Despite regular attempts by head in the sand AGW cheerleaders to make it go away, Climategate continues to affect the path of climate science. This endorsement of the Climategate effect comes from a most unlikely source, The Guardian’s Fred Pearce, who also writes for The New Scientist. Most telling about all of the investigations so far is that they have not interviewed any of the primary investigators that question the methods and data, such as Steve McIntyre.
The investigations thus far are much like having a trial with judge, jury, reporters, spectators, and defendant, but no plaintiff. The plaintiff is locked outside the courtroom sitting in the hall hollering and hoping the jury hears some of what he has to say. Is it any wonder the verdicts keep coming up “not guilty”?
To summarize: it’s a whitewash in the purest sense of the word. I don’t expect career team player Sir Muir Russell’s report to be any different. He’s too much of an familial insider to have the courage to ask the plaintiff to get involved, and he didn’t. But Steve McIntyre is going anyway. Hopefully they’ll have the courage to hear what he has to say and not lock him out in the hallway. – Anthony
‘Climategate’ was ‘a game-changer’ in science reporting, say climatologists
After the hacked emails scandal scientists became ‘more upfront, open and explicit about their uncertainties’
Sir Muir Russell’s findings will be published on Wednesday. Photograph: University of Glasgow
Excerpts from the Guardian article:
Science has been changed forever by the so-called “climategate” saga, leading researchers have said ahead of publication of an inquiry into the affair – and mostly it has been changed for the better.
This Wednesday sees the publication of the Muir Russell report into the conduct of scientists from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU), whose emails caused a furore in November after they were hacked into and published online.
Critics say the emails reveal evasion of freedom of information law, secret deals done during the writing of reports for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a cover-up of uncertainties in key research findings and the misuse of scientific peer review to silence critics.
But whatever Sir Muir Russell, the chairman of the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland, concludes on these charges, senior climate scientists say their world has been dramatically changed by the affair.
“The release of the emails was a turning point, a game-changer,” said Mike Hulme, professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia. “The community has been brought up short by the row over their science. Already there is a new tone. Researchers are more upfront, open and explicit about their uncertainties, for instance.”
And there will be other changes, said Hulme. The emails made him reflect how “astonishing” it was that it had been left to individual researchers to police access to the archive of global temperature data collected over the past 160 years. “The primary data should have been properly curated as an archive open to all.” He believes that will now happen.
…
“Trust has been damaged,” said Hans von Storch of the KGSS Research Centre in Geesthacht, Germany. “People now find it conceivable that scientists cheat and manipulate, and understand that scientists need societal supervision as any other societal institution.”
The climate scientist most associated with efforts to reconciling warring factions, Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, said the idea of IPCC scientists as “self-appointed oracles, enhanced by the Nobel Prize, is now in tatters”. The outside world now sees that “the science of climate is more complex and uncertain than they have been led to believe”.
…
Roger Pielke Jr of the University of Colorado agreed that “the climate science community, or at least its most visible and activist wing, appeared to want to go back to waging an all-out war on its perceived political opponents”.
He added: “Such a strategy will simply exacerbate the pathological politicisation of the climate science community.” In reality, he said, “There is no going back to the pre-November 2009 era.”
…
But greater openness and engagement with their critics will not ensure that climate scientists have an easier time in future, warns Hulme. Back in the lab, a new generation of more sophisticated computer models is failing to reduce the uncertainties in predicting future climate, he says – rather, the reverse. “This is not what the public and politicians expect, so handling and explaining this will be difficult.”
Full story at the Guardian h/t to Tallbloke and WUWT reader Pat
Enneagram says: July 5, 2010 at 12:51 pm
“unless there is a new Climate-Gate: Climate Gate Version 1.01”
===
There may well be some truth to this possibility … at least according to the “Notes/Minutes” published on the Muir Russell ICCER website:
“Data mining
“It was noted that a trusted, independent, forensic analyst has been engaged by the UEA and once they are available, he will start work on examining the first set of downloaded emails from the compromised CRU server.” [emphasis added-hro]
[see also: http://hro001.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/the-unbearable-arrogance-of-activist-advocates-aka-climate-scientists/ ]
Dave L says:
July 5, 2010 at 10:56 am
The bottom line: Climatology has been thoroughly corrupted by politics.
I hope it’s not the other way round.
Looks like the Grauniad website is groaning under the strain of the WUWT effect:
“Sorry – we haven’t been able to serve the page you asked for”
Anyway, we bloggers got an honourable mention from good ol’ Jerry Ravetz for keeping the pressure on climate scientists to make it honest:
“The veteran Oxford science philosopher Jerome Ravetz says the role of the blogosphere in revealing the important issues buried in the emails means it will assume an increasing role in scientific discourse. “The radical implications of the blogosphere need to be better understood.”
” Mike says:
July 5, 2010 at 1:55 pm ”
Mike, it’s a report about a report (IPCC 4). The irony of your post, criticising me for supposedly making assumptions whilst yourself making, erm, assumptions, is rich indeed.
As it happens I clicked through to the Dutch site and read what was provided in English. There’s sufficient (albeit subdued) criticism of the IPCC report published there to raise serious questions about what’s gone on, though this is swiftly dealt with by the usual ex cathedra pronouncements.
The juxtaposition of that criticism with the repeated mantra “none of this undermines the conclusions of the IPCC” (not the first time that we’ve seen this formula) is what leads me to suggest this is another whitewash. If this report alone was all we had to go on, it wouldn’t be very much. But it’s not all we have, as you well know. And that’s reflected in the public’s jaded opinion of this entire issue, irrespective of the ultimately futile attempts at shoring it up.
Not much longer to go now. In the words of a note from an outgoing UK finance minister to his successor at the general election in May: “There’s no money left. Good luck!”.
Has anyone read this article behind the Times paywall today?:
LANDMARK REPORT ON CLIMATE CHANGE ONE-SIDED – The United Nations body that advises governments on climate change failed to make clear how its landmark report on the impact of global warming often presented a worst-case scenario, an investigation has concluded. A summary report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on regional impacts focused on the negative consequences of climate change and failed to make clear that there would also be some benefits of rising temperatures. The report adopted a “one-sided” approach that risked being interpreted as an “alarmist view”. The report, which underpinned the Copenhagen summit last December, wrongly suggested that climate change was the main reason why communities faced severe water …
Zilla says:
July 5, 2010 at 2:46 pm
Confirmation of the Amazon story unravelling and coverage of the Dutch report all in the same article:
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/07/see-no-evil.html
Ah good, the Grauniad article is available again.
The first comment made me laugh out loud.
Cynic Al writes:
So nobody knows anything…..
Somehow I doubt if that will stop a tone of certainty pervading this thread.
Alan Wilkinson says:
July 5, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Alan, that article appears to be discussing the Dutch report I’ve linked to via the BBC and Dr North’s eureferendum website. Interesting that the Times have chosen to highlight the criticisms.
Wind Rider says: July 5, 2010 at 2:22 pm
@Katebasis and Doug in Dunedin – yep.
Well, despite our cynicism, they are far from incompetent so we are left with direct obfuscation on their part which matches that of all the so called investigations into these activities on both sides of the Atlantic. Also, by extension, this applies to all the ‘adjustments’ of climate records everywhere that these ‘scientists’ have been operating.
I am watching the economies of all of Europe and America imploding as a result of the previous Ponzi scheme (sub prime fiasco) while their so called leaders are siphoning off the remaining wealth of these continents to feed this monstrous scam – I only hope (not really) the economies collapse before the scam is fed.
Doug
@ur momisugly netdr
“Self aggrandize, do you mean like getting a Nobel Prize for a seriously flawed book and motion picture ? The “beautiful people” have lined up to be cheerleaders for CAGW and awarded a prize to one of their own.
“Or do you mean like turning a mediocre climate scientist like Dr Hansen into a near rock star ?”
Well, technically none of that is self-aggrandizement – and I believe, technically, that the Nobel was given to Gore and Pachauri because of their IPCC work. As for Hansen being a “rock star” – I don’t look at that guy and think Rock and Roll. He’s still a respected scientist, if that’s what you mean, and most of his exposure has been negative, from sites such as this. And it is not necessarily accepted outside of places like this that the fabled movie and book are all that inaccurate.
I guess I could ask if you doubt the climate scientists because they are “beautiful people” – now that’s funny.
But your response fits perfectly with my earlier charge that the skeptics are not here to “reform” climate science; the skeptics are here simply to denigrate the climate scientists. Thanks for the example.
Wind Rider says: July 5, 2010 at 2:22 pm
@Katebasis and Doug in Dunedin – yep.
Well, despite our cynicism, they are far from incompetent so we are left with direct obfuscation on their part which matches that of all the so called investigations into these activities on both sides of the Atlantic. Also, by extension, this applies to all the ‘adjustments’ of climate records everywhere that these ‘scientists’ have been operating.
I am watching the economies of all of Europe and America imploding as a result of the previous Ponzi scheme (sub prime fiasco) while their so called leaders are siphoning off the remaining wealth of these continents to feed this monstrous scam – I only hope the economies collapse before the scam is fed.
Doug
Zilla says on July 5, 2010 at 2:46 pm
If that were the case then the prudent course of action would be to avoid alerting the skeptics’ camp to the fact.
I rather suspect that you are just another blustering troll trying to convince people to give up … won’t work.
Zilla says:
July 5, 2010 at 3:27 pm (Edit)
skeptics are not here to “reform” climate science; the skeptics are here simply to denigrate the climate scientists. Thanks for the example.
They’ve made a good job of demeaning themselves without our help. Anyway, if you take a look at a few other threads around here, you’ll see some science under discussion, as well as meejah pundit free for all’s like this one.
Apostates are the most hated of all by faith-based fumdamentalists.
The sharing of this hatred by true-believers creates a bond between them that renders normal a suspension of logical reason
when confronted by evidence that challenges the tenets of their belief.
Chanting mantras, granted to them by ecclesiastical superiors and religilously route-marked by “Start Here” hyperlinks, have now replaced the mathematical tool of axiom and the scientific starting point of the assumption!
Any scientific doubt or mathematical challenge questioning the orthodoxy can now be quashed and demolished by quoting from the “Book of Spells”
“robust demolition”, “thoroughly discredited”, “proven strawman”, “weather is not climate” and, so on, ad nauseum.
I’m taking a bit of a guess that a large number of current climate-apostates, readers of this blog perchance, were once like me, a warmist, a non-denier maybe, even, a true believer!
However much hatred a true-believer may, or may not, have for the apostate have you ever asked yourself the question “Why do they now disbelieve us?”
if not, why not?
“you ever asked yourself the question “Why do they now disbelieve us?”
if not, why not?”
If there is disbelief directed at climate science it is almost entirely the distortions of the blogosphere and the news media – mostly done by amateurs who do not work in the field such as Jo Nova and by politically motivated non-scientists such as Lord Monkton. And by people, like yourself, who seem to have an absolute mania against climate science and, instead of recognizing it in yourself, project it onto others.
REPLY: And yet, unlike you, all these people, including me, have the courage to put their name to their words. Anonymous comments aren’t worth anything. – Anthony Watts
@ur momisugly Richard Sharpe,
The skeptic camp will attempt to poke holes in the retractions no matter what.
No matter what, the skeptic camp will not accept anything that does not denigrate climate science.
REPLY: Try reading this before you shoot your mouth off again:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/04/under-the-volcano-over-the-volcano/
I happen to agree with it. Thus, your statement is false.
Oh, and more hole poking going on here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100705/ap_on_bi_ge/climate
– Anthony Watts
Zilla says:
July 5, 2010 at 3:52 pm
What makes you think that reasonably educated people can’t look dispassionately at the evidence and realise that the emperor has no clothes?
Forgive me, Anthony and Richard, but I did not follow why you posted the above. I am not convinced that I should stop “shooting my mouth off” after reading it, in other words. It almost seems, as so often is the case, that the skeptics are looking for ways to rationalize science they disagree with and justifying, no matter how, science they agree with. Mouths should shoot in these circumstances.
In fact, the deeper I get into the skeptic camp, the more I believe I should continue to shoot my mouth off. The more this place is a product of a mentality, the more mouths will continue to shoot off. But then –
“Anonymous comments aren’t worth anything”
Sooooooo, netdr, Doug in Dunedin, Wind Talker and the rest with monikers are all making worthless comments? Okay.
REPLY: Sorry no more comments until you report on the article I referenced. Consider it an assignment. This statement of yours needs attention:
“No matter what, the skeptic camp will not accept anything that does not denigrate climate science.”
– A
Gawd Zilla. Have you not heard of engaging brain brain b4 mouth?
“But your response fits perfectly with my earlier charge that the skeptics are not here to “reform” climate science; the skeptics are here simply to denigrate the climate scientists. Thanks for the example.”
Point one. Your charge was, like an earlier Victorian attempt, wrongly directed. Sceptics simply ask if the charge was worth the carnage. The reformation is for the proponents of the charge not those that question the wisdom of the charge. Point two, the denigration of those caught in the crossfire lies not with those faultlessly wounded but properly only with the miscreants!
We now move to point three.
Thanks for the example!
The UK is about to undergo a major political change. Under the previous Labour govenment over 900,000 new non-jobs were created in the public sector.
Peronist populist economic policies are now coming to end and hundreds of thousands of non-jobs are about to disappear. While we can hope this includes the clowns in CRU, it will also probably mean the demise of the Guardian’s principal source of income, namely advertising non-jobs in the public sector.
Will any real scientist shed any tears over the demise of one of the principal sources of alarmist propaganda? I, for one, will not.
””REPLY: And yet, unlike you, all these people, including me, have the courage to put their name to their words. Anonymous comments aren’t worth anything. – Anthony Watts””
Anthony,
I prefer dialog with non-anonymous commenters, although I obviously dialog with some anonymous ones. My view is that people should put there names to their words in order to be taken credibly.
John
Zilla says July 5, 2010 at 3:55 pm
Oh, I agree with you. However, there is a saying: Never interrupt you enemy when he is making a mistake.
Clearly you fear that the AGW camp has screwed up so you come around here trying to divert attention. For if not, you would have kept silent and let the skeptic camp compound its mistake.
Won’t be doing any assignments from you, my friend. Not that kind of relationship. I suspect that you wish to feel vindicated because you for once agreed with a better trained scientist? Would that you did that more often.
REPLY: Well then if you won’t even read an example placed before you of when we do accept something that is not “damaging to climate science”, such as the most important Mauna Loa CO2 record, which we defended against attacks related to data uncertainty and placement, then there is of course no hope for you. You are hopelessly mired in your own dogma. All further posts go into the spam bucket then, since you aren’t capable on contributing, only denigrating. Typical for MC denizens though. – Anthony
Zilla says:
July 5, 2010 at 3:52 pm
“you ever asked yourself the question “Why do they now disbelieve us?”
if not, why not?”
If there is disbelief directed at climate science it is almost entirely the distortions of the blogosphere and the news media – mostly done by amateurs who do not work in the field such as Jo Nova and by politically motivated non-scientists such as Lord Monkton. And by people, like yourself, who seem to have an absolute mania against climate science and, instead of recognizing it in yourself, project it onto others.
Distortions don’t come from questions my dear Zilla. They grow through answers. If I’ve been distorted in my thinking about the certainty of climate science is, umm, because of the answers I got from sites like RC!
In a nutshell, these guys protested too much. They don’t need to do that, I thought, the Science is certain isn’t it?
I had no agenda then, I was merely curious and leanded in the direction that they indicated. But the reality is, that now, I find them offensively patronizing and, all to accepting,
Zilla
I have seen posts like yours in many places – posts that have no scientific content but make generalized statements unsupported by evidence that the generalization is a fair or representative generalization. My experience is that posters like you only drive-by here – only put up a generalized criticism without citations, with no follow-ups to respond to replies to their original post. So I was interested and surprised to see that you have returned several times.
My impression is that you are not a scientist – either trained or untrained. This could be why you missed the point of the remark about Hansen, for example. Hansen’s own boss has disowned him (see here – track down the page to “Dr John Theon”). So you see he is not accepted even by all his own peers. But Hansen’s boss only spoke up when he retired. If you were to read WUWT extensively, you would find many instances of scientists posting here who are afraid or unable to speak up if they are sceptical of the current climate science.
Pretty well everyone here who supports WUWT is actually interested in science – again, if you were to study WUWT enough to give a balanced account of it, I hope you would see this for yourself. This might then give you the clue that such people are not in denial since they have come to doubt the orthodox view of climate change on account of their own inspection of the evidence, done in their own time at their own expense because they are interested and just want the truth wherever it happens to land.
However, people are not quite this black-and-white and while there is a sustained interest in the science here, there are continually remarks and attitudes that fall short of that, or that are snide or stupid, or that get easily misunderstood, even by those who generally practice good science. The real sterling quality here is when people get things wrong, are challenged by those who have checked the matter independently, and actually own up to having got things wrong. This allows the science itself to advance. This should be the normal state of science, but it is what has been most missing in the orthodox climate science field since the global warming scare started, and what probably distresses WUWT supporters more than anything else.
Please, do your research, look a bit more carefully at WUWT. Take steps towards practicing scientific method yourself. Scientific Method in its basics is actually extremely simple, it is not something remote that only The Elect can practice. In its most basic form it means looking at the evidence, carefully and thoroughly, for yourself, rather than taking someone else’s word for things. It also means watching yourself carefully enough to ensure that your assessment is not clouded by your own emotions or prejudices. This usually results in the practice of courtesy. This would help you understand those here a bit better. But it does take time.