http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmsctech/uc444-i/uc44401.htm

UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE
To be published as HC 444-i
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE
Reviews into the Climatic Research Unit’s E-mails at the university of East Anglia
Wednesday 8 September 2010
Lord Oxburgh
Evidence heard in Public Questions 1-50
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The question really should be, George Steiner, what are YOU going to do about it?

I understand the very specific point you make WRT the UEA’s undue self-satisfaction. I don’t have any opinion on whether it was deliberate or inadvertent in the first place.

My response was more of a general reaction to @martyn’s apparent despair over the course of events. I think that’s an overly pessimistic view. And an accurate representation of events is a requirement if you find yourself in a position to ask someone suitably placed to escalate a specific issue.

Steve McIntyre, any idea what happened to my comment??

Also, given the prominence of the issue and the unfailing courteousness of FOI Officer Palmer, my personal view is that the omission was, as Palmer says, inadvertent. It would make no sense for him to do something like that. I see no reason for readers to speculate otherwise and ask that you do not do so.

My point was not that the omission should make it impossible for the university to take any satisfaction in such a flawed finding, rather than ‘welcoming” it.

I’ve had little opportunity to exploit the evidence Steve records here so diligently so far, but being aware it’s here is the first step if that opportunity occurs.

I’m simply comparing the statements in the post above. Oxburgh said that Graumlich had not used tree rings “in the same way” as CRU used them.

That might refer to use in another discipline. It might also refer to different methods within the same discipline.

As for context, Oxburgh’s comment about the traditional use of tree rings in archaeology could well be the context for the sentence that immediately follows: “What the CRU did was to tried to interpret characteristics in terms of climate…”

That is, Oxburgh is contrasting the traditional use of tree-ring chronology with its use in climate research.

Presumably, Oxburgh was familiar with Graumlich’s CV, which would make my interpretation more plausible.