Quote of the Week- Climategate 2.0 reaction to Mann's errors: "not honest"

The website Gore Lied wrote:

…he also actually pondered, “how do we avoid sounding religious or arrogant?”, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Dr. Douglas Maraun, a scientist at the Climatic Reasearch Unit at the University of East Anglia wrote to his colleages in an e-mail on October 24, 2007.  Dr. Maraun, who seems to have more of a conscience than many of his colleagues, had some concerns which he wished to address in a “discussion seminar” to be held in the coffee room that afternoon.  Among Dr. Maraun’s points he wished to discuss were:

-How should we deal with flaws inside the climate community? I think, that “our” reaction on the errors found in Mike Mann’s work were not especially honest.

 

Here’s the full email:

 

2007 11:05:20 +0100

from: “Douglas Maraun” <REDACTED>

subject: Informal Seminar TODAY

to: REDACTED

Dear colleagues,

I’d like to invite all of you to todays discussion seminar, 4pm in the

coffee room:

“Climate science and the media”

After the publication of the latest IPCC, the media wrote a vast

number of articles about possible and likely impacts, many of them

greatly exaggerated. The issue seemed to dominate news for a long time

and every company had to consider global warming in its advertisement.

However, much of this sympathy turned out to be either white washing

or political correctness. Furthermore, recently and maybe especially

after the “inconvenient truth” case and the Nobel peace prize going to

Al Gore, many irritated and sceptical comments about so-called

“climatism” appeared also in respectable newspapers.

Against the background of these recent developments, we could discuss

the relation of climate science to the media, the way it is, and the

way it should be.

In my opinion, the question is not so much whether we should at all

deal with the media. Our research is of potential relevance to the

public, so we have to deal with the public. The question is rather how

this should be done. Points I would like to discuss are:

-Is it true that only climate sceptics have political interests and

are potentially biased? If not, how can we deal with this?

-How should we deal with flaws inside the climate community? I think,

that “our” reaction on the errors found in Mike Mann’s work were not

especially honest.

-How should we deal with popular science like the Al Gore movie?

-What is the difference between a “climate sceptic” and a “climate denier”?

-What should we do with/against exaggerations of the media?

-How do we avoid sounding religious or arrogant?

-Should we comment on the work/ideas of climate scepitics?

If you have got any further suggestions or do think, my points are not

interesting, please let me know in advance.

See you later,

Douglas

REDACTEDREDACTEDREDACTEDREDACTEDREDACTEDREDACTED

Dr. Douglas Maraun

Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia

REDACTED3857

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~douglas

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ferd berple
November 24, 2011 7:32 am

Political correctness says it is correct to lie for a good cause.

November 24, 2011 9:01 am

ferd berple says:
November 24, 2011 at 7:32 am
“Political correctness says it is correct to lie for a good cause.”
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Political correctness says it is correct to lie for a MY cause. 🙂

Rex Kramer
November 24, 2011 10:36 am

Mike Mann’s work had errors? You don’t Say! I thought his work was verified by Penn State! I guess they shouldn’t have put the Athletics department in charge of the investigation. What did Mann know about the football staff? Not the first snow job at Penn State.

November 24, 2011 11:38 am

This is another voice of sanity in UEA.
To Dr Paul Dennis and Prof Alan Kendall I can now add Dr Douglas Maraun.
People here may wonder why some of these sane people haven’t spoken louder but I am NOT going to judge without hearing people’s own defences, as far as possible.

November 24, 2011 12:12 pm

Duncan Binks
What David Hoffer suggests, my piece on Yamal treering “temperatures” compared with local thermometer records, is a good introduction to the world of Climate Science.
For what I see as the real science, the story of corruption, and my own journey from “Warmist” to “Skeptic” – read my “Primer” – click my name. It’s my own conclusions, drawing on both peer-reviewed and amateur scientific work. It’s slightly dated but many people find it really useful as a starting-point for proper understanding.
Keep up-to-date here at WUWT. Note that “skeptics” list our opponents, which “warmists” never do. Check both sides.
Thanks again David Hoffer for your support! And thanks too to u.k.(us) for thinking about apps. Keep thinking! I’m sure something (app, wiki, a mirror to John Cook) will emerge between us all eventually! THAT would be a real gift to our grandchildren.

David Ball
November 24, 2011 3:49 pm

Lucy Skywalker says:
November 24, 2011 at 11:38 am
That’s easy. They had families to feed. What choice? The courage required is more than most can imagine.

Noblesse Oblige
November 24, 2011 9:00 pm

Maraun acquits himself well here. I would like to think that I would be raising the same kind of questions if I were at CRU. In fact a general impression garnered from both batches of emails is that there were a number of scientists on the periphery of the team who were uncomfortable with the goings on. But they had little influence as far as we can tell. And they had strong negative incentives to take their misgivings public, being employed and fed by employers on the take.
We are reminded of Edmund Burke’s admonition; “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

noaaprogrammer
November 24, 2011 9:48 pm

What universities offer excellent graduate studies and degrees in the history of science? Although the AGW vs. Skeptics debate is on-going and doesn’t have a long history, now is the time for some grad student to do all the oral intakes on the top proponents on both sides, and defend and publish a foundational thesis upon which others can expand, and we can cite as an impassioned and unbiased reference.

Rational Debate
November 25, 2011 12:32 am

re post: DMarshall says: November 23, 2011 at 9:48 pm

I’m not ridiculous or twisted – I’m blunt. If the ponderings and pandering on WUWT is to be believed, then the posturings of the Team and their supporters are the greatest threat ever to global progress and prosperity and will cost many needless lives because of actions that would not otherwise be taken or because of huge sums of money that would be wasted on pointless remediation.
I’m implying that Assange is a saint, BY COMPARISON – whatever his motives or his character, he’s not a manipulative cherrypicker like this shadow-dwelling, bottom-feeder.
Julian (or his group) have given warning of documents to be released and have done so, unredacted and unvarnished. .Yes, he put lives at risk, and that’s deplorable – but the fact is that the actions of those he exposed also treated human lives as worthless, and have done so for decades.
In the recent past I’ve made a point of calling for the full release of all documentation of those who have skin in the climate game, not just those who work for universities – the argument of public vs private in this context is largely specious. If you’re an influencer, then you should be fully transparent – FOIA is a Machiavellian chickenshit.
And, speaking of twisted – that’s a wonderfully convoluted sentence you’ve constructed of what may or may not probably might be an illegal hack or a possibly legally protected insider document release.

Ah, I see now. So if the person(s) who released the climategate emails happens to be a lowly clerk or IT person who doesn’t work in Jones’ department but was aware of files compiled because of FOIA requests, then that clerk/IT person has ‘skin in the climate game and is ‘an influencer.’ Or if the person was a student or outsider who ran across the FOIA files on a public ftp server – Influencer with skin in the game, no question.
You’re right, clearly such a person really ought to be fully transparent, and risk their livelihood or worse, simply because they publicly released FOIA information Jones et. all illegally withheld, so we can all decide for ourselves just how insignificant the information really is. Just as clearly, if said individual decided that it would be more effective and meaningful if they released part of the material, then waited to see the response of those involved and the response of the media before releasing the rest… Well, clearly that makes said individual a truly perfidious skin influencer scoundrel who ought to be drawn and quartered or at the very least arrested, thrown in a deep dank dark dungeon, and the key thrown away. /massive sarc

November 25, 2011 1:19 am

> Given the incendiary and sometimes quite rude
> emails that came out at the time when ECS and
> Briffa/Osborn were published, I could also go
> into the whole complaint about how the review
> process at Science was “flawed”. I will only say
> that this is a very dangerous game to get into and
> complaints of this kind can easily cut both ways.
> I will submit an appropriately edited and
> condensed version of this reply to Science.
>
> Regards,
>
> Ed
> —
> =================================
> Dr. Edward R. Cook
> Doherty Senior Scholar
> Tree-Ring Laboratory
> Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
> Palisades, New York 10964 USA
That was from April 11th 2002
It can be found here: http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=159
If you read through this email, we find Mann, Cook(Ed, not John), and Hughes talk frankly about different methods used i.e. RCS and ECS, which we can find other websites have covered, which are methods that determine a datapoint using tree ring data.
The exchange of words are heated and we can assume Mann bullied his way through the peer review process and took credit for this flawed science and refused to look other sources, well after he and his co-author Hughes got the hockeystick published.
Even Malcolm Hughes, co-author of the hockeystick is quoted as saying,”The RCS method therefore requires greater chronology depth (i.e. greater sample replication) to provide the same level of confidence in its representation of the hypothetical “true” chronology.” ECS mention this issue.”
In another e-mail the next day, which can be found here:
Mann is quoted as saying,”Given the readily acknowledged level of uncertainty in both estimates, combined with the “apples and oranges” nature of the comparison between the two (which I have sought to clarify in my letter to Science, and in my messages to you all, and the comparison plot I provided), I believe it is either sloppy or disingenuous reasoning to argue that this is the case. The fact that this sloppiness also readily serves the interests of the skeptics is quite unfortunate, but it is indeed beside the point!”
What kind of freaking double speak is this Mann is doing? He is saying that trying to compare the two is like comparing apple and oranges and then says it is sloppy to argue the differences, because it serves up the interest of the skeptic.
Just so we are all on the same page. the estimates and comparisons is between the Mann et al 1999 and the Esper et al. 2002 papers.
While the MBH99 shows a flat line for the last 1000 years and a sharp incline for the last 100, the Esper paper or as some refer to it as the ECS, shows a higher temperature for the MWP and a lower temperature anomaly for the LIA. The two datasets have been graphed and spaghetti-ed together numerous times. I would go look at the graph to get a idea what the difference is.
But as we read through these e-mails, we find Mann bulldozing his friend Ed Cook over, calls the Esper paper perilous, though perilous could describe the MBH99 as Ed comments, and then Mann comments on sins of omissions regarding MBH99.
“> Malcolm says. I think there are some real sins of omission with
> regard to the use of RCS too, and it would be an oversight on our
> part now to comment on these.
>
> Finally, with regard to the scaling issues, let me simply
> attach a plot which speaks more loudly than several
> pages possibly could The plot takes Epser et al (not
> smoothed, but the annual values) and scales it against the
> full Northern Hemisphere instrumental record
> annual mean record, and compares against the entire 20th
> century instrumental record, as well as with
> MBH99 and its uncertainties.”
The hockeystick, which the world over used as a measuring stick of success for the Global Warming movement is said in Mann’s on words as being,’uncertain’ and yet he calls into question the Esper paper as perilous, because it shows a higher temp for the MWP and a lower temperature for the LIA, while the MBH99 shows a flat line.
Its not like we did not know all of this, but to see in Mann’s own words belittle another paper by his colleagues and try to bulldoze them into submission and then call his own paper as uncertain is quite telling.
Happy Thanksgiving.

November 25, 2011 1:22 am

Sorry, the second email was from the next day Friday April 12th, 2002, and just enlarged the other email from the day before.
It can be found here:
http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=4932

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