I’ve read blog posts longer than this report. The Global Warming Policy Foundation of London has this to say about it:
Another Unsatisfactory Rushed Job
Press release
LONDON, 14 April 2010 – The Global Warming Policy Foundation regrets that the Oxburgh Panel has been rushed and therefore extremely superficial. The body of the report is hardly five pages long. The Panel should have taken more time to arrive at more balanced and more trustworthy conclusions as there was no need to rush the inquiry.
The Panel worked by interviewing and questioning staff members of CRU, but failed to interview critical researchers who have been working in the same field for many years. The Panel even ignored, as it admits, to properly review their written evidence.
We welcome the acknowledgement by the Panel that the Urban Heat Island effect on surface temperatures records in and around large cities is important but poorly understood. We also welcome the admission that the IPCC ignored the expressions of uncertainty in CRU papers.
We also note, in the context of the long-term temperature record, its comment that “the potential for misleading results arising from selection bias is very great in this area. It is regrettable that so few professional statisticians have been involved in this work.”
In general, the report is being politely kind to CRU, but in essence rather critical of the disorganised and amateurish use of statistics. It is hardly an endorsement of the quality of the research being carried out at what is supposed to be the world’s leading unit which has received so much government funding.
Given the huge economic and social implications, one would expect that an independent audit would be more rigorous and more even-handed than the Oxburgh panel.
— end
Steve McIntyre writes that he wasn’t interviewed:
Oxburgh’s Trick to Hide the Trick
The Oxburgh report ” is a flimsy and embarrassing 5-pages.
They did not interview me (nor, to my knowledge, any other CRU critics or targets). The committee was announced on March 22 and their “report” is dated April 12 – three weeks end to end – less time than even the Parliamentary Committee. They took no evidence. Their list of references is 11 CRU papers, five on tree rings, six on CRUTEM. Notably missing from the “sample” are their 1000-year reconstructions: Jones et al 1998, Mann and Jones 2003, Jones and Mann 2004, etc.)
They did not discuss specifically discuss or report on any of the incidents of arbitrary adjustment (“bodging”), cherry picking and deletion of adverse data, mentioned in my submissions to the Science and Technology Committee and the Muir Russell Committee. I’ll report on these issues later in the day as they’ll take a little time to review. First, let’s observe Oxburgh’s trick to hide the “trick”.
Long before Climategate, Climate Audit readers knew that you had to watch the pea under the thimble whenever you’re dealing with the Team. This is true with Oxburgh of Globe International as well.
Oxburgh of Globe International alludes to the “trick..to hide the decline” in veiled terms as follows:
CRU publications repeatedly emphasize the discrepancy between instrumental and tree-based proxy reconstructions of temperature during the late 20th century, but presentations of this work by the IPCC and others have sometimes neglected to highlight this issue. While we find this regrettable, we could find no such fault with the peer-reviewed papers we examined.
Without specifically mentioning the famous “trick …to hide the decline”, Oxburgh subsumes the “trick” as “regrettable” “neglect” by “IPCC and others”.
But watch the pea under Oxburgh’s thimble.
The Oxburgh Report regrettably neglected to highlight the fact that CRU scientists Briffa and Jones, together with Michael Mann, were the IPCC authors responsible for this “regrettable neglect” in the Third Assessment Report. They also regrettably neglected to report that CRU scientist Briffa was the IPCC author responsible for the corresponding section in AR4.
Oxburgh pretends that the fault lay with “IPCC and others”, but this pretence is itself a trick. CRU was up to its elbows in the relevant IPCC presentations that “regrettably” “neglected” to show the divergent data in their graphics.
read more here
If you really want to know about Climategate, get this book:
Paperback: click image
Kindle version: click here
We’re less than four weeks away from a general election. And adverse report from the Oxburgh panel was never going to happen because all three main UK political parties subscribe to the warmist dogma and allowed the cap and trade legislation to pass through the Commons unchallenged. Of course, nothing is going to be allowed to derail the destruction of our economy and our capacity to generate power. Not even the truth. To do otherwise would put a big stick into the hands of UKIP, the anti-EU, anti-AGW party that now has Christopher Monckton numbered in its ranks.
Anu (10:47:32) :
Well, there goes “climategate”:
The hydroelectric dam burst, the rushing waters killed thousands and caused hundreds of millions of dollars of property damage.
The reports from the shareholders concluded the utility company had no fault.
So in your world, that means the company can go right back to business as usual and start the turbines up again?
Oxenburgh has conflict of interest:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7071751.ece
All we need is Rees’s final coat of whitewash and the coast will be clear for Prince Chuckles to get his mum to give Phil Jones the knighthood he so obviously deserves. After all the report says “his reputation, and that of his climate research unit, remained intact.”
I don’t suppose they mean his reputation as an incompetent con man.
I wonder how much this little exercise cost Acton? Or do you think his mates sorted it out for him for free?
No wonder he says he’s “Delighted”.
Lets not bother about feeding the Wren Troll, there are better things to do, like search for signs of intelligent thought from the wallpaper.
As every single public/parliamentary/other “official” body enquiry instigated by this utterly corrupt, startlingly arrogant government has resulted in a whitewash, regardless of subject, I am surprised anyone is surprised by the result. Although I am surprised that they only managed to cobble together 5 pages, which is definitely well short of even going through the motions, so to speak.
The only way the truth of the CRUtape situation will ever be exposed to the non-blog reading public is through a criminal trial (remember the “weapons to Iraq” trial back in the 80s? As I recall, that was after a whitewash enquiry, too).
So – is this why it is taking soooooo long for the criminal investigation into the leak to get to a conclusion? I bet they are absolutely terrified of bringing anyone to court, because that is when expert witnesses from the skeptic side will get their say, in the full glare of publicity.
I am part way through reading Steve Mosher’s CRUTape book, and – although obviously a rushed effort – it does a superb job of putting the various emails into context, and the more I read, the more breathtaking the behaviour of The Team appears. For any remotely intelligent/reasonable person it is blindingly obvious that the whole CAGW thing is a complete stitch-up.
So – I am almost tempted to suggest that the person responsible for the leak publicly – on camera in case there are any “resisting arrest” scenarios – gives him/herself up and waits for the trial that dare not happen.
I would happily contribute money to the defence team, too.
hunter
There is no reason to be disheartened by this bodge report. I agree with Methow Ken that the cat is out of the bag. And I like jorgekafkazar’s: the naked emperor is no longer mincing along but fluttering his hands to hide his nakedness and while the media courtesans applaud politely, pretending not to see.
Consider this: If they were to start again, could one make start a global warming fear campaign now? Look at the ground upon which the case was built from the late 90s and up to 2007: unprecedented rising global temps; extreme consequences very soon; scientific consensus on the cause; gold standard report etc. To move forward with Cap & Trade, or whatever, the case must be reaffirmed.
Since December we have seen only a few feeble attempts at this. Mostly we see a guarded retreat, with attempt to save as many as possible of the considerable careers and investments involved. Otherwise, there are hints of disarray. The once inpenetratable army is dispirited. Not Phil Jones, nor Mike Hulme will support the tired campaigns of Schneider and Hansen. And Al Gore is not mincing along, but mostly hiding deep in a bunker.
Seen from France, this is just what was expected, a Hutton like whitewash enquiry. As a matter of fact, whilst the ‘executive summary’ is positive and good for main street media consumption, when you go through the lines, the report looks quite negative : no bad intentions, but many defects ; at the end of the days the fault is forwarded to the IPCC, with same team of individuals in charge, still paid by the UK (or US) tax payer, deleting all caveats in ‘research’ outcome.
As a Brit, I would like to apologise to everyone for this. It is just a reflection of the incompetence and corruption of ideals that has spread throughout our society over the past 12 years.
People with very obvious vested interests sitting in judgement on one of the most critical subject of our times. Not surprisingly, it was a whitewash, but they couldn’t even be bothered to make it a well-argued, comprehensive whitewash. Such is the contempt our ruling socialist elite feel towards the truth and the general public.
This is entirely reminiscent of the endless inquiries on Iraqi WMD. The fact is that no matter howmany WMD inquiries find those responsible totally blameless, at the end of the day there were/was no Weapons/Weather of Mass Destruction.
Moreover, the strongest evidence that the science is safe would have been a strong condemnation of the extremely poor standards which we all know about in this area.
Steve MacIntyre’s CA post on the topic is outstanding:
http://climateaudit.org/2010/04/14/oxburgh-on-proxy-reconstructions/
At long last, someone is calling the science (black art?) of dendroclimatology out!
Good stuff:
2. The main effort of the dendroclimalogists at CRU is in developing ways to extract climate information from networks of tree ring data. The data sets are large and are influenced by many factors of which temperature is only one.
This means that the effects of long term temperature variations are masked by other more dominant short term influences and have to be extracted by statistical techniques. The Unit approaches this task with an independent mindset and awareness of the interplay of biological and physical processes underlying the signals that they are trying to detect.
——
uh, yeah!! Tree growth is influenced by a LOT more than simply temperature!! Solar irradiance, rainfall, predation and disease, changes of biota in the forest floor, all sorts of stuff.
What junk science….
It is most unfortunate that those living outside the UK can have no understanding of what our life here is like after thirteen years of financially irresponsible Socialist Government. Their tentacles writhe their way into every aspect of everyday life; nothing, and I mean nothing, is free from Central Government influence.
And so it is with this “enquiry”. Nothing can be allowed to contradict the extreme “green” position of Miliband the Younger.
Much will be made by the “Green” Socialists of these findings.
And the majority of the UK’s population will, again, blow a collective raspberry.
Tepid and luke warmish:
The “independent” Lord-led Oxburgh report, with it’s conclusions
and citations, is as a robust and enthusiastic endorsement as the investigated facts would allow of CRU personnel and the “science”
they’ve produced.
Combined with the Parlimentary Committee investigation report,
there’s only been official luke warm support for the researchers’
conduct and a tepid finding for the “science” they’ve produced.
Once a U.S. Congressional Joint Committee begins investigation
how those millons of U.S. taxpayer dollars for research were spent
by a British-based cadre, the investigators won’t wear kid gloves.
Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are treading water until
then.
Here we go again!
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=fc66a2bb-802a-23ad-42c3-af5809222eed
Lazy media response helps to whitewash the whitewash…
http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com/2010/04/whitewashing-whitewash.html
Tony B (another one) (13:43:40) : “…And Al Gore is not mincing along, but mostly hiding deep in a bunker.”
Not sure I’d care to see Al wearing the Emperor’s new clothes. In fact, I think I’d have to decline his hide altogether.
PaulH from Scotland (12:11:12) : “Carbon trading – invented by Enron and administered by Goldman Sachs.”
16 of the 20 partners with Al Gore’s Generation Investment LLP are from Goldman Sachs.
No-facts …
What do you expect of government people, reviewing government reports, – produce by scientists on government grants. You expected truth?
Congratutions to the moderator for nixing ‘denialist’ terms with holocaust-denial connotations. I am not Jewish but two of my closest boyhood friends were. I regard holocaust denialists as the scum of the intellectual earth, and my usually pretty turn-the-other-cheek persona is infuriated at being lumped in with them.
“Wren (11:16:29) :
I think it’s best to eat a little crow now than a lot later. People who dig their heels in when presented with information not to their liking are setting the table for a crow eating banquet.”
************
Let’s for one minute assume the guys at CRU are innocent. That doesn’t make them correct about AGW. That doesn’t make ‘true’ the failed predictions made by AGW. Consensus is not science. IF AGW is false then as time goes on it is going to become increasingly apparent that AGW is a non-starter. This process has already begun. Jones admits to no warming trend in the last 15 years.
Jimbo (16:46:04) :
Let’s for one minute assume the guys at CRU are innocent. That doesn’t make them correct about AGW. That doesn’t make ‘true’ the failed predictions made by AGW. Consensus is not science. IF AGW is false then as time goes on it is going to become increasingly apparent that AGW is a non-starter. This process has already begun. Jones admits to no warming trend in the last 15 years.
Dr. Phil Jones said no such thing.
He said the measured warming trend of 0.12° C per decade in the last 15 years was not “statistically significant” at the 95% level.
Hardly “no warming trend”.
If you can’t follow the words, the numbers are going to be even harder.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8511670.stm
B – Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming?
Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.
Dr. Jones also pointed out that from 1975 to 2009, a length of 35 years, the warming trend is 0.161° C per decade and it is statistically significant.
Sonicfrog (08:25:36) :
You get taxed for being stupid now? That’s why Al Gore needs so many millions!
Some highlights from Revkin’s take:
East Anglia’s Climate Lessons
“Closure is slowly coming…”
“One lesson is that anyone hoping to up-end decades of research pointing to a growing human influence on the climate by challenging a single batch of studies…is almost surely on a fool’s errand.”
“A committee of experts recommended by the Royal Society has completed the second of three inquiries into the affair, which foes of restrictions on greenhouse gases tried vigorously to use to undermine public confidence in decades of science pointing to a human-heated climate.”
Note that those making the requests that lead to the compilation of the FOI2009.zip file are not longer ‘deniers’ but the motivation of the science auditing by the likes McIntyre is still reduced to the political – they are foes of restrictions on greenhouse gases.
As for the science behind the causation — by CO2 emissions — Revkin himself said this back on 9 Feb:
I wonder, does this scepticism make him a foes of restrictions on greenhouse gases, or a support of restrictions on greenhouse gases despite his own concerns about evidence-base of the decades of science pointing to a human-heated climate?
mod – Ooops left out an “/”. In my previous comment please close the italic after “…on greenhouse gases” and delect this comment – thanks.
We did more-or-less expect this I imagine.
The questions are: will objective science ever take over this field? If so, how long will it take? Is this whole controversy enough of a “tipping point” to “force” the change?
Jones, Mann, Briffa, Overpeck and Santer’s careers are mostly over – they will get a few payback rewards from their like-minded peers – but few climate scientists are going to take as many risks with the data again as these guys did.
Dendrochronology is never going to be taken seriously again (the Muir Russel commission may well put the fork in it as well going by what CRU submitted to them about this aspect of the science).
The temperature record remains intact but only because all the raw data is actually held at the NCDC. The debate needs to shift to the NCDC’s database now rather than to CRU’s or GISS’ which is just a curiousity now (the MET Office reexamination will take a few years to ressurrect Hadcrut and HadSST).
The report reads like a cry for help. It’s as though they need to tell us what they are thinking but using oposite wording.
Its either uncommonly sloppy work for a review panel, or a double-speek admission.