On August 3, I discussed the progress of David Holland’s efforts to overcome obstruction by the University of East Anglia and the IPCC to a request under UK Freedom of Information legislation for a secret letter from Thomas Stocker to, among others, lead authors of IPCC AR4. I observed that many of the recipients of the letter “worked for US, Canadian and Australian federal agencies and universities, offering other possible routes for obtaining the letter if IPCC wants to do things the hard way.”
Chris Horner noticed the post and promptly submitted an FOI request to NOAA for any such emails received by Thomas Peterson (a Climategate correspondent). Today, NOAA released the letter, together with a covering email.
CA readers will recall that Thomas Stocker issued dire threats to UK authorities that IPCC would retaliate against UK scientists if the UK released the IPCC letter.
The IPCC threat was subsequently cited in an ICO decision on a different matter, then in a submission by Universities UK to a Parliamentary Committee and then in the report of the Parliamentary Committee (see review here).
The next question: the IPCC said that it would “reconsider” relations with UK scientists if the secret letter were released. Will the IPCC now “reconsider” relations with US scientists now that NOAA has released the secret letter? Or was the threat limited to the UK where UEA employees had previously solicited Stocker’s assistance in obstructing UK FOI legislation? Is there any principle under which IPCC threatens UK scientists, but not US scientists?
The letter sets out IPCC position in the wake of Climategate, with Stocker reassuring AR4 authors that AR5 would be as “effective as possible while at the same time emphasizing the robustness of AR4 findings”. The letter itself does not justify the elaborate tactics that IPCC used to keep the letter secret. Someone should ask Stocker to explain his threats.
Update Oct 5. I sent the following letter to IPCC in light of the US decision:
Subject: IPCC Threats
Dear Ms Christ,
On several occasions, the co-chairs of IPCC Working Group I issued threats to institutions in the United Kingdom that disclosure of IPCC correspondence would “force [IPCC] to reconsider our working arrangements with those experts who have been selected for an active role in WGI AR5 from your institution and others in the UK”. The IPCC threat was recently cited in a report by the Parliamentary Justice Committee in the UK in hearings on the Freedom of Information Act. See http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmjust/96/9610.htm#note369).
Recently, an agency of the US government released the same letter under U.S. Freedom of Information Act. Would you please advise me whether (and when) the IPCC plans to reconsider working arrangements with U.S. scientists because of the release of this letter? Or is the IPCC unwilling to apply the same sanctions to the U.S. that it threatened the U.K.? If so, is this on a principled basis?
Your previous threat letters were cited in an decision by the UK Information Commissioner. If, on reflection, IPCC has re-considered its previous threats and no longer contemplates retaliation, you should so notify the UK Information Commissioner, Universities UK, the Parliamentary Justice Committee and the University of East Anglia.
Regards,
Stephen McIntyre
Climate Audit
Climate Audit 
46 Comments
IPCC secrecy about a letter from February 2010 sent to all AR4 Lead Authors, Coordinating Lead Authors and Review Editors under the letterhead of WG1?
Isn’t there a 97 % consensus about CAGW with an certainty equal to Newton’s laws of gravity? Then why the secrecy, what are they hiding?
Could it be they are worried about setting a precedent that might be used later to force disclosure of other documents?
then their conduct is even stupider. If they disclosed the letter voluntarily out of their own free will, then that is not a binding precedent. By contesting the UK freedom of information, they will get a decision that may well establish a precedent that they dont like.
The guilty know the nature of the references that they make, in context. We are not privy to that knowledge. They fear that should we come to know specifics that we will figure out their intent.
This is an “iceberg” document. Only 10% of the substance is seen but what is hidden underneath is the dangerous element.
“Most ‘scientists’ are bottle washers and button-sorters” –Robert A. Heinlein
And those are the ones that usually end up in charge.
From the IAC Recommendations:
I respectfully disagree. This letter is very damaging, if you do not look at it as fluff. Here is the sentence:
“[ … ] are working on a strategy to ensure that the work on the AR5
is as effective as possible whilst at the same time emphasising the robustness of the AR4 findings.”
This is communicating that they are “protecting the brand.” Protecting the Brand is a common pr strategy. Science is not a “strategy.” Some of the real PR folks who saw this probably blew a fuse because with protecting the brand, you do not want to broadcast your purposes. That’s why they hid the letter.
Compare, what if there were a series of engineering reports about the failure of the New Orleans levees. Can you imagine a real scientist saying he wanted to emphasize the the quality of the prior reports? No, the next report should be just an improvement.
Also, what does “effective as possible” communicate? Salesmanship, not science.
Parodies should be made on these lines, applying them to other walks and sciences in life.
Arguably, the letter made each recipient a co-conspirator in the IPCC’s self-promoting, non-scientific agenda indicated here. But I think it probably just flew by most scientists.
BTW, Robustne
Possibly true but its not damaging because it can be explained away quite easily.
The intention behind “effective as possible” was referring to the IPCC’s obligation in both AR4 and AR5 to review all the science, etc., and provide a comprehensive view – to do so would be “effective”.
“…emphasising the robustness of the AR4 findings” can easily relate to an intention to emphasise their robustness at the time those findings were made/announced, but of course AR5 would also bring them up to date, and identify where those robust findings have been adjusted in line with new understandings/data/etc.
Not saying this was what was meant anymore than your interpretation – either might be true, but this is surely what would be said were the phrases you have outlined to be questioned. Move on, nothing to see here.
“…emphasising the robustness of the AR4 findings” can easily relate to an intention to emphasise their robustness at the time those findings were made/announced, but of course AR5 would also bring them up to date, and identify where those robust findings have been adjusted in line with new understandings/data/etc.”
RB, that is your spin and not what was said. What was said would appear to be a conclusion before the fact. That is transparently marketing a brand just as your defense is transparently what a defense lawyer would concoct.
A ‘conclusion before the fact’ would be if they had said the work was robust before doing it. But it had been completed for some years.
As much as you might wish it to be otherwise the sentence can easily be interpreted as simply reassuring WG1 participants that the validity of their work will be defended. The context of the full statement supports such a reading, whatever the truth may be.
“The context of the full statement supports such a reading, whatever the truth may be.”
The context is AR5 which is a continuation of the previous ARs including AR4. Does the author(s) know what the Ar5 will say about the robustness of AR4 or AR3 or Ar2 or AR1. Do the conclusions and the robustness of previous IPCC reviews stand for all time, or like science is supposed to work, continue to progress and change. I can understand a comment and position coming out of those who defend political actions and tend not to admit past errors or need for change.
Excuse my naiveté, but how do we know that this is the real letter?
Steve, could you put the link to the letter in your post?
Click to access letter_wg1ar4authors_26022010-1.pdf
Re: sue (Oct 5 00:44),
From the letter:
Looks like the IPCC deals with “growing concerns by governments” on a case by case basis. Carrot for some, stick for others?
There is oddly no date on the letter. Are we to gather from its URL that it was Feb. 26, 2010?
Re: Hu McCulloch (Oct 5 10:04),
The file name is identical to that in cover email disclose by NOAA and the text in that is identical to what the UEA disclosed to me on 30 March 2011.
Defensive? Much?
Quite why they thought that letter was controversial in any way is a mystery to me. Even the “protecting the brand” section is hardly the stuff of tabloid newspapers.
Of course, what is not actually in the letter is the mindset of the authors when they wrote it. Surely only a guilty conscience about that would lead them to wish to suppress it?
Amateur psychobabble on my behalf perhaps….but whaddaya think?
Another example of the moral bankruptcy at the heart of the IPCC and climate “science” in general.
Having “jousted” with University of East Anglia and its highly paid lawyers for a number of years to get a (what turned out to be a completely innocuous) email released, I can only say that obstructionism and lying is the knee-jerk reaction of many climate “scientists” when asked for information, however trivial.
It really makes one think.
Bizarre to say the least.
There are only four possibilities that I can see.
1) Completely irrational behaviour.
2) Precedent. It may be that NOAA has less concern about the rest of its correspondence than does UEA. UEA wants to maintain a tactic of obdurate resistance pour discourager les autres.
3) A number of governments (plural) had evidently posed difficult questions to the IPCC, perhaps completely independently. The IPCC may have feared concerted action, and did not wish to make it known to those governments that each of them was not alone.
4) IPCC desire not to share publicly the unscientific focus on maintaining the brand.
I think I’ll vote for number (1).
This is a post posted at WUWT that may explain some of it.
” John Whitman says:
October 4, 2012 at 4:50 pm
Here is the metadata from the pdf file of the just released letter.
Document Title: Letter_WG1AR4Authors_26022010
Author: Melinda Tignor
Created: 2/26/2010 10:10:31 AM
Modified: 10/2/2012 1:50:16 PM
Application: Microsoft Word
Format: application/pdf
What modifications were made on 10/2/2010 1:50:16 PM? Where is the original document created on 2/26/2010 10:10:31 AM?
NOAA, I request to see the original created on 2/26/2010 10:10:31 AM.
John”
What means exactly “working arrangements” in the IPCC context ?
Of course there’ll be no reconsideration.
Firstly this is a standard excuse from bureaucracy 101. Secondly the LBJ protocol applies, there’s no way that the IPCC is going to place large numbers of US based egomaniacal micturators *outside* the tent….
I agree with Follow the Money. IMHO the letter showed that the leadership of IPCC were in a dead panic on how to respond to criticism. But much worse, some governments were threatening to hold investigations and the IPCC, UNEP and WMO were working out how to stop them.
The letter is a call to arms to help smother any governments asking questions.
I sent the following letter to IPCC in light of the US decision:
Steve: I’m guessing several weeks, if not months, of lucubration before you get a response on that one.
HIlarious. You hit all the right notes, your letter to Ms. Christ is very, very funny.
w.
Willis. I’m a carpenter, mechanic and ex-geologist. I operate on the level of making an agreement, and a shake of the the hand. Deal done and honoured.
This stuff messes with my mind. I’m, very grateful that SM can put that letter together (there’s a typo btw). It won’t help. There is always an escape, ultimately ignoring all rules and regulations. Honour and self-respect come a poor second to some, when power and control are at risk.
Just a thought – you probably should copy both the released document and your letter to the IPCC to the UK Information Commissioner, so that they also have an opportunity to follow this discussion.
Cheers,
You mean they haven’t read it already, on this thread? 🙂
Good idea, even so.
Great letter, Steve! Speaking as a USA taxpayer, I would like to encourage the IPCC to sever all ties with all persons and entities within the USA.
Speaking of the IPCC’s “working arrangements with those experts who have been selected for an active role in WGI AR5” …
One of the “experts” with whom the IPCC has such a “working arrangement” is UVic’s Andrew <AR4 will reveal climate change to be a barrage of intergalactic ballistic missiles> Weaver.
Weaver (who today seems to have discovered twitter) has just announced (via twitter) that:
In light of the thrust of the IPCC’s “conflict of interest” policy, I wonder if the IPCC will be “force[d] to reconsider [their] working arrangements” with Weaver.
[** Preliminary results (which I’m still analyzing) of a recent survey I conducted strongly suggest that fear of CO2 does not cause extreme voting.
Knowing what I know about the residents and presumed voters of “Oak Bay Gordon Head” in Victoria (on Vancouver Island), Weaver may well have to whip-up one heck of a lot of fear of CO2 in order to realize his dream of “shaping policy” provincially.]
But I digress …
In light of this evidence of Weaver’s Green-striped advocacy, surely the IPCC must be very concerned about Weaver’s ability to bring to his role of Lead Author of AR5 Ch12 “Long-term Climate Change: Projections, Commitments and Irreversibility”, the required unimpeachable objectivity and lack of bias.
Were anyone to ask the IPCC about Weaver’s (to the best of my knowledge) non-declared intention to recuse himself from AR5 deliberations, I strongly suspect that s/he will be greeted with one of the IPCC’s favourite tune: “Sounds of Silence”.
Or perhaps (after considerable delay), a response similar to that received by Pielke Jr. regarding the falsities in an IPCC press release: Examination of political activity by IPCC authors does not fall within the purview of the current IPCC processes, procedures or protocols. OWTTE.
I do not recall if Steve has pointed this out before but, when in 2009 the UEA was scrambling about to justify to the Commissioner its refusal of my requests of 5 and 27 May 2008, Osborn in CG2 3529.txt asked Solomon to say her email of 14 March 2008 to Mitchell and all the other AR4 WGI Review Editors was the official IPCC position. (Her email was attached to the end of my submission to the Russell Whitewash which did not get published.) Instead stating that it was an official IPCC position, on 18 June 2009 she emailed back,
Maybe UEA FOI man Palmer was not told because while Jones is in Geneva he asks him to get the the IPCC to back up the UEA’s refusal. In CG2 4752.txt on 14 July 2009 Jones replied,
So Osborn has another go on 15 July 2009, this time at Stocker, and spells out in CG2 1526.txt exactly what is needed,
Steve, has excerpted from the letter that the UEA and MO are relying upon but (temporarily) I have stuck a copy here, and the one the UEA sent asking for it is here.
Stocker “overarching principle” of total and eternal secrecy was tailor made for the CRU crew.
Re: David Holland (Oct 5 11:19),
The last link for the UEA begging letter should have been this. I must have hit the return key too soon!
They’ve tried to keep that a secret because it reveals “a number of governments are considering beginning their own investigations.”
IPCC is a UN organisation and is therefore ultimately controlled by member states. If enough member states decide they want change, change there will be (cf the quota requirements). The IPCC can’t publicly criticize these governments, shout denier at them and certainly can’t ignore them.
This is quite big as those governments who took the step of raising matters with IPCC must have a degree of skepticism about the prevailing consensus. Alas it seems the bureaucrats have succeeded in smoothing governmental feathers, probably with the help of intense diplomatic lobbying by friendly member states (eg UK/USA). Enough time has passed now and the immediate danger to the IPCC is over.
Stocker’s obstructionism has worked, unless one or more of those governments makes a public statement. (seriously unlikely).
Well put. Denier governments. Who’d have thought it?
I’ve think you’ve called this pretty much right – except the UK could seriously change its status to IPCC critic behind the scenes, because the current administration may have turned the corner. Canada’s another interesting one. And I hear rumour that there may be an election in the US fairly soon. So I don’t think the data on “Stocker’s obstructionism has worked” is finally in. But I think you’ve captured the motivations as best we can with limited knowledge.
Our host would never mention it but there is a great “Life Imitates Art” moment on BishopHill juxtaposing a Josh cartoon with a picture of our host blogging on his laptop wearing a hard hat and a HiViz vest.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/10/4/life-imitates-art.html#comments
This document isn’t banal at all. There’s this right in the middle of it.
“In addition a number of governments are considering beginning their own investigations or asking IPCC to conduct a review.”
The next sentence then refers to “growing concerns” of governments.
No, they wouldn’t want this coming out. The key question now is which governments are these and why are there concerns growing. Can’t ever let the mainstream press, which has been nicely carrying our water thus far, ever suspect that there are serious reasons to doubt all the great work the IPCC has done. If they are discovered, then officials are going to be put on the spot of having to justify why they want the IPCC investigated.
Second, “review” is often government code for “we’re cutting your funding”.
Third, this bit:
“If allegations of errors in the WG1 contribution to AR4 are made, please be assured that the current WG1 Co-Chairs will take responsibility for investigating these.”
Freely translated, “We can’t trust Rajenda Pachauri to pick his own nose, let alone anything more complicated.” This to me is a clear statement in lack of confidence in the IPCC Chair and his ability or lack thereof to defend the IPCC’s ARs.
This letter is an admission by Stocker to his colleagues that:
1. AR4 used non-peer reviewed stuff that did not meet the IPCC standard, hence giving rise to all kinds of embarrassing errors.
2. AR5 had better not be vulnerable in this way. Otherwise the government “investigations” or “reviews” could become a witch hunt for those culpable.
In short, this is Stocker saying, “Get your sh!t together or we’re all going to get boiled in oil.”
cgh –
Re: your third point, I read the section about investigations rather differently than you did.
“If allegations of errors in the WGI contribution to AR4 are made, please be assured that the current WG I Co-Chairs will take responsibility for investigating these. If it is necessary to prepare a response or rebuttal we will do so in full consultation with the CLAs of the respective Chapter, as well as the LAs and REs if necessary.”
I read this as Stocker telling folks, “Don’t respond; and especially don’t admit that there were any errors. We’ll respond here at spin central.” Same advice which PR firms give to employees of a company in a scandal — they’re trying to manage public perception by controlling the message.
HaroldW, yes I too read it as Stocker & co. trying to give the strongest possible statement to all recipients to defer and refer to the current WG1 co-chairs for any problematic issues. i.e., he can’t order scientists not to talk but he urges them to regard the co-chairs as the only people who should be *responsible* conducting any re-assessments of anything in AR4. This is message control indeed. Organizations have their reasons for doing it (some legitimate, some not) but it should be recognized for what it is. In these cases of independent scientists who should be free to speak their minds, it is potentially far more pernicious…..
Harold, Skiphil, there’s another aspect of this which is even more disturbing now that I think about it. As Steve pointed out in his intro, this is directed to members of Canadian, US and Australian government agencies (among others). What we have here then is a letter advising these government bureaucrats not to tell their superiors anything but to redirect questions from superiors to the WG1 co-chairs. This isn’t sedition, but it’s running close to the line.
Skiphil, you are right. It calls into question the supposed independence of scientists on government payroll.
Is there any reason why the newly available “secret letter,” or a link to it has not been posted on the two climateaudit articles about the issue?
“In addition a number of governments are considering beginning their own investigations or asking IPCC to conduct a review.”
Is it possible to FOI this information to see exactly what said nations concerns were, and how the IPCC responded?
I think it was nations conducting their “own” investigation, that scared the hell out of the IPCC. I think they buried the letter to hide this communication.
Would it be possible, to send me a copy of the whole letter of Thomas Stocker?
Thank you
Kind regards
Werner
Werner Furrer –
The letter is available at
Click to access letter_wg1ar4authors_26022010-1.pdf
Try here with a discussion here.
The letter would be funny, if only the topic weren’t so serious!
I can imagine a response something of the effect to “We can’t answer your question because it might influence our working relations with these governments.”
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