Wow, just wow. I told Dr. Tom Peterson in an email this summer that their highly questionable paper that adjusted SST’s of the past to erase the “pause” was going to become “their waterloo”, and Peterson’s response was to give the email to wackadoodle climate blogger Miriam O’Brien (aka Sou Bundanga) so she could tout it with the usual invective spin that she loves to do. How “professional” of Peterson, who made the issue political payback with that action.
Another reminder of Peterson’s “professionalism” is this political cartoon he made portraying climate scientists holding different published opinions as “nutters”, while working on the taxpayer’s dime, courtesy of the Climategate emails in 2009:
Now, it looks like Karl and Peterson think they are above the law and forget who they actually work for. They’ve really stepped in it now.
Via The Hill:
Agency won’t give GOP internal docs on climate research
The federal government’s chief climate research agency is refusing to give House Republicans the detailed information they want on a controversial study on climate change.
Citing confidentiality concerns and the integrity of the scientific process, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said it won’t give Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) the research documents he subpoenaed.
At the center of the controversy is a study that concluded there has not been a 15-year “pause” in global warming. Some NOAA scientists contributed to the report. Skeptics of climate change, including Smith, have cited the pause to insist that increased greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from burning fossil fuels, are not heating up the globe.
Smith, the chairman of the House Science Committee, vehemently disagreed with the study’s findings. He issued a subpoena for communications among the scientists and some data, leading to charges from Democrats that he was trying to intimidate the researchers.
Late Tuesday, NOAA provided Smith with some more information about its methods and data but refused to give Smith everything he wanted.
NOAA spokeswoman Ciaran Clayton said the internal communications are confidential and not related to what Smith is trying to find out.
“We have provided data, all of which is publicly available online, supporting scientific research, and multiple in-person briefings,” she said.
“We stand behind our scientists who conduct their work in an objective manner. It is the end product of exchanges between scientists — the detailed publication of scientific work and the data that underpins the authors’ findings — that are key to understanding the conclusions reached.”
Clayton also refuted Smith’s implication that the study was political.
“There is no truth to the claim that the study was politically motivated or conducted to advance an agenda,” she said. “The published findings are the result of scientists simply doing their job, ensuring the best possible representation of historical global temperature trends is available to inform decisionmakers, including the U.S. Congress.”
Smith defended his investigation, saying NOAA’s work is clearly political.
“It was inconvenient for this administration that climate data has clearly showed no warming for the past two decades,” he said in a statement. “The American people have every right to be suspicious when NOAA alters data to get the politically correct results they want and then refuses to reveal how those decisions were made.”
Smith also said NOAA’s assertion of confidentiality is incorrect.
“The agency has yet to identify any legal basis for withholding these documents,” he said, adding that his panel would use “all tools at its disposal” to continue investigating. Smith has been communicating with NOAA about the research since it was published in the summer, and their exchanges have grown increasingly hostile. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (Texas), the committee’s ranking Democrat, has sharply criticized Smith’s requests.”
h/t to WUWT reader “catcracking”
The purpose of the Karl et al. paper was to erase the pause, clearly a political move, and one that is already backfiring in the scientific arena as noted climatologist Gerald Meehl has made some pushback against their politically based science.
Note: about ten minutes after publication, this story was edited to fix some text formatting errors.
Tom T, if what Peterson did were actually illegal, you can be sure there’d have been a fuss about exactly that. There wasn’t because you’re wrong. What you say isn’t even close to accurate.
It’s kind of entertaining. You’re responding to a criticism of our host accusing people of committing fraud by saying the accused responded to the accusation by breaking the law. I don’t know why people feel the need to double down on these ridiculous accusations.
Refusing to answer a lawful subpoena is illegal.
As for “doubling down”, there is no need to double down on “scary-wary CAGW”. It’s not happening. The Holocene Optimum was a long time ago. We have been cooling ever since.
What Gleick did was also illegal. Is Gleick in prison? No. We live an era where law only applies to your enemies.
The Privacy Act is very simple. Government employees cannot pass on government records about private citizens to 3rd parties. This includes all communications. Its not hard to understand. Peterson might not have known of the law but he sure as hell broke it in my opinion.
Wonder if any insiders at NOAA are so sick of the corrupt politicising that they may start leaking some of the communications. After all, what have they got to hide if it is just science?
Refusing to release the detailed information from a public agency when it has already been suggested that the ‘study’ is politically biased ‘science’ just confirms the accusation.
Maybe its time to start leaning on the weaker perps at NOAA in order to get at the bigger fish. It’s surprising how the threat of fines and prison can alter any false idea of loyalty from co-workers.
Probably about now The Thoms are probably wishing there is an unlawful leak via a hack or insider.
Remember Climategate… Their only answer was, words to the effect of, “Well, that evidence was illegally obtained, and therefore cannot be used against us in a court of law.” Lucky for them, actually.
No, I’d like to see the emails brought out legally. I’d like to see charges this time.
Squirming in The Thoms chair cannot be pleasant. A leak would mean no jail time for them. They apparently would rather face contempt jail time vs Prison jail time. Interesting.
Andy: FWIW, my first comment would be: For a decade, climate scientists thought there had been a hiatus in warming since the late 1990s (though it took until the late 2000s before they acknowledged it). Roughly a hundred papers were written trying to explain the hiatus. Now the raw temperature data has been reprocessed and some believe there was no hiatus.
1).Clearly, climate scientists can’t say with any certainty whether it has warmed or not in the past few decades. Many homogeneous sources show a hiatus. All show less warming than expected from models.
2). The processing of raw temperature data should not be the responsibility of politically active climate scientists. Congress needs access to a range of responsible answers, not an artificial consensus.
The Wolowitz of climate science, Tom Karl.
In 1974 and 2008 Congress issued subpoenas against the executive branch. When the Department of Justice refused to enforce the subpoenas, Congress filed proceedings in Federal Court, and in both cases, the Judge ruled in favor of Congress. See Senate Select Comm. on Presidential Campaign Activities
v. Nixon, 498 F.2d 725 (D.C. Cir. 1974)., and Comm. on the Judiciary v. Miers, 558 F. Supp. 2d 53, 57–58 (D.D.C. 2008).
No reason why they should not. Even were the Congress not amply staffed with attorneys in support, the preponderance of those occupying elective office in the federal legislature are lawyers themselves.
Some of them – most notably Trey Gowdy, representing South Carolina’s 4th District – have experience as prosecutors. The precedents and procedures required to bring Karl and Peterson to book would come as second nature to such men as these.
Why the caricature with bubbles? Makes it look look cartoonish.
You might want to talk to Peterson about that. His 2007 Email with it is at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/07/the-muir-cru-apologia-is-out/
Reblogged this on ScottishSceptic and commented:
#NOAAgate is worth reblogging
Anthony
I guess the success of WUWT can be seen in the arrival of shameless self promoting trolls.
I do not suppose this person asked if he might use your platform, to sell his product.
Now I may be just plain misunderstanding and cynical. but the postings by This James McGinn, are off topic, self aggrandizing and book promotion.
Throw in some gratuitous slander toward our host and meteorologists in general, why thank you James we have a winner.
I will not bother checking out your scribblings, I get the general quality of tone and probable content from your posts above.
Must be tough being the only intelligent person on your planet.
John Robertson October 31, 2015 at 12:26 pm
“Must be tough being the only intelligent person on your planet.”
You captured my emotions precisely. I feel as though I’m surrounded by dolts. Honestly.
Reality is complex. Deal with it.
Let’s see … I send+receive about 1000 emails per month. Smith wants all email from, what, 7 scientists for the past 7 years. 84,000 messages per person. Ballpark 500,000 messages. The people involved in this paper probably send + receive substantially more mail than I do. Still, leave the estimate at a rough half million.
Each message is how long? Well, working copies of papers are probably at least a dozen pages, and the many power points they’ve undoubtedly given are a few dozen, if fewer words/slide. But use a really low estimate of 1 page text per message.
So the locals here believe that Smith and committee (and staffers) will read 500,000 pages of material? And do so in pure objectivity, and pure pursuit of the best quality science? Tooth fairy as well?
So where do you draw the line?
Just curious. There’s all this local enthusiasm for the enquiry, yet it could only be a matter of cherry picking. Almost as if truth weren’t really what the locals were interested in.
And you receive these on a federal government system?
They knew the rules and I am quite sure they have enjoyed enforcing these same rules upon their underlings.
How many emails were involved in ClimateGate? It doesn’t matter how many. Government employees are obligated to provide ALL documents when requested. They don’t own them.
Each day I turn on my work pc I am informed that all correspondence, data et al is owned by my employer. Nothing is private.
Somehow these primadonna “climate” scientists think they are immune from public scrutiny. They work for we the taxpayers. Period.
And be sure, the Obama Administration is advising these guys.