A few days ago, I challenged Trenberth’s claim that “AR4 was the first time Jones was on the writing team of an IPCC Assessment.”
Earlier this year, Real Climate stated that AR4 had been “written by over 450 lead authors and 800 contributing authors”. In my challenge to Trenberth’s claim, I observed that Jones had been a Contributing Author to the 2001 and 1995 IPCC Assessment Reports (Pielke Jr later adding that Jones had been a Contributing Author to the 1990 Assessment Report.) Ergo, Trenberth’s claim that AR4 was the “first time Jones was on the writing team of an IPCC Assessment” was untrue.
To most people, that would end the discussion about whether AR4 had been Jones’ first time or not.
However, Dave Clarke aka Deep Climate has now argued that “contributing authors are not on the [IPCC] writing team” and that
Trenberth makes it crystal clear that he is means that Jones was a “first time” lead author.
Clarke’s idea that contributing authors are not part of the IPCC writing team will no doubt come as a surprise to realclimate – who are, no doubt, scrambling as we speak to correct their previous mis-statements on this point.
In addition, Jones was not merely a “Contributing Author” to AR3. Jones was part of the writing team for AR3 Chapter 3 – described in IPCC email as a “Key Contributor”. The term “Key Contributor” is not used in IPCC documents, but was used to describe the role of Jones and several others in the preparation of AR3 Chapter 2, where Jones was assigned responsibility for writing part of AR3 Chapter 2. The term was used in an IPCC email of June 21, 1999 (929985154.txt in the Climategate dossier) with Jones an addressee (but not Trenberth). (In the eventual listing of Chapter 2 authors, the Key Contributors are listed ahead of “ordinary” Contributors Authors.)
The online version of this Climategate email is truncated for some reason. It shows only the following:
Below is the text and attached is a file in MSWord regarding a plan of
action for Chapter 2 leading up to the IPCC Meeting in Arusha, Tanzania.June 21, 1999
Dear Lead Authors and Key Contributors,
This note is to outline a plan of action for Chapter 2 leading up to the
IPCC meeting in Arusha, Tanzania to take place 1-3 September. As you know,
we are now in the midst of a
The complete email clearly shows Jones’ involvement in the writing process:
From: sdecotii@
To: christy@, clarkea@, @cabel.net, pfrich@, pgroisma@, jwhurrell@,
m.hulme@, p.jones@, Jouzel@, mann@, j.oerlemans@, deparker@,tpeterso@, drind@, drobins@,j.salinger@, walsh@, swwang@Subject: Plan of action for Chapter 2
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1999 13:12:34 -0400
Below is the text and attached is a file in MSWord regarding a plan of
action for Chapter 2 leading up to the IPCC Meeting in Arusha, Tanzania.June 21, 1999
Dear Lead Authors and Key Contributors,
This note is to outline a plan of action for Chapter 2 leading up to the
IPCC meeting in Arusha, Tanzania to take place 1-3 September. As you know,
we are now in the midst of a
“friendly review” from our colleagues of the
strawman draft of our chapter. We expect to receive comments from these
reviews through middle or even late July. These reviews will include some
from people other than our nominated reviewers, like Sir John Houghton,
from whom we have just had a brief review. Please check regularly with the
Tar02.meto.gov.uk email site to cover this aspect.Accordingly we ask each of the individuals listed below to revise the draft
section as suggested below, and to indicate their response to reviewer’s
comments. The first person listed is to take the lead, and individuals
with an asterisk by his name are to prepare the material for presentation
in Arusha. We would ask that a provisionally revised part of your chapter
be completed by 20 August and emailed to Tom Karl or placed on the web-site
so that Sylvia Decotiis can create a new version of Chapter 2 for Tom to
bring to Tanzania. Tom will bring one paper copy of the provisional new
“Arusha” version of chapter 2 to Tanzania, and a complete series of
electronic files which can be input to PCs via 1.4MB floppy disks. It would
be a considerable advantage for attendees to bring portable PCs, though we
expect some IPCC PCs to be available at the Arusha International Conference
Centre.Chris Folland will be leaving for Tanzania early (24 Aug) whereas Tom Karl
will still be available until 29 Aug for urgent interactions. We will
decide later as to whom, and how many of us, should actually make
presentations, noting that Hans Oerlemans is not likely to be present. But
all attendees be prepared, and bring appropriate visual material and of
course, further suggestions. We have listed assignments next to each
section.Section 2 —– Tom Karl* and Chris Folland* Executive Summary — total
revision and update
Section 2.1 —- Chris Folland* Changes needed regarding uncertainty
guidelines
Section 2.2.1 —- Chris Folland* Okay for now
Section 2.2.2 —- David Parker, Phil Jones, Tom Peterson, Chris Folland*
Length okay, but reduce number of figures.
Section 2.2.3 —- John Christy* Check for accuracy
Section 2.2.4 —- John Christy* Check for accuracy
Section 2.2.5 to 2.2.6 —- Oelermans*, Nick Rayner, John Walsh, David
Robinson, Tom Karl and Chris Folland. Glacier section needs to be updated
Section 2.2.7 —- Oelermans, Tom Karl* Check for accuracy
Sections 2.3 through Section 2.3.5—- Mike Mann*, Phil Jones Reduce in
size by about 10%
Section 2.4 through Section 2.4.5 —-Jean Jouzel* Reduce in size about 10%
Section 2.5 through 2.5.4 —- Jim Salinger*, Pasha Groisman, Mike Hulme,
Wang. Provide a better context for why this section is important, more on
upper tropospheric water vapor if possible
Section 2.5.5 —- Steve Warren, Dale Kaiser, Tom Karl* Add new analyses of
cloud amount
Section 2.5.6 —-Jim Salinger*
Section 2.6 through 2.6.6 —-Jim Salinger*, George Gruza, Alynn Clarke,
Wang. Reduce in size by at least 50%. Identify a rationale section at the
beginning. IPCC 1995 will help here. Some material may go elsewhere. May
need to consult Mike Mann or Jean Jouzel. Please send revised section to
Chris Folland to finally review (even if not complete) by 16 August. Chris
will feed back changes to Jim by 23 August. Jim Salinger should interact
with Chris during this work too. Jim should prepare presentational material
Section 2.7 through 2.7.4 —-David Easterling, Pasha Groisman, Tom Karl*Review for accuracy
Povl Frich: please interact and be prepared to present extremes parts. Jim
Salinger: you may have more material on extremes in the South Pacific.
Please feed this to Tom Karl and Povl Frich.
Section 2.8 —- Tom Karl, Chris Folland* Develop a summary, including
strawman cartoon
In addition we have about twice the number of figures that will be allowed
so everyone should identify figures that can be removed or combined to
reduce the size. The latter can sometimes be very effective. At the
present time we are about 1/3 over our word limit so everyone will have to
respond to the reviewers (often requesting more), and yet being more
judicious in the words we use. Please consult the 1995 IPCC Report as a
guide.Please do not hesitate to comment on these plans, preferably as soon as
possible, so that holiday arrangements etc do not cause problems.
Cheers and thanks,
Chris and Tom(See attached file: ARUSHA INSTR LEAD AUTHORS.doc)
Attachment Converted: “c:\eudora\attach\ARUSHA INSTR LEAD AUTHORS.doc”
The document “Arusha Instr[uctions?] Lead Authors.doc” is not in the Climategate documents. However, Jones received this document, which presumably set out the duties of Lead Authors (and Key Contributors).
And, of course, following the Arusha meeting, Jones was intimately involved in correspondence with Mann, Briffa and Folland about what to do about the Briffa reconstruction – correspondence that led on the one hand to the deletion of post-1960 data in the IPCC graphic and on the other hand to the notorious ‘hide the decline’ email about the WMO graphic.
Clarke also consulted Trenberth’s CV and observes that Trenberth’s offices in previous IPCC reports had been senior than Jones’. Be that as it may, that doesn’t make Jones an IPCC virgin.
In IPCC’s public face, Contributing Authors are regularly counted as part of the IPCC writing team. Plus, in Jones’ individual case, although he was “only” an AR3 contributing author, he was nonetheless considered a “Key Contributor” and had been actively involved as part of the Chapter 2 writing team. Trenberth’s statement that AR4 was the “first time Jones was on the writing team of an IPCC Assessment” was untrue on either count.
Climate Audit 
139 Comments
Let me beat Deep Climate in highlighting your ENORMOUS error
It was called TAR, not AR3
How could you make such a mistake yada yada yada…
Honestly, here in Peoria this is playing as a beagle chasing a bunny around a semantic rabbit trail, losing the fundamantal issue.
Jones’ premeditated attempt to kill the MM paper was wrong, and the fact that it was wrong does not depend on whatever his offical title with IPCC was, any more than it depends on what that official IPCC title means.
It was basic dishonesty and subversion of fundamental scientific principles. It is disingenuous to claim that Jones could not have known that because of his IPCC capacity, whatever that was.
“Oh I’m sorry. I’m a new guy. I didnt know we didn’t allow fraud, deceit, and underhandedness here.”
When someone says that, you dont quibble over the “I’m a new guy” part.
JJ I am in complete agreement with you about the unethical and strident way in which Jones goes about his business. But it seems to me that engaging in this “Was too!” Was not!” kind of rhetoric distracts from the central point that you describe above.
DC, SMcI —
These latest posts (DC, SMcI) are written in such a way as to serve as the foundation of another round of acrimonious preaching-to-the-choir. Your respective cheer squads are sure to rise to the occasion.
The audience can stipulate that you, um, dislike one another and, er, disagree with one another’s interpretations.
How about putting that aside. On the varied matters of fact, can you identify you opponent’s strongest arguments? Which have merit? Are there any bases for that old trope, “reasonable people can disagree?”
Other sciences do much, much better in airing and exploring disputes, in my opinion.
Submitted 20 Jan 2011 @ 1521 UMT (10:21am EST)
Steve: Trenberth argued that Jones’ conduct in the email in question could be excused on the grounds that Jones was new to the IPCC writing process. I doubt that you agree with Trenberth’s claim and your issue is whether this spitball should simply be left on the wall.
I agree with your view that they quickly descend into he said-she said. On the other hand, if you don’t respond to people like Hasselmann and Trenberth, then people construe the lack of challenge as acquiescence. It’s a very dissatisfying situation. The climate scientist attitudes exemplified by Climategate and the Empire Strikes Back are very discouraging and have very much reduced my interest in the field.
Amac.You are probably new to the “Team” and their behaviour, but it doesn’t work like that. If it did this web site wouldn’t have come into existence.
Re: geronimo (Jan 20 10:35),
> You are probably new…
I understand that my comment could read that way, but actually no.
Apologies.
>then people construe the lack of challenge as acquiescence.
Indeed. I have seen various sites which state as fact that Jones was harassed by FOI requests which took up all his time. Ben Santer appears to be echoing these claims in his interviews, though in his case the data request was for some intermediate data.
I don’t understand your comments about “interpretation”. Unless you are some kind of truth relativist for whom facts are “subjective” and tantamount to “interpretation”, the case is clear, Jones was indeed part of the IPCC writing process, and both Trenberth’s and Deepclimate claims are untrue.
Perhaps you would prefer that after deepclimate’s piece to “debunk” McIntyre, while calling him a liar, he should just shut up and “take it”.
Why don’t you go to DeepClimate and call them on it instead?
His rants against McIntyre make me sick. But hey they are “on the right side” so that makes it okay.
DC proposes as fact (as in his incorrect ‘Fact 4’ in his reply to AMac) that when Trenberth wrote the following, the second sentence is correcting the first :
According to DC : “Fact 4: This latter sentence from Trenberth makes clear that Trenberth was referring to Jones as a “first time” lead author in the preceding sentence.”
It does nothing of the sort – the straightforward reading is that AR4 was Jones’ first time on an IPCC assessment writing team (first sentence) , and he hadn’t attended his first lead author meeting yet [at the time of his writing the offending email] (second).
DC is asking us to consider the possibility that Trenberth wrote unclearly (actually, inaccurately) in the first sentence and then made himself “clear” (actually, corrected himself) in the second – in a written speech. Why would one do that – for rhetoric ? The formulation seems liable to misinform the listener if so. If he meant ‘lead author’ why phrase it so ambiguously and incompletely over two sentences and reliant on a rejection of the straight reading? It stretches credibility*.
* – not that DC possesses much by my reckoning – the all-out attempt to take the Wegman committee’s statistical analysis out of circulation was reprehensible, IMO.
This interpretation also indicates that at the time of the email, Jones, having just been made a lead author and having been a contributing author in two prior assessments, thinks that he has the authority to exclude from the IPCC process papers he doesn’t like.
I wonder where Jones got the idea that lead authors could exclude from the IPCC process papers they don’t agree with?
AMac, we are fortunate that a number of dedicated persons pay careful attention to the claims and assertions made by some people who, in my opinion, are best described as climate alarmists, and hold them publicly accountable for their statements. I will give you an example of why the efforts of Steve McIntyre, Ross McKitttick, [Anthony] Watts, Andrew Montford, to name a few, are an important and necessary part of the discussion.
You may not be aware of a paper authored by Liliana Hiser and published by the Universal Ecological Fund of which she is the Executive Director claiming that the Earth’s average temperature will increase by 2.4 degrees C by 2020. This paper was picked up by several media outlets including EurekAlert which is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is intended for science journalists so that they can be aware of important scientific developments. After it was thoroughly rebutted by a number of people, including NASA’s Gavin Schmidt, Ms Hisas defended her conclusions by asserting that they had been reviewed by a Nobel laureate, Osvaldo Canziani which lead her to stand by her assertions. Donna Laframboise researched Canziani’s Nobel Prize and found that he has a claim to a part of the Nobel Peace Prize that was given to the IPCC by virtue of his being a co-leader of the IPCC when AR4 was written. This is not in the same league as the Nobel prizes for science that were awarded to such giants as Urey in chemistry, Marie Curie, Gertrude Elion (Medicine), Schalow and Townes (physics) Richter (physics) and so on. If Hisas’ claim had been allowed to go unchallenged then I believe that we would, in short order, be the recipients of the message that no one is permitted to challenge any assertions put forth by anyone connected to the IPCC’s AR4 because who are any of us to question these Nobel laureates when in fact, this is not the Nobel prize that is awarded for scientific excellence. This is why I, for one, am grateful for the efforts of those who have taken on the often thankless task of, as Steve McIntyre puts it, following the pea.
Ray,
AMac has been around the block. He’s pursued the Tiljander issue as deep as anyone I know, and is certainly not against questioning claims of certain authorities.
BTW, I was very impressed with AMACs handling of the Tiljander issue. He/She apparently came in without any bias and investigated the evidence (very deeply)…and came out largely in agreement with McIntyre IIRC.
Troyca and S. Geiger, thanks for the clarification.
Steve: “The climate scientist attitudes exemplified by Climategate and the Empire Strikes Back are very discouraging and have very much reduced my interest in the field.”
Driving you from the field is clearly something that would give the Team considerable satisfaction, Steve. We could anticipate pious public pronouncements about you not being able to take the heat of real science, and lots of private smirking. Some by-standing journal editors might feel inner relief about no longer having to face the ethical dilemma of choosing between impeding a paper that looks worthy and facing the opprobrium of Team wrath.
For what it’s worth, we’re all with you in this, even though it’s you (and Ross and Pat Michaels and Richard Lindzen, and . . .) actually facing the stress.
Thanks for remembering and managing all these details. Truth and the scientific method are our most valuable allies.
Does Jones publish his CV anywhere including a list of his published papers and IPCC involvement?
His page at UEA makes no mention whatsoever of his involvement in IPCC activities.
http://www.uea.ac.uk/env/people/facstaff/jonesp
Presumably the J.Salinger mentioned is the same chap who “maintained” the New Zealand temperature record until recently?
“Dave Clarke aka Deep Climate ”
Any peer-reviewed paper from this author?
No, just an album of folk songs
http://daveclarke.ca/guitar_songs.htm
Anthony, is this guy THE DC???
“The online version of this Climategate email is truncated for some reason”
Yes, I noticed this in the weeks after ClimateGate broke – I found stuff in my raw download which didn’t show up in the online version [I used at the time]. I now exclusively rely on the recursive grep command in my own download when searching for stuff in the e-mails.
Incredible that the online database is still corrupt.
The email is truncated because there is a character in it that is beyond the normal 7 bit ASCII range. This happens with all of the emails and is a fault with either the parser that extracts them from the back end database or the parser that inserted them into the database in the first place.
I did report this bug back in December 2009 but it may have been lost in all the other emails he was receiving at the time.
The online versions of the emails always truncate at the first non-ascii character in the text, usually, as in this case, an open quotation mark, but occasionally some sort of long dash.
Wow. Is the code that generated them with this bug open source?
Sorry, never read your comment before replying to pax.
One of the most common characters it stops at is the £ sign (pound sign) so any email that talks about money gets truncated just at the point they start mentioning amounts.
The hockey-stick is alive here
http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/hintergrund/wissenschaft/von_der_eisenzeit_bis_jetzt_1.9143256.html
If seems to be based on different, new data (for Western Europe). Maybe this data is aviable?
(I doubt it, though; swiss climatologists are more security conscious than swiss banks).
Steve, you say “The climate scientist attitudes exemplified by Climategate and the Empire Strikes Back are very discouraging and have very much reduced my interest in the field”. Steve, I hope this doesn’t mean your in a state of despair. In this field you are “su generis”. The teams behavior is nothing short of disgraceful, but you are and will remain a beacon of hope for thuth and honest science. Remember “nolo contendere illegitimi carbarundum
Re: Fred (Jan 20 15:00),
It is hard for me to see how SMcI’s use of the word ‘virgin’ can be construed as other than offensive. Re. this riff on that topic, please reference my earlier comment #252688 (Jan 20, 2011 at 10:21 AM).
Re: AMac (Jan 20 15:24), Absent the antecedent, my comment #252710 no longer makes sense.
Dear Amac,
Your criticism of inconsequentialities suggests you are pursuing this line only to paint yourself as someone ‘above the fray’.
AMac obviously does not watch US TV, or he would know the program “Property Virgins” about first time homebuyers.
‘Virgin’ is jargon,
Meaning naif, novella.
Blessed be the pure.
==========
What was the oldest professor before she was?
==================
Gavin, commented on DeepClimate and stated: “I was a contributing author on AR4 (Chapter 10), and I can confirm that my role was very minor. Contributing authors do not do any of the writing, scoping, responding to reviewers, deciding on references, or finalising text. Instead, they are generally asked to contribute a paragraph or figure or some such at the draft stage and their contributions are then adopted (or not) by the lead author writing team. In terms of deciding what gets in and what doesn’t, contributing authors have no role whatsoever.”
He didn’t comment on key contributors and didn’t specifically state that Jones had a very minor role.
So that’s how you inflate the number to 2500.
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/r/11550672/detail.html
I gotta say, reading the quoted emails above, I can’t see how anyone could hold IPCC reports up as a ‘Gold Standard’ of climate science.
“I was a contributing author on AR4 (Chapter 10), and I can confirm that my role was very minor. Contributing authors do not do any of the writing, scoping, responding to reviewers, deciding on references, or finalising text. Instead, they are generally asked to contribute a paragraph or figure or some such at the draft stage and their contributions are then adopted (or not) by the lead author writing team. In terms of deciding what gets in and what doesn’t, contributing authors have no role whatsoever.”
What is this? a freaking Bake Sale?
Let’s see. Do I give more weight to someone who has never participated in the drafting of a chapter or section of an IPCC report, or do I take the word of someone who has? Boy, that’s a hard decision. Trenberth said, although in an elliptical way, that Jones had never been a lead author. I think the record bears that out. Steve, you are wrong here.
Why don’t you just accept the email cited by Steve that said that Jones was a key contributor.
Well, because he was a contributing lead author (and not the one taking the lead on the sections he worked on) and not a lead author? As the verbatim quote from Gavin points out, lead authors have much different responsibilities than contributing authors. The email Steve cites in no way paints Jones as a lead author. Pretty simple.
From the email quoted it is fairly clear that Jones had a role commensurate with that described by Gavin. Basically it seems like he was responsible for some text in some sections which needed to be shortened. He was not a lead author and from the order attached to the names, he was not even responsible for the overall sections. Not a lead author.
To make it perfectly clear: on AR4 Jones was in no way an “IPCC virgin” (a claim not made anywhere but here. I think that is called a “strawman”, but I may be wrong) and that Jones was a lead author on AR4. This was the first time he had participated as a lead author.
Steve is wrong.
Rattus “As the verbatim quote from Gavin points out, lead authors have much different responsibilities than contributing authors.”
That is Gavin’s take on HIS responsibilities. He was careful not to state what Jones may have done. The reference to key contributor is substantial evidence that Jones had more responsibilities than just plain contributors. If Jones was simply a contributor the author of the email has real problems with the use of language because using term “key contributor” describes one who has major responsibilities.
Re: JD Ohio (Jan 21 09:11),
Gavin’s comment is nonsense. I wrote a reply last night and its been stuck in moderation ever since.
—————–
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
I was a contributing author on AR4 (Chapter 10), and I can confirm that my role was very minor.
I assume this is a true statement and that your role was indeed very minor.
Contributing authors do not do any of the writing, scoping, responding to reviewers, deciding on references, or finalising text. Instead, they are generally asked to contribute a paragraph or figure or some such at the draft stage and their contributions are then adopted (or not) by the lead author writing team.
This may be “generally” true but obviously not the case here. Phil Jones was directly told to revise several sections of Chapter 2 and respond to reviewer’s comments. He was allotted 2 months to do this.
In terms of deciding what gets in and what doesn’t, contributing authors have no role whatsoever.
That’s not relevant here. Jones’ comment on what gets in and what doesn’t was not made when he was contributing author of TAR. It was made when he was lead author of AR4.
The whole point here is that Jones was NOT an IPCC virgin, and had in fact written sections for the IPCC before AR4. So Trenberth’s statements that “AR4 was the first time Jones was on the writing team of an IPCC Assessment” is not true.
Deep Climate has attempted to define Trenberth’s “writing team” as meaning the lead authors. However, if true, this interpretation assumes that only at the “lead author” level is the knowledge that the IPCC will not redefine the peer review process to exclude papers the lead authors don’t like is handed out. Which is either ridiculous, or terrifying.
Re: Rattus Norvegicus (Jan 20 23:42),
Rattus, I will take it that you have never been to a lead author meeting.
Can you envision yourself ever saying that you would have to redefine peer reviewed literature to keep a critics paper out of ANY review of the state of science?
Re: Rattus Norvegicus (Jan 20 22:58), The whole point about whether Jones had written before goes to the issue of him being NAIVE.
Peterson defends Jones, saying Jones was Naive. He was Naive because he hadnt been a lead author and hadnt been
to the lead authors meeting.
Well, we know that he was a contributor. And so Peterson’s defense amounts to this. Its ok for people who are not lead authors to believe that they can redefine peer review. Its ok for people who have not been to to the lead authors meeting to believe they can refine peer review. why? because only there at the lead authors meeting are scientists trained that they cannot redefine peer review.
Weak defense.
But here is one for you. There are other papers the dynamic duo ignored. And they were not written by skeptics
Re: Steven Mosher (Jan 21 02:05),
Steve, I wonder what initiation rites were performed at Jones’ first Lead Authors’ meeting. WHen he was admitted to the inner sanctum. I wonder what it is about these rites that removed the scales from Jones’ eye, ended his previous state of innocence.
And by the way, the Climategate attachments are always interesting. As noted above, Jones received ARUSHA INSTR LEAD AUTHORS.doc in 1999. Surely that would have revealed some of the mysteries.
Re: Steve McIntyre (Jan 21 02:13),
I really wonder why RN would want to win this particular debate. If he were correct, then that instantly destroys the IPCC claim that their assessments are the product of thousands of scientists. He says only the lead authors really know what’s going on when it comes to the report, which is one of the things skeptics have been complaining about all along.
The text has to be prepared by someone. Those someones are the CLA’s and LA’s based on their own knowledge and the contributions on other scientists. But the people who do the writing are the CLA’s and LA’s not the contributing authors.
I would say Peterson get’s it exactly wrong. If you look at Jones’ behavior and his manuevers throughout the mails one consistent pattern emerges. He like to use the machinery of the system to thwart people. I think I wrote about this when I said the real “hackers” ( people who subvert the system) were people like Jones. Their first thought is a proceedural trick. redefining terms, etc. That’s a personality trait.
Personally, I think I have a pretty good radar for this kind of behavior. Note that Jones doesnt say “I read MM04, and will be publishing a paper soon showing it’s flaws.” Only after the Ar4 is the team put on the real science response (Gavin09) This of course paves the way for Ar5, where MM04 can be cited and refuted by S09. hence the importance of keepin MN10 out of the peer reviewed literature.
In Ar4 JonesTrenberth invented a response to MM04. This invention was entirely unnecessary. Now that attention has been called to that invention, a real citable response was needed. S09. In the same way that WahlAmman “made keiths job easier” S09 will make the writing of Ar5 easier. It’s a chess game. The trick is to get your rebuttle in last. Hence the importance of having some inside levers to pull at the journals. You need not keep papers out of peer review, a delay will work.. or accelerating a paper through the process will work.
Re: steven mosher (Jan 21 13:32), omg Steve, I’ve had a flash of insight with your words and it’s anything but naive! Is this it?…….
Phil Jones’ words about “redefining peer review” are really about mastering the strategy needed to always have one’s own side’s answers up one’s sleeve, never get caught with trousers down because The Enemy has a peer-reviewed paper that hasn’t been rebutted when doing the next IPCC review.
Also I get the feeling that what makes Steve despondent is the feeling that “the Team” are mindlessly casting him in this role as “the Enemy” when as we know Steve’s intentions are above all honourable and charitable and desirous of working within the system and with courtesy and proper communications, for the sake of proper Science.
Steve, I don’t want to put words in your mouth. Last thing I want. Like others here I want to support you in your righteous fight.
Re: Lucy Skywalker (Jan 21 15:00), clarification, first mention of Steve means Mosh, second and third refer to Steve McIntyre and his earlier comment.
Re: Lucy Skywalker (Jan 21 15:00), One thing that struck me throughout the mails.
When McIntyre has a problem with a paper WHAT is the resounding plea:
“write a paper, mr Fraudit. do your own science steve.”
When Ross writes a paper what do they say “we can redefine peer review”
And Trenberth calls skeptics the lazy ones.
Throughout the mails one consistent pattern of behavior emerges. Dodge.
“we can say they are lazy” “we can have an independent bucnh of boys from CRU say the work is solid”,”we can redefine the peer review” “delete the mails” “we can pass on everyth tenth line of code” you should show your FIOA officer their web site. “we should collect a file on the editor.”
‘we should boycott the journal.” “we can say keith never got anything.”
The list goes on and on and on. This is not evidence of Naivity. It is evidence of obstruction, of gaming the system. You see the same behavior in the inquiries.
Steve, that email was sent to a whole lot of people, some of whom were leads and others of whom were contributors. Also w/o knowing what the contents of the that memo were it is hard to say whether or not it layed out the processes to be followed by lead authors or whether is was a list of action items or possibly an agenda with notes or action items to be resolved.
He was not a lead author and presumably would not have participated in the lead author meetings.
Re: Rattus Norvegicus (Jan 21 17:09), From my point of view the whole lead/author key contributor, contributor is
a diversion from the main issue.
Issue number 1. Did Jones believe he could redefine peer review.
A. Yes. and the defense here is that he was “naive”
B. No. and the defense here is that he was being “hyperbolic”, dramatic etc.
C. Yes and the speculation is he was being egotistical.
Now, based on the sum total of Jones behavior in the mails, he reactions to conflict i think we can rule out A. Jones was not naive. He was quite well practiced in the arts of ‘working’ a system. Further it makes no sense to explain his utterance on the grounds of naivity. A naive person might say
” Trenberth, do we have any latitude in what counts as peer reviewed literature” he would not just assume he could redefine it. Further, it strains credibility to think that he was disabused of this notion at any lead author
meeting. Finally and most importantly MM04 was published in Climate Research. Jones would have to be stupid ( not naive) to think he could exclude something from that journal, there are no less than 7 references to that journal in chapter 3 alone.
That leaves us with B&C. he was either not being serious or he was being serious. Egotisical or hyperbolic. In the end these interpretations have to
stand or fall on the sum of the evidence. I have seen Jones be hyperbolic.
in fact, I wrote that he was a serial hyperbolist. However, we also have Jones explaining away his others acts as mere “bravado” a handy synonym for egotistical.
I have no doubt those closer to Jones cold parse this better. Maybe a bit of both. In the end, however, you have to face the words that he wrote in chapter3
The sooner you do that, the better. That one needs a good defense. “sloppy” comes to mind. “under pressure” “mistaken” overly confident, imprecise,
pick one
I do not think
Trenbeth’s being very slippery in his statement. He says Jones didn’t understand the process, not that he didn’t know what it was. And since he had a history with the IPCC reports, it defies credibility that he didn’t know and understand the process.
Now let’s see do I believe somebody like Trenberth who’s been caught pants down making false statements or do I believe the person who calmly exposed the statements for what they were, with facts. The answer is simple.
And the extent to which people like Rattus go to elliptically find hidden meaning in two simple sentences makes one laugh. This is not a poetry appreciation session wherein you are challenged to find out the hidden meaning in a few obtuse verses. This is a simple statement made by someone who’s been caught time and again telling falsehoods. It’s meaning is plain to anyone with common sense. Only the AGW crowd manage to tease non-existent obtuse meanings which suit their religion.
Steve mislead you. Here is the whole quote:
Steve is wrong.
Rattus, if I was only relying only this excerpt I would have to assume that Jones had not participated in the writing of a previous IPCC assessment. I’m not sure I care about any of this, but there is no other way to parse this.
> [I]f I was only relying only [on] this excerpt […]
A counterfactual that merits due dilligence.
What does it test exactly?
Might we apply it to all the excerpts we are being given to read?
Wow, now we are really getting into layers of issue. Rattus put up this excerpt claiming that Trenberth was saying that Jones had never been a lead author. I merely noted that this excerpt can’t be parsed to say that. What it does claim is that Jones had never been on the writing team.
> Wow, now we are really getting into layers of issue.
If I was only relying on this excerpt, I would have to assume that Neirenberg believes we’re getting into layers of issue.
Might we apply it to all the excerpts we are being given to read?
The full text of Trenberth’s speech is clearly linked to. Since one reads in it “AR4 was the first time Jones was on the writing team of an IPCC Assessment.”, one can be forgiven for understanding the sentence to mean “AR4 was the first time Jones was on the writing team of an IPCC Assessment.”
A subsequent sentence informing us that Jones had never attended a lead author meeting at the time of writing his “redefine peer-review” email, does not contradict or correct the first statement.
Sorry – if Trenberth meant to say that it was Jones’ first time as a lead author, but that he had been on the writing team previously or not, it’s not what he actually said.
Also, I wonder how sensible it is to engage in conversation with Rattus, who calls CA commenters (forgive the crudity) the “screaming, s**** flinging monkey chorus over at CA” (and variations of this) over at DC’s blog.
Except that the writing team (those responsible for preparation of the text) consist of Coordinating Lead Authors and Lead Authors. Not Contributing Authors. See IPCC Principles Appendix A.
Not so – “writing team” is not defined in the appendix, and contributing authors are involved in the preparation of the text (and other contents). From Principles Appendix A :
The appendix mentions ‘writing team’ three times, without defining it. There’s also a mention of a ‘team of Lead Authors’, referring only to the Technical Reports (not the Assessment report).
I think you shot yourself in the foot there, oneuniverse.
Rattus, it’s easy to demonstrate that Contributing Authors are part of the writing team :
The AR4 WG1 has four Annexes, (1) Glossary, (2) Authors, (3) Reviewers, (4) Acronyms. The second is an alphabetical list of WG1’s authors. There’s a note on the first page:
Contributing Authors are listed as authors of the WG1 report, along with CLAs and LAs.
We can ask : Are the authors of the IPCC WG1 report part of the “writing team” of the WG1 report?
For any reasonable definition of “author” and “writing team”, the answer must be yes – the authors of the report are part of the writing team of the report. Therefore Contributing Authors are part of the writing team. QED.
(As I understand it, the writing team also includes the Review Editors, who are listed on the front page of each chapter along with the authors).
Not as easy as you think. The cited appendix specifically says that the CLA’s and LA’s are responsible for:
Section 4.2.3.
The people who are responsible for actually deciding what gets in and what is left out and who actually prepare the text are the CLA’s and LA’s. Got it?
Maybe there’s a loaded definition of ‘writing team’ used by the IPCC that I’m not aware of – quite possible.
As it is, I consider authors as part of the writing team of the report, and the CA’s are listed as authors.
Here are what review editors should be:
By definition not part of the writing team.
That makes more sense, agreed.
Maybe I was right after all about Review Editors being on the writing team:
Appendix A, Annex 1 of the IPCC principles states (my emphasis) :
So Review Editors have influence over the text – maybe they are a part of the writing team after all (not unknown for editors).
In fact, AR5 includes Review Editors in the “Writing Teams” lists. There aren’t any CA’s for AR5 yet – according to the AR5 Activities page :
A good test (for AR5 at least) will be to see if the CA’s appear on the final list of the Writing Teams.
Dude, can you read? Review editors are not to have any role in preparing the text, at least for AR4. Their role is to ensure that all substantive comments are responded to. Not part of the writing team. The CLA’s and LA’s are responsible for the text. Period.
The lists you cite are lists of contributors — the people who actually write the text and make choices about what to include or exclude are the CLA’s and LA’s, for AR4 at least. For AR5 it seems as though “expert” reviewers will be added to the list of contributors, a move I am not sure that I support.
Perhaps some people (eg. Trenberth) informally refer to the lead and co-ordinating lead authors only as the ‘writing team’.
Alternatively, maybe the IPCC has redefined the word “author”, catching out many, including Gavin, in the process.
FWIW, some more hints that Contributing Authors (particularly those involved in creating the document alongside the lead authors, as Jones was) were part of the writing teams. This is not complete, just what I found via a non-extensive Google search :
At the time of TAR, the IPCC seems to have considered Contributing Authors as part of the writing teams, at least for this Special Report (Methodological and Technological Issues in Technology Transfer, IPCC Special Report 2000) :
The AR4 WGII describes a writing team of CLAs and LAs, with the ability to recruit CAs to the team (AR4 WG II, “E. Procedures followed in this Assessment by the authors, reviewers and participating governments”) :
As Steve’s email extract shows, Contributing Author Jones was asked to assist in the task of producing the author alongside the lead authors, and so was part of the chapter’s writing team.
DC quotes from a letter for AR5 saying something similar :
A recent AR5-era document appears to formalise the notion of the Writing Team, now composed of the Core Writing Team and the Extended Writitng Team (THIRTY-SECOND SESSION OF THE IPCC, Busan, 11-14 October 2010) :
the task of producing the author
That should be “report”, not “author” , sorry.
Hope my previous comment makes it through moderation, otherwise above makes no sense.
Er, and to correct the correction – that should be “chapter”, not “report”.
Re: Rattus Norvegicus (Jan 20 23:45), As usually the actual issue gets missed.
Jones says he will redefine peer review if he has to.
Peterson’s defense is that Jones was naive, and had not been to the lead authors meeting
The real problem is not whether or not Jones had written anything for the IPCC before. The question is
Does, “naivity” explain away Jones comment?
what does Jones’ comment tell us about the systematic way he handles critics (game the system)
Did the lead authors meeting really disabuse Jones of his Naivity?
Does anyone think the lead authors actually said ” and for those of you naive enough to believe
that we redefine peer review, let us disabuse you of those notions.”
One wants to see the minutes of the lead authors meeting.
And finally, the real issue is not what Jones said. It is Not what transpired at the lead authors meeting
( Hey Phil, since this is your first time writing for us, you need to know that your standard
thoughts about redefining peer review dont apply here!)
The real issue is how they treated McKittricks paper when they finally decided to discuss it.
Re: Rattus Norvegicus (Jan 21 17:22),
Hey Rattus, you forgot to reply to Steven Mosher (Jan 21 01:57)
I think, as evidenced by the emails, that Jones was from time to time, given to hyperbole. Perhaps he should have used more emoticons just in case his emails got hacked and misinterpreted by the denier crowd.
So we have this in reality:
1) He thought that deLaut and McKitrick & McIntyre should not be included.
2) They were included.
Any questions?
Yes.
Why were they only included in the final report with an unsubstantiated comment claiming the results where not statistically significant?
Had this claim been made in any of the drafts (which is where it should have been made) the claim would not have made it into the final report.
Re: Rattus Norvegicus (Jan 21 20:09), So yes, Jones was given to Hyperbole. That excuse has been made before. Let’s see how that character trait plays itself out in the science:
“However, the locations of greatest socioeconomic development are also those that have been most warmed by atmospheric circulation changes (Sections 3.2.2.7 and 3.6.4), which exhibit large-scale coherence. Hence, the correlation of warming with industrial and socioeconomic development ceases to be statistically significant. ”
This paragraph discusses the MM04 paper that Jones hyperbolically insinuated that he wanted to keep out. The record will show that Jones succeeded in keeping it out of the drafts. When Gray and McKittrick complained Jones relented. Seems like he tried to act hyperbolically. Now lets look at the detail of the science. Jones dismisses MM04 by stating that circulation changes render Ross’ work “insignificant.” So what pray tell did ross’ finding diminish to.. 60% 87% 92%.
Why to see that you would have to see the study where Ross’ regression was run with circulation as a independent variable. There is no such study. There is no such math. Jones is being hyperbolic.
Thank you.
Next defense. please.
You see whatever character defect you proffer as an excuse will boomerang.
”
Steve: a question – it would be worth checking the chronology of the publication of de Laat and Maurelis. Would it be correct to say that the Chapter 3 Writing Team abandoned the fatwa against McKitrick and Michaels 2004 only after the publication of de Laat and Maurelis? I don’t have time to check right now, but will try to check later in the day.
The treatment of review inputs to AR4 is online at http://hcl.harvard.edu/collections/ipcc/
This leads to http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/7786376 which is Chapter 3: Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change. There is discussion of the M&M and de Laat and Maurellis papers, plus Parker 2005 about Urban Heat Islands, in the pages around page 40. Some days ago I looked for the answer to your question about fatwa timing, but it is not evident in the text that I have read. Others might be able to get a better feel by reading further.
The initial document, in various places, discusses some of the incompatibilities between TAR and AR4 with suggested ways to overcome them. One can not be certain, but one can suspect at times that P Jones is involved in the tactics. If so, this would indicate at least a familiarity by Jones with TAR. There is a personal style, which is to partially answer a direct question with indirect answers, then to switch to another topic to take one off the scent. I have examples of this in other emails between Jones and self. Of course it is not infallible to detect this.
It is a reasonable assumption that P Jones wrote fair sections of TAR because there are large slabs of his specialty when few others specialised. However, this is surmise, not proof.
Is there a similar archive for TAR, like the one above for AR4?
Re: Rattus Norvegicus (Jan 21 20:09),
Rattus, i am waiting for your response. Jones claimed that the observation of circulation patterns rendered Ross’ finding insignificant.
Ross’ finding is the result of a regression where several independent variables associated with trends in economic activity are used to establish a significant relationship between trends in socio economic factos and trends in temperature.
To demonstrate that Ross’ model is rendered insignificant because of circulation
“patterns” One would have to take Ross’ regression and ADD the independent varable for circulation patterns. Was this done? no. So when Jones writes that Ross’ work has been render insignificant he is practicing hyperbole. he’s making stuff up.
Now lets get a little more detailed. When Gavin wrote his 2009 response to MM07
and LM06, does he cite ONE STUDY supporting the claim Jones made in chapter 3?
Or rather, if the claim in Ar4 chapter 3 was already established in the literature
why does gavin even write a paper? And further, how does gavin show that Ross’s work is insignificant? by running Ross’ regression with circulation patterns as a independent variable? Nope. Interesting
Steven,
Given that the satellite data and model runs show similar patterns, Ross is most likely full of, um, hot air on this issue. This paper and the subsequent responses to criticisms have been thrashed in the peer reviewed literature. Quite frankly, I have better things to do than determine the truth or falsity of this claim.
This is all neither here nor there with respect to the subject of this post. You remember that, don’t you? It had to do with the composition of the “writing team”.
Re: Rattus Norvegicus (Jan 22 21:01),
Well you havent kept up with Ross’ work. but the point is this. Jones had no factual basis to write what he wrote.
The connection to the post is clear.
Trenberth claimed that jones was naive because he it was his first time on the writing team and had not been to the lead author meeting.
Steve argued that Trenberth was wrong because Jones had been a contributor.
DC argued that trenberth meant Jones had not been a lead author.
I am arguing that
1. trenberth is wrong that Jones was naive.
2. The lead author team meeting is an obvious failure since it prevented
jones from making things up.
So Jones is either naive (trenberth) Hyperbolic (you) crafty (me), but one thing is undeniable. the lead author meeting and the review process did nothing to prevent jones from making stuff up.
You can defend jones by citing the source he consulted to show Ross’s work insignificant. Or you can say that Jones redefined peer review to mean whatever he choose to write
Where’d Rattus go? I was looking forward to his reply. Movin’ on I guess.
If you’ve got anything other than arm waving on this please fill us in.
I guess all I’ve taken out of this and the related posts is that Jones had probably written text in the past that had excluded unwanted views and that text had made its way through the system.
Now as a lead he said he’d apply the same general past practice he’d been involved in to the paper in question. No real surprise about all that – if Jones had experienced really honest tight management of the process in the past he would have known that expressing the dishonest views he did would have jeopardized his appointment.
Of course that gets denied, but as others have said the paper got dealt to.
The attitudes people express tell you lots about the culture and the acceptable norms within the organisations they work in.
Moderator: earlier version stuck in moderation please delete for this one.
I guess all I’ve taken out of this and the related posts is that Jones could well have seen text written in the past that had excluded unwanted views and that text had made its way through the system.
Now on that basis Jones as a lead saying he’d apply the same past practice to the paper in question would be no surprise.
But if Jones had experienced really tight management of the process in the past he would have known that expressing the views he did in his email would have jeopardized his appointment.
The attitudes people express tell you lots about the culture and the acceptable norms within the organisations they work in.
re: the treatment of McKitrick’s paper, presumable at the hands of the CLAs Trenbreth and Jones :
The following is from Ross McKitrick’s submission to the UK Parliamentary inquiry on CRU :
Re: oneuniverse (Jan 21 22:42), what you need to add is that the investigations could not determine WHO wrote this sentence in Ar4 so they
PUNTED the investigation of it.
neat trick.
Re: Steven Mosher (Jan 24 01:23),
Had to have been a Lead Author since Contributing Authors are naive and don’t do diddly-squat.
Rattus, thank you for the context and the quote, particularly this–“As a veteran of 3 previous IPCC assessments I was well aware that we do not keep any papers out, and none were kept out.”—-
What, pray tell, does this suggest?…, that Jones was not a veteran?
Really?
I think Steve Mc has it nailed and you can’t move the thimbles as well as the Team.
Trenberth had been a Lead Author or Coordinating Lead Author on all 3 of the previous reports. Jones had only been a contributing author.
I’m not the slowest knife in the drawer, but the way you argue for Jones’ ignorance would make one question his competence to be an author in the first place.
I’ve read several posts regarding Jones didn’t do this, you missed the point that, whatever. The biggest point is that, as an accomplished scientist, Jones should have have known better in the first place, whether he was “naive” regarding IPCC procedures or not.
(to all others, sorry if this does not go to the right spot. This is my first post here (I think)).
I’ve read this blog entry three times and I’m not clear as to why it was even written. So what if he was not attributed as a key contributer in previous documents vs a virgin author in AR4?
It seems like you’ve spent a lot of time proving a whole lot of nothing.
The issue is whether Jones understood the IPCC process at the time he stated his intent to redefine the peer review process to exclude papers he didn’t agree with from the IPCC Assessment.
Trenberth says Jones didn’t understand the IPCC process, because “AR4 was the first time Jones was on the writing team of an IPCC Assessment. The comment was naïve and sent before he understood the process and before any lead author meetings were held. It was not sanctioned by me.”
Steve points out that some of this appears untrue, as Jones has worked on previous IPCC Assessments, and has been responsible for “writing” portions of those prior assessments. Therefore, Steve argues, Trenberth’s defense that Jones didn’t understand the IPCC process because he had never before been on a writing team for the IPCC is not supported by the evidence.
Deep Climate attempts to rebut Steve by arguing that Trenberth meant that Jones had never before been a lead author in an IPCC Assessment, and therefore didn’t fully understand the IPCC process as it regards redefining peer review and excluding papers from the assessment. Therefore, Deep Climate contends, Steve has misrepresented what Trenberth intended, and Trenberth’s statement is essentially correct.
Okay, you’ve made a fair point and I did read the response on Deep Climate. Normally I would agree with DC but in this case he seems to be intentionally obfuscating the issue in what looks like effort to distract.
Or maybe he was drinking when he wrote that.. which I can relate with because 95% of the time I post anything on the internet I’m totally drunk.
Re: Ale Gorney (Jan 21 00:52),
You need to read the previous posts. the point is that Trenberth is attempting to excuse Jones’s horrendous comment about redefining peer-reviewed literature, by pretending that Jones was a newbie in the IPCC.
In the original message (0929985154.txt) at the point where the online version you have drops off, there are binary control characters around the term “friendly review” and which are probably quotes . Not all file viewers can handle these gracefully. On my Mac these show up as and and the text stream continues with the complete text. For as long as the Internet has been around these various codings are still not handled well across platforms.
At some point the leading ‘0’ in the file names was also dropped at some sites. The file name is a ten-digit wide number and is the number of seconds since the Unix epoch began at midnight, 1969. So 0929985154 translates to Jun 21, 1999 at 10:12:34. The 10-digit width came about as a matter of convenience when the number of seconds rolled over from 999999999 to 1000000000 on Sep 8, 2001. Note that these numbers are imprecise as several adjustments to the global clock have taken place over time, and the simple conversion math does not take this into account.
I’m sure we’ve all come across people who lie by instinct. Even if there is no advantage to them, they just lie anyway. I wonder whether any of them ever enter the scientific disciplines? Or even “Climate Science”?
Mistakes, spinning, or lying are essential tools of the Team. Some lies may drop inconvenient data to hide the decline, while others may be data-free like Trenberth’s farcical claims about Jones. McIntyre renders service to point out lies of either kind, thereby helping inform public awareness about the Team. Well done!
When I look at this thread and consider the importance of SMC’s work, I am disheartened. AGW is an important and possibly critical issue. SMc has done important work revealing the inadequacy of the scientific response to it. The issue of this post is founded in the inadequacy of the IPCC response and the scientific response in general. AGW is much too important an issue to be dragged down into the petty politics of obscure academic scientists. We have seen the result of that in inadequate papers being published in major journals.
Deep Climate and the rest are like annoying little dogs yapping at your heels. Please, don’t let him distract you from your important work
I tried to post the following at the Deep Climate blog. DC has not seen fit to allow it past his moderation. it was in reply to someone who asked me for specifics on the flaws in Deep Climate’s argument.
My comment above that I tried to post in Deep Climate’;s blog has had some very interesting and pleasing effect. I’d just like to [point out with some pride that Deep Climate has seen fit to create a new segment of his blog just for my postings. It seems like comments point out the triviality of one of his posting, presented in a polite non-abusive manner, is to shocking for the gentle sensibilities of his readers. They must be protected from such upset.
Anyway the special section for ‘Comments That Must Not Be shown” is
http://deepclimate.org/misc-2/the-very-deep-hole/
Best part of the blog in my opinion
Tom, Steve can catch them regarding mis-interpretations of data, but he should not overlook other erroneous claims either. If Trenberth cannot make fair statements about something as low-brow as the contributions of Jones to IPCC reports, and if Trenberth plagerizes words from another author, then Trenberth undermines his credibility about more complicated subjects. Why should we believe his data analysis, when he cannot get the easy stuff right?
“Virgin” or not is irrelevant. You don’t need to be “experienced” to know the basic mechanics of how things are done. To use this as an argument means Jones was naive beyond belief.
Jones says he will redefine peer review if he has to.
Does not matter to me who many times he was a lead author or not, these are not the words of a true scientist.
JohnH, it seems to be fashionable on this site to take everything said in hacked private emails literally.
In that context, I wonder if you would confirm that it’s your opinion, as your comment implies, that Jones actually did have the intention of redefining peer review?
I mean, in your view did he genuinely intend to act on a belief that he could overturn the well-established, deeply entrenched scientific tradition of peer review?
Really?
Re: Gaz (Jan 22 07:28),
Really??? Most of us on this site are adults and, other than trolls like Rattus with his lame attempts at sophistry, actually know how to parse the meaning out of a block of text.
In my view (and in the view of most of us here), this is interpreted as “he genuinely intend(ed) to act on a belief that he could
overturnsubvert the well-established, deeply entrenched scientific tradition of peer review?Really!
Doesn’t matter whether he thought he could or not, the point is if he could he would.
So, JohnH and RomanM, do you think he tried? And if he did try, why do you think he failed – did someone stop him or did he give up for some reason?
Or perhaps he really was just letting off steam in an email between two people?
You see, having seen him on TV, it seems to me quite unlikely that he’s the scheming megalomaniac so many people appear to think he is.
It seems much more plausible to me that he was just expressing his frustration that what he saw as flawed papers might be given more prominence than it deserved.
Omitting McKittrick and Michael in the drafts was, in fact, subversion of the review process. Then, when required to say SOMETHING about it, they falsly characterized it’s significance and dismissed it. The stated intent was to subvert the review process by keeping it out completely, but they were able to subvert the review process by redefining it, as he stated.
Re: Harold (Jan 23 07:52),
IOW, in the absence of any peer reviewed studies specifically addressing the issues raised by M&M, they created their own ad hoc peer review in order to dismiss the inconvenient findings of M&M. I wonder if they did this against any pro-AGW studies. Perhaps Rattus or Gaz could point us to some examples.
Re: sleeper (Jan 23 09:08), No they cant point to any study. That, i suspect, is one reason why gavin wrote his 2009 paper.
“Then, when required to say SOMETHING about it, they
falsly (sic) characterized it’s (sic) significance
and dismissed it.”
Falsely? What was false about the way they characterised it?
Rather than repeat, I’ll refer you to this post:
oneuniverse
Posted Jan 21, 2011 at 10:42 PM
Ha ha.
Thank you Hraold. (Sorry about the ha ha – don’t know what happened there)
Gaz, You don’t seem to understand that this is not an isolated email comment that we are talking about. The climategate emails provide multiple examples of evidence of gaming the system for propaganda purposes.
These includes obstruction to publication of papers by those who are disagreed with and provision of pal peer reviews for their cronies, manipulation of the IPCC review process behind the scenes to exclude undesirable publications and to include their own when the publication timing did not conform with the rules for the writing of the document and misleading presentation of research results (e.g. hide the decline) for the purpose of creating an unwarranted impression of reliability of those results. Many of these revelations were consistent with what many of us had already observed to be happening.
I have not seen Prof. Jones on TV, but I have seen actual photos of him. I agree with you that it is “quite unlikely that he’s the scheming megalomaniac” (“so many people appear to think he is” – prone to hyperbole, are we?). However, I don’t seem to have your ability to make perfectly accurate judgments of a person’s character purely from looking at their image. 😉
Did he see the paper as flawed after reading and researching it, or after seeing who the authors were? If the latter, then he had no objectivity in the first place, and should not have been placed in a position of responsibility within the IPCC.
In a perfect world, that is…
Trenberth says “As a veteran of 3 previous IPCC assessments I was well aware that we do not keep any papers out, and none were kept out.”
Well… eventually. If I’ve understood correctly, Jones and Trenberth omitted McKitrick and Michaels’ 2004 paper from the first 2 drafts of AR4 and it was only inserted after reviewers’ protests (and then with caveats to which there was no opportunity to respond, being after all the reviewing rounds).
https://climateaudit.org/2009/12/17/climategatekeeping-2/
I continue to look forward to your more in depth threads on peer review in climate science. This thread is interesting background and helpful additional information towards that end.
You know, the more I read about the Team, the more (without in any way intending to disparage the opposite sex, God love them) these guys remind me of dealing with a bunch of tenth grade girls. The difference, though, is that the girls grow up.
I visted the DirectClimate site to see what all the fuss was about and I have to say that the vitriol and free use of terms like “liar” and other epithets make me wonder whether Steve is or should intending to engage in a libel action.
In my view those who engage in this sort of name-calling and defamation have lost the rational argument and are simply behaving in a vindictive manner to save their own egos. I’d love to see someone taken to court for defamation on the AGW side, it might tone down the name-calling and get back to the science then.
Steve, you’re 100% right on this issue. However, I really think arguing about this isn’t going to get you anywhere as it’s a case of “he said/she said”. Both sides will claim that it’s all up for interpretation. I agree with your view on this matter, however I still fail to see how it is really that important in the scheme of things. Big picture, someone mispoke. Jones tried to get your paper kicked out. He gets told he can’t. The reviewers screw you and McKitrick around. AR4 is a mess. The end.
Can’t we focus on the actual issues? And maybe things we can change… e.g. AR5?
I know it’s easy to be sucked into the name calling but you don’t have to drop to their level. (You will only give them fuel to ignore you more).
Steve: I wasn’t involved in this article. It was McKitrick and Michaels 2004.
Woops. My bad. Brain fade 🙂
Craig, the entire post and comments are very constuctive of understanding the terams efforts to influence peer review in details involving Jones, and in the large pictuere of climate science and criticisms going back to the Wegman report concerning palreview and possible group think.
Rattus Norvegicus comments are most welcome as he epitomizes the legal phrase, “when the facts are on your side argue the facts, when they are not, argue the law”. His posts are a one track attempt to avoid the issue. Mosher finally nails him and he cannot respond. Later, ignoring Mosher and Bender’s dig to get him to engage in the issue, he falls back to “ome fact” form and states that “the issue is if Jones was a lead author or not” (paraphrase) Astounding, but informative to those of us watching, reading and learning.
Vincent Gray re AR4 in preparation comment 3-253, asked for deletion of certain proposals, saying that McKitrick and Michaels 2004 “have shown that the whole set, even after supposedly “corrected” for urbanization effects, is significantly influenced by a whole range of socioeconomic factors such as increases in population, coal usage and prosperity.”
The review process noted –
Rejected. Parker (2006) provides a detailed demonstration of the lack of urban influence. The locations of socioeconomic development happen to have coincided with maximum warming, not for the reason given by McKitrick and Michaels (2004) but because of the strengthening of the Arctic Oscillation and the greater sensitivity of land than ocean to greenhouse forcing owing to the smaller thermal capacity of land.
In hindsight, we seem to lean to the common sense of M&M and wonder what Parker wrote. One might wonder even more about the logic of the science behind the rejection of M&M. It’s the part answer then change the subject approach I mentioned above. Not that I know that P Jones wrote it.
So, if you have two conflicting papers, who gets dibs? Unless there are many more legit papers on one side, than the other… I guess even one paper can upset the apple cart and set a new paradigm.
My recollection is that the Parker paper did not address M&M’s criticisms, but is concerned with the comparison of trends on windy and non-windy nights. The point is that the statement
“The locations of socioeconomic development happen to have coincided with maximum warming, not for the reason given by McKitrick and Michaels (2004) but because of the strengthening of the Arctic Oscillation and the greater sensitivity of land than ocean to greenhouse forcing owing to the smaller thermal capacity of land.”
was not supported by any published paper. Moreover it has since been shown by Mckitrick to be false, see http://rossmckitrick.weebly.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/ac.preprint.pdf
There are points where the bubble tried to burst itself, and would have, but for deft handling of the stick, and oh, such careful breathing.
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Trenberth’s attempted exonerating trivialization (for want of a better phrase) of Jones’s role vis a vis AR4 is somewhat at odds with Jones’s (and Briffa’s) purported submissions to Muir Russell – which led Muir Russell to conclude:
But perhaps Trenberth has not read Muir Russell’s “report”.
Perhaps Trenberth only read the bit about looking into Jones’ eyes instead of asking and recording the answer to the questions
The best form of support is helping monetarely.
So I did just that.
Keep up the good work!
Dear Steve / moderators, my comment (Jan 24, 2011 at 6:37 PM) is in moderation, pls retrieve if possible?
Does it appear that CAGW scientist are always trying to find ways to spread the warmth. In Antartica, in teleconnected trees (Finnish trees do not respond to Finnish temperature if they happen to correlate with Swedish temperature) in “one tree to rule them all”, in GISS 1200 k anomaly spreading. What have I missed?
I can almost hear them speaking of the missing heat saying, “don’t hide it, divide it” Oh wait, no, that was a conversatioon from the 60s.
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