book, let alone read it, have no idea of either its significance or what the nature of “conspiracy” really is. The references were intended as a sort of homework assignment to round out your education, but since you have decided that they are not relevant and choose to remain vincibly ignorant then go in peace, but try to be accurate in your raving: my point is that the committee has had access to and reviewed all the evidence, including lab books and unpublished data from the lab; in point of fact they did not access those and if you had bothered to read the report you will see that they listed all of their sources of information. Lab Books and unpublished data are not among those sources.
I was intrigued by a memorandum to the inquiry forwarded by Dr Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc2602.htm
She is openly admitting that her her choices for publication are guided by her political views, and seems to be surprised that her journal is characterised as a journal of choice for climate skeptics.
E&E is a social science journal.
“Greenpeace reports Koch giving $73m to climate sceptic groups”
Who is giving money to Greenpeace and how much?
They couldn’t clean someone that dirty as Phil Jones is. While sweeping it under the carpet they smeared themselves. The political representatives of EU are not trustworthy any more. Their legitimacy is in doubt. One cannot believe he lives in a democracy but it suggests EU is a corrupted Union of corporative states establishing some kind of a carbon socialism. It is a bad luck to live in a country like my home Czech Republic that became a prey of fascistic National Socialism, later fell under bondage of communistic so called Real Socialism and now a green dictatorship of €U Carbon Socialism removed it instead!!!
Wren (20:23:17) :
“As somebody said “lots of smoke but no gun.” I expected cries of “whitewash.” People say that when things don’t turn out their way. It’s kinda like those who say we would have won the game , but the refs cheated.”
UH HUH….but there are plenty of times when refs’ bad calls queer the game, Wren….so your point is nonsense!
As far as your expected cries of “whitewash”….what if it really WAS a whitewash?….
=====
Usually, refs are right, aren’t they?
Patrick Davis (21:52:30) :
“Wren (21:00:58) :
I agree. The science should open for all to see. Of course that may increase the cost, but it will be worth it.”
How so? Other “science” isn’t more expensive because it’s open for all to see.
==============
That’s what you think. Ask someone working on proprietary research to share what he knows with you.
Tom Sawyer and a fence would feel real comfortable with this report.
“Greenpeace reports Koch giving $73m to climate sceptic groups”
Who is giving money to Greenpeace and how much?
You mean you don’t know?
Whatever the case, your rejoinder purely is tit-for-tat. If GISSTemp received money from a solar panel corporation, how impressed would you be when someone rejoined with “but look at Koch’s funding!”
It wouldn’t matter who funded any mainstream climate science. Governments? Agenda-driven. Corporations? Profit-driven.
What funding source for climate science would skeptics consider reasonable? Answer – none. Any source would be grist in the skeptical mill.
Seems to me that this particular committee could never produce anything stronger about the science than it did. ‘Nor reason to challenge’ is not the same as ‘exonerated’, and I think they were being substantially honest in effectively admitting that they aren’t qualified to judge the quality of the work..being politicos with no science training (bar Stringer’s dissenting voice).
But the harsh words about secrecy should send a chill down the warmists spine. No UK based researcher will ever be allowed or expected to conceal their data or code in future, and with M&M and Anthony’s and the Bishop’s great examples, there will be many willing and skilled people who will voluntarily examine it in detail. And any flaws will be out in the open and debatable.
The gatekeepers of the journals and the blogs (eg Real Climate) will no longer have the power to stifle dissent that they have had. Peer review by three referees will crumble in the face of 1000 knowledegable critics..with real data and real code to work with.
My personal doubts about climate change have always been focussed on the sloppiness of the ‘science’ employed. This report may come to be seen as a huge step in getting all parties to clean up their act and for the true state of affairs to become apparent.
So a muted two cheers from me.
Wren (22:57:58) :
That’s what you think. Ask someone working on proprietary research to share what he knows with you
Wren, the public nature of science is probably the most important element of science. Research that is not published for examination, replication and comment by the science community is not science. Research paid for from the public purse is not “proprietary”. Phil Jones has received almost a half million dallars from the US DOE alone. Researchers should be given a reasonable amount of time to analyze and publish, but failing to release the data and methods (and code is “method”) is not science. When trillion dollar decisions are being made on the basis of your research and analysis, “proprietary” doesn’t cut it.
“We therefore consider that climate scientists should take steps to make available all the data that support their work (including raw data) and full methodological workings (including the computer codes).”
What about the data that don’t support their work?
“Wren (22:57:58) :
That’s what you think. Ask someone working on proprietary research to share what he knows with you.”
How is taxpayer funded work, errrmmm, proprietary? Or do you mean property of the taxpayer?
Why, if there has been nothing untoward, no purposeful deception, did Guardian’s most vehement alarmist George Monbiot demand Jones step down??
With so many egos, and trillions of dollars in carbon trading at risk – the wash arrives via politicians protective of manicured turf.
*** SURPRISE ***
””Wren on March 30, 2010 at 10:57 pm -That’s what you think. Ask someone working on proprietary research to share what he knows with you.””
Wren,
You picked the moral/professional low road on ‘open science’theme. Do you think that the cost of the CRU failure to comply with the FOI requests is less than complying promptly would have been?
We are never going away, the pressure on openess will escalate and we will be at higher and higher levels of vigilance for those scientists with hidden info. The resistance to comply with FOI requests will be increasingly more expensive in the future than just promply complying.
John
But the harsh words about secrecy should send a chill down the warmists spine.
I tend to go along with the consensus view of climate change (which makes me a ‘warmist’, I guess) and I rather hope that data and code are all made open – if this can be done without overly delaying ongoing research. If CRU ask for more funding for this, hopefully it won’t be used as a pretext to complain about bigger budgets for climate research.
Robert E. Phelan (22:18:06) :
“Nice personal attack”
I never attacked you personally.
“You’ll be happy to know that my day job as a university professor is quite secure, I have spent several years researching AGW, I lecture on the scientific method and have a professional interest in society and technology with thirty years of business and computer technology experience”
Really now, in what field may I ask? That is a confusing array of work. Are you a climate professor? Business? Computer Science? Did your research on AGW result in peer-reviewed papers disputing the scientific consensus?
The book and the links deal directly with your sneering reference to conspiracy theorists and the New World Order influencing Parliament.
Nonetheless they are still irrelevant to the committee’s report. You give no evidence that Globe had any influence on the members of the committee.
It’s obvious you have never heard of the book, let alone read it … The references were intended as a sort of homework assignment to round out your education
Obviously, I glanced over the references, and as I stated found nothing of interest to the discussion. It seems that you’re unable to point out their relevance other than they might help me in some general manner. I’ll put them on my reading list, at the bottom.
Actually, the book sounds genuinely interesting, although after reading its synopsis on amazon I think I would interpret it quite differently than you have. The three prongs of power mentioned, the military, corporations, and political elite, have vested interest in suppressing news of AGW, not promoting it. Moreover, it is a book about America and I doubt a good reference for the workings of British Parliament.
if you had bothered to read the report you will see that they listed all of their sources of information. Lab Books and unpublished data are not among those sources
Good point, I had assumed that it followed along the lines of a typical University inquiry, incorrectly. However, my main point stands that they had access to more information, directly from the source, than the readers of this blog.
savethesharks (20:52:52) : UH HUH….but there are plenty of times when refs’ bad calls queer the game….
Nice point, worth making, Chris.
‘Within our limited inquiry and the evidence we took, the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact. We have found no reason in this unfortunate episode to challenge the scientific consensus as expressed by Professor Beddington, that “global warming is happening [and] that it is induced by human activity”. It was not our purpose to examine, nor did we seek evidence on, the science produced by CRU’ conclusion 23.
Note the last sentence. They did not examine the science produced by CRU. So they took the word of Prof. Beddington, whose department has been a global warming fanatic for a decade, as to what the scientific concensus is.
The only way to determine the concensus is to measure it directly. That they did not do. So they can draw no conclusions at all on that.
Professor Beddington’s opinion is one of self-interest. His position must be taken with great skepticism.
This report means nothing. It has been brought out before the election as New Labour try to lie their way to re-election.
The arguments were won last year. Now they must be forced home. And those who resist them must be thrown out of politics. Just like the expenses fiddlers are being thrown out. The new code on MPs’ expenses for the UK is not perfect, but it’s nigh on perfect. If it is implemented fairly. A similar root and branch reform of climate science is necessary and only practicioners who subscribe to proper rules of science can participate.
End of story.
Parliamentary Report:
“[T]his was not an inquiry into the science produced by CRU and it will be for the Scientific Appraisal Panel, announced by the University on 22 March, to determine whether the work of CRU has been soundly built.”
Sky News headline:
“‘Climategate’ Prof ‘Did Not Distort Data.'”
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Climategate-Prof-Phil-Jones-University-Of-East-Anglias-Climate-Research-Unit-Didnt-Distort-Data/Article/201003415589450?lpos=UK_News_First_Home_Article_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15589450_Climategate_Prof_Phil_Jones_University_Of_East_Anglias_Climate_Research_Unit_Didnt_Distort_Data
“I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? – our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it. We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it – thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that.” – Phil Jones
“…the Committee considers that his actions were in line with common practice in the climate science community but that those practices need to change…”
As do child abuse practices covered up by the church need to change. i.e. The whole community is corrupt. This is committee wordsmithing to make malfeasance sound normal. And to protect the $billions$ of dollars riding on the fiction of global warming. Read Jones’ emails. He hangs himself – which is just.
David Q. (17:44:58) :
After all if they are forced to reveal data and code, then we’ve got them, right?
Scientific research demands reproducable results. If they deleted it, it ain’t reproducable hence has to be tossed or redone.
Free access to all of the data and code, is the big price,
lets stay focused on that.
Can some one please apply this to the MLO record.
You stand a better chance of getting such in the USA than we do in the UK.
I wonder if Graham Stringer wandered “into this” in nievety.
Maybe he thought the science was robust,
so saw no problems in asking the questions he did.
He did look shocked at the replies he recieved,
and then went quiet.
If researchers working for Exxon had tried to “hide the decline” in a report the way the thousands of climate scientists that collaborated on the IPCC report and excluded the embarrassing tree ring data, hid the decline, the Exxon researchers would be considered lying criminals by the climate scientists. But when environmentalists do something like that, then it’s just a legitimate disagreement about what data should be used and how it should be analyzed. This is why their conclusion that the evidence is overwhelming cannot be trusted, because their bias is so intense that they can’t see straight enough to fairly evaluate the evidence, no matter how well intentioned they are.
What about the data that don’t support their work?
I said this above but it bears repeating, seeing as the question has come up again.
Spencer, Christy, Soon and Baliunas etc are at liberty to make all their code (and data) open access. If they have not, flooding them with FOI requests seems to work.
The raw data is available.
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v2/
http://dss.ucar.edu/datasets/ds570.0/
Both the raw and the adjusted data are available in the first link. I’d like to see a skeptical analysis of the raw global data compared with global adjusted.
They did not examine the science produced by CRU. So they took the word of Prof. Beddington, whose department has been a global warming fanatic for a decade, as to what the scientific concensus is.
Beddington has correctly identified the consensus view. You can argue about what consensus means, but there is no doubting that there is one. If in doubt, check the IPCC report, which, while it’s a UN-backed, corrupted, agenda-driven, socialist reformative political document, nevertheless also reflects the consensus view.
Polls are popular here, so you can check some recent ones answered by climate scientists showing >90% agreement with Beddington’s description.
There are greater than 10 000 scientists working on climate or climate-related science. If you can find 101 of these that disagree with Beddington’s description, you may have something. Maybe.
Let me stress, they have to have published in the field of climate, or climate-related studies. This wipes out a number of well-known petitions, and Inhofe’s famous list, which is neither a petition nor a poll (it’s a collected of unsolicited quotes), and which includes scientists who agree with Beddington’s view.
Best of luck meeting those requirements.