In climate science, the more things change, the more they stay the same

Scientists are still behaving badly

It has been an extraordinary week. To review, we have news of the resignation of Lennart Bengtsson from The GWPF due to McCarthyism style pressure from climate science community, and according to him, particularly from academics in the USA. Then we have his ERL paper rejection by what appears to be baseless grounds from a reviewer who opined it would be “…less then helpful, actually it is harmful…”. 

That, combined with the dead serious but simultaneously laughable legal threat letter from the University of Queensland to Brandon Shollenberger telling him he may get sued, or worse, become a target of a criminal investigation, because he wants to write a scientific rebuttal to John Cook’s “97% consensus” paper, using Cook’s own ratings data, which Cook refuses share but left out in the open on a collaboration website. All of that speaks to scientists behaving badly.

In looking at the Bengtsson affair, I see the same M.O. we’ve seen before from people we are familiar with, and it is my opinion that we’ll eventually find that Peter Gleick, Michael Mann, Ben Santer, and Kevin Trenberth along with some other familiar names were involved in that “pressure” that Bengtsson speaks of. I hope he’ll eventually publish those emails, but if not, they’ll eventually come out.

When I attended AGU 2013, I was struck by how some scientists claim they have been “bullied” while also playing victims, with advertising even! (see photo)

But, at the same time these same scientists do lots of visible and invisible bullying themselves. Their AGU2013 session on “facing legal attacks” seemed to be nothing more than projection. The bottom line is these bozos have gotten themselves into the FOIA legal quagmire because they won’t share the data and process to allow their science to be replicated and self-policed by the larger body of scientists as it is supposed to be. Instead, they take the role of demi-clods, making pronouncements and saying “trust us”, while simultaneously hoping the FOIA requests and discovery process can be stonewalled away. The Mann-vs- Steyn affair for example, is the classic case. Mann advances his lawsuit, but won’t play by the rules of discovery, probably because he thinks he doesn’t have to comply. Still, Steyn’s lawsuit remains our best chance at finally getting to the bottom of Mann’s hockey-stick fiasco or as he calls it, “The Descent of Mann“.

The events we witnessed this week are indications that academic bureaucracy and the small cadre of “team climate science” hasn’t learned one damn thing since Climategate. For them, it’s business as usual with impunity.

Dr. Matt Ridley wrote an essay at his blog, The Rational Optimist titled “The coerced consensus” which is well worth reading. But the thing that struck me the most was his list of references from the Climategate affair, which reads like the script from the movie “The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight”. It seems clear to me that at least in the field of paleoclimatology, these scientists really don’t have a clue about ethical and professional behavior. Look at this list compiled by Ridley, and you’ll see what I mean.

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Examples of the threatening and blackballing of scientists, reporters and editors in the Climategate emails (note: broken links updated – Anthony)

• Phil Jones writes to University of Hull to try to stop sceptic Sonia Boehmer Christiansen using her Hull affiliation. Graham F Haughton of Hull University says its easier to push greenery there now SB-C has retired.( 1256765544)
• Michael Mann discusses how to destroy a journal that has published sceptic papers.( 1047388489)
• Letter to The Times from climate scientists was drafted with the help of Greenpeace.( 0872202064)
• Mann thinks he will contact BBC’s Richard Black to find out why another BBC journalist was allowed to publish a vaguely sceptical article.( 1255352257)
• Tom Wigley says that von Storch is partly to blame for sceptic papers getting published at Climate Research. Says he encourages the publication of crap science. Says they should tell publisher that the journal is being used for misinformation. Says that whether this is true or not doesn’t matter. Says they need to get editorial board to resign. Says they need to get rid of von Storch too. ( 1051190249)
• Ben Santer says (presumably jokingly!) he’s “tempted, very tempted, to beat the crap” out of sceptic Pat Michaels. ( 1255100876)
• Tom Wigley discusses how to deal with the advent of FoI law in UK. Jones says use IPR argument to hold onto code. Says data is covered by agreements with outsiders and that CRU will be “hiding behind them”.( 1106338806)
• Santer complaining about FoI requests from McIntyre. Says he expects support of Lawrence Livermore Lab management. Jones says that once support staff at CRU realised the kind of people the scientists were dealing with they became very supportive. Says the VC [vice chancellor] knows what is going on (in one case).( 1228330629)
• Rob Wilson concerned about upsetting Mann in a manuscript. Says he needs to word things diplomatically.( 1140554230)
• Briffa says he is sick to death of Mann claiming his reconstruction is tropical because it has a few poorly temp sensitive tropical proxies. Says he should regress these against something else like the “increasing trend of self-opinionated verbiage” he produces. Ed Cook agrees with problems.( 1024334440)
• Santer says he will no longer publish in Royal Met Soc journals if they enforce intermediate data being made available. Jones has complained to head of Royal Met Soc about new editor of Weather [why?data?] and has threatened to resign from RMS.( 1237496573)
• Reaction to McIntyre’s 2005 paper in GRL. Mann has challenged GRL editor-in-chief over the publication. Mann is concerned about the connections of the paper’s editor James Saiers with U Virginia [does he mean Pat Michaels?]. Tom Wigley says that if Saiers is a sceptic they should go through official GRL channels to get him ousted.( 1106322460) [Note to readers – Saiers was subsequently ousted]
• Later on Mann refers to the leak at GRL being plugged.( 1132094873)
• Jones says that UK climate organisations are coordinating themselves to resist FoI. They got advice from the Information Commissioner [!]( 1219239172)
• Mann tells Revkin that McIntyre is not to be trusted.( 1254259645)
• Jones says in a HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL email that he and Kevin will keep some papers out of the next IPCC report.( 1089318616)
• Tom Wigley tells Mann that a figure Schmidt put together to refute Monckton is deceptive and that the match it shows of instrumental to model predictions is a fluke. Says there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model output by authors and IPCC.( 1255553034)
• Grant Foster putting together a critical comment on a sceptic paper. Asks for help for names of possible reviewers. Jones replies with a list of people, telling Foster they know what to say about the paper and the comment without any prompting.( 1249503274)
• Briffa discusses an sceptic article review with Ed Cook. Says that confidentially he needs to put together a case to reject it ( 1054756929)
• Ben Santer, referring to McIntyre says he hopes Mr “I’m not entirely there in the head” will not be at the AGU.( 1233249393)

And here is what a climate scientist, Michael Schlesinger, wrote to Andy Revkin of the New York Times shortly afterwards:

Andy:

Copenhagen prostitutes?

Climate prostitutes?

Shame on you for this gutter reportage. This is the second time this week I have written you thereon, the first about giving space in your blog to the Pielkes.

The vibe that I am getting from here, there and everywhere is that your reportage is very worrisome to most climate scientists. Of course, your blog is your blog. But, I sense that you are about to experience the ‘Big Cutoff’ from those of us who believe we can no longer trust you, me included.

Copenhagen prostitutes?

Unbelievable and unacceptable.

What are you doing and why?

Michael

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/191241/climate-scientist-andy-revkin-we-can-no-longer-trust-you-steven-f-hayward

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Got that? Toe the line as a reporter or we’ll cut you off.

And from this thread on WUWT: Professor Murry Salby who is critical of AGW theory, is being disenfranchised, exiled, from academia in Australia…

…we have this comment from Dr. Jan Perlwitz, of NASA GISS/Columbia University in New York, which earned him a permanent ban from WUWT, due to his threat of violence:

What a bunch of climate mafia thugs. This is not going to end well.

UPDATE: Bishop Hill has a story also well worth reading:

The bigotry of the consensus