Sunday, November 22, 2009

Is the Climate Change Consensus Fracturing?

Over the last few days I have been trying to make sense of the so-called CRU emails. These are a series of emails which have been published following the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit. They purport to show how climate change scientists have deliberately skewed the scientific evidence to their side of the argument and how they are trying to silence scientists who are sceptics about man-made global warming.

Devil's Kitchen has provided the most comprehensive coverage of this subject and you can see a comprehensive list of his postings on the subject HERE. Some of the subject matter is incredibly confusing, but let's just look at a few examples from the data from the UEA climate scientists. Over to James Delingpole...
Perhaps the most damaging revelations – the scientific equivalent of the Telegraph’s MPs’ expenses scandal – are those concerning the way Warmist scientists may variously have manipulated or suppressed evidence in order to support their cause.

Here are a few tasters. (So far, we can only refer to them as alleged emails because – though Hadley CRU’s director Phil Jones has confirmed the break-in to Ian Wishart at the Briefing Room – he has yet to fess up to any specific contents.) But if genuine, they suggest dubious practices such as:

Manipulation of evidence:

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.

Private doubts about whether the world really is heating up:

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

Suppression of evidence:

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?

Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.

Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.

Fantasies of violence against prominent Climate Sceptic scientists:

Next
time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat
the crap out of him. Very tempted.

Attempts to disguise the inconvenient truth of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP):

……Phil and I have recently submitted a paper using about a dozen NH records that fit this category, and many of which are available nearly 2K back–I think that trying to adopt a timeframe of 2K, rather than the usual 1K, addresses a good earlier point that Peck made w/ regard to the memo, that it would be nice to try to “contain” the putative “MWP”, even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back….

And, perhaps most reprehensibly, a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority.

“This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the “peer-reviewed literature”. Obviously, they found a solution to that–take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board…What do others think?”

“I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor.”“It results from this journal having a number of editors. The responsible one for this is a well-known skeptic in NZ. He has let a few papers through by Michaels and Gray in the past. I’ve had words with Hans von Storch about this, but got nowhere. Another thing to discuss in Nice !”

Is this all conclusive evidence of a conspiracy by climate change scientists to silence some of their colleagues and suppress evidence which is inconvenient to their case? Maybe, or maybe not. But what it does show is that there are serious questions to be answered by the scientific community. Devil's Kitchen concludes...

What these emails show is that members of The Club have presented, as fact, data which privately they have acknowledged to be, at best, flawed.

Further, many members of The Club are editors of the reports submitted to the IPCC, and the emails show that they have deliberately cherry-picked those that agree with their position—and conspired to discredit or reject those that do not agree with their political position.

The Club has also conspired to suborne journals, and to oust editors of other journals who are perceived as being unsympathetic to their cause. And they have been successful.

The emails show that, whilst claiming that sceptics' papers are not peer-reviewed, The Club have actively and deliberately used blackmail and smears to prevent such peer-review or, when review is unavoidable, to have conspired to skew the review process to discredit their opponents.

All of these actions render the scientific reports produced by the IPCC extremely suspect. At best.

And they most certainly destroy the concept of the "scientific consensus".

None of these emails disprove anthropogenic climate change: but they do shatter the idea that there is no dissent and, crucially, they absolutely annihilate the idea that scientists are impartial and uncorrupt.

And these emails most certainly explode the proposition that we should reorder the world economy because of an impending climate disaster.

I wonder when this debate will actually enter the mainstream media. I admit that I have been very slow to follow this up. But perhaps not as slow as some others.

UPDATE: Bishop Hill has more HERE.

63 comments:

Victor, NW Kent said...

True science needs no politicking.

The evidence seems to suggest that the science of AGW is on a par with tea-leaf reading and homeopathy.

Not in 3 years has anyone from the "scientific consensus" been able to tell me what caused the end of the last Ice Age - certainly not greenhouse gasses. Could it have been renewed and increased Sun activity?

AD627 said...

Glad you have posted.

There is enough in the emails to cast doubt on the ethics of those involved and of the validity of the papers they have produced.

We should not countenance spending hundreds of billions of taxpayers' money on a theory propounded by those who conduct their science on the basis that "the ends justify the means".

Stepney said...

It'll be quietly left to die Iain.

The MSM are a lazy bunch at heart and they've pinned their colours to the mast on this (hook, line and sinker).

To actively investigate (as they used to), would mean holding their hands up and admitting they've gone with the zeitgeist, suppressed reports from the scientists with alternative views and wallowed in the ease of believing what they've been told.

The BBC reported the hack but nothing of importance.

Sad but I'm afraid this shitstorm will not be televised.

Stepney said...

It takes 1000 scientists to prove a theory and only 1 to disprove it.

The telling comment was "We must get rid of the Mediaeval Warm Period".

It doesn't fit you see, they can't explain it using their models and so Earth History must be re-written so the politicians and their NGO darlings can have their nice meetings.

Science is not, and can never be, indisputable.

Dick Puddlecote said...

"I wonder when this debate will actually enter the mainstream media."

Hahahahahahahaha.

The MSM have been publishing ridiculous faux science without even a cursory glance for about a decade or more. The AGW nonsense is just following the same path as similarly unsound and manipulated healthist drivel.

It works for all of them and for the MSM to report the other side would point out their own journalistic failings.

It's why the blogosphere is so despised by the MSM, for the simple reason that bloggers question, whereas the MSM doesn't.

Well done Bishop Hill, DK, and others who have been banging this drum. The press are way behind and should be shot for not doing their job.

Paul Foot would spin at the state of the MSM in recent times.

AndyL said...

I recommend this post on the Bishop Hill blog as a pointer to some of the main things that have come out of these emails:

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/11/20/climate-cuttings-33.html

Bishop hill also has some excellent summaries of previous controversies in climate change - follow the links in the first paragraph regarding 'Casper' and 'Yamal'

Johnny Norfolk said...

The climate change scam by the left to frighten people and put up tax. Anyone with half a brain knows its is a scam.

You knew for sure when they would not release the data never mind these e mails

Anonymous said...

I think there are grievances on both sides of this debate. My field is not earth science, at all, so don't take my view as professional, but I'm a swing voter on this issue ;p

But as a Scientist, I don't see a big conspiracy in this.

Open up your own work emails between friends who are also colleagues and imagine if they were disassociated from their original context. Imagine even if every phonecall was on speakerphone.

I can come up with a few headlines from mine, which would vastly overrate their importance.

I just dont think its big enough for MSM.

But yeah its high time you lot (meaning, the world!) just dropped your witch doctor unquestinable-pillar-of-the-community-give-us-a-mantra-please view of scientists - which was very much evidenced by the whole nutty professor thing.

David Lindsay said...

I have just heard Lord Putnam in Durham Cathedral on the need to return to pre-Modern societies for the sake of the climate.

How dare he come to the spiritual heart of an impoverished county still standing on vast reserves of coal, and come out with that!

We demand high-wage, high-skilled, high-status jobs, including as the economic basis of paternal authority in the family and in the wider community.

We demand mass opportunities to travel. We demand universal access to the meat that is part of our natural diet. We demand economic development in the poorer parts of the world.

We demand the unfettered right to reproduce on the part of working-class people, of non-white people, and of people in the developing world.

We demand chariots.

And we demand fire.

Magical_Mist said...

There are conflicting views.

1) the Earth is overdue another Ice Age (which is quite true). There have been many over the course of Earth's lifespan, and we would be naive not to expect more in the future.

2) The Earth is warming due to human activity. I don't know if this is true or not, but I imagine to a degree it is accurate.
Obviously fossil fuels (CO2 and other nasty ingredients) will have a detrimental effect on our planet, so it is only right that we attempt to combat this.

cassandra said...

Dear Iain,

As a long time fan and admirer of your blog may I ask you on behalf of many readers to approach any senior conservative policy makers and find out what the ramifications of this scandal will have on Tory economic/ environmental policies.
If the Tories made important and long term strategic plans based on what we now know may be highly flawed data I wonder if the Tory high command have started to realise the huge consequences for their long term plans.
The tragedy is that countless billions of pounds have been utterly wasted and even more resources that could be used elsewhere are already earmarked by the Tories for use in reducing what may well be a totally harmless trace gas called CO2. We know the Tories were hoodwinked into supporting the Iraq war with dodgy evidence, could it be that the Tories were hoodwinked and conned into basing their whole environmental/economic plans on what could be another dodgy dossier?
What we need is a full promise to launch a public inquiry into the true state of the AGW evidence and a full quality control review of the science so far delivered to check whether the hundreds of billions of pounds to be spent is being spent in the right way.

realist said...

About 20 to 25 years ago I was working on scientific research vessels gathering ocean and climate data in the arctic. One of the complaints at the time was that much of the data was altered when it appeared in its final form. This alteration was usually skewed towards the prevailing trendy views of the shore side scientific comunity. data that did not fit in was not regarded as useful.

Genie said...

There is such a monumental industry founded on AGW that I cannot see these e-mails changing anything. Sadly it will be perceived as no more than a tick on an elephant's back.

What I do see further down the track, when it is clear warming is not happening, is that the whole bandwagon will slowly shift emphasis towards taxing and controlling pollution rather than CO2.

Anonymous said...

This wouldn't be any great surprise to anyone who's followed the real science over the years, and foamed a bit at Monbiot's blinkered hysterics about 'deniers'.

But of course it won't be much covered by the MSM - too many people have invested too much of their reputation. They aren't ever going to admit they got it wrong.

TheBoilingFrog said...

The Daily Mail are running with it this morning:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230122/How-climate-change-scientists-dodged-sceptics.html

and an editorial

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1230104/MAIL-COMMENT-Bad-science-climate-change.html

The 'unbiased' BBC have ignored the significance of this completely.

Sean said...

There is one big issue here: that the debate has become very personalised, with each side becoming embittered about the other.

I would love to see a dispassionate analysis of the facts. However, each side seems to be too busy trying to score points off the other.

This matter is too important for this bitter fighting yet scientists on both sides are obsessed with scoring points rather than clarifying the evidence.

Anonymous said...

Steve McIntyre has been highlighting stuff like this for years and the global warming brigade hate him for it.

McIntyre always presents his data and analysis. I suspect that they hate him for that too.

Reality always wins in the end. Those with political agendas need to learn that reality does not give a flying f*** about politics.

(McIntyre's blog has been slow (aka busy) since this little controversy came to light, but background reading is at Wikipedia and the link to his currently overwhelmed blog is below)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_McIntyre

http://www.climateaudit.org/

View from the Solent said...

The mother-lode is not in the emails, but in the data. I would usually be reluctant to point from here to the potty-mouthed, but

http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/search/label/CRU%20emails

has a good overview of the contents of a file HARRY_READ_ME among the leaked data. It's staggering.

DK seems to have forgotten to swear, much anyway.
(The faint-hearted should stop at the end of the first post)

Barnacle Bill said...

Bit like immigration under Tony Wots His Name, the truth is starting to leak out!

Anonymous said...

Oh dear!

So far as I can make out of this confusion is: A lab that gets it's funding and thus it's future from the gov. If it got out that it's data and analysis methods are severely compromised then it is in deep sh*t. I expect at the climate research establishment the air con will get switched on this working day and expect a sh*t storm to develop very quickly. (a local weather prediction from me)

Barnacle Bill said...

Oh sorry that should have read -
"Bit like multi-culturalism under Tony ..."

Letters From A Tory said...

Interesting how the BBC refused to report the details of the emails, merely suggesting that hackers had broken into the CRU database and the police had been informed.

No attempt there by the BBC to suppress the news whatsoever.

No sir.

Click here if you don't believe me.

Colin said...

If true, these crooks owe a lot of people a lot of money...

Rebel Saint said...

The the case for the infallibility of scientists is starting to unravel and their god-like plinth as arbiters of unadulterated, objective truth is starting to shake.

The furore there was about the dismissal of Prof Nutt is a similar point in case ... a 'humble scientist' trying to tell the 'objective truth' when in fact he had a very clear political viewpoint that permeates all his 'objective' research.

And - dare I even go there - anyone who even dares question any evolutionary evidence is cast out as a pariah - not for stating that they believe in creation or for postulating any alternative but simply for daring to question any of the evidence. Their excommunication is swift & merciless whatever their credentials e.g. Prof Reiss.

"A scientific study has shown that..." - hopefully words that no longer will carry the divine-like authority they have done hitherto.

Anonymous said...

Where are the prefects and teachers?

Sounds like Tom Brown's School days - big bullies in the Upper Fifth picking on the lower school.

Time these "scientists" up to no good behind the bike sheds, went to see Headmaster.

Sean said...

There is often a genuine need to "scrub" data in any scientific enquiry. The wrong kind of data can be captured or some of the data captured may be erroneous.

So if any scientist does not do such validation, their research may be open to suspicion.

However, as scandals in recent years have shown, it's possible that scientists can abuse this process to make the data fit their conclusions.

I don't know which may have happened here, but the mere act of altering the data is not of itself suspicious.

For example, assume you are investigating the incidence of long-term depression among immigrants. You may want to correct the data if: after 6 months some of those surveyed appear to be back to full health; you find that there has been a misunderstanding and some of those surveyed were the UK-born children of immigrants; there has been a misunderstanding about what comprises depression (or perhaps to separate those who have self-diagnosed as depressed from those diagnosed by a doctor). These would be legitimate.

Paddy Briggs said...

"Is this all conclusive evidence of a conspiracy by climate change scientists to silence some of their colleagues and suppress evidence which is inconvenient to their case?"

Why would they do that?

Sorry to see non scientists like you Iain blathering on about this complex and highly technical subject. There is no such thing as what one of your most reactionary contributors calls a "climate change scam by the left". As I have posted often before this should not be (and is not) a right/left issue. It’s a scientific issue. And if the debate is furthered by healthy scepticism all to the good - but it isn't furthered by ignorant rants from those who ludicrously think that those who argue in favour of a responsible approach to the environment are all biased lefties. That’s just too silly - it makes your Leader a lefty – which I certainly don’t believe!

Anonymous said...

Re the msm. To be fair the Guardian carries endless pieces (mostly saying MMGW is a disaster we must do something about) which then get severely scorched in the following threads.

Without wanting to name names but to protect the innocent, George Monbiot seems to be cheerleader of the back-to-huts-and-stewed-grass tendency.

Anonymous said...

Being a climate change non-believer feels like being a non-racist in 60's Alabama, all the evidence points to fact blacks are equal, but if i try and suggest it, i will be ostricised, and maybe linched. So i remain silent as the establishment fights tooth and nail to keep the status quo that makes them sleep well at night. One day the facts will be rcognised, and i will be able to say"we aren't causing global warming" with the same reckless abandon of a deap south white girl shouting "i don't hate black people"

Man in a Shed said...

A long time ago I commented on your blog why I have grave doubts about any climate models ( regardless of what conclusion they point to ).

This is based on experience in other areas of computer modelling that are better defined, yet still strugle.

The problem is we have too few Engineers and Scientists in politics who can draw on their knowledge of how science really works.

When I did my PhD it was well known that only certain results that backed known researchers were acceptable and that peer review could be a I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine.

It might amaze people to learn how political and anti any form of radical or iconoclastic innovation Universities really are.

My suggestion for a reasoned political approach to this question by an incoming Conservative government is to refuse any advice that is not based on fully transparent data and publicly available code and logic.

If Man Made Global Warming is the threat its supporters claim then this should override any copyright or confidentiality issues about people reading thermometers in the past.

I suspect this won't happen as the Warmist industry suspects its arguments are built on sand.

DespairingLiberal said...

There is no "monumental industry" of AGW. That is a wholly spurious allegation repeated by the anti-camp and started by far-Right Republican big business interests in the US. The reality of scientific endeavour in this field globally is one of hard pressed, under-funded labs and workers battling against prejudice and ignorance. Most scientists in Britain are poorly paid as a quick look at job ads in New Scientist will quickly confirm.

Tony said...

Scientists playing at politics is alive and well!

There is a strong element of 'jobs for the boys' in the global warming climate change camp, isn't there? If you aren't with us, we'll make damn sure that you cannot be in a position of influence sort of attitude.

There are just a few things that all can agree with - unexpected and unexplainable climate changes, Earth is a finite resource and deserves to be better managed by us humans, we make major alterations to the environment at our own peril whether it be deforestation, over-fishing or something else. Beyond that it's all guesswork, isn't it? The 'climate change consensus' group are little more than scientific statistical nonentities.

DespairingLiberal said...

On the Mann "rebuttal of the Hockey Stick" stuff, Wikipedia has been quoted as a source confirming that McIntyre's work is correct. People thinking this is right should check out the highly detailed arguments on the Hockey Stick Controversy page in Wikipedia which accurately shows that McIntyre has been rebutted and has repeatedly shifted ground in his arguments in the face of an onslaught of facts.

Oh and it isn't just bristlecone pines. I quote from the Wikipedia article:

"
At the request of the U.S. Congress, a special "Committee on Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Past 2,000 Years" was assembled by the National Research Council's Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate. The Committee consisted of 12 scientists from different disciplines and was tasked with explaining the current scientific information on the temperature record for the past two millennia, and identifying the main areas of uncertainty, the principal methodologies used, any problems with these approaches, and how central the debate is to the state of scientific knowledge on global climate change.

The panel published its report in 2006.[29] The report agreed that there were statistical shortcomings in the MBH analysis, but concluded that they were small in effect. The report summarizes its main findings as follows:[30]

* The instrumentally measured warming of about 0.6 °C (1.1 °F) during the 20th century is also reflected in borehole temperature measurements, the retreat of glaciers, and other observational evidence, and can be simulated with climate models.
"

neil craig said...

I would not like to see the entire scientific community tarred with this brush. The "consensus" has been largely among politicians & journalists. Most scientists have said nothing on the subject & most statements, when looked at without the myopia of journalists have have been on the lines that "most of the warming of the 20thC may be manmade". Since that warming is, at most 0.6C that 0,3 C "may" be manmade certainly does not justify the alrmist lies of the likes of the chief science advisor Sir David king's claim that only Antarctica would be habitable by 2100. In fact a degree or so of warming would be beneficial, though in fact the globe is currently cooling.

The primary blame is not on the scientific but on the political community. Professor Jones got £13.7 million from government for producing alarmist lies. No money has been available from government for real impartial research, indeed politicians have been loud in denouncing Exxon for giving a few hundred thousand for such research. If you pay that much it is hardly surprising a few people will be bought & it is difficult to find any scientist supporting full alarmis who is not, directly or through fakecharities like Friends of the Earth. The politicians cannot have been unaware of what they were paying for & must take responsibility.

Once again we see the blogsphere as the source of real news & the BBC etc censoring reporting of what is, by definition, as important a story as all the alarmist ones we have heard put together.

Enlightened Despot said...

Can someone with impreccable credentials please explain to us

1. Why historically significant climate change was measured in periods of hundreds or thousands of years but we now react to every blip over short decades. Is what we are experiencing not a predictable part of constant climate change?

2. If man-made emissions constitute a very small proportion of total global emissions, why are they considered to be so significant?

Perhaps I haven't been listening, but I have not seen a clear explanation.

Barnacle Bill said...

Well said that man in a shed!

Unknown said...

I worked in a university for over 30 years.
Please stop referring to these 'academics' as scientists. A scientist proposes an hypothesis and then tests this to DISPROVE it. True scientists do not waste their time on proving their theory as this should be solid in its own right before it is made public. The people you quote should be described as publicists NOT scientists.
Remember some time ago, most scientists considered the world to be flat and burnt at the stake as witches, those that disagreed !!
Is history repeating?

DespairingLiberal said...

Neil, where do you get your figure that Exxon have "given just a few hundred thousand" to contrary views? Exxon alone have spent many tens of millions of dollars on lobbying on this issue. Add that to the other oil companies and you get hundreds of millions of dollars spent on attacking what are basically small groups of chronically-underfunded scientists.

I would suggest people actually read Professor Jones's statement about this, rather than relying on the hysterical Daily Mail / New Right lies being promulgated on this blog.

As for the other comments in those emails, like wishing violence on others, are you really saying Iain that if all of your historic emails were stolen and published, there would not be things in there you might be embarassed to see in the open?

Unknown said...

But you could equally try reading this revelation from a recent Federal Law suit in the United States:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?_r=1&hpw

DespairingLiberal said...

Lloyd, you seem to have a somewhat shaky definition of "scientist" if you genuinely think that it was scientists who burned people at the stake and believed the world was flat. Aren't you thinking of Catholic priests and inquisitors?

Incidentally, just to further highlight your ignorance, it is another myth about historical views that there was a widespread belief that the earth was flat. Most scholars and the Roman Church leadership assumed the Earth was spherical based on the work of Greek philosopher/scientist/mathemticians and the arguments against Columbus were not that the Earth was not round but that Cathay was too far away to reach by sailing west. Oddly, given the technology of that time, they were right to be sceptical about that.

DespairingLiberal said...

Iain, would you be prepared to spend a day with a proper climate scientist to ask questions and genuinely learn about this complicated topic in a spirit of enquiry? I ask as you are an intelligent person but you consistently repeat views on this blog that are based on flawed arguments and heavily-funded non-scientific sceptical sources.

If you do not wish to do so, can you please confirm that you are in fact politically motivated on this subject and not interested one way or another in it's underlying scientific basis?

Shinsei said...

"Remember some time ago, most scientists considered the world to be flat and burnt at the stake as witches, those that disagreed !!
Is history repeating?"

Strange then that the ancient Greeks managed to accurately measure the circumference of the Earth (not something you can do if you think it is flat) in approx 200BC.

Most people have also always noticed that when a ship sails over the horizon it slowly disappears from view bottom first.

The fact that the Sun and the Moon are also round may have also been a clue as to the Earth's sphericalness.

Unknown said...

Presumably none of these comments come from Cumbria or anywhere else currently underwater.

A policeman is swept to his death as bridges collapse in unprecedented floodwaters and the reaction here is that it's all a left wing conspiracy.

Like all that stuff about lung cancer and tobacco?

This issue is becoming a real achilles heel for the credibility of this site; some the most ridiculous climate change sceptics are clustering here.

If Conservatives aren't prepared to protect the planet from the worst excesses of mankind then what hope have we got?

I had hoped to see Mr Dale in Parliament but if he's going to adopt this absurd position of denying what's clearly happening before our eyes then I feel the people can't afford the luxury of having him there.

Anonymous said...

Paddy Briggs at 10:33 said: "As I have posted often before this should not be (and is not) a right/left issue. It’s a scientific issue"

True, but its manipulation in the news media makes the issue political. This stuff , the basis of the research for funding requests and research and for determining what technologies receive grants

neil craig said...

DL oil companies & indeed all sorts of companies of that size do indeed put millions into lobbying but it is simply not the case that Exxon put that much into lobbying purely against the global warming scam. Indeed they gave many millions to all sorts of research which could have given results on either side (that is what real research does). Only that small amount was given to research specificly aimed at testing the theory & that was the only bit that got the fascist Hanson to call for their arrest.

Perhaps DL you could confirm when you spent a day learning from a real climate scientist - ie not like Michael Mann who says

"We don't need to show that result necessarily, unless the editor/reviewers demand to see proof, and we certainly don't have to reveal where we got the GKSS data. As I mentioned, there are enough groups out there that now have it, that VS and Zorita would not know the source, and we would not reveal it."

A difference between scientists & quacks is that scientists are happy to provide all the data.

David Gregory said...

Iain
To those that say the BBC hasn't covered this story there was a 6 minute discussion this morning at 7.35 on Today. You can listen here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8373000/8373594.stm

And I'll be blogging about this later as well.
bbc.co.uk/davidgregory

rob's uncle said...

RealClimate.org's comment on this theft of private correspondence is at: http://tinyurl.com/y8mad3j from which:

' . . More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.

Instead, there is a peek into how scientists actually interact . . if cherry-picked out-of-context phrases from stolen personal emails is the only response to the weight of the scientific evidence for the human influence on climate change, then there probably isn’t much to it.'

Janner said...

@Stephen 12:50

The floods in Cumbria are almost certainly not 'unprecedented', just abnormal in recorded meterological history, which on a climactic scale is extremely short

The fact remains that a scientific theory (anthropogenic climate chnage) has been hijacked by a series of pressure groups, some well-meaning, others (eg Frankfurt school) not as a stick with which to beat the developed countries

There is a lot of largely inconclusive research, and a lot of unvalidated theories with a number of unvalidated computer models

I would say that at the least the theory is questionable - yet the MSM would have us believe that it is proven

The single biggest threat to this planet is not manmade climate change, it is uncontrolled human devlopment and its affect on resources, habitat and biodiversity

No-one seems keen to mention that through - no votes or taxes in it

True Belle said...

How can any of us argue about whether climate change is a fib/ fad/or fiddle! The whole country is having a right royal soaking again, and who will stop that wind howling!

Here is a very nice link, so wave your little mousies over the maps and read and think!

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/thc/

Unknown said...

"The single biggest threat to this planet is not manmade climate change, it is uncontrolled human devlopment and its affect on resources, habitat and biodiversity".........



........or in other words, climate change as a consequence of mankind's behaviour: Rising oceans, shrinking forests, advancing deserts.

I'm not wasting my time debating the existence of climate change any more than I'm going to debate when the Unicorn King is returning.

It is a fact. People are free not to believe it. The rest of us are free to despair.

Janner said...

More here

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/22/cru-emails-may-be-open-to-interpretation-but-commented-code-by-the-programmer-tells-the-real-story/#more-13065

A smoking gun? You judge, I know what I think

One of the key tenets of scientific research is reproduceability which requires access by other researchers to original data and code (see Climate Audit for serial failures in this area bt Mann and other MMGW protagonists)

Osama the Nazarene said...

To add to David Gregory's point I would point you to Brillo's Daily Politics program today at,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00p6sdy/The_Daily_Politics_23_11_2009/

At least one sceptic academic was allowed to have a say. This should, of course, be attributed to Brillo's real journalistic credentials rather than to a conversion by the BBC's biased editors.

People have claimed that Prof Jones was quoted out context in his most "incriminating" e-mail. But no one contests what these other e-mails show that this so called academic was using all of his influence to hide data refusing, FoI requests and concocting spurious reasons to withhold data collected by his own unit ("data belonging to others" did not occur to him to ask these others if he could publish it???). WHAT WAS HE AFRAID OF?

What is even worse and confirms the totalitarian tendency in the whole "Green" movement, is using his influence to remove academics who disagreed with his theories (NOT FACTS) from the editorial boards of academic journals!

@DL for a "liberal" you would surely condemn the deliberate hiding of vital data and the "shouting down" of anyone who disagrees with your views. Surely, or are you more despairing than liberal?

neil craig said...

The single biggest threat to the planet is that the world's political leaders might get together & establish the single government "new world order" as they have established a European one against the wishes of the people. Freedom depends on there being somewhere else to go to & human progress depends on freedom.

One reason the catastrophic warming lie has been pushed is because it is a very good excuse for one-worldism. While it is unknown if this hacking was done by Russians or by somebody local using a Russian website it is the existence of websites beyond the reach of our fascist leaders who talk of imprisoning people for scepticism, which has made it possible for this information to be hosted.

History shows that when empires of the known world are established progress stops but they are not overthrown but rot internally until to weak to stop some invading tribe. A world government would have no outside tribes to stop the rot.

All the alleged eco-fascist catastrophes together are not 1% as dangerous as the way eco-fascism is being used to control us & the world.

Janner said...

@Stephen 3.00pm

It is a fact. People are free not to believe it. The rest of us are free to despair.

That climate change is occurring, has occurred and will occur is indeed a fact

Mankind's part in it is in dispute

Given the MMGW lobby's propensity to blame virtually everything on manmade climate change they can hardly complain when their cabal's communications reveal their dubious tactics and unscientific method

BTW a refusal to debate the issue is another hallmark of this lobby

Anonymous said...

I was among the first wave of climte campaigners over 30 years ago but recently I have lost all faith in the people trying to hijack this issue for political and commercial gain.

The answer to climate change lies in stopping population growth, changing the way we provide ourselves with food to more labour intensive farming (this does not mean living like medieval peasants) and ending the globalisation obsession that causes us to fly chicken from Thailand, haul milk from eastern Europe and ship christmas crackers from china.

Therein lies to solution to fixing our broken society and rebuilding the economy too.

Climate Change Science Scam

Anonymous said...

Doesn't really look like it, does it?

"If you look at the emails, there isn't any evidence that the data was falsified and there's no evidence that climate change is a hoax." - Met office &

"It's a shame that some of the sceptics have had to take this rather shallow attempt to discredit robust science undertaken by some of the world's most respected scientists.

"The bottom line is that temperatures continue to rise and humans are responsible for it. We have every confidence in the science and the various datasets we use.

"The peer-review process is as robust as it could possibly be. It's no surprise, with the Copenhagen talks just days away, that this has happened now."

Iain, are you ashamed of your propaganda, many conservatives trust you?

The King of Wrong said...

@DespairingLiberal:

Yes, I've read Prof Jones' reply. He seems desperate to try to spin their way out of this. He says it's "impossible to confirm what proportion is genuine" - oh, really? What happened to "I never said that!"? If you're misquoted, it isn't difficult to spot that you're being misquoted - particularly if it's email you can cross-check.

If, in three days, you're unable to find out if 600 putative emails are fake, you have no business as steward of a massive climate database. The truth is likely to be far simpler, of course: the emails might be fake, but they're not. Which is why they're later referred to as "some stolen emails".

The press release ends with "we will ourselves be conducting a review, with external support, into the circumstances surrounding the theft and publication of this information". Very good. No mention at all of the fact that the content appears to show widespread academic fraud, flouting FoI requests, possible conspiracy and a department in hopeless disarray - far easier to concentrate on the breach with Lessons Learned and an internal witchhunt.

The CRU needs to be subject to a full audit by both UEA and the funding bodies. They need to publicly reproduce the results they've published while witholding their data, and they need to repudiate any publications they cannot reproduce. They need to come clean on exactly which of those emails are genuine. There might well need to be sackings/resignations. And they need to do all of this in very short order, because right now their reputation is in tatters.

- KoW

thespecialone said...

quietzapple.... you really need to read more blogs. I know that if a publicly funded organisation refuses requests under FoI, even though internally the people who deal with FoI have told said organisation to go along with it, then the said organisation definitely has something to hide.

Met office - another public funded organisation that has refused FoI requests. Not only that, the Met Office gets data from the CRU! The Met Office suddenly has egg on it collective face. And so have MSM and so have many others.

You need to catch up. There are more and more blogs reporting this story.

Cllr Peter cairns (SNP) said...

Iain,

Why don't you send me all your e-mails from the last few years and i'll publish the bits I want to show that there is at least a suspicion that you are a racist.

I know your not and that you rightly defended yourself when those smears were made, but anyone with an agenda and access to your private mail could make some mud and get some to stick.

Having been the victim of such things and being so vicious in your defence of spin and distortion being used against the Tories new partners in Europe I'd have liked to think you would be giving this kind of selective interpretation less credence.

Peter.

Pogo said...

@quietzapple: Doesn't really look like it, does it?

"If you look at the emails, there isn't any evidence that the data was falsified and there's no evidence that climate change is a hoax." - Met office &


Except, of course, for the clear evidence in the model code that data has been falsified and "adjusted".

"It's a shame that some of the sceptics have had to take this rather shallow attempt to discredit robust science undertaken by some of the world's most respected scientists."

"Robust science"? ROFL! 1. Computer models are not science, and 2. Even if they were, the model code that has been released is truly dreadful. It's kludged, has annotated "fudge factors" coded in, has absolutely no sign of quality control, etc. etc.

"The bottom line is that temperatures continue to rise and humans are responsible for it. We have every confidence in the science and the various datasets we use.

Except, of course, that temperatures aren't continuing to rise (for what reason EACRU admittedly don't know) and there's no empirical evidence that humans are responsible.

"The peer-review process is as robust as it could possibly be.

It's certainly "robust" but not quite in the way the Met Office suggests. Even George Monbiot admits that it's very obviously been manipulated by a small "on message" group in order to promote their own work at the expense of those holding different views.

Despite this supposedly being a scientific rather than political "debate" it's interesting to note which of the regular commenters is in favour of the status quo and the "it's not a story" line. :-)

Unknown said...

Now you can sign a petition at No10.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/UEACRU/

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to suspend the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia from preparation of any Government Climate Statistics until the various allegations have been fully investigated by an independent body.

rob's uncle said...

The answer to your [no doubt rhetorical] question is 'no' as these Nov 24 statements from Prof Trevor Davies, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, Prof Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit, and from CRU show:

https://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2009/nov/homepagenews/CRUupdate

The King of Wrong said...

@rob's uncle:
Yes, saw that yesterday.

Have you had a good look at the graphs attached to that press release in the light of the "Mike's Nature trick" quote? Here's my take on them...

Of course, I'm not a research scientist these days, so what would I know?