If he was truly concerned about the lack of transparency from “the Team”, then he could have easily provided more information on the Yamal chronology (As far as I remember Steve is still trying through FOI to get this – is that right?) and encouraged a discussion as to whether it is a useful proxy or not. It would have been a lot easier & simpler than leaking the e-mails.

He could even agree to collaborate with Steve on this. I think Steve was just looking for an open and detailed discussion, rather than a series of partisan essays which then get misinterpreted by either “side” (I’m sure he can correct me if I’m wrong), which is what we got.

I agree that Briffa does seem to have been rightfully concerned about the unscientific approach of some of the others, at times. But, this is common in academia – many academics believe they know what the “right” answer is, and those that disagree are clearly incompetent. But, usually, they just work through the system & try to make sure their views are recognised in their own little corner.

If Briffa wanted to get the science back on track, an easier & less divisive step would have been to just open the discussion on Yamal!
The sceptics & believers who are interested in the science (I do think they exist on both “sides”) could have tried to resolve the issue, possibly leading to mutual respect between the two groups. It could have acted as a “bridge” over the current chasm that divides the sceptics and the believers.
In some senses, Climategate has led to the chasm widening. It’s just that it’s made a lot of people realise the “sceptic” side of the divide is not that bad a place.

P.S. Jacoby & D’Arrigo, 1995 seem to have been the first to comment on the divergence – for Alaska. It’s behind a paywall, but some of it is repeated here:
http://www.pnas.org/content/94/16/8350.full.pdf

As far as I know, Briffa didn’t comment on it until Briffa et al., 1998 (two papers). Although, there they suggested it was a more widespread phenomenon (high northerly latitudes).

Perhaps. I briefly pondered this 2 years ago and for much the same reason you do – Briffa doesn't much seem to like Mann

BUT, I keep bumping up against the deep IT knowledge of FOIA. It is simple enough to upload material onto the internet, sure, but very, very difficult to do so using copied information without being fairly easily traced (especially by forensic IT squads hired by police for that exact purpose). I know I haven't got a hope of doing it (despite all the Hollywood film bluster), and I expect it would take me a long time to learn how – and I would make many mistakes on the way

In my experience, most academic scientists are just as clueless here. If Briffa is involved, IMO he has really expert IT help … and I find believing in conspiracy (even small ones) is just a bridge too far

My own view is that the UAE IT admin quietly started to collect email data from the server to assess UAE legal exposure to potential FOI finangling. From there, quiet outrage grew. No hard evidence, just guesswork here

Briffa:
“I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’ but in reality the situation is not quite so simple. We don’t have a lot of proxies that come right up to date and those that do (at least a significant number of tree proxies ) some unexpected changes in response that do not match the recent warming. I do not think it wise that this issue be ignored in the chapter. For the record, I do believe that the proxy data do show unusually warm conditions in recent decades. I am not sure that this unusual warming is so clear in the summer responsive data. I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1000 years ago. I do not believe that global mean annual temperatures have simply cooled progressively over thousands of years as Mike appears to and I contend that that there is strong evidence for major changes in climate over the Holocene (not Milankovich) that require explanation and that could represent part of the current or future background variability of our climate. ”

In addition, wasn’t Briffa the first to publish on the divergence? I have to think that Mann would never have published on it.

Also, during the Yamal debate that happened here, there was a letter from Briffa about the debate. In it he admitted that proxie series were picked for inclusion in reconstructions according to how well they agreed with the instrument record.

I still have a notion that Briffa may be involved in the climategate releases.

I can even understand them believing conspiracy theories to justify that – sure they seem to be common traits on both sides of the debate.

I can also kind of understand why model developers like Gavin believe their models (although I have no respect for his appalling censorship of intelligent criticism on RC) – I worked in model development for a few years (not climate science). This bizarre notion that models are somehow more reliable than empirical observation is NOT just a climate science thing.

But, scientists who continuously hide behind obfuscation, then mislead & even lie to defend their work get no respect from me. We’re all allowed to make mistakes, or put forward ideas we might not be 100% sure of. Science thrives on exploratory investigations. But, if science is to progress, you need to be prepared to acknowledge that you can make mistakes or even that some doubt remains.

From the tone of the private emails in Climategate 2.0 is almost seems like they were trying to steal a win when all of their own work was so terribly shoddy.

http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/pub/herweijer/Herweijer_etal_2007.pdf