Bride of Climategate
No doubt, regular readers have already heard the news. Lucia’s header is clever, but I like mine better.
So the timing is obvious, of course, as Andy Revkin sardonically notes in a tweet. Richard Tol seems wearily perplexed:
and here we go again — as if Durban isn’t dead enough
During some back and forth with him, I opine:
Leaks intended (I believe) to influence public opinion, not official positions [of countries]. New batch doesn’t get big play w/out news hook.
One of the interesting subplots will be how the press handles this latest batch of leaked climate science emails. Journalists tend to get giddy off the slightest whiff of scandal. Lots of climate concerned folk are still bitter over the media’s role the last time around. (Of course, climate skeptics think the press fell down on the job, too, so go figure.) Meanwhile, watchdogs on the left are already on high alert. For example, I think Brad Johnson was the first out of the box with a pre-emptive warning to journos.
I haven’t had a chance to read any of the emails yet, but I suspect (and I could turn out to be wrong) that the payoff will ultimately underwhelm.
Remember, drug addicts are always chasing after that first high.
Will Fuller and Mosher write a follow-up that yet again “swamps the conventional wisdom on climate change”? Should we help them invent a title? How about Rebels with ‘the cause’?
This is all so exciting!
These guys look like they write from the same play book. unusual word for both to use at the same time.
tranche : a portion of an investment issue or loan
Richard BlackEnvironment correspondent, BBC News: It was clear at the time that only a small portion of the total tranche downloaded had been released.
Leo Hickman, guardian.co.uk: A fresh tranche of private emails exchanged between leading climate scientists throughout the last decade was released online on Tuesday.
Looks like more of the same. The highlighted e-mails just reaffirm what everyone already thinks, one way or the other. Mann’s response to Guardian was a bit defensive in nature, to say the least.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/22/fresh-hacked-climate-science-emails
Not clear how one declares them “out of context” when they haven’t read the original context. Then there is the old “fossil fuel shill” meme. Yawn. Mann is ruled by his emotions.
Media should probably acknowledge the release, and move on unless something really interesting turns up. Ignoring it would be a mistake.
Got a laugh out of Mann calling RC a PR effort.
Search for a smoking gun commences, not very likely to be found. Spin machines to warp 10!
I declare an interest as a colleague of Leo Hickman at the Guardian, but have to say that in the UK “tranche” is just one of those journalese words we reporters all use very (too?) easily – I include myself, no doubt, so no criticism of my colleagues intended. No conspiracy there, though.
Talking of conspiracies, must go and see what damage is being done in the emails themselves…
Juliette (4),
Thanks for clearing that up. Here I thought it was because you all went to the same schools. 🙂
Tom (3),
“Spin machines to warp 10” indeed! That will provide bloggy amusement for many, I’m sure.
If the examples at the Air Vent are the best they’ve got, then not much damage. Scientists arguing, getting angry, disagreeing. Worth noting– according to some who have had a look at the whole 170 Meg file– that all the emails appear to have been taken during the original hack but not used in 2009. So presumably all “B-List” in terms of scandal potential.
We’re going to need a truckload of George A. Romero Medals before this is done.
When the original movie (despite much hype) turned out to be empty and boring, few want to see the sequel, especially when the sequel is just composed of deleted scenes from the original.
Keith,
Do you think media types will still play along and pretend there is nothing to these leaks?
Keith, do you think the media types will play along and pretend there is something to these leaks? (There, you can be happy in the middle now.)
Repetition is the mother of learning.
There is nothing substantially new, just more snippets on how climate scientists are dedicated to the “cause”. Close ranks, gentlemen!
Neven,
I have no intention of dumpster diving through a stack of mails again. There is one reason why I read all the mails to begin with. I was asked by Anthony to read them and see if I thought they were true. That resulted in me reading all the mails in a couple of sittings. Sitting down and reading them all, probably two or three times. At the conclusion of that trance the mails were in my head. Let me give you an example. Months later Bishop hill asked me if I remembered the mail where Jones and osborn discussed the review of a certain paper. I responded “squeaky clean” Search on the words squeaky clean because that mail contains those words. Its the only mail that does that. I wouldnt say I committed all of the mails to memory, but when I’m in the zone I can come pretty damn close to that ( hence I did well in Literature) My brain became an mail organizer and they were all organized around key narratives. On Nov 29th Tom asked me to write the book. I agreed because the media was missing the story. The story was not fraud. The story was not boys behaving badly. The story was noble cause corruption and centered on FOIA.
So I agreed to write the book and get the junk out of my brain.
As days pass and as my head is now organized around other things (hey our AGU poster– you might like it) I cannot see jumping back into the dumpster. For me that would require a total brain dump of what I am currently occupied with. Aint gunna do that. couldnt if I tried.
maybe later, much later an entire story can be told. there are more mails. It’s really a job for a historian. I hate history. Now if a bonefide historian writes about them and gets something wrong, then I might be convinced to dumpster dive again. But for now I’ve got better things to do.
Sorry if that disappoints you.
OPatrick (10),
Well, first things first: those who get paid by news publications to be on the climate beat are obligated to read the emails. And write up a first round of spot news stories that mainly just say hey, look what happened, and here’s what x, y, and z say about it.
There’s no getting around that. What comes after that–whether the story has legs–and I’m seriously doubting it will–depends on what the emails say and whether the reporters feel there’s something new to follow up on.
BCL
The new dump contains both old and new mails.
The mails were selected by random keyword
one interesting thing to ask is this
are there any new mails that CONTRADICT the narratives I laid out. In other words, we have more context ( See brian Angliss’ complaint) does any of the new context contradict what people like me claim the mails show.
That would be interesting, showing that Mosher and Fuller got something WRONG by looking at a limited sample.
The only narratives that matter are the following
1. hide the decline mails
2. Ar4 chapter 6
3. denying FIOA
4. Gatekeeping
everything else is color commentary and boring
are there any new mails that CONTRADICT the narratives I laid out.
Guilty until proven innocent – the “skeptic” creed? Why would you expect a prosecutor to show contradictory evidence that helps the defense? The investigations of the original release of emails help establish context and contradict your narrative, one that the emails don’t support.
The UK (as usual on this subject) is leading the way…
‘We’re choosing periods to show warming’
‘Science is being manipulated – it might not be too clever in the long run’
‘Climate change is a “better label” than global warming’
‘Many thanks for your paper – and congratulations for reviving global warming’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2064826/New-leak-hacked-global-warming-scientist-emails-A-smoking-gun-proving-conspiracy–just-hot-air.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
I guess what interests me most is the climate scientist’s reaction to this new release, have they learned anything?
Are they going to go into bunker mode and just throw out evil spears to kill the messenger instead of simply answering questions and providing context where they claim it is needed.
Open and transparent, or closed and defensive?
Have you learned anything?
@ Keith 13-
Perhaps you are innocently forgetting how little Revkin actually reported on cliamtegate?
Perhaps yo uare forgetting how the UEA hired damage control to squash climategate in the media?
Perhaps you forget the phony ‘reviews’?
steve asks a great question:
Now that there is more context, does the Mosher/Fuller analysis hold up or fall apart?
New York J,
You obviously did not read the e-mails. You are like Gleick reviewing donna’s book before reading it.
Frankly it is the petulant dliberate ignorance of people like you I find most intersting in this great disputation: why do you choose to be wrong by choice?
Fri Dec 31 23:32:07 2000
From: Phil Jones
Subject: One-world government
To: IPCC-group
Comrades. Soon our once-great nation will rise from the ashes of the greatest war the world has ever known. Russia has changed. But our lives will not be wasted. The master plan is proceeding apace. Adolf Hitler once said “The great masses will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.” Indeed, the best kept secrets are the ones that everyone knows. Double agent Anthony Watts has a remarkable summary of the global warming charade. Stupidly is our sword and Folly is our shield. By placing the truth where everyone can see it — nobody can! Today we have recruited over 2,000 scientists to The Team. To you I say we have only completed a beginning. There remains much that is undone. There are great tricks undiscovered, breakthroughs available to those who can remove one of the truth’s protective layers. Places to go beyond belief. Onward.
Phil.
hunter, I’ve read the emails your cult tells us are evidence of wrongdoing, and the claims are almost entirely bogus. The independent investigations agree with me.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climategate-CRU-emails-hacked.htm
It looks like the same round of deniers cherry-picking quotations and “interpreting” them, but based on deleted scenes from the boring original. They haven’t learned anything. When you cry wolf the first time, don’t expect the same number of people to listen.
I do not think these emails can be dismissed so easily. Their PR impact will be worse than last time, and some of them make me think those who accept the science of AGW (as I do, and still do) are too easily overlooking what in is them, especially in terms of how the science is being presented.
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2011/11/sorting-through-stolen-uae-emails.html
Such as:
<3373> Bradley:
I’m sure you agree”“the Mann/Jones GRL paper was truly pathetic and should never have been published. I don’t want to be associated with that 2000 year “reconstruction”.
<3066> Thorne:
I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run.
<1611> Carter:
It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by a select core group.
Once again, such perfect timing.
Keith writes:
“Lots of climate concerned folk are still bitter over the media’s role the last time around. (Of course, climate skeptics think the press fell down on the job, too, so go figure.)”
This is a bit much. As confirmed in spades by the record, the MSM was virtually silent on the first round of Climategate – revealing their obvious bias once again – until they were forced to mention it. And then they spun the whole story. Assuming that by “climate concerned folk” you mean those who accept the AGW story, I’m not sure why you think they would be bitter about that censorship.
That is why so many people think the press “fell down on the job.” Because they did. Unless their job is now openly recognized as producing selective propaganda. If it weren’t for the blogosphere the MSM would have conveniently buried this story.
The evidence of this coverage and lack of it is unequivocal. So why pretend that there was some kind of even playing field here which both sides of the debate could be equally upset about?
David Appell
Steady on old chap!
3373 – yup, a flawed paleo recon. NOT a rebuttal of the RTEs.
3066 – yup, over-enthusiastic editorialising is never wise. But this is not a rebuttal of the core science
1611 – as 3066
It’s all mouse-farts. Don’t lose sight of the fact that dear old radiative forcing from dear old CO2 is with us still, and ever more shalt be.
Mosher,
New as in newly made public or new as in written past November something 2009 (which would imply a second hack)?
@20 I knew it!!
Hilarious.
#20 watch the gullible deniers quoting that one as true.
#22 David Appell, the context matters. See Gavin’s comments here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/11/two-year-old-turkey/#comment-219713
Deniers may think this will get a lot of PR, but I doubt that most media will be taken in by this transparent attempt to smear scientists. Mann is correct to call it pathetic.
NewYJ
“Guilty until proven innocent ““ the “skeptic” creed? Why would you expect a prosecutor to show contradictory evidence that helps the defense? The investigations of the original release of emails help establish context and contradict your narrative, one that the emails don’t support.”
Wrong.
1. On FOIA we claimed that CRU brought trouble on themselves. The counter story was that the scientists were inundated with FOIA. The inquiries found that we were correct.
2. AR4 chap 6. they didnt look at it. In fact Russel refused to question jones about deletion of mails. He thought that would put Jones in legal jeopardy
3. Gatekeeping: the complain we raised about trenberth and jones redefining peer review was not addressed because the inquiries could not ascertain who wrote what parts of chapter 3 of AR4.
none of the inquiries contradicted a single narrative. They contradicted stupid skeptical charges of fraud about the surface data, a charge we never made.
On Revkin
On november 19th at roughly 130pm I wrote to andrew on his FB page. I informed him that he was mentioned in the mails, favorably. I told him to follow the FOIA. I expect him to follow that story. After 10 days of waiting, as I noted, Tom asked me what I thought of the coverage. The coverage stank. It stank because one side saw fraud where there was no fraud. The science is the science. The other side saw nothing. Nothing here but boys behaving badly.
Neither of those narratives is correct. What you saw was the managing of a message. you saw uncertainty expressed behind closed doors and certain sold in the public declarations.
I dont find anything in the mails that makes me doubt AGW. I do find behaviors that I cannot endorse. Really simple: Hiding the decline was bad chartmanship and good PR. admit that shit.
Briffa passing drafts to Wahl was prohibited ( I have other documents on this that I have not shared ) Briffa knew he was on thin ice. admit that shit. Jones denied Hollands rights. The ICO says so, admit that shit. Hiding data brought more problems than sharing it.
None of this goes to the science. It goes to the tactics and strageties of public communications. Period.
I do not get how people like BCL and NYJ can say it’s all meaningless?
Do any of the 1st or 2nd batch of E-mails show that AGW is some big hoax – no. But they do clearly show that a certain group of climatologists play the role of gatekeeper at the IPCC and the the high impact magazines. That they actively suppress articles, studies or opinions that they do not like or that contradict their own work.
Could a climatologist considered an ‘enemy’ of the team get a paper published in Nature or Science that members of the team consider to be “truly pathetic”? No, but Mann or Steig can.
It’s not meaningless, these guys are bunch of pricks working together to provide a coherent message rather than earnestly presenting the science. It doesn’t falsify AGW, but it should piss off anybody who’s really interested in it.
Mosher, let me repeat that question for you. Are the emails new as in dated from a point beyond Nov 2009, or new as in newly revealed but from the first hack (or set of hacks)?
Because I notice Watts making a big deal out of at least one email that not only isn’t post 2009, but that was released during the first go round (about Briffa and Yamal and etc.).
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/22/ncdc-mr-watts-gave-a-well-reasoned-position/
WRT 25.
I believe newly made public.
as I said Im not going to dig into the pile of mails.
If we believe FOIA.org it looks as though he scoured all the mails
back in 2009.
he is releasing mails, it appears, by selecting random samples using keywords, something I surmised back on nov 18th, 2009.
I explain why I think this in the book.
D Robinson: “But they do clearly show that a certain group of climatologists play the role of gatekeeper at the IPCC and the the high impact magazines.”
How exactly do they show this? What evidence is there that those climatologists actually have the power to play gatekeeper or actually controlled anything much? A few private emails are not adequate proof of anything, unless you are a conspiracy nut.
Mosher,
Leftovers, then.
#30 D. Robinson writes:
“I do not get how people like BCL and NYJ can say it’s all meaningless?”
That is all they can say. It is the standard Team talking point. Like insisting that 2 + 2 = 5.
Unfortunately for them, the evidence says the exact opposite. Look at the aftermath of the first Climategate. That appears to have been the tipping point. Public acceptance of the whole AGW story, and the momentum of the “cause” (as the AGW Project is frequently called in these new emails) has been all downhill since then. Thus any objective look at the real world tells us that it did matter.
True, correlation does not mean causation. And the ‘travesty’ of the ‘missing heat’ of late certainly underscored Climategate in the public mind. But Climategate seems to have been the key catalyst for this. If someone has alternative suggestions as to what may have triggered the downfall of the AGW Project, I would be most interested in hearing it.
As to the apologist arguments spinning around them (e.g., yes they were conniving but their story is still AOK), good luck with that. That is now like trying to explain that Madoff was right about some things. Doesn’t matter. The trust is gone, and it is their fault. The AGW Project is dead at least until all these activists masquerading as scientists are gone. I’m guessing even the puppet master at the top are starting to realize this.
Bye, bye Mikey. Enjoy your medal.
Mosher: 3. Gatekeeping: the complain we raised about trenberth and jones redefining peer review was not addressed
Wrong. Who are you trying to fool at this point?
Muir Russell: In summary, we have not found any direct evidence to support the allegation that members of CRU misused their position on IPPC to seek to prevent the publication of opposing ideas.
In addition to taking evidence from them and checking the relevant minutes of the IPCC process, we have consulted the relevant IPCC Review Editors. Both Jones and Briffa were part of large groups of scientists taking joint responsibility for the relevant IPCC Working Group texts and were not in a position to determine individually the final wording and content. We find that neither Jones nor Briffa behaved improperly by preventing or seeking to prevent proper consideration of views which conflicted with their own through their roles in the IPCC.
Mosher: 2. AR4 chap 6. they didnt look at it.
Muir Russell: 35. We have seen no evidence to sustain a charge of impropriety on the part of CRU staff (or the many other authors) in respect of selecting the reconstructions in AR4 Chapter 6. This would require that all the conditions in paragraph 13 were met in respect of tree chronologies either used by, or created by, CRU. No evidence of this has either been presented to the Review, nor has it been assembled as a scientific study published elsewhere and subjected to scrutiny. For the same reasons we found no evidence that there is anything wrong with the CRU publications using the Yamal or other tree series.
36. We find that divergence is well acknowledged in the literature, including CRU papers.
So when one removes the smoke and mirrors, we’re left with Phil Jones not handling FOI requests ideally, and making a few wrong suggestion to delete emails, partly due to harrassing floods of requests. But Jones no longer has that responsibility, and Mosher can’t write a book on that claiming it will “swamp the conventional wisdom on climate change”.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climategate-CRU-emails-hacked.htm
BBD (24)
Go over and read David Appell’s post. He is certainly no sympathizer to skeptics and it is to his credit that he is not being so sanguine (as pro-agw commenters on this thread) about these emails.
He is also clear that none of the “damaging” emails he has highlighted calls the science into question:
The original release of emails 2 years ago had a significant impact. My guess is that these are going to throw the science off-kilter for perhaps the rest of this decade, and may well lead some people to rethink how they are doing business (including certain journalists). That diversion would be a tragedy, for everyone, because there are still very, very good scientifically proven reasons to think that humans are altering the climate and this will only get more pronounced in the coming decades.
Keith @ 37
I read DA’s post on his blog. I rather wish he had held his peace, or provided context for the red quotes.
My comment here was for the benefit of the ‘sceptics’ here who will NOT read his post but WILL misrepresent what DA said.
And I still think he is overly concerned. For example:
<2267> Wilson:
Although I agree that GHGs are important in the 19th/20th century (especially since the 1970s), if the weighting of solar forcing was stronger in the models, surely this would diminish the significance of GHGs.
[…] it seems to me that by weighting the solar irradiance more strongly in the models, then much of the 19th to mid 20th century warming can be explained from the sun alone.
Models referenced by AR4 were forced using outdated TSI reconstructions. TSI was much flatter than was then supposed. So the ‘interesting’ 1910 – 1940 warming does not look as though it was forced by TSI. Thus the focus returns to GHGs. Modern TSI reconstructions are being used for AR5 (according to Richard Betts, who should know). So it’s a non-problem unless misrepresented by the sceptics.
And so on and on.
Really folks. Who can possibly defend this?:
1680.txt
date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 12:03:05 -0400
from: “Michael E. Mann” <mann@meteo.psu.edu>
subject: Re: Something not to pass on
to: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
<x-flowed>
Phil,
I would not respond to this. They will misrepresent and take out of
context anything you give them. This is a set up. They will certainly
publish this, and will ignore any evidence to the contrary that you
provide. s They are going after Wei-Chyung because he’s U.S. and there is a higher threshold for establishing libel. Nonetheless, he should consider filing a defamation lawsuit, perhaps you too.
I have been talking w/ folks in the states about finding an
investigative journalist to investigate and expose McIntyre, and his
thusfar unexplored connections with fossil fuel interests.Perhaps the
same needs to be done w/ this Keenan guy.
I believe that the only way to stop these people is by exposing them and discrediting them.
Do you mind if I send this on to Gavin Schmidt (w/ a request to respect the confidentiality with which you have provided it) for his additional advice/thoughts? He usually has thoughtful insights wiith respect to such matters,
mike
Re Holly Stick,
How long have you been following all this?? I don’t want to get into the thousands of bits of the emails that have been reviewed in nauseating detail for the last two years, or the publishing tricks the team has taken part in.
Go to CA and search for ‘hide the decline’ and ‘Caspar and the Jesus paper’ for starters.
These scientists work together to downplay/subvert papers they don’t like and keep them out of a magazine or AR4, and they work together to get around the publishing timing requirements of AR4 to get a paper they do like into it. They use a paper that hasn’t even been published yet as a reference for one they want to get into the IPCC report, even if that reference paper later gets rejected. (Caspar and the Jesus paper) Hey it’s all in good fun and we’re saving the planet right?
It’s all natty little tricks and ploys that AGW concerned choose to ignore because they ‘don’t matter’ to the science. These little games go on and on, and it’s always the same circle of scientists trying to convey a ‘tidy’ message. (Yes I know, CO2 warms the planet, duh.)
Re: #38,
I’m trying to figure out how what Appell highlighted in red (supposedly “devastating”) is somehow out of line with the general consensus view on the topic. Using a particular TSI estimate and maximizing its impact shows a dominant influence up to mid-century, followed by a breakdown since then (solar activity has trended downward).
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming-intermediate.htm
See also Ammann et al, 2007.
Despite the direct response of the model to solar forcing, even large solar irradiance change combined with realistic volcanic forcing over
past centuries could not explain the late 20th century warming
without inclusion of greenhouse gas forcing. Although solar and
volcanic effects appear to dominate most of the slow climate
variations within the past thousand years, the impacts of greenhouse
gases have dominated since the second half of the last
century.
I’m afraid I have to conclude that Appell’s knowledge of the scientific literature is fairly weak in this area if he classifies this as “troublesome”. Maybe it’s “troublesome” in the sense of being misused and misinterpreted by hacks, but that’s nothing new.
I have confessed soft spot for McIntyre since my original interest in this come from his compelling hockey stick analysis. So this one is a bit hard to take, talking of investigating him to discredit him. This is from an RC post:
So in 1680.txt, why does Michael Mann say that you (Gavin), “usually has thoughtful insights wiith respect to such matters,” when discussing finding a journalist to investigate “fossil fuel connections” and any other dirt they could find in order to discredit McIntyre and Keenan?
Do you have a lot of experience in discrediting people whose work exposes your own?
Don’t worry, I’ll take your silence in this matter as an admission of guilt.
[Response: My ignoring you would simply be a sign that your out-of-context smear is too stupid to address. But I think it worthwhile to point out that the first line of this email has “They will misrepresent you and take out of context anything you give them”. How prescient! For everyone else, this is an email discussing the appalling (and officially investigated and rejected) allegation of fraud that Keenan made about a scientist at SUNY Albany. Jones was asking for advice on whether and how to respond to a request from Peiser (acting editor of Energy and Environment) for comments on a paper Keenan had submitted claiming a ‘fraud’. If you are looking for people who have experience discrediting people, I would start with Keenan. – gavin]
D. Robinson, okay you ARE a conspiraby nut. No real evicdence, just blogger BS. Not adequate. Bye-bye.
Tom Scharf, liars and smearers need to be exposed. It would appear that Keenan made a false accusation. Why would he do that? What was his motive?
NYJ
I don’t want to be unfair to DA, but like you, I did not find the ‘red’ quotes potentially ‘devastating’. I used the TSI example as it is an example where ‘sceptics’ thing they have a genuine gotcha with WG1, but in fact (as you also note), current knowledge might actually point to a larger effect from GHGs in the first half of the C20th.
At the very least, this is not the end of the consensus as we know it 😉
(I know we had a proper ding-dong a while back about renewables, but I hope this will not stand in the way of constructive dialogue going forward. I hope you feel the same way? I made my peace with Marlowe already.)
Here is what I mean by confirmation of my position.
It has been argued by various people that the barrage of FIOA harassed the scientists.
Against this I made the following arguments.
1. The denials of FIOA started BEFORE the 50 FIOA we sent
2. The 50 or so FIOA we sent could be answered AND WERE ANSWERED in less than the 18 hour limit
Nobody has arguments against these positions.
With the new mails we have confirmation that mosher was right.
date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:10:39 +0100
from: “Palmer Dave Mr (LIB)” <David.Palmer@uea.ac.uk>
subject: FOI/EIR requests – Strategy
to: “Colam-French Jonathan Mr (ISD)” <s119@uea.ac.uk>, “Jones Philip Prof (ENV)” <P.Jones@uea.ac.uk>, “Mcgarvie Michael Mr (ACAD)” <k364@uea.ac.uk>, “Ogden Annie Ms (MAC)” <k319@uea.ac.uk>
Folks,
Just to summarise our approach to the various requests we have received to date that we
have agreed:
A. ‘Country’ requests
1. Respond to Montford request as normally – cite s.21, information available (see
point 2)
2. Place any/all agreements (or links thereto – Met Office) on the CRU website
3. Acknowledge & respond to all 44? Country requests by citing s.21 and pointing
them to the CRU website
B. Data requests
1. Acknowledge requests
2. Deal with as per normal, cite Reg. 12(5)(f) re agreements and Reg. 12(4)(b)
‘manifestly unreasonable’ on the grounds that the data is already available publicly via
the ClimateAudit.org website, and note that a format of the data (gridded) already is
publicly available
3. Note that raw data is available from the Met Office and other national weather
services (also goes to ‘manifestly unreasonable’)
.
C. McIntyre appeal
1. Maintain position regarding Reg 12(5)(f) re confidentiality agreements and point
him to published versions on website
2. Add ‘manifestly unreasonable’ on basis that he already has the requested
information in his possession & is also available elsewhere
3. Handle as per published protocols with initial ‘informal’ approach, followed by
review by JCF
D. ‘Other’ requests
1. Acknowledge requests
2. Deal with as usual, citing whatever section is appropriate above to the
requested information
E. General points
1. Interaction with any media to be handled by Press Office
2. Approval of transfer to Georgia Tech would be good to find
3. We are NOT citing s.14 for the ‘country’ requests
4. Estimated time to locate ALL agreements regarding data transfer is within the 18
hour appropriate limit
5. Any correspondence to go out will be circulated prior to transmission
I hope I have captured what was agreed – please comment if your understanding is different
than mine
Cheers, Dave
____________________________
David Palmer
Information Policy & Compliance Manager
University of East Anglia
Norwich, England
NR4 7TJ
Information Services
Tel: +44 (0)1603 593523
Fax: +44 (0)1603 591010
########################
so ,as I argued, BEFORE SEEING THIS MAIL, the requests for the documents were not overboard. Palmer the FIOA officer in writing to the appeal officer ( thats really odd) and Jones tells them that the 18 hour limit can be met. He also appears to tell the appeal officer what to write.. im not looking into this deeper
Later, Jones would go to the press and argue that our requests kept him from his science.
Jones knew that the 18 hour limit wasnt broached. Palmer informed him.
So when Somebody finds something that contradicts what I have argued let me know.
you want context,, you just got some more.
For the record here is the entire 1680.txt e-mail. Me thinks some people are getting a bit too paranoid.
email 1680.txt
date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 12:03:05 -0400
from: “Michael E. Mann”..
subject: Re: Something not to pass on
to: Phil Jones
Phil,
I would not respond to this. They will misrepresent and take out of context anything you give them. This is a set up. They will certainly publish this, and will ignore any evidence to the contrary that you provide. s They are going after Wei-Chyung because he’s U.S. and there is a higher threshold for establishing libel. Nonetheless, he should
consider filing a defamation lawsuit, perhaps you too.
I have been talking w/ folks in the states about finding an investigative journalist to investigate and expose McIntyre, and his thusfar unexplored connections with fossil fuel interests.Perhaps the same needs to be done w/ this Keenan guy.
I believe that the only way to stop these people is by exposing them and discrediting them”¦.
#43 “liars and smearers need to be exposed”
Then you must be happy to see these emails made public.
#43,
As you ought to know, Tom Wigley (who was director of CRU at the time) said in Climategate-I that Keenan appeared to be correct, and that the authors must have known it. The purported evidence for their claims has never been produced, and its existence denied by other sources. And the supposed investigation was very strange, taking no evidence from Keenan, producing no evidence, and publishing no report. (Or rather, it did, but Keenan wasn’t allowed to see it.)
There were in fact two papers under dispute based on the same data, one by Jones, and the other by Wang. They claimed that they had selected Chinese weather stations that had few if any station moves. However, other sources reported that no records existed for most of the stations, and that of those that did, many showed very significant station moves. As Chinese cities expand, they have a habit of moving the weather stations to keep them on the outskirts. Wang and Jones used the lack of station moves combined with a lack of significant excess warming to claim that the urban heat island effect was trivial, and could be ignored; a result the IPCC later used in its discussion of UHI.
The fact is they could not possibly have selected the stations on the criteria they claimed, since they either don’t meet the criteria or there is no data with which to test them, thus casting the validity of the result into doubt, and Wang at least must have known it at the time.
The unofficial story is that his response was that he had plagiarised the claim from an unacknowledged female graduate student/coworker of his and hadn’t actually checked it himself. Oddly, it was a later paper by the same graduate student that revealed that most of the stations had no records. My guess is that since it couldn’t be proved that he hadn’t plagiarised the result, there was no way to prove actual falsification of results by Wang himself. It’s fairly obvious why the university wouldn’t want to have to use that as their response. I don’t know if that’s what happened – as I said, the report is secret, and the public enquiries never enquired into it.
No link, no credible evidence.
Some background on Keenan (see part 5)
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/the-guardian-disappoints/
Quite a character, isn’t he?
BBD (#44),
I wanted to put aside newer TSI estimates for the moment and narrow the focus to Appell’s reason for highlighting the text in question, which appears to falsely presume that it argues against established views.
Our past discussions in no way influence current ones, and I reserve the right to get into more dust-ups with you in the future. I know that’s not very “tribal” of me. Neither is climate scientists (“the Team”) disagreeing with each other.
#50,
I wanted to put aside newer TSI estimates for the moment and narrow the focus to Appell’s reason for highlighting the text in question, which appears to falsely presume that it argues against established views.
The point isn’t that this or that email proves anything scientific even if it did there is probably nothing there that is ‘substantial’.
The point is that the emails show ‘the team’ is clearly not a group of ‘unbiased scientists’ explaining whatever the physical evidence says.
They are clearly invested in a ’cause’.
The respect the public has for ‘science’ is based on the Joe Friday principle…’Just the facts’.
The various ‘whitewash’ committee’s have spent their public good will.
Look at that crazy Michael Mann email…trying to find someone to do an expose on Steve McIntyre. That’s going to go over real will with Penn States new management.
McIntyre has nothing to do with Penn State. And he is easy to expose and has been debunked repeatedly.
51.
“They are clearly invested in a ’cause’.”
What cause would that be? There doesn’t seem to be any e-mail admitting to secretly being a part of Greenpeace or the Sierra Club and working on their behalf, or anything suggesting they make oodles of money from toeing a certain line. Nor is there anything implying that they support a particular political ideology. Apparently they’re not wrong about the science. So the worst thing about this new release is THE TEAM talking about trying to get McIntyre, Keenan, etc. to stop bothering them. Except they don’t actually do it.
#52 “McIntyre has nothing to do with Penn State.”
Nobody said he was. But Mann does, and now their whitewash of his ‘horseplay’ with data doesn’t seem so white anymore.
“And he is easy to expose and has been debunked repeatedly.”
Repeating something false doesn’t make it true.
McIntyre debunked:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/global_warming/mcintyre/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/myths-vs-fact-regarding-the-hockey-stick/
http://deepclimate.org/tag/steve-mcintyre/
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=skeptical+science+steve+mcintyre#q=site%3Arealclimate.org+McIntyre&hl=en&safe=off&prmd=ivnsb&ei=D5ISTuKpOera0QHqzZyQDg&start=0&sa=N&fp=1&biw=1366&bih=705&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&cad=b
http://www.skepticalscience.com/search.php?Search=mcintyre&x=0&y=0
KK writes about Appell’s post:
“He is also clear that none of the “damaging” emails he has highlighted calls the science into question:”
Inasmuch as these e-mails are representative of climate “scientists” who support AGW anyone who believes anything they write is foolish.
This episode is just another step in the decline and fall of the AGW hypothesis.
Tom Scharf: look up deltoid’s post about “Steve McIntyre, deep in the quote mine”. Trusting Steve’s “special” way with words is the easiest way to end up with some egg on your dace, as Ed Wegman and Yasmin Said found out.
The one thing that mann’s email reveals is his naïveté. He really seems to believe that McIntyre’s admirers would somehow think twice about his diatribes if only they knew hid connections with the mining industry. Considering that he is now officially the chairman of a mining company, I guess we can see how realistic that was.
Alex: There doesn’t seem to be any e-mail admitting to secretly being a part of Greenpeace or the Sierra Club and working on their behalf, or anything suggesting they make oodles of money from toeing a certain line.
You forgot #20! Also, note the definition of “cause”, according to Webster’s dictionary:
Cause – Environmental extremism, socialism, one-world government, and propping up the global warming hoax
You see, unlike Mann, Judith Curry’s only cause is a truly unbiased good-faith effort to advance good science.
Not a single email indicating what the true “cause” is makes me suspicious. 10 years of emails and that’s it? We must assume the scientists released the emails themselves, selectively avoiding the damning ones that revealed their true agenda, only releasing the snippets that showed them in the best light possible.
I don’t see a team ganging up on the truth in a dark alley.
I see members of the so-called team arguing vigorously amongst themselves, even saying very unflattering things about one another, with their attention fixed on the quality of the science. They are not emphasizing the need to create a coherent picture. When out of the public eye, they are attacking anything their colleagues do that seems substandard and fighting passionately about the quality of the science.
The following smells unlike team spirit:
* I’m sure you agree”“the Mann/Jones GRL paper was truly pathetic and should never have been published. I don’t want to be associated with that 2000 year “reconstruction”.
* I find myself in the strange position of being very skeptical of the quality of all present reconstructions
* We don’t really want the bullshit and optimistic stuff that Michael has written […] We’ll have to cut out some of his stuff.
* We need to communicate the uncertainty and be honest.
* Mike, The Figure you sent is very deceptive…
Who knows what the big picture will be when folks with level heads have had time to sort through this batch of emails and see what it says as a whole, but in the tidbits that have been highlighted to the public so far, I see much more disagreement and rancor amongst the team members over purely scientific questions than seems at all consistent with the notion that, as a group, they’re more interested in spin and PR than in finding the truth.
“Oh well, whatever, Nevermind. … A denial.” 😉
NewYorkJ writes that the Climategate scientists were:
“only releasing the snippets that showed them in the best light possible.”
Reminds me of the old expression about “shining s***.”
steven mosher November 22nd, 2011 at 5:44 pm
“Here is what I mean by confirmation of my position.
It has been argued by various people that the barrage of FIOA harassed the scientists.”
But you admitted on this very blog that your request was designed to fail. I’m afraid that confirms the position that the requests were designed to harrass.
Well it got me blogging agai.
I think that FOI is one ofthe key issues, and quite franly the etra detail makes the enquiries look like what they were..
and was it meant to influence Durban… Of course it was..
what matters is motive:
http://www.realclimategate.org/2011/11/climategate-2-0-over-2-5-billion-people-live-on-less-than-2-a-day/
Barry Woods
Sorry, but having read your blog piece I still don’t get what the “Over 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day.” quote tells us about motives. Maybe I’m just being a bit dumb but can you please clarify?
I point the slowing down of the thread.
I point at Jonathan Gilligan’s comment in #59:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/13221771856
That is all.
EdG November 22nd, 2011 at 4:54 pm — “Really folks. Who can possibly defend this?”
Really EdG, who can be particularly surprised? Has McIntyre done mulitple “audits” of Michaels, Lindzen or Spencer yet?
@JulietteJowit Says:
November 22nd, 2011 at 1:30 pm “I declare an interest as a colleague of Leo Hickman at the Guardian,..”
Juliette Jowit: guardian.co.uk, Thursday 24 November 2011 14.46 EST
Howlers and omissions exposed in world of corporate social responsibility
Juliette,
A bit of photo shop in the lead photo perhaps of your bit of fluff perhaps?
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2011/11/whos-got-time-to-investigate.html
The “dark cloud” version is obviously, and fraudulently (for propaganda purposes) enhanced, as you can tell by the simple fact that the smokestack itself is pitch black, all around (even on what should be the sunlit side) in that version. In the photo showing white smoke, the smokestack is normally lighted. Fakery, fraud, propaganda, artistic license to evoke an emotional reaction — it is all of those, and obviously so in my opinion.
Ed(2) and Juliet(4)
It is a small thing but it seems ” tranche“ has made it across the pond.
“In addition to the tranche of emails, the poster included a list of “greatest hits”””short quotes from the emails”¦”
http://motherjones.com/authors/kate-sheppard
Kate Sheppard is British, I believe.
Oops, nope, she’s not.