People send me stuff.
Just last week we heard that Dr. Robert Carter had been blackballed at his own university where he served as department chair, and now we have this from Dr. Murray Salby, sent via email.
Between John Cook, Stephan Lewandowsky, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, plus Mike Marriot and his idiotic ideas, I’m beginning to think Australia is ground zero for AGW crackpottery.
This email’s accusations (if true I have independent confirmation now, title changed to reflect this – Anthony) is quite something, it illustrates the disturbing lengths a university will go to suppress ideas they don’t agree with. So much for academic freedom at Macquarie University.
From: [redacted]
Sent: Monday, July 08, 2013 2:25 PM
To: [redacted]
Subject: From Murry Salby
Thanks for your interest in the research presented during my recent lecture tour in Europe.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/06/another-nail-in-the-climate-change-coffin.php
Remarks from several make it clear that Macquarie University
is comfortable with openly disclosing the state of affairs,
if not distorting them to its convenience. So be it.
Macquarie’s liberal disclosure makes continued reticence unfeasible.
In response to queries is the following, a matter of record:
1. In 2008, I was recruited from the US by “Macquarie University”,
with appointment as Professor, under a national employment contract with
regulatory oversight, and with written agreement that Macquarie would provide
specified resources to enable me to rebuild my research program in Australia.
Included was technical support to convert several hundred thousand lines of computer code,
comprising numerical models and analyses (the tools of my research),
to enable those computer programs to operate in Australia.
2. With those contractual arrangements, I relocated to Australia.
Upon attempting to rebuild my research program, Macquarie advised that
the resources it had agreed to provide were unavailable. I was given an excuse for why.
Half a year later, I was given another excuse. Then another.
Requests to release the committed resources were ignored.
3. Three years passed before Macquarie produced even the first major component
of the resources it had agreed to provide. After five years of cat-and-mouse,
Macquarie has continued to withhold the resources that it had committed.
As a result, my computer models and analyses remain inoperative.
4. A bright student from Russia came to Macquarie to work with me.
Macquarie required her to abandon her PhD scholarship in Russia.
Her PhD research, approved by Macquarie, relied upon the same computer
models and analyses, which Macquarie agreed to have converted but did not.
5. To remedy the situation, I petitioned Macquarie through several avenues provided
in my contract. Like other contractual provisions, those requests were ignored.
The provisions then required the discrepancy to be forwarded to the Australian employment tribunal,
the government body with regulatory oversight.
The tribunal then informed me that Macquarie had not even registered my contract.
Regulatory oversight, a statutory protection that Macquarie advised would govern
my appointment, was thereby circumvented. Macquarie’s failure to register
rendered my contract under the national employment system null and void.
6. During the protracted delay of resources, I eventually undertook the production
of a new book – all I could do without the committed resources to rebuild my research program.
The endeavor compelled me to gain a better understanding of greenhouse gases
and how they evolve. Preliminary findings from this study are familiar to many.
http://www.thesydneyinstitute.com.au/speaker/murry-salby/ Refer to the vodcast of July 24, 2012.
Insight from this research contradicts many of the reckless claims surrounding greenhouse gases.
More than a few originate from staff at Macquarie, which benefits from such claims.
7. The preliminary findings seeded a comprehensive study of greenhouse gases.
Despite adverse circumstances, the wider study was recently completed. It indicates:
(i) Modern changes of atmospheric CO2 and methane are (contrary to popular belief)
not unprecedented.
(ii) The same physical law that governs ancient changes of atmospheric CO2 and methane
also governs modern changes.
These new findings are entirely consistent with the preliminary findings,
which evaluated the increase of 20th century CO2 from changes in native emission.
8. Under the resources Macquarie had agreed to provide, arrangements were made
to present this new research at a scientific conference and in a lecture series at
research centers in Europe.
9. Forms for research travel that were lodged with Macquarie included a description
of the findings. Presentation of our research was then blocked by Macquarie.
The obstruction was imposed after arrangements had been made at several venues
(arranged then to conform to other restrictions imposed by Macquarie).
Macquarie’s intervention would have silenced the release of our research.
10. Following the obstruction of research communication, as well as my earlier efforts
to obtain compliance with my contract, Macquarie modified my professional duties.
My role was then reduced to that of a student teaching assistant: Marking student papers
for other staff – junior staff.
I objected, pursuant to my appointment and provisions of my contract.
11. In February 2013, Macquarie then accused me of “misconduct”,
cancelling my salary. It blocked access to my office, computer resources,
even to personal equipment I had transferred from the US.
My Russian student was prohibited from speaking with me.
She was isolated – left without competent supervision
and the resources necessary to complete her PhD investigation,
research that Macquarie approved when it lured her from Russia.
12. Obligations to present our new research on greenhouse gases (previously arranged),
had to be fulfilled at personal expense.
13. In April, The Australian (the national newspaper), published an article which
grounded reckless claims by the so-called Australian Climate Commission:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/last-summer-was-not-actually-angrier-than-other-summers/story-e6frgd0x-1226611988057 (Open access via Google News)
To promote the Climate Commission’s newest report is the latest sobering claim:
“one in two chance that by 2100 there’ll be no human beings left on this planet”
Two of the six-member Australian Climate Commission are Macquarie staff.
Included is its Chief Commissioner.
14. While I was in Europe presenting our new research on greenhouse gases,
Macquarie undertook its misconduct proceedings – with me in absentia.
Macquarie was well informed of the circumstances. It was more than informed.
15. Upon arriving at Paris airport for my return to Australia, I was advised that
my return ticket (among the resources Macquarie agreed to provide) had been cancelled.
The latest chapter in a pattern, this action left me stranded in Europe,
with no arrangements for lodging or return travel.
The ticket that had been cancelled was non-refundable.
16. The action ensured my absence during Macquarie’s misconduct proceedings.
17. When I eventually returned to Australia, I lodged a complaint with the
Australian employment tribunal, under statutes that prohibit retaliatory conduct.
18. In May 2013, while the matter was pending before the employment tribunal,
Macquarie terminated my appointment.
19. Like the Australian Climate Commission, Macquarie is a publically-funded enterprise.
It holds a responsibility to act in the interests of the public.
20. The recent events come with curious timing, disrupting publication of our research
on greenhouse gases. With correspondence, files, and computer equipment confiscated,
that research will now have to be pursued by Macquarie University’s “Climate Experts”.
http://www.science.mq.edu.au/news_and_events/news/climate_change_commision
Murry Salby
Salby’s PhD student seems to be this lady:
http://envirogeog.mq.edu.au/about/students/person.htm?id=etitova
Her email address has also been closed down
“Bruce says:
July 9, 2013 at 5:30 pm
He is a Paleontologist who did his PhD thesis work on prehistoric kangaroos and why the largest Australian mega fauna disappeared about the same time that Aboriginal people first arrived in Australia.”
His first degree was a BA in English.
“The government appointed another academic, this time an economist named Professor Ross Garnaut, to .design a carbon tax for his fellow Australians. Professor Garnaut was held up as our great environmental saviour. Nobody has ever mentioned that he was previously CEO of the largest, most polluting gold mine in Papua New Guinea.”
Previously, in about 1972, he worked with the Australian and PNG governments to enable the selling of mining rights to international mining companies, in particular BHP-Billiton. To be fair to Garnaut, he did actually manage the mess BHP caused, but still, their environmental record isn’t that good. He was, until recently, the chair of the PNG Sustainable Development Program. He’s just another Gore in sheeps clothing.
If entirely true this sordid tale makes me feel physically ill.
Darn, Anthony, I wanted to find out how Jan P Perlwitz justifies believing in CAGW or climate change, or whatever the heck it’s called this week, when he’s so adamant that he doesn’t take anything at face value and without evidence…
…Then again, we really weren’t going to get a clear answer out of him anyway. Good call, then.
Cheers! 🙂
REPLY: you can engage him at his blog here: http://climateconomysociety.blogspot.com/
Janice Moore says:
July 9, 2013 at 9:22 pm
@ur momisugly M. Courtney
— Please tell your dad (Richard Courtney is your father, I understand?), that this WUWT blogger misses him.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Seconded.
I gave Mr. Courtney a two week time out for distributing my email address without my permission related to a comment here he was defending. As a result my inbox was filled with junk from the “slayers”.
I get a lot of mail every day, I don’t need more, especially lectures telling me the greenhouse effect is “bogus”.
It has been his choice to stay away past the time I specified.
This is absolutely shocking.
I have several of Murry Salby’s videos up on my U-tube account; he is a leader in climate science and in the understanding of CO2.
I will be posting another video in response;
“SCANDAL as Macquarie University
(Sydney, Australia)
attacks Real Climate Science:
Uni Rescinds Contract, cancels air ticket
of “Denier” Climate Scientist,
Dr. Murry Salby – while he is
overseas; stranding him in Europe!”
The Uni heads need to be fired for such anti-scientific behavior.
Its a dark day, but I am sure Murry will go on to bigger and better things.
His book on the “Physics of the atmosphere and climate” is a masterful work in the field.
Robert Holmes
As I have repeatedly stated here Australian Higher Sxcience Education has become very very very third world rate under the Labour Government. Moves initiated by Hawkins and Keating in the 80’s have basically destroyed all higher science achievement. They haven’t produced ANY major Scientific endeavour since ie Nobel prizes/inventions etc etc in SCIENCE. Do not send your kids to an Australian University.
Hi Janice Moore,
Thank you so much for your kind post. You made my point more succinctly than I did.
Just read the post about Dr. Robert Carter being blackballed at his own university. Outrages!
People need to wake up. We are seeing this more and more across the whole spectrum of the Sciences and it is very frightening. This really is about academic freedom, even if it’s about subjects you find objectionable. I don’t agree with Edward Witten about string theory or Andrei Linde about multiverses but I would never call for them to be fired for their belief in these theories. And that what it is, a belief. That would be sheer madness. Instead, let the best ideas win, not be bullied into submission by lobbying groups and megalomaniacs.
That’s why I enjoy reading post at WUWT. People here are not afraid to go against the consensus looking for the truth.
From reading the J Perlitz fellow comments above its about time that an “eye for an eye” starts to permeate the skeptical community. That Guy Perlitz does not deserve an hearing here.. well done. Its an extreme case rarely done. Hope other AGW believers can continue to comment here though….
Dear Mr. Watts,
My comment about pitchforks and torches was of course, only a joke. In my minds eye I imagined the peasants in a Gary Larson “Far Side” cartoon going after the monster. I may have used a bad choice of words (it did seem an obvious joke to me) but I still think that when the general public wakes up to how badly and expensively they have been bamboozled by all the AGW nonsense it will not be pretty for the scientists and politicians who promoted this idea and gained power and fortunes based on a lie.
Eliza says “They haven’t produced ANY major Scientific endeavour since ie Nobel prizes/inventions etc etc in SCIENCE. ”
You mean apart from Brian Schmidt (2011) , Elizabeth Blackburn (2009) , Barry Marshall and Robin Warren (2005), Peter Doherty (1996) ……
Mr. Watts, since when is the announcement of armed self-defense, in the case that motivated anti-science fanatics among your devote follower herd becomes violent against me and my colleagues is a threat? Isn’t the right to armed self-defense one of the basic principles of your country? You are growing a quasi-religious cult here. I consider it very possible that some “skeptic” fanatics are going to use violence against people and institutions, equally motivated, for instance, as religious fanatics are attacking abortion clinics. It has not been the first time that someone expressed his wish of violence against me or my colleagues on your blog. One example in the past, for instance, was someone named Robert E. Phelan. But be happy, you have your pretext now to make the ban finally offcial, after you and your intellectually challenged moderator friends hadn’t really found any good one before, so that you had to retract your previous one, combined with your pathetic attempt to blame me for it. So, bye, bye, then. I have played enough with you and the other science haters on your junkscience blog.
Note: above Mr. Perlwitz makes an exit statement at 315AM: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/08/professor-critical-of-agw-theory-being-disenfranchised-exiled-from-academia-in-australia/#comment-1360237
I decided to allow it, because he’s blaming our deceased moderator Robert Phelan who cannot defend himself while at the same time suggesting all manner of derogatory labels for skeptics.
Ask yourselves: “is this the behavior of a professional scientist”?
I am very saddened the Salby situation. I support efforts for him to achieve better circumstances.
A SIDE NOTE: Sayonara Perlwitz-san, I won’t be visiting your site. I am sure there will be fading shades of memories of your past here @ur momisugly WUWT . . . but surely CSRRT’s Mandia will assign someone to replace your passioned fanatical defense of sacred CAGW gospel here @ur momisugly WUWT. So no loss with your banning can be presumed.
John
Allencic I hope you see the irony that in a thread denouncing the supposed (we as yet only have one side of the story) mistreatment of Murry Salby because of his opinions you suggest “tarring and feathering”, however metaphorically, people who dissent with your opinion.
Magic Turtle says:
July 9, 2013 at 3:13 pm
At the current global mean ocean temperature of under 15°C the partitioning ratio is greater than 50:1
and
Henry’s law deems that less than 2% of the approx. 4ppmv of CO2 that Perlwitz says is emitted annually by global industrial civilization will stay permanently in the atmosphere
A few assumptions which are not completely correct…
The 50:1 is correct in quantity, but Henry’s Law is about (partial) pressure difference of CO2 between air and seawater at the surface, no matter how much CO2 is in the oceans.
If you shake a 0.5 or 1.0 or 1.5 liter bottle of Coke (closed of course), you will measure the same pressure for the same temperature for the same batch fill.
Any increase in temperature of the surface will increase the outgassing from and decrease the uptake by the oceans. That is based on the increase of pCO2 of the oceans of ~16 microatm for an increase of 1°C in temperature per Henry’s Law. An increase of 16 ppmv in the atmosphere will fully compensate for the 1°C increase in temperature, effectively restoring the previous fluxes of CO2 in/out the atmosphere of before the increase in temperature. The total amounts of CO2 in the (deep) oceans don’t play any role in this…
There is a ~0.8°C increase in temperature since the LIA. Good for ~12 ppmv increase in CO2 in the atosphere. The observed one is over 100 ppmv…
Prof Salby would appear to have been horribly wronged, and it may be impossible for him to get his career back on track. The position of his PhD student Evgenia Titova is possibly even more serious since she lacks Prof Salby’s academic standing which may provide him with some resources for a fightback. I hope the univeristy can be forced to recompense these two researchers but don’t hold out much hope: Dr Mann is still supported by Penn State after all, and CRU at Univ of Norwich protects Phil Jones et al.
There does seem to be a worldwide move in academia to shut down debate, which is appalling and depressing – blacklisting of Israeli academics is another example. What else should a university be for, but pure and unbiased research and debate? They were not founded to shore up the prevailing political whims of the moment. But this skewing of academia towards the liberal agenda has been going on for a very long time now, and will be almost impossible to reverse.
“There is a ~0.8°C increase in temperature since the LIA. Good for ~12 ppmv increase in CO2 in the atosphere. The observed one is over 100 ppmv…”
Ferdinand, the change in atmospheric CO2 is correlated with global temperature, not change in temperature. So constant temperature is associated with the CO2 change.
I hypothesise that it’s the seasonal temperature cycle that’s pumping CO2 out of the oceans. CO2 doesn’t necessarily return to its starting point after one seasonal cycle is over – the exchange coefficients may be different for outgasing and uptaking seasons. The annual change is temperature dependent and at sufficiently low temperatures it’s negative.
“The 50:1 is correct in quantity, but Henry’s Law is about (partial) pressure difference of CO2 between air and seawater at the surface, no matter how much CO2 is in the oceans.”
It does matter Ferdinand. You think it would be the same if the ratio was 1:1?
Edim says:
July 10, 2013 at 5:11 am
Ferdinand, the change in atmospheric CO2 is correlated with global temperature
That is the disagreement I have with Salby (and Bart): a constant temperature increase against a baseline initially increases the output of the oceans and decreases the uptake. But as the CO2 levels in the atmosphere increase, the opposite happens. CO2 releases from and uptake into the oceans are in ratio with the pressure difference between ocean pCO2 and atmospheric pCO2 (~ppmv).
Thus any sustained temperature increase is compensated by an increase of CO2 at 16 ppmv/°C per Henry’s Law, mostly in a few years time.
The huge CO2 movements over the seasons are huge temperature change related movements over the seasons. Without a temperature change over the full seasonal cycle, there is no temperature related change in CO2 release/uptake…
Edim says:
July 10, 2013 at 5:17 am
It does matter Ferdinand. You think it would be the same if the ratio was 1:1?
It would be nearly the same (the loss of CO2 from the oceans to increase the CO2 pressure of the atmosphere gives some difference). Once the pressure (~ppmv) in the atmosphere equals the average pCO2 at the ocean’s surface, no net exchange between the oceans and the atmosphere is happening. That means that the (equatorial and seasonal) inflows and (polar and seasonal) outflows of CO2 are equal.
The current pCO2 difference between atmosphere and oceans is ~7 microatm, thus there is a net uptake by the oceans:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/exchange.shtml
“Without a temperature change over the full seasonal cycle, there is no temperature related change in CO2 release/uptake…”
You don’t know that. If the exchange coefficients are different for the seasonal release and uptake, then there could easily be some net annual change in CO2, even at constant (annually averaged) temperatures. Seasonal changes are are huge and fast. Slight differences in the release/uptake ‘efficiencies’ could cause a net annual change.
“the loss of CO2 from the oceans to increase the CO2 pressure of the atmosphere gives some difference”
Yes, that’s the difference.
Murry Salby’s Hamburg address last April is well worth the hour’s listening and watching. I can’t judge whether or where he is correct or not, but if he is largely correct, the import is massive. His analysis of there being an integral relationship between temperature and carbon dioxide, where it is not the temperature itself but the rate of change in the temperature that is the determining factor, would appear to me to contradict the fundamental assumptions in climate models about climate sensitivity. (This is quite apart from the fairly well accepted fact that carbon dioxide changes follow temperature changes.) This might explain why the climate models have such a poor record of prediction (see Fig 1.4 of AR5, for a quick picture). Further, as I understand it, a major implication of his analysis is that our carbon dioxide emissions are not at all significant in the global energy budget.
As an Aussie living in Canberra, I am well aware of the “group think” about CAGW that prevails among many of the well-educated. I rub shoulders also with many who are not tertiary trained, the man and woman in the street. Many of them are quite sceptical about the CAGW claims and dire forecasts.
For the most part, the media here parrots the official line. Our ABC, our government-sponsored broadcaster, is one of the worst offenders. Yes, I heard the report on the ABC’s lunchtime news, that there was a 50% chance there’s be no human life remaining on the planet by 2100, unless we substantially limit our carbon dioxide emissions, etc. (No, I didn’t choke on my sandwich, fearing for my great-grandchildren!) The report came across as emanating from our Climate Commission. This is what people hear much of the time, this persistent drip of misinformation. My confidence in two friends with whom I’ve had many a solid discussion over some years (and over some good Aussie reds, I must say), has been lessened because they will not even look at some of the key data and countervailing arguments. In my view they have abrogated to others their right to investigate and make up their own minds. Others have written above of similar personal disappointments.
The climate debate is more than a very important issue about the planet and human activity. It has become an issue about intellectual integrity and proper scientific investigation, analysis, discussion and discourse. Determining that the Earth revolved about the Sun was a very important issue, the recognition of which didn’t have much immediate impact on how people lived – but it became pretty handy to understand a little bit later. At the time the really big issue was intellectual integrity and open discussion and debate. That was the elephant in the room.
It is the denial of that elephant that tramples over people like Murry Salby, that is so petty as to withdraw Bob Carter’s honorary status at his own University that he has served so well, and that is so petty as to cancel a non-refundable return air ticket from overseas for Murry Salby.
We will need a cleansing; by that I do not mean a wholesale purging. Perhaps we need in due course a Desmond Tutu to chair a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Science. But certainly, those scientists and other key players who have been recklessly making wild predictions, or mindlessly parroting what they have been told, should be put out to pasture. I am sure there are a lot of genuine scientists who cannot speak up, but they will. Give it time. For I know the reputation of science will recover. But we can’t say in 20 years time about all this, that it didn’t matter, or that it didn’t happen.
Macquarie University have issued a statement:
http://www.mq.edu.au/newsroom/2013/07/10/statement-regarding-the-termination-of-professor-murry-salby/