Please discuss press coverage on this thread, rather than OT comments on other threads. I realize that there are many new readers and this site has been patched together quickly to handle overthrow from Climate Audit. Please observe policies on not discussing policy – I don’t want to discuss or speculate on Copenhagen or cap-and-trade – you can do so elsewhere. Please do not editorialize on ethics. I understand the temptation, but please refrain anyway. There are some words and language that are strictly forbidden. Please avoid being excessively angry or piling on.
Here’s a quick start – there are dozens.
The Times Online
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936289.ece
The Daily Express
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/69623
Climate Audit 
745 Comments
The Sun chain columnists seems to be leading things in Canada.
Sunday-
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/lorrie_goldstein/2009/11/29/11967916-sun.html
Saturday –
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/salim_mansur/2009/11/28/11961501-sun.html
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/michael_coren/2009/11/28/11961496-sun.html
Thursday –
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/lorrie_goldstein/2009/11/26/11929676-sun.html
Actually I want to report the non-coverage of Climategate in one of the bigegst local Dutch papers “De Volkskrant”. The silence of it’s chief science editor Martijn van Calmthout on this subject is deafening. I’m not surprised as he was a staunch supporter of the Hockey Team and never shy of severe punishing sceptic scientists. He should take an example of George Monbiot but presumably he doesn’t want to lose face.
Hi All
Just to say that in the UK neither the BBC nor the independent TV stations have given any real coverage to “climategate”. This includes Sky tv. Monbiot’s article in the Guardian is the most significant press article on the subject as it is from a genuine AGW supporter. The article which calls for Phil Jones’ resignation, still gets maximum readership everyday despite comments page (over1000 ) being closed.
Politically, read the official Conservative party (UK ) blog by David Cameron, Blue Blog. The comments indicate that he has little support in the party over this issue. Though he losing his grass roots’ polical support the press are ignoring the affair.
Truely amazing
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6679082/Climate-change-this-is-the-worst-scientific-scandal-of-our-generation.html
I was going to leave a post, but you can find it in the already published English Alphabet.
REF: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_alphabet
My particular selection and pattern of the letters may be proprietary in nature and therefore cannot be published or released.
I don’t really understand why we are letting so many news organizations get away with the Dan Rather defense. Just call them on it.
All you have to do is say
‘Yeah we may have lied but the point was still true. Thats called the Dan Rather defense.’
It will usually leave them tungtied.
Here’s a good one and entertaining, too:
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=YjAxYzA3NmI0N2Y1MDVhYzdmM2JkZGIyMjE5ZWU2OTI=
I can report an almost total lack of mention of ClimateGate in the reputable Swiss newspapers. The most liberal of the newspapers “Neue Zuercher Zeitung” (NZZ) http://www.nzz.ch, so far hasn’t mentioned it with even a single word. Same is true for most reputable paper in the French speaking part of Switzerland “Tribune de Genève” http://www.tdg.ch.
I did a search on the term “climategate” on Google, CBS News, NBC News and ABC News earlier this morning. Here is the result:
Google: 11,000,000 plus hits
CBS News: ZERO
NBC News: ZERO
ABC News: ZERO
At least the major newspapers are covering the story although most in the U.S. are really trying to downplay the importance of Climategate. It won’t work. The Internet is how information gets communicated these days and there is nothing that the MSM can do about it.
The Times of London only today publishing what you put out in August about CRU deleting the original temperatures (and apparently the meta data) is interesting. So today the world learns about Phil Jones’ dog. It is a shame it had to wait until now to get noticed. They could have published this story back in August.
Johnathan Leake’s article in The Times is a good review of the affair, but look how long it took to reach the MSM. On Saturday my local and national news carried Tiger Woods’ car crash – as if that is important!
Revkin over at the NYT published a story earlier, but with Andy’s presence in the emails it is hard to know whether it was a rearguard-action or true journalistic brio. Also we got to witness the hypocrisy of the NYT refusing to published leaked material.
The longer the US MSM maintains its news-blackout of this story, the greater the demonstration of its irrelevance. A suggestion to one of those over-dressed lackeys at the President’s next press conference might be a question along the lines of:
“Mr. President, in light of the recently released emails and computer code documenting scientific malfeasance at the organization responsible for documenting global temperatures and climate models, do you think there is need for a blue-ribbon panel of impartial scientists to evaluate the status of climate projections and will you use your presence at Copenhagen to advance this position to the rest of the world.”
Well fox is expected to win November Sweeps. Perhaps its time they started an evening news show rather than filling the slot with Simpsons reruns.
No auto suggest for “climategate” in Google, despite millions of hits.
No auto suggest for “hide the decline” in Youtube (owned by Google), even it was there few days ago.
Those folks think we are all China.
Switched to Bing.
Correction, Google does have climategate in auto-suggest now. Although it’s interesting the three auto-suggests before it do not have nearly so many hits.
Just type “clim” and you’ll get it, also, it’s up to about 13+ million hits as of now (15:17 pst)
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100018263/climategate-googlegate/
Climategate: Googlegate?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100018263/climategate-googlegate/
By James Delingpole Politics Last updated: November 29th, 2009
What is going on at Google? I only ask because last night when I typed “Global Warming” into Google News the top item was Christopher Booker’s superb analysis of the Climategate scandal. It’s still the most-read article of the Telegraph’s entire online operation – 430 comments and counting – yet mysteriously when you try the same search now it doesn’t even feature. Instead, the top-featured item is a blogger pushing Al Gore’s AGW agenda. Perhaps there’s nothing sinister in this. Perhaps some Google-savvy reader can enlighten me…..
UPDATE: Richard North has some interesting thoughts on this. He too suspects some sort of skullduggery.
Hacker or leaker….. BBC’s Paul Hudson claims emails from ~9 October.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/27/climate-email-hackers-access-month
The Australian MSM has largely ignored climategate. A search of the term “climategate” on news.com.au reveals it mentioned in 6 articles, most of which are opinion pieces. The news articles that do report it are strangely vague and undeveloped, and tend to paint the scientists in a rather humourous light – naughty little rascals hyperbolizing their work. Apart from Andrew Bolt of the Herald Sun (who has been a lone voice of scepticism here), nobody wants to touch this issue – despite the fact that the opposition party is falling to pieces over the emmissions trading scheme that the government is attempting to introduce. Meanwhile, it is business as usual with the alarmist articles. I will say, however, that having followed this debate closely for 2 yrs, I have never seen so much scepticism in the comments of the warmist articles – and it is very informed scepticism.
CBC hasn’t covered it yet . . .
Well I ain’t buying the CRU’s claim they lost the data in the 1980’s. The CRU data dump included a very important file of results created in July 2009 and called idl_cruts3_2005_vs_2008b.pdf. It seems to show to me CRU had the data within the last 18 months, how else did they create the file?
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/11630
“The Australian MSM has largely ignored climategate.”
Some parts of the news media cling to the quaint notion that an item is not really news until they say it is. They will do their best to quash a story that does not align with the publisher’s agenda by simply ignoring it and preventing it “getting oxygen”. Outlets that subscribe to that sort of practice might be the same ones experiencing a drop in ratings/circulation as people go elsewhere for their news.
Rather than looking for “climategate”, I searched CBS for “CRU” and came up with one hit on the story in one of their blogs. NBC has one article with “Climate Research Unit” where it describes the original leak of the data and nothing since. So it seems they are playing by their usual playbook of simply sticking their head in the sand when an “inconvenient” story appears hoping that it will go away if they all ignore it. Trouble is that it doesn’t work anymore. With individual publishers (you, me, your neighbor) having instant global access to readers, getting the story “out there” doesn’t rely on the alphabet networks.
They aren’t reporting news so much as influencing opinion and when news comes up that might have the opposite influence, they simply ignore it. Business as usual.
ABC News reports in “This Week.”:
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=9200042
About the emails – but also about what it mean for obama and copenhagen.
Data to be released? With a caveat?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6678469/Climategate-University-of-East-Anglia-U-turn-in-climate-change-row.html
Keep Digging Phil
He added: “Our global temperature series tallies with those of other, completely independent, groups of scientists working for NASA and the National Climate Data Centre in the United States, among others. Even if you were to ignore our findings, theirs show the same results. The facts speak for themselves; there is no need for anyone to manipulate them.”
http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X1342&site=camirror.wordpress.com&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fearth%2Fcopenhagen-climate-change-confe%2F6678469%2FClimategate-University-of-East-Anglia-U-turn-in-climate-change-row.html
The caveat unfortunately is that it will take several months to agree with other organisations to agree the release of the data.
The NY Times has a track record of climate coverage
From the New York Times, 128 years of looming polar doom:
• 1881: “This past Winter, both inside and outside the Arctic circle, appears to have been unusually mild. The ice is very light and rapidly melting …”
• 1932: “NEXT GREAT DELUGE FORECAST BY SCIENCE; Melting Polar Ice Caps to Raise the Level of Seas and Flood the Continents”
• 1934: “New Evidence Supports Geology’s View That the Arctic Is Growing Warmer”
• 1937: “Continued warm weather at the Pole, melting snow and ice.”
• 1954: “The particular point of inquiry concerns whether the ice is melting at such a rate as to imperil low-lying coastal areas through raising the level of the sea in the near future.”
• 1957: “U.S. Arctic Station Melting”
• 1958: “At present, the Arctic ice pack is melting away fast. Some estimates say that it is 40 per cent thinner and 12 per cent smaller than it was fifteen years [ago].”
• 1959: “Will the Arctic Ocean soon be free of ice?”
• 1971: “STUDY SAYS MAN ALTERS CLIMATE; U.N. Report Links Melting of Polar Ice to His Activities”
• 1979: “A puzzling haze over the Arctic ice packs has been identified as a byproduct of air pollution, a finding that may support predictions of a disastrous melting of the earth’s ice caps.”
• 1982: “Because of global heating attributed to an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide from fuel burning, about 20,000 cubic miles of polar ice has melted in the past 40 years, apparently contributing to a rise in sea levels …”
• 1999: “Evidence continues to accumulate that the frozen world of the Arctic and sub-Arctic is thawing.”
• 2000: “The North Pole is melting. The thick ice that has for ages covered the Arctic Ocean at the pole has turned to water, recent visitors there reported yesterday.”
• 2002: “The melting of Greenland glaciers and Arctic Ocean sea ice this past summer reached levels not seen in decades, scientists reported today.”
• 2004: “There is an awful lot of Arctic and glacial ice melting.”
• 2005: “Another melancholy gathering of climate scientists presented evidence this month that the Antarctic ice shelf is melting – a prospect difficult to imagine a decade ago.”
snip – complaining
snip – any mention of Copenhagen or policy is an automatic delete
The press coverage of ClimateGate has been unacceptable. Consequently I’m going to start a new website specifically to deal with the media response to ClimateGate. I bought the domain today. I planned to set up the site with forums for each English-speaking country… and then I found this thread. I won’t mention the site name until it’s up and running.
There’s a decent Climategate reflist at Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident#References
–though it’s a bit out-of-date, as the article has been locked. Some interesting reading at the talk page,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident
–including an amusing, long-drawn-out back-and-forth on whether the term “Climategate” should be used — or is it “a loaded term used by global warming skeptics and deniers and their associated pundits and opinion peddlers.” Which was one of the disputes that led to the lockdown.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond has an interesting audit of Mann’s code — he thinks Mann hard-coded the hockey-stick from the start. Steve, worth a look.
Happy reading–
Pete Tillman
Duh, here’s Eric Raymond’s chart & post re Mann’s hard-coded hockey-stick:
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1447
Cheers — Pete Tillman
Eric S. Raymond:
“The output of this program may have been their check to see if a visualization of the cooked data wouldn’t look obviously bogus before they shopped it to the politicians and funding sources. That’s the only way I can think of to explain plotting both crocked and uncrocked datasets in the same visualization.” –cmt at November 25th, 2009 at 4:06 am
# krygny Says:
November 25th, 2009 at 8:02 am
Wait just a second. Explain this to me like I’m 12. They didn’t even bother to fudge the data? They hard-coded a hockey stick carrier right into the program?!!
ESR says: Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what they did.
# Borepatch Says:
November 25th, 2009 at 9:12 am
There’s way more – the archive is a target rich environment . It’s clear from a short reading that this has never been QA’ed at all – no design or code reviews, and no testing. It’s a hack, in the worst sense of the word.
With trillions of dollars riding on it. No wonder they resisted the FOIA request.
There’s good reason to suspect the data, as well as the code. Even ignoring urban heat island effects, it looks like “adjustments” made to the raw data may account for most (or possibly even all) of the 20th century’s warming. CRU conveniently “lost” the raw data – seems they didn’t have enough disk space, and nobody knew how to spin a backup tape. Or something.
“Or something”, indeed.
Happy reading–
Pete Tillman
# Sigivald Says:
November 25th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
krygny – Looking at the paths/filenames I’ve seen, I think the speculation I read earlier today is correct.
The data here had been assembled to fulfill a FOIA request.
And then when it was denied, it was probably leaked.
(There’s a non-zero chance that it was a fortuitously-timed bit of hacking, or that a hacker had gained entry some time ago and waited to see… but a leak seems more likely.
Defintely not just a random data-grab by a hacker, but…)
esr: Even beyond the probability of it being a deliberate evasion of the FOIA request… it’s astounding incompetence to let the data get deleted.
I keep my worthless personal data backed up redundantly and offsite… and these guys doing (in theory) real scientific research, with professional funding, with high stakes “for the world” and all of that… can’t keep their primary data sets intact?
I’m not sure what’s worse; the idea that they’re this corrupt, or the idea that they’re that incompetent.
The flemish left wing newspaper DE MORGEN wrote (on november 23) that the hacked e-mails were manipulated by the skeptics.
Title: “Hackers knoeiden zelf met klimaatmails”
Translation: “The hackers themselves manipulated the climate e-mails”
Core passage:
“De meeste mails zijn veranderd en veel passages zo uit hun context gerukt dat ze een andere betekenis krijgen”.
Translation:
“Most e-mails have been altered and a lot of passages have been presented out of context, so that their meaning was changed”
No proof for thie accusation was offered.
http://www.demorgen.be/dm/nl/991/Multimedia/article/detail/1032745/2009/11/23/Hackers-knoeiden-zelf-met-klimaatmails.dhtml
CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) released a story on Thursday Nov. 26 entitled “Hackers skewed climate-change emails: scientists”. Some quotes:
“Climate change scientists are on the defensive after hackers broke into a server of a British climate research centre over the weekend and posted hundreds of private emails….”
“Kevin Trenberth… said the hackers were selective in choosing documents they believed could be used to make the scientists look bad. “It comes down to politics at sort of all levels, and some of it’s nasty and some of it is trying to destroy the message or even kill the messenger so to speak.”
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/11/26/climate-change-hack.html
# James Smith Says:
November 26th, 2009 at 7:21 am
Have a look at the last part of the pr_decline.pro file. They are fitting a parabola to the data set, constrained to pass through a point created by averaging the temperatures between 1856 and 1930 and placing it at 1930, and then reducing temperatures that fall above it (and leaving those below it alone). The effect is not only to reduce the 1930s temperatures, but also to add a parabolic effect to the data, making it look like temperature increase is accelerating. If this sort of filter is commonly applied, it’s no wonder that the 1990s show such a steeply rising curve.
Steve: Feel free to discard any of these you don’t find helpful. This one looks novel & worth following up.Yet another sneaky data-mangler.
Interesting times. — Pete
CBDenver “I know it is after Thanksgiving, but I am more and more thankful for our founders putting the first amendment in the US Constitution’s Bill of Rights”
Indeed. And vigilance is the price of liberty. We can anticipate an assault on “unconventional” news outlets and communication media.
Ah, here is Gavin’s reply to ESR’s work
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack-context/comment-page-15/#comment-144890
In summary, “This is just malicious cherry picking. – gavin”
Again, don’t mean to hijack the thread, so delete as you see fit — Pete
# ERDoc Says:
November 26th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
Interesting discussion. I’ve been having a similar thread with someone in my family for the past 15 years.
Me: Some of the results I’ve read don’t really make much sense. Why don’t they release their data?
Him: Look, you’re a physician, you can’t really comment on the work.
Me: With all due respect, you dropped out of college in your second year. If I said all medicine was settled I’d be fired for general stupidity.
Him: Well, Global warming is real.
The PBS Newshour continues to be silent about climategate. This is in spite of the fact that they reported on copenhagen-related news almost every night last week.
The Newshour is important because this is where a lot of the upper-middle, left-center audience gets what they take to be the unbiased news.
If you watch the Newshour tomorrow night and they still don’t report on it, I suggest going here and telling them that you don’t understand why they are ignoring the story. Make sure to be civil. Also make sure to say that if they do cover it, you expect a balanced story. In particular say that you don’t want them to simply interview Revkin or someone like that; or if they do, for balance, you think they should also interview Watts or McIntyre or Holland or someone like that too.
Link to Newshour feedback here:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/letters.html
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/stephaniegutmann/100018281/meet-the-new-climategate-counter-culture/
…So you thought you had to be on the Left to have fun with a guitar and a computer graphics program? Hah! Welcome to the new Climategate counter-culture. Here’s a video entitled “Hide the Decline”, put together by some clever young men called Minnesotans for Global Warming – http://www.m4GW.com
# esr Says:
November 27th, 2009 at 1:59 am
>A presentation which, you know for a fact, was actually made, to some audience, using graphs generated from this code when the part in question was not commented out, and with intent to deceive?
We know the hockey team has conspired to evade FOIA because that conspiracy is described in the emails. We know this is part of a larger pattern of evading critical scrutiny by Steve McIntyre and others because they talk about that larger pattern too. Because we know they have violated proper standards of scientific integrity in these specific and relevant ways, they are not entitled to a presumption of innocence on any related issues.
–again, I’m just calling out posts that are interesting and/or amusing. Delete as desired.
Point taken. Sorry
Steve, not sure if you’d seen this one with comments from Gerald North:
http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2009/11/post_59.html
thought you might have a bit different characterization of those events.
Steve: See http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1851 for the discussion in question. North’s disparaging comments in this post are a total fabrication. North said:
If you examine the thread at the point when North said that “no good deed goes unpunished”, there were no “really insulting” comments. Nor did anyone say “North is obviously promoting his own agenda.” The only comment using the term “promotion” was one by Lubos Motl who asked : “while I think that North is a pleasant smart guy and I agree with his general suggestions what is the best way to determine these things roughly, I think that this particular promotion of their 1993 paper is a self-promotion. If you think that the paper is particularly important or illuminating, could you please explain why?”
North said: “But he can be very irritating. This guy can just wear you out. He has started it with me but I just don’t bite. But there are some guys, Ben Santer comes to mind, who if they are questioned will take a lot of time to answer. He’s sincere and he just can’t leave these things along. ” North characterizes both. I asked Santer for data and he refused. I had asked North in his capacity as NAS panel chairman to ask several authors for unarchived data. He said that he would. I didn’t hear anything further. I guess his statement that he would ask the authors for unarchived data was untrue. I certainly did hear back from him nor did I pursue it. North said: “If you get yourself in a back-and-forth with these guys it can be never ending, and basically they shut you down with requests. They want everything, all your computer programs. Then they send you back a comment saying, “I don’t understand this, can you explain it to me.” It’s never ending. And the first thing you know you’re spending all your time dealing with these guys.” Again this is a total fabrication. I am quite patient in trying to figure things out. I don’t know why North would claim that I’ve wasted his time.
I don’t think the Express link in the header is right, it goes to an old 2008 article about David Bellamy.
Jeff:
“I did a search on the term “climategate” on Google, CBS News, NBC News and ABC News earlier this morning. Here is the result:
Google: 11,000,000 plus hits
CBS News: ZERO
NBC News: ZERO
ABC News: ZERO”
LOL. Now THIS is a case of DENIAL! And they are still wondering why everyone is watching FOX News?
Using “climatologists” on Google an item just out:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/simon-carr/simon-carr-so-scientists-are-just-as-political-as-the-rest-1831129.html
Some good coverage at Canada’s National Post newspaper:
http://www.nationalpost.com/search_results.html?num=10&q=climategate&filter=0
or filter on CRU (skip the non-climate hits):
http://www.nationalpost.com/search_results.html?q=cru
In particular, I recommend recent columns by Lawrence Solomon, Terence Corcoran, Peter Foster and Lorne Gunter.
An official investigation has begun. This one sounds proper and non bias. We will see.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8383713.stm
AJ, what they really said was that they had kept the “value added” data, which appears to be the data AFTER it was massaged with corrections. I’d guess your data is based on that massaged data.
We’re aggregating this stuff at Pajamas media http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=browse-events&event-type-id=10&event-category-id=13&event-id=1913&event-context-theme-id=2&c=10&s=coverage&r=true&p=1&t=overview?utm_source=pjm%2Btop%20nav%20bar&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=pjtv
and we’re interested in new stories any time.
‘Fred
The NY Times has a track record of climate coverage’
Should add:
The NYT (May 21, 1975) said “a major cooling of the climate is widely considered inevitable” now that it is “well established” that the Northern Hemisphere’s climate “has been getting cooler since about 1950.”
The press does not “joust with jesters”…….. sorry couldn’t help it. The media seems to be exposing themselves right along with cru
The NYT is doing a lot of CYA for Mann. This article informs readers that there’s “Nothing unethical about a ‘trick'”, and that, “Up until 1960, temperature records measured by weather stations agree with records extrapolated from tree rings.”
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/11/24/24climatewire-stolen-e-mails-sharpen-a-brawl-between-clima-19517.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/29/copenhagen-summit-climate-change
The Observer @ the Guardian, NASA’s James Hansen:
” … Are we going to stand up and give global politicians a hard slap in the face, to make them face the truth? It will take a lot of us – probably in the streets. …”
(No mention of the miracle.)
The Independent in the UK was completely silent until today. One couldn’t be sure they weren’t trying to bury the story, given their usual enthusiasm for environmental stories, but just now they came out with a piece that takes a very skeptical view:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/simon-carr/simon-carr-so-scientists-are-just-as-political-as-the-rest-1831129.html
Seems they were merely choosing not to rush to judgement.
The report that UEA will release the “corrected” data upon which the AGW publications are based, but no longer have the raw data, prompts me to ask what this means for the work of Dr. McIntyre and other skeptical reviewers. Are these “corrected” data likely to credible enough to support an independent analysis of global temperature trends? Do they need to know the details of how the raw data were corrected before attempting their own analyses?
Is it feasible or even possible to reconstruct the original data sets, assuming UEA will identify the original sources? For that matter, does Dr Mc have his own ideas about what a proper data set should include? If the Jones et al papers are hopelessly flawed because of the loss of the underlying raw data sets needed to check their accuracy, then both AGW proponents and skeptics might well start over; the research community should think carefully about what evidence is most reliable, rather than merely reiterating previous mistakes.
If UEA fails to release the programs and procedures as well as the corrected data used by Jones and his collaborators, will Dr McIntyre perform his own analysis of the data according to his own standards of rigor? If it’s possible to do so, I for one hope he does, even though it is inherently unlikely to replicate the conclusions of Jones. An independent analysis of the same data by different standards would provide a basis for comparison and discussion; perhaps a way around the present partisan quarrels.
I’m a chemist and biochemist by training, and had followed the AGW literature only superficially prior to the Climategate revelations. I had always assumed that the scientists contributing to the IPCC reports were at least honest, even if their conclusions were debatable. The last week or so has removed that presumption. Still, the question of whether and how human activity is changing the climate is a significant one, and merits rigorous answers. I would very much like to hear Dr McIntyre’s ideas on how we should proceed.
“Leading British scientists at the University of East Anglia, who were accused of manipulating climate change data – dubbed Climategate – have agreed to publish their figures in full.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6678469/Climategate-University-of-East-Anglia-U-turn-in-climate-change-row.html
You have to go digging in Yahoo News to find this…on the 3rd page:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091122/ap_on_sc/climate_hacked_e_mails
Note here, in this interview with Stuart Varney on Fox, that Ed Begley Jr. insists that you listen ONLY to scientists with PhD’s in climate science..Not physicsts, dendros, or anyone else, ONLY climate scientists …I guess this lets out Gore and Patchauri to start with:
Going to Google, then News, then World and entering ‘climategate’ into the search window results in the surprising array:
http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=climategate
Just watched the CBS evening news, and nothing. Nada. Zip.
Mikez,
Thats the Dan Rather defense. ‘We lied but it was true.’
The Austrlian political developments are interesting and dramatic. The Liberal (= mildly conservative to Americans) party leader is under tremendous pressure for supporting the proposed ETS legislation (Australian Cap and Trade)which the Prime Minister (Labor Party) wants to have passed before Copenhagen. There has been an “unpredecented” leadership challenge, which will play out Monday or latest Tuesday. The challenger for the Liberal Party leadership is – Joe Hockey!
Mr. Hockey has supported ETS in the past, but on this morning’s TV, the Skynews commentator mantioned there had been a “tsunami” of opposition e-mails in light of the “leak” from CRU.
I’ve only seen the Daily Telegraph so far today, but there is a comment from Tim Blair covering most of two pages with a nice title “Blowing in the wind,just like your cash” (see here).
The current Liberal position seems to be only to delay voting on the ETS program until after a review due in February. However, the leadership change could have a big impact. There are at least some other Liberal members of parliament who are skeptical of catastrophic AGW.
Perhaps some Aussie commentators can fill in the details.
New Zealand Herald (biggest NZ daily) coverage:
A climate scandal, or is it just hot air?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/environment/news/article.cfm?c_id=39&objectid=10612165
Jim Hopkins: Dodgy science gets us all off the hook
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/environment/news/article.cfm?c_id=39&objectid=10611930
Long time in moderation. Is this RealClimate?
Cone of Silence over Canada.
CBC – Nothing
CTV – Nothing
Global – Nothing
The Star – Nothing
Globe & Mail – Nothing
google.ca – Climate Guatemala
The only newspaper covering it from the start is the National Post.
CTV AM interviewed Gore on Thursday or Friday and asked him about the leaks. He passed it off as being 10 year old letters. They did not know enough or lacked fortitude to pursue it more.
The two newspapers in Winnipeg, Winnipeg Free Press and Winnipeg Sun have not had it on the front page. There was editorial comment by a couple of writers on Saturday, Nov 28.
RE George Hanson, I think this university inquiry, at this stage, is highly likely to be a self-protective measure by the university. It is very hard to predict what the university will regard as self-protection. But my guess is that this inquiry will either say “move on, nothing to see here” or it will throw several professors under the bus. No in-between. This is based on my experience with big public universities in the US. Perhaps in the UK it will be different.
I’m living in South Korea and can report that other than a few posts on a hacker related sight regarding the hack, there has been zero coverage on Climate Gate in the mainstream Korean English news. Its been reported to me by my Korean friends that this is the same case with all the Korean language television and internet news. Apparently South Korea has learned some media blackout lessons from the North, which is a little scary.
English news sites in Korea not reporting on Climate Gate:
Korea Daily- nothing
Korea Herold- nothing
Korea Times- nothing
KBS Global- nothing (not so global are they?)
I think the stir that Steve started when he requested the data through foia was what alerted a keen hacker to look into these manipulations at CRU. I really can’t wait to see who was behind this hacking. That guy is going to have the world on his shoulders. But in the end he has a $50,000,000 life ahead of him through speaking and books. He was noble to rip open the debate the way he has. And I think Steve instigated it with his curiosity about the withheld data. The full picture with it’s motivations will eventually emerge. This is a long one.
Here in America’s heartland, the Detroit News has carried two columns from the business and political writers about Climategate. Nothing reported as of yet, these are opinion pieces.
http://detnews.com/article/20091126/OPINION03/911260322/1383/OPINION0308/-Climategate–puts-warming-in-question
The typically Democratic Free Press has nada.
Geoff:
“The current Liberal position seems to be only to delay voting on the ETS program until after a review due in February. However, the leadership change could have a big impact. There are at least some other Liberal members of parliament who are skeptical of catastrophic AGW.”
It seems to me that the prudent and reasonable thing for an honest representative of the people to do at this point is to ask for time to review the current crisis and determine whether there is a need for a change in philosophy/policy/politics. Anything short of that reveals a very stupid person(s) or a disingeneous agenda. Hmmm, wonder what the USA will do….???
Some light relief:
Anthropogenic Global Warming Virus Alert
http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s5i64103
Oh, damn, I got into policy. Mea culpa, snip away.
CBC finally released this by David Suzuki’s hand puppet Bob McDonald
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/quirks-blog/2009 /11/climate_science_still_sound.html
Steve- please stop being so angry.
Is this link say what I think it says, about a payoff from a top scientist involved here from one of the emails to a reporter. http://themigrantmind.blogspot.com/2009/11/climatologists-avoid-taxes.html
Here in Australia there was one large article on Climategate in The Australian, our national daily, about a week ago. But most journalists are more interested in Copenhagen and political fallout for the conservative Liberal opposition over this. Disturbingly, The Australian’s science writer Leigh Dayton has tried to put a good face on Climategate, compliantly reciting a pathetic excuse for the non-forwarding of emails under FOI. (This is a common problem here – science or environmental writers tend to get too close to the Green lobby which provides them with so many appealing-sounding stories.) Many readers have turned to Melbourne-based journalist Andrew Bolt whose Herald Sun columns and website have reported Climategate in detail and with high accuracy. His website is now widely visited by readers from outside Australia.
The Google Trends page for ‘climategate’ may be of some interest. At the moment Google reports about twice as many Swedish-language searches for the term as there are English-language ones.
Sorry, billcat said it first and better about Google Trends. Delete at will.
Main “popular” newspaper in French Canada :
http://www.iedm.org/main/show_editorials_fr.php?editorials_id=777
Green bubble burst, speaks of collusion, destroying data by the CRU crew, mentions Lindzen & Choi (2009).
CBSNews.com as the best coverage from any main stream media source (except FOX). See http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/11/24/taking_liberties/entry5761180.shtml I do not know if they broadcast a story.
Nature’s blog Climate Feedback has two entries:
http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2009/11/cru_data_hack.html
http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2009/11/cru_scientists_in_leaked_data.html
I was hoping Nature would respond to the CRU scandal by saying “Well, we were fooled by these guys too! From now on we will enforce our policies of data archiving and data sharing. And as a way to make amends, we are going to proactively look for papers from skeptics.” Unfortunately, they did not say that. It seems they are still regurgitating whatever Phil Jones wants them to say. It’s sad really. It reminds me of Jim Croce and the cocaine song.
H/T 44. Harry W. MacDougald: http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/11/29/homogenized-sterilized-and-pasteurized/#comments
” …The CRU at East Anglia University appears to be a hotbed of “post-normal science” in which facts and truth are socially constructed. It is deconstructionism for the hard sciences.
http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2007/03/what-is-post-normal-science.html
… quoted Mike Hulme at length – he is an advocate of post-normal “science,” particularly when it comes to AGW … Mike Hulme, founding director of the Tyndall Centre, and Professor of Climate Change at the University of East Anglia (UEA) … What is is this “extended peer community” … Can anybody be a peer? All in all, the notion of “post-normal science” seems like a complete contradiction in terms … attempt to pass off the preferences of a single group as some kind of pseudo-science. There’s a much simpler term for this dishonest phrase: politics … a political diktat; for the rule of the self-appointed over everyone else. Whatever truth “Global Warming” may contain it has surely been damaged by its association with this disreputable and vile concept which brazenly casts aside the need for any factual basis and declares in the most unambiguous terms that whatever values it chooses to promote constitutes a truth unimpeachable by reality and a set of values that none dare challenge. Until “post-normal science” is repudiated as a method of proving “global warming” then both must share the same reputation …”
POSTED BY WRETCHARD AT 3/15/2007
I tried the Q&Q website that Ron from Vancouver mentioned. I wasn’t disappointed in their take on things. I didn’t really expect an unbiased view, even though it’s my tax dollars at “work”.
I tried to post a comment there, but it was blocked. They’ve got their story, and please don’t point out any differences between that and reality.
The reason why ClimateGate isn’t getting covered properly in America is the potential fallout for Democrats. If it ever comes out and is fully understood by the general public, many Democrats, who supported extremely expensive climate legislation during a major recession could lose their seats in 2010. The reporters, however, are sacrificing their reputations for the Party.
I believe ClimateGate is bigger than WaterGate. The fallout can affect many more people and Parties plus journalists, scientists, institutions, etc., and it’s global, not national. The Climate scandal is fast becoming a media scandal, too, if it hasn’t already.
Journalists were widely criticized for towing the Republican line running leading up to the war in Iraq and failing to ask questions. The new media scandal has them towing the Democrat line running up to Copenhagen. They now have the choice between admitting they failed as journalists and were duped, or they failed in that regard AND failed to report the scandal. If that happens, they’ll never hear the end of it.
Is Anderson Cooper keeping them honest? Is Michael Moore working on a new movie?
I’ve been using the search term “cru email” on Google.ca to keep tabs on things – it seems to be a more reliable keyword since “climategate” also has references dating back to 2005 that pop up from time to time (although that does seem to be settling now that more and more blogs and news agencies are cross-referencing each other via links which push the more relevant stories to the top).
http://www.google.ca/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=ca&hl=en&q=cru+email
I think this may be a slow-burn to get notice in the MSM – they have very short attention spans and work in 24h cycles: The chief reason the satirical site, Fark.com, came into being.
My personal prediction is that the ClimateGate Happening will have a product lifecycle of about a month. At some point in the next several weeks, ClimateGate will fade into the background and be pretty much forgotten.
Steve McIntyre and his Climate Audit contributors will then go back to their usual role as climate science auditors, and The Team will simply move on to their next set of papers and their next set of press releases, as if nothing at all had happened in mid-November of 2009.
snip – policy
I was looking through Andy Revkin’s blog roll and wondering why Climate Audit was not there when I found another interesting site listed. Society for Environmental Journalists. It looks like an organization designed to foster group think among journalists, but they do have a list of articles on the CRU scandal – mostly saying it is a non-story being blown out of proportion by mean-spirited people who want the planet to die.
See http://www.sej.org/headlines/stolen-e-mails-sharpen-brawl-between-climate-scientists-and-skeptics
One of my favorites so far is:
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/11/26/notes-on-a-climate-research-scandal/
… and you also might want to see how the terms are picked up in the blogosphere:
http://blogsearch.google.ca/blogsearch?client=news&pz=1&cf=all&hl=en&q=cru+email
244,666 results and counting…
The Sydney Morning Herald carries the story on page 6 today (Monday, 30 Nov) “University does U-turn on scientists’ disputed statistics” (see here ). This seems to be a reprint of a story from the Telegraph, London.
Most of the discussionm on Australian TV I’ve seen is focused on the “horse race” aspect, but there is occasional mention of a number of MPs who have expressed strong skepticism of catastrophic AGW. Seems to be many more vocal “skeptics” than in the US Senate. I haven;t heard the word “Climategate” on SkyNews but maybe it’s been mentioned on other channels.
I didn’t manage to find a print copy of The Age (which I think is Melboutne-based and I’m in Sydney) but on their website edition you can see a copy of the story “Climate sceptics welcome U-turn” about the CRU annoucement they will “publish their figures in full” (see here), which again seems to be a reprint from the London Telegraph.
The Liberal Party leader (Turnbull, now in opposition) negotiated with the Labor Party leader (Rudd, now Prime Minister)to approved the ETS (Cap and Trade) proposal. This has led to a revolt in the Liberal Party, with perhaps a new leader (Joe Hockey!) taking up the leadership by tomorrow (but lots of politics and loyalties involved).
No major focus on Climategate, but it seems likely this will become a more common issue soon.
Steve,
I noticed three postings mentioning Copenhagen after mine that you did not snip. Either posts mentioning Copenhagen warrant a total snip or it doesn’t – be consistent. I expect that behavior from Gavin, but not you.
Of course you could post my comment and let people decide for themselves.
Lest you have lost it, I append my original comment below as submitted.
Johnathan Leake’s article in The Times is a good review of the affair, but look how long it took to reach the MSM. On Saturday my local and national news carried Tiger Woods’ car crash – as if that is important!
Revkin over at the NYT published a story earlier, but with Andy’s presence in the emails it is hard to know whether it was a rearguard-action or true journalistic brio. Also we got to witness the hypocrisy of the NYT refusing to published leaked material.
snip
Steve: I’m trying to do a lot. I ask readers to behave according to blog policies. If I missed some non-compliant posts, I would rather that readers brought them to my attention than to use them as a pretext for flouting policies.
This is one of the funnier pieces I’ve seen, by Mark Steyn at the OC Register, but on the money as far as the real and deep problem goes:
http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/peer-221438-reviewed-climate.html
CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Quirks and Quarks website has at least covered the story.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/quirks-blog/2009/11/climate_science_still_sound.html
I can report an almost total lack of mention of ClimateGate in the Spain’s newspapers.
I don’t have a link, but on Fox News Red Eye w Gutfeld program (Friday?) there was a brief discussion. One of the regular “panel” opposite Gutfeld was repeating the RealClimate standard response lines, including how “trick” meant essentially “technique”.
This is at least the second time I’ve seen TV coverage where some commentator was repeating the hockey team’s lines, and it was very obvious they have not reviewed the released material. The most interesting (amusing) response is how things are being “taken out of context”. It will be more interesting to see if any of these people comment again after seeing the whole context and just how much worse it gets.
There appears to be skullduggery going on at the Telegraph since 23-year old wet behind the ears political hack Will Heaven’s piece was published http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/willheaven/100018240/climategate-wont-make-global-warming-go-away-despite-what-delingpole-tells-you/ as a counter to James Delingpole blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/…/jamesdelingpole/ and Christopher Booker http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6679082/Climate-change-this-is-the-worst-scientific-scandal-of-our-generation.html
Comments and hit counts have been going up and down and disappearing for periods. The blogs are only available intermittently.
bought both the Sunday NY Times and the Sunday Boston Globe – not a word can I find anywhere
This is good: a reporter has found “HARRY_ READ_Me.txt.”
Climate scientists: Dog ate homework By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN
30th November 2009
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/lorrie_goldstein/2009/11/30/11975486-sun.html
A funny cartoon:
Very good radio interview on ABC Australia
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2009/2757619.htm
Have a listen to Aynsley Kellow as he is interviewed by the ABC Counterpoint radio program in Australia. The ABC is one of the mains stream media in this country that has pointedly refused to cover ClimateGate.
Professor and Head of the School of Government at the University of Tasmania. Expert reviewer for the United Nation’s IPPC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change and Key Vulnerabilities.
I do not think that the ABC reporter was prepared for what Professor Kellow had to say.
He was scathing in his criticism of the hole GlimateGate gang.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2009/2757619.htm
or for the direct audio here:
http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/player_launch.pl?s=rn/counterpoint_item&d=rn/counterpoint/audio/items&r=cpt_30112009_1605.ram&w=cpt_30112009_1605.asx&t=Climate%20science:%20The%20leaked%20emails%20-%2030%20November%202009
I’d like to commend the UK Sunday Telegraph. For some years it has printed articles by sceptics such as Christopher Monckton and Bob Carter. Yesterday it printed two articles: Christopher Booker’s excellent column (almost full page) and a good news report about David Holland (half page with a photo of Holland) about his FOI campaign.
Its sister publication, the Daily Telegraph, could hardly be more different. For years its climate change coverage has been completely biased and one-sided. Twice I was in communication with their deputy editor on possible complaints to the Press Complaints Commission – I now wish I had pursued that to the end.
But over recent weeks there appears to have been a significant change for the better. They have published some articles that actually admit that sceptics do exist. Indeed, a week or so ago, in a short news report, about two thirds was taken by by quotes from Christopher Monckton! There may be changes at the Daily Telegraph that could be described as ‘unprecedented’.
Chris
I’d like to commend George Stephanopoulos who brought up the subject of ClimateGate on This Week on ABC (Sunday).
http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/ (Video)
I’d also like to bring to your attention the news report from the Penn State campus newspaper.
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2009/11/30/psu_investigates_climategate.aspx
“a Penn State committee will review every e-mail in question — a total of about 300 messages…”
The article, like most news reports, failed to interview anyone with an opposing view.
One of the most read English nation newspapers, ” the Hindu” copied only one article from their favorite source, the UK Guardian on this topic.
It was George Monbiot ‘s halfharted “Global warming rigged? Here’s the email I’d need to see”
http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/25/stories/2009112555690900.htm
By the way “the Hindu” is run by atheist editors that admire communist China; for the rest they are ok, but they are not hindoes.
The fist sentence of the previous post should have started like this
“One of the most read English national newspapers in India, “…….
I haven’t read all the comments, so I apologise if this comment has been made before. The print media and TV news around the world are facing declining readership/audiences as more people switch to online methods of receiving news. The media’s actions (or lack thereof) in the case of “Climategate” will only hasten this trend and who will they have to blame?
Here in Australia, the average citizen has absolutely no idea all of this is happening as the print/radio/TV media (with a few exceptions) are not featuring it. Unfortunately the few that are mentioning the “Climategate” situation tend to be to the far right politically and easily dismissed by the “intelligentsia”.
Shortly some notes on Swedish media’s non-coverage, but first a relevant quote. It seems Google is playing snail on updating “climategate” and there’s a lot of other strange stuff going on. So:
“The fact is we can’t account for the lack of Google functionality at the moment and it’s a travesty that we can’t.”
Swedish media has more or less stonewalled Climategate. There have been short articles, explaining away the real points. Most infamous was the article “No, no, no, don’t believe them” (“Nej, nej, nej, tro dem inte!”) by leading morning paper Dagens Nyheter’s supposedly science reporter Karin Bojs, where she compared climate critics with tinfoil-hat conspiracy theories.
The main TV company, SVT (a BBC-like more or less government controlled outfit) hasn’t mentioned Climategate or anything connected to it with one single word. The same for the second biggest TV company, TV4. Instead, SVT had now started is run of propaganda programs “before Copenhagen” as planned.
A local paper, Ystads Allehanda, has had critical articles and editorial comments, which have been appreciated. The Swedes on the net are very active (though the scope is hard to fathom since Google is very slow with updating – a travesty, as said). One of the main climat critics, Maggie Tauersköld (who runs http://www.theclimatescam.se), will be “guest blogger” today on Swedish radio (ie they will have something on their site; Maggie was also during the weekend a few minutes in a radio program).
But things boil. And soon, the steam will escape. I think Climategate will be impossible to ignore when Copenhagen comes.
–Ahrvid
This is bizarre, Pravda have now covered this in more depth on their website than the BBC
http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/30-11-2009/110832-climategate-0
According to a post at Slashdot, the RealClimate site now contains a page with ALL data, methods and analysis.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/11/30/0152244/Where-the-Global-Warming-Data-Is?art_pos=4
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/
Presumably Steve shouldn’t need to send an FOI request ever again.
Steve: I’ll take a look at it, but I doubt that it contains any of my outstanding data requests. The issue isn’t that there isn’t data out there, it’s that it’s all too often incomplete in the areas that interest me.
Just to illustrate how the Guardian (30th November 2009) is continuing not to cover Climategate.
Sorry the linked article refers to that conference (but I’m not going to discuss it…). Fortunately, several commenters below have managed to make references to the Climategate scandal.
Stern-Monbiot
Is this how Galileo felt?
It’s not easy to change dogma.
One thing I have noticed is that when the MSM do run an article is that if comments are available then the comments run very much against AGW, so there is a hidden groundswell forming. Just need something to break the dam with, the Harry TXT is a good start but it will need more.
Ron Cram,
Regarding your comment here.
http://camirror.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/press-coverage/#comment-2372
Dot Earth has Climate Audit listed waaaay down near the bottom of their blogroll. I couldn’t find it the other day either. So I requested Andy add it near realclimate. Bottom is better than nowhere I guess.
General overview of UK media:
Telegraph was, I think, the first to break the story as we would see it in James Delingpole’s blog. But it wasn’t for several more days until hints started to appear elsewhere in comment. Christopher Booker is a regular anti-AGW commenter but his column appears Sundays and obviously last week’s was already submitted – this week’s though is a superb piece.
Times initially confined to sycophantic “Look at these moron deniers” type pieces, mocking Delingpole, Lord Lawson or anyone who might take the emails seriously. A better article a couple of days ago giving a reasonably balanced summary.
Guardian has had Monbiot alternating between refreshing realism and “but the deniers are still ebil and it’s their fault really” denial.
BBC … is a sad joke of an organisation. Basically a warmist propaganda outfit where our villains in their mails actually comment when a vaguely sceptical article appears there because this isn’t supposed to happen because the editors there are good people.
Still painfully slow progress. And lots of clowns still arguing the AGW case. We need that smoking data gun!
Finally a report on the ABC’s counterpoint show from a respected IPCC author
http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/player_launch.pl
Bob Koss,
Thank you for pointing that out. I was about to write Andy and ask him to add it. Having it listed is better than not, but it seems like Climate Audit is coming with a warning label – “skeptic.” I would rather see it under “Science blog.”
Thanks again!
“It seems Google is playing snail on updating “climategate” and there’s a lot of other strange stuff going on.”
I now see “climategate” in the autofill on Google News (but not regular Google.com). Actually Google is hypersensitive. I only have to type the letter “c” and it suggests “climategate.”
Any french speakers on this thread? There’s an article here which needs a comment or possibly an email to the author and I don’t think my francais is up to it any more. A French climatologist called Alexandre Stegner is quoted as saying:
“If a researcher is trying to “disguise” or “bogus” results, it will be sooner or later because all the articles and work are accessible to researchers worldwide. There may be errors or methodological flaws, but “false” manifestos are rare and extremely suicidal for those who practice them. “
The withholding of data and code needs to be made clear. My reading of the author’s piece is that it’s pretty fair but that there are some misconceptions to be corrected.
Ed Begley on Fox. He only listens to PhDs in Climate Science. Anyone else – Pfffft! And theoretical physicists such as myself? We only know about quarks and bosons. Irrelevant. So there!
Ed is well and truly up to this and on top of the science. He will not be taken down by bottom of the ocean dwellers such as us. A strange man, perhaps lacking in charm but deeply committed nevertheless.
It’s late in the SH, I’m off to bed for a few heavy vector Zeds. Or for those of you in the Americas, Zees.
Ed Begley’s rant
I heard Ms Curry speak today on the “Michael Smerconish” show this morning. She tried extremely hard to play it down the middle.
Now that we have heard the original CRU temperatures are no longer around, then do we have to go with Vincent Courtillot’s temperatures ?
The whole issue needs to be re-examined carefully.
snip – policy
Steve: Courtillot has no original temperature data.
Check out this very illuminating essay by Bob Grumbine on More Grumbine Science
http://networkedblogs.com/p19394971
I am proud to say that Bob worked as a postdoc with me back in the days when I was at Penn State
I know this isn’t exactly press coverage, but i wanted to point it out anyways
It seems Competitive Enterprise Institute is going to sue NASA over failure to respond to FOIA requests in Climategate 2. Steve is mentioned.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/competitive-enterprise-institute-sues-nasa-in-wake-of-climategate-scandal/2/
Just a note..this should be looked into as it is being used in response to Climategate…recent paper by Chen et al..Nature Geoscience. Online 22nd Novemeber 2009.”Accelerated Antarctic Ice Loss from satelite gravity measurements” …..copy of paper is available at (http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo694.html)
This paper by Chen et al is all over the MSM news…it appears to conclude that for the first time ice is being lost in East Antarctica…the authors use data from GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment)…they quote ice loss in Giga tonnes/year (Gt yr-1)….however the errors in these calculations are large in fact for the East Antarctic ice sheet the error is the same size as the estimated ice loss, namely 57 plus or minus 50 Gt yr-1…this is due to the uncertainty associated with the post-glacial rebound model used…anyway.. it should also be mentioned that an ice loss of 200 Gt yr-1 is equivalent to sea level rise (SLR) of 0.5 mm yr-1…this large error in the estimate is not being given much press in fact it is being glossed over and sometimes not even mentioned…basically there is nothing all that new in this paper despite what they say about it……
A network graph based on the email relationships:
http://computationallegalstudies.com/2009/11/27/visualizing-the-east-anglia-climate-research-unit-leaked-email-network/
The Daily Telegraph has an article today, by Urmee Khan, Digital and Media Correspondent.
BBC weatherman was sent climate change emails
A BBC weatherman has admitted he was sent the controversial emails about how to “spin” climate data – more than a month before they were made public.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/6684281/BBC-weatherman-was-sent–climate-change-emails.html
At the moment (14.44 UK time on 30 Nov) in The Times, The Guardian and and The Telegraph, news about the Climate leak is the most read story. In the case of the Telegraph it actually occupies both the 1st and 2nd place (pushing a very curvaceous Russian bride with a very revealing dress into third place 😉 .
The Register
Climategate: Why it matters
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/30/crugate_analysis/
Unbelievable. Just googled “climategate” here in Perth, Western Australia, and got no automatic response, but 12,800,000 hits.
A BBC weatherman has admitted he was sent the controversial emails
Please be careful about this, it is a false meme running over the internet. The words missing from your quote are “a few of”. It appears that in response to his very controversial BBC article someone, not even necessarily the person resonsible for the FOIA leak, sent him copies of “a few” e-mails. When the main leak occurred he was able to confirm that those in his possession matched the ones in the file.
There is no evidence that Paul saw the FOIA file a month before everyone else and indeed the final file release had copies of e-mails which post dated the time Paul is said to have been the recipient.
ALERT : Michael Mann is on the NPR Diane Rehm Show right now (Monday Nov 30). You NEED to get the transcript
Steve – you may be interested in this interview with the new Info Commissioner for the UK.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/opensecrets/2009/11/chris_graham_interview.html
Forgot to mention – look at the end of the article – reference to CRU.
The Tiger Woods fracas has tsunamied over everything else here in the States, especially on the broadcast media.
Locally, in the NYC area, the pitiful performance of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, who yesterday tied the NBA futility record by starting the season 0 and 17,is the second lead story on newsradio (‘Give us 22 minutes and we’ll give you the world), behind Tiger.
Last Friday was Black, this Monday is Cyber.
Climategate? Nary a whisper.
What does Tiger Woods think about climate change? Don’t we all need to know?
The Economist, Nov. 28th-Dec. 4th, 2009
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14966227&source=most_commented
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14960149
From the emails….and confirmed by an AGU member….the AGU has the intention of involving itself heavily in the media in order to sway public opinion through news media opportunities:
AGU Climate Scientists,
We are writing to encourage hundreds of you to participate in a unique opportunity to
improve the public’s climate knowledge during the week before and the week of this year’s
AGU Fall Meeting.
As you know, the Copenhagen negotiations (Dec. 7-18) are attracting hundreds of journalists
and will result in a proliferation of media articles about climate change. Recently, the
American public’s “belief” in climate change has waned (36% think humans are warming the
earth according to the Pew Center’s October poll), and December’s media blitz provides an
opportunity to reverse the trend.
Your participation is needed to ensure that climate science coverage across media channels
is accurate, fact-based, and nuanced. Provided that enough AGU members sign up to
participate, we will be offering the opportunity for journalists reporting during the
Copenhagen conference to submit their questions on-line and receive a response from a
climate expert before an article goes to press.
We are asking each of you to sign up for two hours over the course of those two weeks
(12/7-18) to respond to questions from journalists. You will be able to choose which
queries to answer based on your expertise, and there will be an option to double-team when
questions span multiple areas of expertise. We will be setting up the appropriate
logistics to enable both virtual participation and a central work area at the AGU meeting.
If you have any questions, feel free to email Stacy Jackson at the email address below.
If you are willing to participate, please respond in the affirmative by Friday November
13th to [6]stacyjackson@xxxxxxxxx.xxx. Given the magnitude of the media coverage, we are
seeking several hundred willing climate scientists. More details will be forthcoming.
Thanks in advance,
Alan Robock, President, AGU Atmospheric Sciences Section
Anne Thompson, President-Elect, AGU Atmospheric Sciences Section
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1070&filename=1257881012.txt
Tom Crowley interviewed on BBC Radio. Strong stomach required.
Excellent blog from Clive Crook at National Journal:
http://blogs.ft.com/crookblog/2009/11/more-on-climategate/
Rush Limbaugh has given this extensive coverage and discussion. One link on his site is:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_112509/content/01125106.guest.html
Also, Fox News just had a discussion with Bill Hemmer on America’s Newsroom with two women. One of them was a liberal radio talk show host and she was again repeating the “out of context” talking point and also called the other woman a liar at the mention of the efforts of the hockey team scientists to stifle debate and silence critics in the journals. Obviously some on screen graphics showing the text of the e-mails at that point would have been extremely helpful, but unfortunately I have yet to see much content from the e-mails (and none from the computer code and comments) on Fox News except perhaps on Glenn Beck’s show.
The teaser for the America’s Newsroom segment and some portion of the discussion was focused on the deletion of the raw temperature data. While that sounds ominous I found the net effect of the discussion to understate the issue by at least 2 orders of magnitude. I’m seeing a trend of failure on the part of “journalists” to actually read any of the material.
Note that while Rush Limbaugh’s coverage so far goes extensively into the policies and politics (of course), he does also mention specifics much better than the MSM has.
Judith,
Bob Grumbine’s essay on the problems dealing with data is interesting. But I find his quote of Steve Easterbrook saying that he thinks climate model software is better than most commercial software disconcerting.
“I’ll add, though, that Steve (in his reply to my comments, a separate post, and a professional article) has found that climate models, from a software engineering perspective, appear to be higher quality than most commercial software.”
This could be true in other climate modeling code because I haven’t looked at all of the other climate modeling code out there. But, the UEA CRU code that was posted is some of the worst code that I have ever seen in almost forty years of programming. If this is what a Professor at University of Toronto Department of Computer Science thinks is better code than commercial software, we are in a lot of trouble. It is poorly commented, ignores errors, has routines that do nothing that any sane programmer would want it to do, and it even has basic errors in programming logic. Any programmer summiting code like this to a commercial software company would be kicked out the door not just fired.
snip – policy and complaining
The software picture is getting some attention.
No One Peer-Reviews Scientific Software
Scientists Are Not Software Engineers
Along with
Climate Science and the Inner Ring
The BBC appear to have dropped one by mistake. Their Have Your Say forum asked if carbon offsetting should be scrapped as a holiday firm said that paying a fiver to plant a tree wasn’t working.
Not surprisingly – 95% of posters are not discussing this issue, but the scam of AGW and Climategate.
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&forumID=7283&start=0&tstart=0&edition=1&ttl=20091130160325#paginator
Nature’s blog Climate Feedback has reblogged a report from another Nature blog called The Great Beyond.
See http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2009/11/more_heat_less_light_in_cru_ha.html
See http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2009/11/more_heat_less_light_in_cru_ha.html
It is kind of embarrassing because the author is trying to use debunk a newspaper report that CRU destroyed climate data. The news report can be found at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece
According to the newspaper, the university admitted the data loss/destruction after the email leak. However, the author of the Nature blog tries to use a statement by Phil Jones that was made prior to the CRU leak. An attentive reader will come to the conclusion Jones may not have been as forthcoming as he should have been.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703499404574564291187747578.html
The Web Discloses Inconvenient Climate Truths
… How many of the anonymous reviewers who spiked skeptical scientific papers over the years are the people who wrote these emails detailing how they abused peer review to block contrary evidence? …
@ Bishop Hill
The French article on ClimateGate you talk about is atrociously biaised like in all other mainstream media in France whose coverage merely consisted of the translation from an apologist article from the AP (and of course, NO television coverage).
Interestingly, it’s on a minor web newspaper, with a very leftist editorial team but the reader comments to that ClimateGate article is widely skeptical.
Ok, sorry, wasn’t aware that expressing an opinion about a story in today’s news was forbidden. Can I republish the quote and link without an opinion or is it strictly limited to only climategate stories?
Steve:Depends what the opinions about. I don’t want to discuss Copenhagen or cap-and-trade here. I realize that things are a bit fluid at the moment.
Andrew Revkin, New York Time environmental author, writes to Michael Mann about a news story he’s going to release. Mann’s response was:
“Hi Andy,
The McIntyre and McKitrick paper is pure scientific fraud.”
At 02:14 PM 2/4/2005, Andy Revkin wrote:
Hi all,
There is a fascinating paper coming in Nature next week (Moberg of Stockholm Univ., et
al) that uses mix of sediment and tree ring data to get a new view of last 2,000 years.
Very warped hockeystick shaft (centuries-scale variability very large) but still
pronounced ‘unusual’ 1990’s blade. i’d like your reaction/thoughts for story i’ll write for next thursday’s Times.
also, is there anything about the GRL paper forthcoming from Mc & Mc that warrants a
response?
I can send you the Nature paper as pdf if you agree not to redistribute it (you know the
embargo rules).
that ok?
thanks for getting in touch!
andy
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=492&filename=1107899057.txt
We have here Revkin corresponding heavily with Mann to weave a story in a reputable (?)national newspaper, but a story that is, by its nature, incredibly biased.
Was McIntyre afforded the same level of input? Steve??
Steve: Not at the time. But Revkin has given me a chance for input in the past year or so.
While I agree with most of the comments about the BBC, there was what I thought was quite a good piece on Radio 4’s Material World on 26/11/09. However, since I guess the Radoio 4 audience in the late afternoon is pretty small, I might be the only person who heard it.
The item lasted about eight minutes and consisted of a reasonably balanced and civil discussion between the presenter Quentin Cooper, Professor Philip Stott and Professor Tom Crowley (apparently they’d hoped for Phil Jones, but he was unavailable for some reason!).
You can listen to the programme at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00nyy8q/Material_World_26_11_2009/
However, I am not sure if this is available outside the UK as the BBC sometimes has copyright issues that restrict some of its output to UK users only.
Philip Stott’s blog is:
http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Clamour_Of_The_Times.html
Info on Tom Crowley is at
http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/people/person.html?indv=1612
My apologies if the links don’t work, but this is the first time I’ve used WordPress.
http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Clamour_Of_The_Times/Clamour_Of_The_Times.html
Info on Tom Crowley is at
http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/people/person.html?indv=1612
My apologies if the links don’t work, but this is the first time I’ve used WordPress.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8aefbf52-d9e1-11de-b2d5-00144feabdc0.html
@DJ Meredith
“Note here, in this interview with Stuart Varney on Fox, that Ed Begley Jr. insists that you listen ONLY to scientists with PhD’s in climate science..Not physicsts, dendros, or anyone else, ONLY climate scientists”
this statement becomes ILLOGICAL, as phd’s in climate science increasing demand to listen to McIntyre, like Curry did, like korhola did and like some of the ‘climate scientists’ in the hacked emails did.
the statement becomes understandable, if it is an attempt to whitewash oneself, from not having investigated emails and facts carefully or at all.
Limbaugh is covering this on his show now. He’s getting some details wrong, but otherwise is highlighting the details such that more information is available to listeners.
One point he’s made is the recent statements by the head of the IPCC about how the CRU scandal won’t/doesn’t affect the IPCC’s results. Perhaps material for an entirely new thread, but for me, it would be good to get Steve M.’s feedback on how much influence the hockey team had on the last IPCC report.
Chris: Yes, Limbaugh was pretty badly wrong and only getting the general gist correct early last week, but over the past few days he has become almost completely informed and is pretty angry. FYI, he also said this (complete paraphrase):
“If you’re hoping to convince those liberals to honestly report this and to change their minds on global warming, it ain’t gonna happen. But I won’t stop talking about this, no matter how long it takes, until the people responsible are held accountable. This is one of the issues that define my worldview”
on 11-30-2009
I caught Mike Mann, John Podesta, Stephen Power and Kenneth Green on NPR Dianne Rehm show and during the bits I heard it was like nothing has changed. Amazing stuff really.
Chas
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/17364
“CBC finally released this by David Suzuki’s hand puppet Bob McDonald
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/quirks-blog/2009 /11/climate_science_still_sound.html
Poor Bob is getting hammered in the comments . . . .
Listen to the NPR Diane Rehm Show here.
http://wamu.org/programs/dr/
First segment discusses released emails.
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-11-30-warming30_ST_N.htm
@ Dexter Heaven
Great post to the BBC however as you say it was on in the afternoon but it provided me with this link by Anne McElvoy
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23774747-the-climate-change-apostles-must-be-open-to-challenge.do
I knew Beck and Limbaugh would be on it, but that’s the problem: everybody knew Beck and Limbaugh would be on it. The message aligns with their usual routine. snip
Very few people are changing their tune. If they were already against AGW they are using the emails, many times incorrectly to support their views. If they are heavily invested in the idea of a climate crisis, they are trying to down play the emails in very silly ways.
I haven’t seen any in depth analysis of the emails yet. There is a big story here, but it doesn’t appear to be the one that is getting press.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/11/24/the_fix_is_in_99280.html
Snip away if you think this is too far beyond the scope of Climategate press coverage….
snip
UK Independent ignoring Climategate but comments tell a different story
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-how-global-warming-is-having-an-impact-1831332.html
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-11-30-warming30_ST_N.htm
“…says science-misconduct expert Nicholas Steneck of the University of Michigan…”
You’ve got to be kidding me. There are actually “science-misconduct” experts? Seems like you can find an expert on just about anything these days.
And who is keeping an eye on the science-misconduct experts to make sure THEY behave properly?
Are there any Bob Woodwards or Carl Bernsteins left in America? (They broke Watergate.) How is the WP reporting Climategate?
WP Editorial slams Patrick J. Michaels and [I’ll hold back editorial comment].
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/24/AR2009112403549.html
UK redtop The Mirror ignoring Climategate spouting Govt line no comments allowed. Wonder why
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/11/30/global-warming-q-a-115875-21861176/
Modestly good cartoon here
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/assets_c/2009/11/toon_112709_FULL.php
Hans von Storch as done some newspaper interviews. Needs a German translator.
Swedish MSM have tried to ignore Climategate (see comment by Ahrvid Engholm) but now Newsmill.se is catching on. Newsmill is part blog, part news site which lets the public write about any topic, as well as having experts komment on current issues. Ingemar Nordin, professor of epistemology, has written two critical articles about climategate. Yesterday I got 24600 hits for “climategate on Swedish pages. Today there are 62600 hits. Compare to Norway, where yesterday I got about 24oo hits, and today there are 4640 hits. But Norwegian media has adopted the “nothing to see here, move along” attitude.
Ouch
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100018373/climategate-the-phil-jones-university-could-break-into-childrens-television-big-time/
Hans Von Storch quote (google translation 😉 )
A few years ago my colleague, Nico Stehr and I already have complained that the statements are more and more pointedly to maintain the drama. This is partly understandable, because the media will need this drama to tell their story: If you always told the same thing, so at some point to hear any more. Therefore it is exaggerating some statements every now and then a little bit, but that in the end more harm than good. We watch it just once with the Copenhagen-diagnosis: PIK has turned the screw a little further and replaced according to public attention.
http://www.spektrumdirekt.de/artikel/1015637
“Scientists: Hysteria and lies are destroying the climate debate”. Danish major paper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten.
“Stop talking about doomsday. The Earth is not going to die. Not even the Polar bears will become extinct – the Earth has been much warmer previously…” says professor Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, expert in ice cores at the Niels Bohr Institute of University of Copenhagen. “Almost anything that happens right now, no matter what, is being blamed on climate. Whether that is animals going extinct or people getting ill. It is deeply frustrating. The debate has reached an almost religious character.”
http://jp.dk/klima/videnskab/article1902800.ece
Although the above mentioned story doesn’t mention the mails from UEA, it seems like a change of winds for what is to come. At the same time in the Editorial section of the paper, the same day, you will be able to read a lot about the UEA mails and its implications. The editiorial concluding with these words:
“In the days to come the Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten will publish a number of articles to reveal manipulations and spin in the climate debate.”
http://jp.dk/opinion/leder/article1901957.ece
Apart from that the UEA mails hasn’t received much coverage in the Danish MSM – yet.
NEWS RE: INDIAN GLACIERS
11/30/2009 3:25:16 PM
From Wall Street Journal..November 30th 2009 – News Re:Indian Glaciers..
Most suggestions of rapid melting are based on observations of a small handful of India’s 10,000 or so Himalayan glaciers. A comprehensive report in November by senior glaciologist Vijay Kumar Raina, released by the Indian government, looked more broadly and found that many of these glaciers are stable or have even advanced, and that the rate of retreat for many others has slowed recently.Jeffrey S. Kargel, a glaciologist at the University of Arizona, declared in the Nov. 13 issue of Science that these “extremely provocative” findings were “consistent with what I have learned independently,” while in the same issue of the magazine Kenneth Hewitt, a glaciologist at Wilfrid Laurier University, agreed that “there is no evidence” to support the suggestion that the glaciers are disappearing quickly. A cornerstone of the global carbon regulation push has been high concern about evidence that glaciers are retreating worldwide. Glaciers are a crucial source of the Earth’s stored water. The “star” glacier, if you will, has been the Himalayan Saichen glacier, 74 km long and the largest outside the polar regions.India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests has released a comprehensive report on the Himalayan glaciers by the eminent Dr. V.K. Raina, ex-Deputy Director of the Geological Survey of India. According to his report, the Saichen glacier has “not shown any remarkable retreat in the last 50 years.” In fact, it is growing.
While it’s not exactly “the press” I’d also like to mention Ottawa Canada radio station CFRA (AM 580 – http://www.cfra.com). The station’s commentators have refused to march to the global warming drum. Of note: Steve Madely, Lowell Green and others.
More from San Diego
http://sandiegonewsroom.com/news/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=37960:e-mails-show-scientific-heresy-of-global-warming&catid=48:national&Itemid=49
Hope this link works, graph of storys timeline for Climategate showing CRU like increase over 3 days of number of articles picked up by google news
http://www.google.co.uk/chart?cht=lxy&chd=s%3AACEGIKMOQSVXZbdfhjlnqsuwy02469%2CEEDDGDDGGNbAPMMNTcQWSMPYSYtmmY&chs=300×180&chco=76a4fbff&chg=16.67%2C25.0%2C2.0%2C4.0&chxt=x%2Cy%2Cr&chxl=0%3A%7CNov+27%7CNov+28%7CNov+29%7CNov+30%7C1%3A%7C%7C10%7C20%7C30%7C40%7C2%3A%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C&chm=yNTlf'iD'hv-0-1'a-3'f%5Dobl'a,000000,0,24.4,0|yNTlf’iC’hv-0-1’a-3’f%5Dobl’a,000000,0,20.8,0|yNTlf’iB’hv-0-1’a-3’f%5Dobl’a,000000,0,14.5,0|yNTlf’iA’hv-0-1’a-3’f%5Dobl’a,000000,0,4.3,0
If not try this
http://news.google.co.uk/news/more?pz=1&cf=all&ned=uk&cf=all&ncl=dWV0uCizVCk9RTMkEzMaAbnjPjWuM
New NYT article mentioning Climategate by Tom Zeller Nov 30:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/business/energy-environment/30iht-green30.html
Warning: it refers to a city in Denmark….
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/mike-lester#id=/comics/091125/cx_lester_umedia/20092511
Political Cartoon
Clive Crook of The Atlantic recants…
“In my previous post on Climategate I blithely said that nothing in the climate science email dump surprised me much. Having waded more deeply over the weekend I take that back.”
“The closed-mindedness of these supposed men of science, their willingness to go to any lengths to defend a preconceived message, is surprising even to me. The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering. And, as Christopher Booker argues, this scandal is not at the margins of the politicised IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] process. It is not tangential to the policy prescriptions emanating from what David Henderson called the environmental policy milieu [subscription required]. It goes to the core of that process.”
http://clivecrook.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/11/more_on_climategate.php
U. S. News and World Report has posted an article reporting that Penn State is investigating Mann and Climategate.
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/paper-trail/2009/11/30/penn-state-will-investigate-climategate.html
Great article in the Atlantic: http://clivecrook.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/11/more_on_climategate.php
Climate science email controversy headed for Capitol Hill airing
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/69795-climate-email-controversy-headed-for-capitol-hill-airing
More on the Australian situation (blog)
http://www.twawki.com
My, my, the Atlantic has an evenhanded piece in its Web pages: http://clivecrook.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/11/more_on_climategate.php
Secrecy in science is a corrosive force
By Michael Schrage (UK Financial Times)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8aefbf52-d9e1-11de-b2d5-00144feabdc0.html
“Public interest suggests scientists and their sponsoring institutions be made as legally, financially, professionally and ethically as uncomfortable as possible about concealing and withholding relevant research information.”
good overview of both blogs and main news sources globally: http://www.silobreaker.com/Search.aspx?q=climategate&rd=true
latest one at the moment is from bnet: http://industry.bnet.com/energy/10002572/week-in-renewables-climategate-continued-cheaper-solar-biochar-fraud/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BnetBlogs+%28BNET+Blogs%29
George Monbiot attacks Paul Hudson http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4537&updaterx=2009-11-30+16%3A34%3A18
Ben Stein faced off against James Carville on CNN talking about ClimateGate.
CARVILLE: I’m afraid that 950-something peer reviewed scientific articles and almost the entirety of the non-paid-for by people that study this think that climate change is real. I hope they are wrong for the sake of my children.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0911/25/sitroom.01.html
Another piece from U. S. News and World Report…
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/peter-roff/2009/11/30/global-warming-e-mails-scandal-show-scientists-may-have-cooked-the-facts.html
A danish comment on http://www.videnskab.dk from a AGW proponent:
Google translation: HERE
I simply have no time to acquire and verify the statements made in this article, but I wonder if anyone else have information on:
The 4 articles discussed in “Climate Research.”
Are these articles really that bad? I dont know, I havent read them, actually, I just havent got the knowledge of the field. Can anyone answer this?
HLx
New York Times has a nothing-to-see-here-move-along article and comments have been disallowed.
Intrigue and Plot Twists in Global Climate Talks
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/business/energy-environment/30iht-green30.html
From 4am this morning I have been emailing all journalists at the warmist Sydney Morning Herald (which until 20 years ago was one of the world’s great papers). I asked for reasonable coverage of what is a huge story.
I got one reply.
“Read the science”.
I honestly don’t know what to say to that. I replied talking about Mann, Briffa, emails, data issues, Watts’ temperature station findings, Harry_Read_Me etc. And then gave up.
I suspect that people like me are going to learn from our irrational activist friends and take to the streets . We’ve just got to be squeakier wheels. Anyone in Australia need a “sceptical community organiser”?
OT Tony Abbott, Climate skeptic new leader of the Opposition in Australia – next step is to stop ETS
http://www.twawki.com
Fox News Channel just had a segment on Special Report with Bret Baer.
No link yet, but here’s my condensed notes. No court reporter am I!
The focus of the story seemed to be the unreliability of the climate data and science. Hume closed with acerbic terse comment about the absurdity of UAE claiming the need to discard old data for space constraints.
One word;
“ PLEASE…
There were 3 parts of this segment;
1. A Fox reporter
2. Brit Hume (old school journalist)
3. Baer interviewing Hume.
Fox News Reporter;
Timing of O visit to Cohagen; Start of conference weak timing?; WH sez all days are good.
Emails undercut science.
Altered data to show warming.
Browner going with consensus;
Gates sees ‘no dispute’
O has made progress on ‘deals’ with India and China
HUME:
Scandal. UN relied on UAE for analysis.
Scientists scheming to supress unwelcome views.
Climate data is basis for models which lead to CO2 regulation.
No warming for 11 years.
No explanation why models did not predict it..
Raw temp data destroyed ‘to save space;’
About this, there can be only a one word comment;
Please…
Interview with Bret Baer;
Do emails hurt the AGW cause?
Hume; momentum already declining on priority list.
Doubts rising.
Scandal only continuation of downward slide.
End of segment.
No mention on GlennBeck TV program today.
Delivery of analysis by Hume definitely kicks the credibility up a notch.
TL
The financial Times weighs in with an essay (apologies if this has double posted):
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8aefbf52-d9e1-11de-b2d5-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
Using the Norway/Nordic raw temp data posted at WUWTt and overlaying it on the Norway graph in that CRU file I have been researching I think we can safely assume that 2008 -2009 file does contain pre-‘corrected’ temp data – and still shows no significant warming
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/11643
Head still in the sand but more of the neck is showing
BBC UK edition
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8387365.stm
Brit Hume did an analysis on Climategate tonight on Special Report. This is whole different kettle of fish from having Beck or Hannity talking about it. Hume’s Journo credentials is impeccable, he was ABC’s Whitehouse correspondent for years. Here is a link to the transcript:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,578206,00.html
My opinion: Ow that will leave a scar Gav.
Has the IPCC published any weather projections for next year, next 5 years, next 10 years etc ? I would like to see the projections, along with confidence intervals of these projections. I have not seen any of these projections in the media. All I see is the 100 year or 50 year projections. I think the next 15 years will be telling to the debate, because we can’t cut CO2 significantly over this time period.
There has been very little coverage in the Australian MSM so far.
It will be interesting to see if this changes now that the Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull, has been rolled in a party room leadership vote by Tony Abbott.
(I am not holding my breath)
RE:
2009 NOVEMBER 30
johnh PERMALINK
Head still in the sand but more of the neck is showing
BBC UK edition
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8387365.stm
amazing mistake in the summary paragraph
“In his regular column, the BBC’s environment analyst, Roger Harrabin, looks at how the affair of the stolen climate e-mails has sparked debate among some scientists about the body which peer reviews climate science”
As we know the IPCC does not do peer review.
Fox News is all over it . . just hammering away.
Might explain why they have more viewers than MSNBC, CNN et combined.
CBC News in Canada still has a full embargo.
OK, Baer of FNC brought it back to a panel discussion;
The close was a beaut;
Krauthammer summarized Mara Liasson’s position on Obama’s Copenhagen Cameo thusly;
‘So, the upside is, that it will be a meaningless gesture;’
Hope someone can snag that thing.
TL
Hacked E-mails Give Inhofe Fuel for Climate Change Debate
U.S. News & World Report
Tonight’s Newshour on PBS should (by now) have aired in the EST timezone. Has anyone on the east coast of the US/Canada seen it tonight, and did they skip climategate tonight as they did last week? Their website makes no mention of it for tonight’s program but sometimes things change.
Please let us all know…
Thanks,
NW
I am from Denmark and can happily say that even though there has been a long silence in the Danish media about Climategate, a few newspapers are beginning to follow up. Especially Jyllands Posten which was also the paper posting the Muhammed drawings. They had a Sunday editorial asking whether we can trust the science which is this week followed up by a series of articles examining the scandal and its implications.
The editorial: “True opinions”
http://jp.dk/opinion/leder/article1901957.ece
It goes though the fact that climate scientists have been caught with their pants down and trying to silence other scientists disagreeing with them. Basically this is the first real piece in serious Danish media I have read that takes the sceptic side of the argument. It questions the peer review process the reconstructions etc.
First article of the series: Hysteria and lies ruin climate debate.
http://jp.dk/klima/videnskab/article1902800.ece
Basically it is arguing that the Global Warming community is vastly exaggerating the consequences of climate change and ask several Danish climate scientists what they think. Amazingly the scientists actually agree that the alarmism has been a disaster and that the consequenses has been vastly exaggerated. Amongst other things they mention that the threats of a melting Arctic is totally disproportionate. I am looking forward to follow their coverage until the conference starts here.
Thanks for all your hard work Stephen. I have been following you for some time, and thanks to people like you, we can perhaps hope for a less corrupt science on climate in the future.
No big surprise here:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=seven-answers-to-climate-contrarian-nonsense
It has been interesting watching this mag and Discover get so political over the past ten years.
CBC News will be broadcasting a sci-fi movie “An Inconvenient Truth” on Dec 6th 10am and in case you miss it, again on Dec 7th 1 am.
What is happening with Salinger and NIWA? Any investigation?
Bret Stephens: Climategate: Follow the Money – WSJ.com
“I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seems to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. . . . Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight. . . . We can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!”
snip – forbidden word
Monbiot has NOT changed his position one bit. Under the heading of I Told You So…
Interview with realnews.com you’ll hear him refer to the “denier industry” and say that it’s funded by big oil. Hear for yourself…….
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4537&updaterx=2009-11-30+16%3A34%3A18
As soon as the Team announces sufficiently that the data is now fully available, then we’ll hear Monbiot state that the problem is solved, the science is settled, and we can get on with ignoring the deniers.
A recording of a telephone inquiry to the CBC as to why the are not covering this story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg8I9VAIqqM
Bill Orielly mentioned that John Stossel will report on Global warming on his program on Fox News tomorrow night….
SteveS, my local MP Rodney Hide has got in on the act, and is trying to get the data released:
http://whaleoil.gotcha.co.nz/2009/11/27/rodney-looks-for-the-source-data-because-nick-wont/
On the face of it the one example of adjustment that NIWA have released, for Wellington, has not been unreasonably done given the quite different microclimates at the various measuring sites over time. The NZ Climate Science Coalition who are pushing this issue strike me as ignorant and stupid at the best of times. However, there are some pretty large adjustments at other sites – 1.3 deg at Hokitika for example, and it would at least be interesting to have a look at what has been done, especially since I’ve been helping pay for it.
Folks, no mention on the PBS Newshour tonight. If you have 5 minutes, drop them a note and ask why not:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/letters.html
“It may be that, when all is said and done, these emails can be explained and we will conclude that this is not a terribly important story. But it certainly has the potential to be the most important story of the century.”
http://www.politico.com/arena/perm/Bradley_A__Smith_8D2A3924-6E65-4F15-992A-BF086100C5FF.html
tangential maybe – Lindzen in WSJ
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574567423917025400.html?mod=googlenews_wsj#articleTabs%3Darticle
Signs that the mainstream is hitting harder this week:
Wall street journal does what it soes so well – follow the money (on Climate science that is):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574566124250205490.html
….and they give Lindzen a go:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574567423917025400.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
In the NY Times, not only does it mention the data files, but it leads with programmer comments in Harry Read Me:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01tier.html
Meanwhile the BBC hangs back cautiously.
After Paul Hudson asked what happened to global warming? he deferred to Roger Harrabin:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/
The latest story by BBC’s environment analyst, Roger Harrabin has a great quote of a Dr Joe Smith (co-author of the Open University’s climate change textbook) saying in the light of the Climategate scandal that the current practices of climate science need to be reappraised. Why? Because they are no good at producing a consensus:
“The dominant model of science is one of aggressive individual or lab-based competition to break new ground and get the most convincing arguments supported by evidence….I think that that can be an unproductive form of ‘knowledge generation’. One thing for sure is that it isn’t designed to produce consensus around such a complex topic as climate change. ” The context suggests that it is the sceptics who are the agressive individualists preventing the desirable consensus. Steve! Get with the (hockey) team!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8387365.stm
snip – politics
John Teirney at NYT with his first Climategate
article (12/1/09). This one focuses on Harry Readme.txt comments.
Surprised it has taken Tierney this long to join the party
as he is philosophically a skeptic by nature (for example he has written NYT
magazine pieces questioning the economics
of recycling and DDT).
His blog runs along side Andy Revkin’s in the science section, but he rarely
questions his colleague over climate matters – pity.
Oops that’s John Tierney
Confused by “snip – politics.”
Was simply describing what happened. The same issue had been mentioned by other commentators here and are still up. Not to mention the regular mention of US politicians and their responses.
The take-away point was that despite the enormous upheaval in Australian Climate Change politics in the last seven days the MSM analysis, but for two conservative bloggers, has managed to completely avoid connecting the matter to the subject of science or Climategate.
The AP had one hard news item the last 7 days.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_CLIMATE_HACKED_E_MAILS?SITE=NDBIS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Most newspapers get their content from the AP. AP http://www.ap.org/
At least UPI has 3 news articles.
http://www.upi.com/Daily-Briefing/2009/11/25/Climategate/UPI-29781259156491/
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2009/11/24/Republicans-plan-climate-change-probe/UPI-35051259120749/
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2009/11/21/Hacked-e-mail-highlights-climate-dispute/UPI-56631258826649/
snip – sorry, politics
Does anyone have news reports where the reporter filed a FOIA request? Reporters do that a lot in America. Also, does UK law allow non-British citizens to file FOI requests?
It’s common for US reporters to file FOIAs just to see what other reporters are hunting down besides seeking new info themselves. The point is that if we don’t see any reporters filing FOIAs, it’s a good sign there is no serious investigative journalism on Climategate. Most of them are now virtually plagiarizing other reports with no original research, facts, info, or opinion.
Climategate might get a bit more of a response in Australia after the election of Tony Abbott to the leadership of the opposition this morning.
He is strongly taking the opposition to a path of voting down the Rudd Labor government ETS.
The debate will now get serious here
A brilliant summation and interview from the Australian ABC from an IPCC reviewer.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2009/2757619.htm
Lame new article from Harrabin at the BBC. You’d think he might have quoted some of Pielke Sr’s or Steve’s experiences with the IPCC process, but nooooooo:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8387365.stm
Earlier I posted a note on the Nature blogs.
Daniel Cressey of Nature’s blog The Great Beyond has a story here – http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2009/11/more_heat_less_light_in_cru_ha.html
I posted a comment and it was published online along with a comment by Bishop Hill.
Olive Heffernan of Nature’s Climate Feedback decided to reblog the article by Daniel Cressey. I posted a very similar comment to Climate Feedback but Olive has not chosen to publish it online yet. I do not believe it violates any of Nature’s policies since the same basic comment was posted by The Great Beyond. It seems the natural tendency to censor skeptics is at work. This is really too bad as it hurts Nature’s credibility.
I forgot to add the link to the Climate Feedback page. See http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2009/11/more_heat_less_light_in_cru_ha.html
Hi Mr. McIntyre, I was just wondering if anyone has ever tried setting the CO2 level in a GCM to 0 and then increasing it to 100 to see what it would spit out? Is there enough access to them to do this?
Steve: I’m sure that things like this have been done. You’d have to ask modelers.
Two thumbs up for the link that “Bloke” posted above, an interview of Aynsley Kellow by the Australian ABC network. Excellent.
To Dude: I think the CO2 knobs only go to 11.
White House dismisses Climategate
http://www.beaufortobserver.net/Articles-c-2009-11-30-240483.112112_White_House_dismisses_Climategate.html
Ron Cram
It’s not necessarily censorship at Nature Climate Reports. I think the authors moderate their own work so nothing makes it through after 5pm. Check in the morning.
Transcript Rush Limbaugh, 2 geologists call in and discuss lack of Scentific process on AGW
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_113009/content/01125113.guest.html
Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
The falsification of data and the conspiracy to commit same etc, constitutes serious criminal activity. Further, the granting of public funds for research warrants a federal investigation. I’m hoping the perpetrators, including possibly Professor Michael Mann, director of Pennsylvania State University’s Earth System Science Centre and a regular contributor to the popular climate science blog Real Climate, and their facilitators will be tracked down and prosecuted to the fullest extent the law allows. — Michael Santomauro
Russian paper Pravda is entering the fray:
http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/30-11-2009/110832-climategate-0
Of course they enjoy the Russian connection (Russian server used to serve hacked materials).
It’s a good summary. I also liked the Russian warnings in the final comments that seem to ask the world community to block a global takeover …
snip – piling on
From Clive Crook at The Atlantic:
Our Gav won’t be happy these busy bodies at the WSJ suggesting the output is not good considering the input of lucre?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703939404574566124250205490.html
To remind you all: Pravda means “TRUTH” in Russian and was Lenin’s mouthpiece for Bolshevik sentiment during the events that led up to the October red Revolution and after. THEY ARE WARNING US BIG TIME. How ironic that the mouthpiece of Communist propaganda is now being used to WARN against it.
Financial Times picksup the story
The malice, mischief and Machiavellian manoeuvrings revealed in the illegally hacked megabytes of emails from the University of East Anglia’s prestigious Climate Research Unit, for example, offers a useful paradigm of contemporary scientific conflict. Science may be objective; scientists emphatically are not. This episode illustrates what too many universities, professional societies, and research funders have irresponsibly allowed their scientists to become. Shame on them all.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8aefbf52-d9e1-11de-b2d5-00144feabdc0.html
Another posted the below:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01tier.html?_r=1
This is telling because ny times is a very influential newspaper.
In March, 2009 they did the following big story ( appeared in weekend magazine edition ):
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html
NYT is a strong influence of public perception. I give them credit for these articles.
Tom Clark on CTV newsnet’s Power Play program mentioned it when he was discussing with the Liberal and Conservative Strategist’s part of the program.
FUNNY thing is that it is the only segment missing in the web link for Nov.30
http://watch.ctv.ca/news/power-play/nov-30/
All other parts of this program appear to be on the CTV website.
It is the first mention I have heard in the Canadian TV MSM.
Richard Black at the BBC seems very keen to flag up substantial sea level rise due to the melting Antarctic Ice cap.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8387137.stm
Same old BBC, one side of the argument and always the warmist slant.
Was driving home tonight and was pleasantly surprised to hear the announcers on MMM FM in Sydney making fun of the whole climate alarmism – the tide is turning!
Andrew,
Thanks for that.Yes,I’m primarily interested in why the temperature was cranked down AT LEAST 0.5C right from the beginning in 6 out of 7 of the stations’ data.I’m sure NIWA know the game’s up hence only mentioning the legitimate (maybe) adjustment for station movement.
snip – piling on
Last week’s New Scientist carried an editorial and short article by Fred Pearce.
The editorial, not surprisingly, is quite sickening. A quote:
“The overwhelming impression from this peek into the world of climate scientists is their anger about voluble outsiders who won’t play the game by the accepted rules of science”.
This really takes the biscuit. Last time I checked, one of the accepted rules of science is data disclosure. Indeed, data disclosure is written into the rules of virtually all scientific institutions and journals. All these ‘voluble outsiders’ were doing was to insist that these scientists follow the rules.
The short article by Fred Pearce starts by following the editorial line, for example quoting Jones’ lame excuses about the ‘trick’ without a hint of criticism. But it also includes some damning evidence, and he concludes by saying that the decisions not to release data were ‘ill-advised’.
A simple, but possibly inconvenient, truth seems to have escaped the good people at New Scientist. If these scientists – for want of a better word – had simply followed the rules of science then they would not have all this unpleasant FOI business to contend with. Unless, of course, they really do have something to hide, as seems to be the case with Briffa.
A search of the email database for the word ‘Pearce’ reveals something rather curious. It seems the Team were very critical of an upcoming New Scientist editorial and article about the latest IPCC report. They discussed how to get NS to change their content. It would be interesting to see if the Team were successful.
Chris
Copenhagen starting to censor media
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=117539
Stacey’s link above is the one of the most considered responses to this story (IMHO) :
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23774747-the-climate-change-apostles-must-be-open-to-challenge.do
But as well as just listing links wouldn’t it also be useful to create a perceptual continuum for the media coverage, something like this:
0) Don’t report
1) Hacking is illegal
2) Nothing to see here
3) Looks bad but just academic infights
4) Hmm something is strange – sack the ‘bad apple’
5) Hmm something is strange – let’s investigate their science
6) Hmm something is strange – let’s investigate the IPPC
Beeb is at 2 along with most of the press, The Economist went straight in a 3. The article linked above rates a 5. Monbiot hits a 4, although his knights of carbonia addition should lose him points.
There might be more subtle shades but it seems to accord with what I’m reading or not around the world.
BBC radio news this morning – nothing about Climategate, just the latest ‘scare’ story about the Antarctic. What I did note was how they stressed the “scientists from 35 Polar research institutes” and how the website stresses “written using contributions from 100 leading scientists in various disciplines, and reviewed by a further 200”. So they’re not mentioning Climategate but subliminally they’re pushing the “but it was only a few bad apples” excuse.
The article is sickening though. Right at the front it talks about “rising temperatures on the Anarctic Peninsula”, massive talk about doom and gloom and rising sea levels. And then buried away almost at the end you find that all of this scare story is because THE ANTARCTIC HAS BEEN COOLING. That’s right, it’s cooling now so they’ve assumed this is because of the ozone hole which means that when the ozone hole heals it will then warm and hey presto, just the disaster headlines we were looking for. (Probably closely followed by recommendations for further investment in polar research…)
I think this is a new low in climate scaremongering – there’s going to be disaster BECAUSE THERE ISN’T ANY WARMING. This is what Jones and the rest have done to science – it’s just become a competition to see who can generate the biggest and most “on-message” scare stories.
Climate e-mails topple Australian opposition leader
“The sceptics coup is likely to lead to a general election before long, fought on climate change.”
It’s getting serious… will any politicians lose their position, too?
Is Steve M. a “bit player”? Hmmm. Now accepting comments in Steve M.’s hometown:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/climate-sciences-pr-disaster/article1383254/
Steve: In the overall scheme of things. I chatted with Margaret Wente yesterday. She wrote a column about me and the Stick in 2005.
Bishop Hill,
Still nothing. Olive Heffernan will censor comments just as quickly as RealClimate. The Nature blog The Great Beyond put my comment straight through and I commented at Climate Feedback first.
Nature is in real trouble. Because they have refused Steve’s attempt to publish papers showing Mann and others were in error and because Nature has refused to enforce their own policies for archiving data, methods and code on CRU authors, Nature is truly complicit in the CRU scandal.
One would have hoped Nature would have said “Hey, Phil Jones and Michael Mann fooled us too! We are sorry we did not enforce our own policies for transparency and openness and we are sorry we did not publish more papers of a skeptical nature. We are making changes so this will not happen again.” But they didn’t do that.
If Olive Heffernan is any indication, Nature is circling the wagons and looking to in-breed.
Not news as such, but one of the most amusing blog takes I’ve seen to date in this – definately raised a smile during the apparent black-out!
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100018373/climategate-the-phil-jones-university-could-break-into-childrens-television-big-time/
I’m not really a fan of the Telegraph but gotta give their columnists kudos for trying to run with this.
This joint UK Met office press release rushed out in a hurry on the 24th Nov, I wonder why!
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20091124a.html
see how many inaccurate, unproven or misleading statements you can spot.
The authors are of the highest reputation! so it all must be true!
Hope this translation works
http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://derstandard.at/1259280934139/Wichtige-Klimadaten-im-Muell-entsorgt&ei=RDIVS9apEo6j4QafwuXSBg&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CA4Q7gEwAQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dderstandard.at%2Bclimategate%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4ACAW_enGB352GB352
This is a paper in Austria Der Standard – this article has over 1400 comments – unsurprisingly they don’t agree with the content of it. Most other articles have about 30-70.
The BBC seem to be testing the water [heaven knows why]
Tell them what you think of this article about scientic review and involving the public [total cop out sprang to my mind]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8388485.stm
This on BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8388485.stm
“Mike Hulme and Jerome Ravetz”
Title:
“Show Your Working’: What ‘ClimateGate’ means”
Excerpts:
“How well does the public understand professional peer review, for example, or the role of a workshop, a seminar and a conference in science?”
“A Citizen’s Panel on Climate Change (CPCC)?”
Not read it in depth, it seems an essay on a post-IPCC world, appears to me like a lot of familiar woolly talk of getting the public to see it the scientists way, rather than backing the scientists out of the political PR sphere.
Have also read the BBC website article on the Antarctica ice loss and was pretty upset so I sent this to Mr. Richard Black…
Dear Mr. Black,
An article concerning this has just been published in Nature Geoscience 22 November 2009, the link is given below…the authors discuss ice loss in Antarctica…..this study is probably the most recent yet to be published, ……in the article they talk of some 200 giga-tones of ice loss per year…..if you do the calculations this translates to a sea level rise of about 0.5 mm per year which is about 5 cms in one hundred years. this is hardly (as you so
frighteningly quote) a
“Major sea level rise likely as Antarctic ice melts”
your article greatly exaggerates this issue. A further report published last week in India clearly shows that glaciers in India are not retreating as claimed….the use of the word “Accelerated” in the title of this new paper also exaggerates the claims…had they stated the results in sea level rise (SLR) no one would never been impressed…
So in conclusion, please get your facts right before you scare us all to death.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo694.html
In case you cannot gain access to the paper here it is…
Nature Geoscience
Published online: 22 November 2009 | doi:10.1038/ngeo694
Accelerated Antarctic ice loss from satellite gravity measurements
J. L. Chen1, C. R. Wilson1,2, D. Blankenship3 & B. D. Tapley1
Abstract
Accurate quantification of Antarctic ice-sheet mass balance and its contribution to global sea-level rise remains challenging, because in situ measurements over both space and time are sparse. Satellite remote-sensing data of ice elevations and ice motion show significant ice loss in the range of -31 to -196 Gt yr-1 in West Antarctica in recent years1, 2, 3, 4, whereas East Antarctica seems to remain in balance or slightly gain mass1, 2, 4, with estimated rates of mass change in the range of -4 to 22 Gt yr-1. The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment5 (GRACE) offers the opportunity of quantifying polar ice-sheet mass balance from a different perspective6, 7. Here we use an extended record of GRACE data spanning the period April 2002 to January 2009 to quantify the rates of Antarctic ice loss. In agreement with an independent earlier assessment4, we estimate a total loss of 190 77 Gt yr-1, with 132 26 Gt yr-1 coming from West Antarctica. However, in contrast with previous GRACE estimates, our data suggest that East Antarctica is losing mass, mostly in coastal regions, at a rate of -57 52 Gt yr-1, apparently caused by increased ice loss since the year 2006.
In today’s (Dec 1)Winnipeg Sun Lorrie Goldstein has a comment entitled “Dog ate my homework” about the deleted CRU records.
See:
http://www.winnipegsun.com/comment/columnists/lorrie_goldstein/2009/12/01/11988211-sun.html
Lindzen has a piece in today’s Journal that touches on the emails, but mainly discusses weaknesses in the runaway warming case:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574567423917025400.html
Lord Stern says sceptics are muddled and unscientific. That would make CRU unmuddled and scientific NOT
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/6701828/Climate-change-sceptics-are-muddled-says-Lord-Stern.html?state=target#postacomment&postingId=6702363
More good comments
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6938356.ece
“Steve: I’m sure that things like this have been done. You’d have to ask modelers.”
I read that as saying there is no way for anybody but the modelers to do it, is that what you meant?
CBS opinion
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/01/opinion/main5850271.shtml
A witless Houston Chronicle editorial with a surfeit of critical commentary from readers:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/6734481.html
Gerald North Interview
http://tinyurl.com/yewfp5w
Not exactly press, but an online petition has been started in Canada:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/royal-commission-to-determine-extent-of-global-warming.html
German Welt Online puplished a who is who picture gallery of climate scientist and some basic background of tribes inside climate science. Links lead to a Steve M Picture:
http://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/umwelt/article5389009/Wer-ist-wer-im-Klima-Streit.html?nr=15&pbpnr=0
Surely this deserves coverage by the MSM?
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j_dt9Bjj5yVV7k1PAyDnVHKvKtgAD9CAM0VG0
http://green.yahoo.com/news/ap/20091201/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_climate_hacked_e_mails.html
Phil Jones to step down.
Bingo! Phil Jones stepping down. Mann being investigated. By who though?
Probably should post it here.
Steve in the German press:
One of Germany’s leading dailies, DIE WELT has a big write-up today.
Wer ist wer im Klima-Skandal? (Who is who in the climate scandal) features the top 16 players in the climate scandal.
http://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/umwelt/article5389009/Wer-ist-wer-im-Klima-Streit.html
Steve is No. 16 (personally I think you ought to be in the top 5).
I translated the photo caption in English.
Steve McIntyre
The Corrector: Steve McIntyre is a mathematician who worked in ore exploration and drew up feasibility studies for the Canadian government. He analysed Michael E. Mann’s
”hockey stick curve“ and discovered deficiencies in the mathematics that resulted in a dramatic upswing in the graphic. Mann refused requests to make his data available. No references to the hockey stick were made in the 2007 IPCC report.
I haven’t read the entire write-up yet. But just the fact that a German media outlet is writing up a big piece says a lot.
I could use some help from an email sleuth. Apparently i am mentioned in the emails in the context of my invitation of SteveM to give a seminar at Georgia Tech. Would like to see these emails if they exist. Would be interesting evidence re my tribal hypothesis.
According to sources inside Penn State, Mike Mann is currently (230 PM, December 1) being interviewed by MSNBC’s Today Show on the Penn State campus. Since MSNBC is owed by GE, and GE is ready to receive billions in green energy government contracts, I think we already know what to expect from this interview. It will be a promotional piece for Mike Mann to defend himself with no tough questions asked or journalistic standards upheld.
It would be nice if the real media had a chance to question these scientists.
Phil Jones steps aside. That’s the first step the CRU has taken in the right direction. Now, let’s see if Penn State follows.
Here’s what they wrote under Mann’s mugshot:
Climate historian: Michael E. Mann is a paleoclimatologist at the Pennsylvania State University. He is the father of the famous “hockey stick reconstruction” and a leading author on that chapter in the IPCC report of 2001. The curve shows a very steady behaviour for the past 1000 years before skyrocketing upwards in today’s period (like the end of a hockey stick blade). This graphic, which played a prominent role in Al Gores film, is controversial with respect to methodology and was always at the centre of debate (see Stephen McIntyre). The main argument made by critical scientists is: There were warm periods also in earlier times when CO2 emissions from cars and industry played no role.
Dear Judith,
First we have to check to see if they are subject to the FOIA, and not bound by any IPR.
Also they are only available to bloggers and non-academics.
We’ll reply within 28 days. 🙂
H/T to
http://www.achgut.com/dadgdx/index.php/author/mmiersch
for pointing out the DIE WELT write-up
They, achgut, have got some guys and gals over there.
Wow .. who knew.
Steve is an anarchist !
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/climate-sciences-pr-disaster/article1383254/
Dr. Curry,
go here and search on your name:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/search.php
Judith Curry yields no hits
Judith yields 6 hits
Curry yields 2 hits
P Gosselin – I agree with Dr. Curry that there needs to be greater transparency in the conduct of climate science.
Judith,
Grepping the email doesn’t reveal anything with the sort of context you describe here as far as your name, “seminar” or “georgia” is concerned.
Any other details that might help
Sean
Dr. Curry:
Try here:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/
They have a search engine to go through all of the e-mails.
There are six e-mails referring to “Judith”, but it’s Judith Lean.
“Georgia” hit an article written by Pat Michaels which referred to your colleague at GA Tech.
Two hits for “Curry,” but one was just an e-mail address [curry@xxxxx] and the other was referring to a curry stain.
Phil Jones has temporarily stepped down.
http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/uk-climate-scientist-to-221080.html
I wonder if he will still be getting paid.
Slightly off topic but Die Welt today does The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the Climate Wars. A photo gallery and mini profiles of 16 gentlemen whose names come up most often (and they are all men).
Anybody who would like to put some faces to those names might like to check it out.
Your profile, Steve, is labelled: DER KORREKTOR.
In case your German isn’t up to scratch here’s a rough translation of your profile: ‘SM is a mathamatician who worked in mineral exploration and drew up feasibility studies for the Canadian govt. He analysed Michael E. Manns ‘Hockeystick Curve’ and discovered flaws in the methodology which led to the dramatic trend in the graph. Mann subsequently refused to publish the underlying data. No further direct reference was made to the Hockeystick Curve in the 2007 IPCC report.’
http://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/article5388685/Positionen.html
Judith, I found only one reference to Georgia Tech and Steve M:
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1065&filename=1256765544.txt
The interview with Mike Mann at PSU for the Today Show was totally aimed at defending him. From a reliable source in the room the NBC crew basically said to Mann:
“let us ask a question so your answer can help publicly defend you”
Hope this hasn’t been mentioned already, but it’s quite good:
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2009/12/01/climategate_and_scientific_conduct.php
And while I’m at it, I know that several PJM pieces have been reported, but it looks like they’ve created a whole series of articles, including a database: http://pajamasmedia.com/
M & M get some praise from signer 55 at http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/royal-commission-to-determine-extent-of-global-warming/signatures.html.
Phil Jones is temporarily relinquish his post until the completion of an independent review:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9CAM0VG0&show_article=1
Very interesting,StuartR!!!
Several people here have mentioned Jerome Ravetz regarding ‘post-normal science.’ and Mike Hulme made a statement about it a few days ago.This is another branch of the scam in the making imo.
StuartR permalink
This on BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8388485.stm
“Mike Hulme and Jerome Ravetz”
Title:
“Show Your Working’: What ‘ClimateGate’ means”
Excerpts:
“How well does the public understand professional peer review, for example, or the role of a workshop, a seminar and a conference in science?”
“A Citizen’s Panel on Climate Change (CPCC)?”
Not read it in depth, it seems an essay on a post-IPCC world, appears to me like a lot of familiar woolly talk of getting the public to see it the scientists way, rather than backing the scientists out of the political PR sphere.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01tier.html
Very nice piece in the Register – hits the right nails firmly on the head.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/30/crugate_analysis/
(And I’m still fuming over that Antarctic nonsense – oh, it’s clever I’ll grant as right now they can claim they’re right if it keeps cooling, if it levels off OR if it warms! Talk about covering all your bases!)
Phil Jones steps down:
http://dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1232412/Director-climate-change-centre-accused-manipulating-data-stands-dismisses-claims-complete-rubbish.html
Full set of real-time news results on CRU here:
http://thisnewz.com/M/search.php?qn=cru&pn=&rn=20
And speaking of PJM, here’s a real lulu: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-imminent-demise-of-glaciers-due-to-a-typo/
Just a typo, right?
From Freds link:
““Climategate” brings a long-running and very bitter battle into the open. On one side are the “warmists,” characterized by their opponents as true believers who manipulate the science to make it look as if the world is about to end. On the other side are the “denialists,” who, backed by Big Oil billions, are out to prove that global warming is a hoax. Both sides accuse the other of dirty tricks. ”
I notice warmists are “characterized by their opponents as” bad things, while denialists “are” bad things. The press is trying to get out of the box, but they just keep slipping back in.
The Hulme/Ravitz viewpoint piece on the BBC site:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8388485.stm
was posted at 14:56 GMT. It has vanished from view on the
top page, science & environment and the technology areas as of 21:30 GMT.
Most of the reader’s comments have tighter focus than the original
viewpoint.
Jones “stepping down” is just PR euphemism for fired. He is toast. And the first of many.
Here’s a good article:
E-Mail Fracas Shows Peril of Trying to Spin Science
By John Tierney, New York Times, November 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01tier.html
Nice to see it in the New York Times, but Tierney’s science stories are better and more balanced than stories by Andrew C. Revkin, who is tying himself in knots trying to explain Climategate.
Tierney included a link to a hilarious video:
Hide The Decline – Climategate
Fox News website finally has a story covering some of the details beyond just a few e-mails:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/11/30/john-lott-climate-change-emails-obama-copenhagen/
Also, O’Reilly will be talking about it tonight with John Stossel, and Stossel has a brief story:
http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2009/12/01/oreilly-tonight-climategate/
The O’Reilly coverage should have the widest reach of an objective story on Climategate so far. His previous comments clearly show he believes the earth is warming, and believes 9 out of the last 10 years are the warmest on record (so he’s unaware Steve forced this to be revised), but I doubt he will allow the hockey team’s talking points to go unchallenged if he has a guest who repeats them.
Steve: This last statement is not correct. The NASA revision was for the continental US only.
The AP doesn’t think there is an issue.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_BRITAIN_CLIMATE_HACKED_E_MAILS?SITE=CAANR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
http://www.munkdebates.com/LiveStream/
Starts in 35 minutes. Elizabath May and George Monbiot debate Bjorn Lomborg and Nigel Lawson.
The debate starts at 11:45 PM GMT and it is currently 11:17 PM GMT
Weird: If I type in “climategate,” “climate-gate” or “climate gate” in Google, none of these terms are shown in the list of possible subjects. However, if I type in the terms, one at a time, and hit “Enter,” I get lists of hits: about 13,400,000 for “climategate,” 6,41,000 for “climate gate,” and 24,400,000 for “climate-gate.” What gives?
Fox News just reported that Phil Jones is stepping down as head of CRU while an investigation is conducted.
Whoops. I see others reported the Jones story first.
Really not a surprise. Now the question is will he be exonerated of any wrong-doing.
Re: Kahlessa
The John Tierney article was in print only in the New York distribution. NYT put the article in a modified form on the web. It is pay-bared for most of the world. It will reach almost no one which given the NYT editorial policy is no surprise.
Mr. Tierney even links to “Watts Up With That?” in the web version! For someone who is still fool enough to still have a subscription it is well worth a view.
Has anybody found news reports on the impact of Climategate on stocks? Or the potential problems? I couldn’t find anything on the Wall St. Jrnl site. I only saw something there on speculation about why Climategate happened (Follow the money). There’s some discussion on stock forums but nothing in the News?
“Untold millions in federal funds have been granted to American academics and institutions ensnared in Climategate. Congress and the administration should be investigating the charges of destroyed documents and data as well as the general unwillingness to share data funded by taxpayers. An academic investigation is a start, but it’s not enough, considering the role of many institutions in this cover-up. With so much federal money for academic research involved, trusting universities to get to the bottom of this scandal is akin to leaving a fox in charge of the henhouse.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/02/universities-take-action-on-climategate/
About noon in Australia, 2nd Dec_09, the Upper House of Federal parliament, the Senate, voted on the adoption of an emission trading scheme that had been passed by the Lower House. The Senate, historically the house of review, voted against it.
Australia therefore looks unable to take a participation plan to Copenhagen.
The flip side is that the prime Minister might use the rejection by the Senate to bring on a double dissolution, whereby both Houses are cleared and elections are held at a date before the scheduled date. In a normal election, in the Senate, half the Senators stay in office until the next election, thus maintaining some consistency. In a DD, all Seats are vacant and should this happen, it gives a higher possibility of minority parties like greens holding the balance of power.
Phil Jones as I see it has the world on his shoulders. The warmists will be competing against the skeptics to get mr. Jones to stay or flip their way. He will be the recipient of tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars to either expose the truth as he knows it, or hide what he knows and stay out of the way from this point forward. He can cause a lot of trouble for either side. This investigation will end with an award for his work from CRU. It will take pressure to get at the real truth. A true investigation will examine ALL of the emails from the other PUBLICLY funded “scientists”.
A hard-hitting blog post by Bradley Fikes at NCTimes.com (San Diego) that cruelly juxtaposes UEA public statements and private email quotes:
Phil Jones Temporarily Steps Aside, CRU Falsehoods Continue
More coverage in the Australian press (2 Dec):
So far the Fairfax media have been most reticent to cover climategate. Yesterday there was a strange angle – Beware: The hackers might get you too!
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/security/small-business-a-prime-target-for-hackers-20091201-k221.html
But today they have a more conprehensive article leading with the suspension of Phil Jones:
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-technology/uk-climate-scientist-to-temporarily-step-down-20091202-k451.html
Meanwhile ‘The Australian’ republishes the Wall Streee Journal’s ‘Climategate: Follow the money’
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/scientists-jump-on-the-carbon-gravy-train/story-e6frg6ux-1225805933422
Hopefully more to come as the dust settles on the Liberal Party upheaval.
When Joe Horner alerted me to the Phil Jones news on AP earlier I clicked over to BBC News and on the right hand side saw the following two links, in this order
Talk about quickly rewarding your loyal followers! At the time it seemed funny but as George Hanson suggests in the end it may not be. There needs to be a much bigger clear out than this, for the sake not just of climate science but science of all kinds.
RE R.S. Brown:
Just the way I like my Martini. Very Dry.
Cartoon of Al Gore published on CBC of all places!
http://www.cbc.ca/photogallery/diversions/2799/
I had thought “Climategate” Google hits had peaked at about 12 million, but it has taken off again today and is now at 15.4 million. There’s another hockey stick.
Still no auto-suggest for “Climategate” though.
And the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) finally, if very obliquely, mentions the matter without using the C word: “Last week, a private exchange of emails among climate scientists stoked a firestorm of skepticism after it was hacked and posted on the Web.”
According to the SMH this is good reason to examine the psychology of deniers. Apparently we only interpret the emails in a negative light because: “It is the human instinct to shut out or modify a terrifying truth: that the world as we know it is heading for a smash.” I agree, at least in part, the truth is terrifying.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/cold-comfort-the-psychology-of-climate-denial-20091202-k5r8.html
Gavin Schmidt at RealClimate said in a comment thread:
“The station number issue is a red herring since there are more than enough stations to characterise global temperature anomalies on an annual basis (something like 100 good ones is all that would be required)”
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=1994#comment-146121
This strikes me as counter-intuitive — is there a sound basis for this statement?
Steve: There are “enough” stations. The issue is whether the increased reliance on airports and urban airports in recent years has imparted a bias. It might not have, but there’s no good reason why NOAA, CRU and NASA, between the three of them, have discontinued the collation of rural stations that are in the record up to the early 1990s, many of which continue to report but are not in the MCDW distribution and haven’t been collated for nearly 20 years.
http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2009/12/02/all_the_presidents_climategate_deniers?comments=true#comments
THE BIG CLIMATE CHANGE FRAUD – front page of the London Daily Express Tues 2 Dec.
Opens with a report of an Ian Plimer talk in London, and then on to the CRU emails as appearing “to show that scientists had been massaging data to prove that global warming was taking place. The Climate Research Unit also admitted getting rid of much of its raw climate data, which means other scientists cannot check the subsequent research. Last night the head of the CRU, Professor Phil Jones, said he would stand down while an independent review took place.”
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/143573
Glen Beck from November 23 hitting some of the prominent e-mails:
http://video.foxnews.com/11872280/unsettled-science
Inhofe has been alone until now. Newt Gingrich wants to strip the CRU of its relevance:
“If Congress is going to consider legislation based on supposed scientific consensus, it has every right to conduct inquiries into whether that consensus is genuine. Furthermore, Congress should allocate resources to reassemble raw weather data from around the world and make it publicly available so independent scientists can verify the legitimacy of the “adjusted numbers” of the Climate Research Unit. The United States – indeed, the world, deserves an answer as to whether the adjusted data used by the IPCC (and Al Gore, with whom they shared the Nobel Prize in 2007) can be trusted.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/12/gingrich_statement_on_climateg_1.html
Transcript of ann ABC radio interview with Aynesley Kellow:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2009/2757619.htm
One point that would be interesting to have verified (presumably there would be documentary evidence somewhere on a long-binned computer tape????)
“Just by way of an interesting example, Garth Paltridge, who is in Hobart here and has now retired, did a paper looking at all the weather balloon data which is available for about 50 years and couldn’t find much evidence that as the Earth had warmed slightly that vital increase in water vapour was there. He eventually had it published but when it was first submitted for publication it was rejected on the basis that the message that it would send would give too much encouragement to sceptics…”
Not MSM but one of the most respected scientific blogs in the pharmaceutical industry “In the pipeline” has commented
http://www.corante.com/pipeline/
From Guido Fawkes, the blogger the UK’s politician’s read:
http://order-order.com/2009/12/02/cru-boss-stands-aside-queens-university-blocking-data-foi/#comments
“The CRU is a taxpayer funded body which is now exposed as not fit for purpose, compromised by global warming advocates rather than staffed by truth pursuing scientists.”
Ominously, or perhaps delightfully, Guido continues:
“There is similar issue developing at Queens University Belfast (QUB), where once again global warming alarmist scientists are blocking Freedom of Information requests. QUB is one of the world’s leading centers for tree-ring work, the tree-ring data that QUB has gathered is valuable for studying the global climate during the past 7000 years. For 2 years mathematician Douglas J. Keenan has been battling to get them to release the data unsuccessfully. QUB is throwing up chaff to prevent him having access to the data.”
CBS again, blogs only so far but confirms its heading in right direction.
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/12/02/taking_liberties/entry5860171.shtml
Today at 10 eastern a previously schedule meeting between Holdren, Lubchenco and a select commitee of the state of climate change in the US House. According to the House’s website it will be streamed live .
http://globalwarming.house.gov/mediacenter/pressreleases_2008?id=0169#main_content
This should be interesting. This meeting was planned before Climategate so I wonder how Holdren is going to react when the Republicans come down on him like a ton of bricks. I wonder if C-Span will be covering it ? I wonder if the Houses site will crash with people trying to watch?
Time to get the Popcorn and Beer ready!
UK Daily Express front page in paper edition
The Big Climate Change ‘Fraud’
@boballab
For those of us in the land of high quality tea and low quality dentistry, is there a link I can check to follow if this is webcast, or will the link you provided get updated closer to the time?
Link to online version of UK Daily Express paper edition headline
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/143573
Now relegated to 2nd position due to breaking news on Iran releasing 5 UK sailors.
Comments are good
The coverage by the Spanish press has been scarce to the point of censorship, but there are some leakers:
http://www.abc.es/20091202/ciencia-tecnologia-ciencias-tierra/cientifico-britanico-dimite-falsear-200912021222.html
http://www.lavanguardia.es/lv24h2007/20080620/53485228801.html
http://www.libertaddigital.com/ciencia/el-watergate-climatico-se-cobra-su-primera-pieza-dimite-el-director-del-cru-1276377872/
Google who owns YouTube has shutdown the most linked video “Hide The Decline” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEiLgbBGKVk
If you click on it you will get an error message.
SHAME on you Google !
Whilst there are other copies, most web sites link to this one.
The counter on it has stopped at about 300,000
@Sean
This is only a guess on my part but they have a link to the left that is titled Video. When I checked it out there was a listing of old clips. My guess is that there is where we will see it since down in the lower left hand corner of that page they list the next video as the one in the Press release.
@boballab – oops, yes I see. I’ll use my eyes next time. Popcorn at the ready.
Holy Moses, the liberal mother ship, Boston Globe, weighs in on the right side!
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/12/02/climategate_dissent_on_ice/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed2
The Boston Globe!
I’m shocked. How did that get through editing.
Update on Google: for “climategat” The only autocomplete option is climate guatamala… once you add your own “e” you get 12.5 million results.
“Consider the case of XXXX JXXXX, the director of the CRU and the man at the heart of climategate. According to one of the documents hacked from his center, between 2000 and 2006 Mr. Jones was the recipient (or co-recipient) of some $19 million worth of research grants, a sixfold increase over what he’d been awarded in the 1990s.”–Wall St. Jrnl (Bret Stephens)
Sorry, I don’t buy it. I’m a skeptic about the motivation behind the scam. If Jones were living in a villa, driving a Rolls, eating high on the hog, etc., I might buy it. I also don’t accept the idea that he and others decided ab initio, “We’re going to scam the world.” But I still haven’t figured it out. Does anybody with inside knowledge have a theory?
Is it possible they came up with a scientific theory, initially actually believed it, got defensive about it when it was challenged, and then it took on a life of its own where they felt they couldn’t turn back or admit its problems?
Nobody in the press has come up with a decent explanation for the conspiracy yet. Just to get grant money sounds too simplistic. For grand global political control sounds too farfetched. Are there any leaked emails which explain or provide possible clues about what happened?
I can see only one of two possibilities: 1) They knew from the start it was bogus, making it a scam from start to finish; or, 2) They knew after some time that it was bogus, and refused to release data that would expose them to ridicule and contempt, so they covered it up.
NY times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/science/earth/02scientist.html
please look at the comments section
comments look like ( to me) that they are going 3 or 4:1 against the AGW establishment case.
Finally found the direct link to where they will be webcasting the House hearing on Climate Science and here it is:
This hearing is being webcast LIVE, please CLICK HERE to watch starting at 10 AM.
Ah hit submit to soon:
http://globalwarming.house.gov/pubs?id=0014
The link is on that page.
Does the Huffington Post count as ‘press’?
ClimateGate: The 7 Biggest Lies About The Supposed “Global Warming Hoax”
Rate Most Dangerous Lies: Harmless 1 to Dangerous 10
“Consider the case of XXXX JXXXX, the director of the CRU and the man at the heart of climategate. According to one of the documents hacked from his center, between 2000 and 2006 Mr. Jones was the recipient (or co-recipient) of some $19 million worth of research grants, a sixfold increase over what he’d been awarded in the 1990s.”–Wall St. Jrnl (Bret Stephens)
The money was probably not the motive, but gaining the prestige of a leading research dept and ’empire building’ together with mixing with Al Gore types, attending international conferences on expense accounts more than likely was. Once the snowball was running it was difficult to stop without a big loss of face and having to make a lot of people out of work.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/02/climategate-the-7-biggest_n_371223.html
I keep getting “Program not available. Please try again later.” Is this because I am in the antipodes?
Same thing here…tried Quicktime, Media Player, no luck.
No I am as well and I’m less then 2 hrs from the Capitol Building. Nothing like the smell of Whitewash in the morning.
I also notice the C-Span site is choosing not to cover this particular hearing!
Oh my god they finally connected 30 minutes in!
Success. Thank you boballad.
I can’t watch it from the UK, but the Daily Show synopsis appears to be following the Huff – everyone who disagrees with AGW is a crank, who’s been kidnapped by aliens, thinks Elvis is alive and the CIA were behind the assassination of JFK, Princess Diana and 911.
snip
Oh My God the Republicans are going for the throat and the Dems are in whitewash mode. The Reps wanted Holdren and the head of NOAA under oath and the Dems pulled the committee into recess and refused to put them under oath.
Holdren: CRU dataset represents a small part of the data????
Translation: “Nothing to see here. Move along folks.”
ROFLMAO
Holdren: “The question of whether there has been periods of warming greater than the current warming in the last one or two thousand years is an interesting question.”
An interesting question??? It is the fundamental question!
So far they just keep falling back on the “peer review” and IPCC in their statements. It is going to be interesting to see what the Reps ask them.
They are dragging out Plan B the Ocean Acidification now.
Notice the subtle, or not so subtle, shift to ocean acidification as being a threat equal to climate change. They must have found a data set they think they can rely on – possibly a chap called Eric with a home pool testing kit who goes to the beach regularly 🙂
Get ready for a demonstration of seaborne exploding kittens!
Won’t somebody please think of the prawns.
It “play-school” chemistry fun. Are these people for real?
I know politicians are dim but come on!
….the sea butterfly affect!
Well I can see the streaming video – and full marks for that – but I’m not sure I can believe my eyes.
“I want to be clear; the ocean will never be as acidic as vinegar.”
Whew! That’s a relief.
From acid rain to acid oceans.
And this is sophisticated political debate?
WTF? It’s like a junior school science lesson – bizarre stuff and SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO boringly long
Apparently the Hockey Stick is now “bumpy” and warped but it is still it is a Hockey Stick.
Now I don’t play Ice Hockey but I’m pretty sure if my stick was bumpy and warped I might throw it away.
Good stuff – onto the actual meat of the issue.
OMG he tried the fake but true method!
Melting Pterpods! First it was falling Polar Bears, then exploding kittens now Melting Pterpods!
Ouch – scientific fascism and McCarthyism – that’s strong stuff.
Inslee is setting up straw men, and knocking them down with vigour.
Circular Argument much.
Aha, they’re using the “None of us are part of the Global Spectre Conspiracy for World Domination” defence. Oh, and the fact that scientists are human.
We’re making some big advances here.
Ocean acidification. Ocean acidification. Ocean acidification. Ocean acidification. Ocean acidification…aren’t you listening. I said Ocean acidification….
Gavin on RealClimate says it was a hack not a leak, did he hack that info or was it leaked ?
Was it actually a hack? Or was it a leak from an insider. A leak would be a much more serious problem than a hack as it would tend to imply that someone on the inside nwas not happy with what they were seeing.
Personally I think it was a leak.
[Response: My information is that it was a hack into their backup mailserver. – gavin]
Comment by David Harrington — 2 December 2009 @ 10:31 AM
House hearing Webcast is working in UK
Close. Missed by that much. Maxwell and 99 go to Washington.
Eugene Robinson – Wahsington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/25/AR2009112503608.html?nav=emailpage
When all else fails fall back on the models!
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP (is that the sound of Holdren backing up?)
I know you have with the numbers and stuff. ZIIIINNNNGGGG
Yeah, good shot Mr Sullivan
Back to the fake but true method.
Where are the crying towels?
Look over there. Ocean acidification. Ocean acidification. Ocean acidification. Ocean acidification. Ocean acidification…
Nature’s blog Climate Feedback had a short story on Phil Jones stepping down. http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2009/12/director_of_east_anglia_climat_1.html I posted a comment which I will paste here as well. The pasting here is insurance. If I do not do it, Olive will censor my post on her blog. If I paste here, it will eventually show up. Here’s the comment:
—–
It is nice to see Nature is reporting the release of the emails and documents as a “leak” rather than a “hack.”
Having Jones step aside is a welcome event. Peter Liss seems to be a good choice during the investigation. I would have despaired for honesty and justice if one of the cabal had replaced Jones.
Is Nature also going to have an internal investigation to determine why its editors allowed CRU scientists to hold undue influence and prevent the publication of papers by McIntyre, Spencer, and others?
It is about time Nature came clean also.
Best comment of the day
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100018556/climategate-its-all-unravelling-now/
Greetings,
My name is Zog from the planet xrmxfkz, known on earth as Mars. 200,000 years ago our highly advanced civilization became concerned that our carbon emissions were going to raise sea levels and flood out the shoreline properties of our super-rich. So we passed legislation to reduce those emissions. This resulted a precipitous drop in co2 in our atmosphere and triggered an irreversible decline in sea levels until our oceans completely disappeared. Eventually we had to migrate to earth and assimilate into your population. Now we xrmxfkz-ians are trying to prevent your destroying the only remaining inhabitable planet in the solar system, and we are banding behind the xrmxfkz-ian leader Rush Limbaugh to mobilize the remaining forces of reason on earth.
The Wegman hockey stick question.
Holdren: No surprise that Michael Mann made a mistake. [Indeed, sir.] But the great thing is, science always corrects itself. And the result – that the last fifty years were the warmest of the last 1000-2000 years – was still found to be robust by the Academy.
Really? Robust over 2000 years?
The crocodile tears now being shed are going to cause massive acidification, no doubt about that. The science is settled. (Which science doesn’t matter. Anything that might possibly support carbon scamming at Copenhagen will do.)
Someone mentioned popcorn but this is becoming Carry On Up The Hockey Stick, a gorgeous mixture of slapstick and farce to be enjoyed late afternoon in London. Thanks America.
Its not CO2, its home runs.
Ok AGW is the same as Homerun hitters in baseball
Hilarious – comparing home run performance and CO2 levels – shame it actually proves the opposite of his point.
With all due respect, I thought we Aussies had a lock on loony politicians, then Mr Markey began talking about Baseball.
Ok who has been giving the climate steroids and casting the blame on CO2?
Beyond parody. Past 1 am here. I’m off to bed.
How embarrassing!
I wonder how he would react if someone told him that CO2 used to be higher in the past.
Has this guy been taking direction from Ed Begley Jr?
Back to the play school chemistry fun. Seriously WTF?
Chalk, vinegar, and baseball. The science is settled.
The BBC has now relegated Phil Jones’ standing down to “bottom of the page” on (local) Norfolk news – clearly only a Norfolk issue, being UEA and all.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/default.stm
No reference to the story anywhere lese on their news pages that I can find!
Update from Québec :
1) Mark Steyn (he comes here from time to time as he lives just across the border in NH) : two pages on Warmergate in Macleans, should soon be online (Friday I think)
2) Long story yesterday on the main news broadcast of the SRC on Copenhagen (the CBC’s French service) with Steven Guilbeault (you know the one that said Global warming could mean colder, drier, wetter weather). Previously with Greenpeace now with Equiterre.
http://www.radio-canada.ca/audio-video/#urlMedia=http://www.radio-canada.ca/Medianet/2009/RDI2/TelejournalSurRDI21H200912012100_1.asx&pos=0
23 minutes of clichés.
BTW Steven Guilbeault has no scientific degree, started but did not finish theological studies, which seems appropriate for a priest of the green cult.
Ex minister, Jacques Brassard, was basically sacked from the Quotidien, a regional paper, for exposing Steven Guilbeault. Jacques Brassard explains it on his blog (http://blogjacquesbrassard.blogspot.com/).
For those following the UK Daily Telegraph coverage by James Delingpole – I thought you may enjoy a little laugh over the anti-ramping his colleague Will Heaven has been attempting to surf.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/willheaven/100018599/climategate-global-warming-denial-and-the-terrifying-case-of-mr-strangelove-ba
“I see that Mr Heaven hasn’t rejected my assertion that he has a crush on Mr Delingpole.
Perhaps we should have poll of DT readers to see what they think?”
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZS9TNKR
John Stewart – Comedy Show
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6941168.ece
From the Times main web page — Prof. B. Peiser comments on the CRU inquiry
Michael Buerk will be discussing science and morality with respect to the Hadley CRU emails on BBC Radio 4 The Moral Maze at 8pm GMT tonight (2 Dec 2009) with Michael Portillo, Matthew Taylor, Claire Fox, Clifford Longley.
Could be very interesting.
PS why is my previous comment referring to HuffPo still in moderation? Somebody else linked to it a few comments later.
Only a small point but BBC’s Richard Black in illustrating the lack of the 21st Century flat spot, has used a graphic which features HadCRUT3 and GISTemp but seems to have used the “meteorological station only” version of GISTemp:
Here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8389706.stm
You have to scrowl down. It doesn’t make a blind bit of difference really in itself. But it adds the comment:
“GISTEMP uses an earlier baseline period than HadCRUT3, which is why it appears on our graph to give consistently higher temperatures” That, and that it is an orange compared to an apple. Plot it agaist GISTemp land-ocean and it is above that too in the period shown (1994-2008). Does no one check graphics. Also the HadCRUT3 data has a wicked ultra smooth going right out to 2008, I wonder how that was done.
Alex
According to the http://globalwarming.house.gov/pubs?id=0014 site:
“Dr. Holdren is the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and was formerly a professor at Harvard University and the director of the acclaimed Woods Hole Research Center.” Acclaimed by whom?
And what is this “acclaimed Woods Hole Research Center?” Is it the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, incorporated on January 6, 1930?
http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=7118
Or is it the Woods Hole Research Center, established in 1985 by George Woodwell?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woods_Hole_Research_Center
Dr. Woodwell’s PhD is in Botany, in case you’re interested.
Comment from UK Telegraph blog, as per the Zog link I posted above, notes on Sea Acidification
Regarding ocean acidification, Im no marine biologist but I have a good bit of experience with saltwater coral aquaculture and again something smells funny on this claim. Coral skeletons and seashells are themselves natural pH buffers with a very large amount of calcium in them. They slowly disslove over time and help keep the pH of the oceans in the 8-8.4 range, depending on the region. If, as a recent study has shown, a slightly lower pH promotes the growth of shells on ocean organisms there is already a natural mechanism in place to maintain a balance- lower pH would drive the organisms to produce larger and thicker shells or skeletons, which would then in time dissolve back into the water and raise the pH again.
Coral species are often quite sensitive to any kind of fluctuation in their environment, whether pH, temperature, light, or whatever. To blame absorption of CO2 by the ocean as a major cause of problems with coral reefs is, as with the rest of the “warmist” philosophy, a somewhat hysterical overstatement.
They are sensitive organisms and can be killed by all manner of change and variation in their environment. I also really wonder if those involved in gathering and presenting such data are aware that there can be quite a swing in the pH of water on a reef every single day, reaching its lowest point during night hours. A reading taken during the day and one taken at night in the same place can show quite different readings and given the level of fudging that seems to be rampant in this whole argument I would not be at all surprised to find that whoever is making the “reefs are dying in a sea of acid” claims Ive seen in articles didnt purposely vary the time of day that the readings were taken to get results that justify the hypothesis. I oculd sample an area at noon on any given day, return a year later to the same spot and take a sample at 3 am that would show a strong drop in pH and give me “proof” that in fact the sea was becoming measurably more acidic when nothing of the sort is actually occuring.
Again, I dont have a degree, just a good amount of real life experience in coral propagation but this can be confirmed easily enough by someone who does have one. I’d want to see the times of day that the readings were taken for sure before I believed the “Oceans are acidifying” claim but Ive never seen such data offered amongst these claims.
Google is now returning 21 million hits for English pages with “climategate” but they are still excluding it from the auto-suggest.
The editorial from today’s nature:
Climatologists under pressure p545
Stolen e-mails have revealed no scientific conspiracy, but do highlight ways in which climate researchers could be better supported in the face of public scrutiny.
doi:10.1038/462545a
Regarding the next-to-last comment about pH swings and coral reef chemisty–I, too, am an amateur reefkeeper, and measured the pH on my own aquarium with a computer-controlled pH monitor. My tank’s pH dropped several tenths of a point every night in the absence of photosynthesis. Turn the lights back on and the plants and plankton start converting dissolved CO2 back into glucose via photosynthesis. Any pH measurements of tropical waters need to be taken at the same time of day to get consistent readings.
Youtube also excludes climategate from auto-suggest.
Artical from UK telegraph excolling the virtues of Gordon Brown and his Green credentials plus commitment to CO2 reduction. No mention of climategate.
Comments are not complementary 😉
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/maryriddell/6694848/Gordon-Brown-the-eco-warrior-might-swing-the-green-vote-his-way.html
The IPCC and Climate Science chose to get into bed with politicians, environmental campaigners, and the media. These are not people I instinctively trust, with good reason.
It is now hard to distinguish a valid scientific theory from propaganda that supports a environmental or political objective, all parties espouse the “facts”.
I will give you a small example:
On the 24th November the British Met office issued a joint press statement on Climate Science ( I wonder why?) http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20091124a.html
Authors were those of the highest reputation:-
Prof. Julia Slingo, Chief Scientist, Met Office
Prof. Alan Thorpe, Chief Executive, Natural Environment Research Council
Lord Rees, President, the Royal Society
This statement included the following passage:-
“Year-on-year the evidence is growing that damaging climate and weather events — potentially intensified by global warming — are already happening and beginning to affect society and ecosystems. This includes:
In the UK, heavier daily rainfall leading to local flooding such as in the summer of 2007.”
Anybody reading this passage is left with the strong impression that the floods of 2007 were caused by Climate Change. But as I was unlucky enough to be directly involved in the Avon/Severn flooding I did keep up to date with any science reporting of the likely cause.
However the only authoritative scientific analysis produced on the 2007 floods was produced by CEH a part of Prof. Alan Thorpe’s National Environmental Research Council.
http://www.ceh.ac.uk/news/news_archive/2008_news_item_05.html
And I quote from this report:
Lead author, Terry Marsh, comments: “The river floods of summer 2007 were a very singular episode, which does not form part of any clear historical trend or show consistency with currently favoured climate change scenarios.”
Mr Marsh adds: “The exceptional river flooding last summer fuelled speculation that flood risk is increasing due to global warming. Due to the inherent variability of the UK climate, any extreme hydrological event cannot readily be linked directly to climate change.”
So what do I make of all of that, why did these esteemed people feel they have to rush out statements that don’t bear up to even the simplest critical examination.
They are not fools, so why do it? What is possessing them? I can only conclude they are supporting a political belief not science.
When I search for climategate on google news it is only returning articles more than 20 hours old. If I go to advanced search and search by date, newest, I get articles from today there is stuff from today from minutes to a few hours old, including from the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Sydney Morning Hearld, Financial Times, Reuters… all less than 4 hours old but they do not show up if you search google news for climategate wtf
johnh:
Thanks, some of us now know the kind of questions to ask as acidification is asked to ride to the rescue of carbon caps, with only hours to spare …
jorgekafkazar:
John Holdren was director of the Woods Hole Research Center – “an environmental advocacy center not to be confused with the far better known Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a research center” as Dick Lindzen put it in his very important October 2008 paper Climate Science: Is It Currently Designed To Answer Questions?. George Woodwell indeed founded this influential little outfit and handed over the reins to Holdren later, in a pattern repeated many times elsewhere, as Lindzen details.
This links well with LMB’s excellent question about the nature of any posited conspiracy – and your good answer back (well I though it was!) Having said which, the best answer to most conspiracy questions is that there isn’t one and the best answer to the next biggest set of questions is that it’s hard to tell. What is known is that Woodwell, Holdren, Stephen Schneider and James Lovelock were all involved in a seminal conference in North Carolina convened by Margaret Mead way back in 1975 entitled The Atmosphere: Endangered and Endangering. To give Lovelock his due he guffawed loudly at some of the more outlandish bits and has since passionately argued against cap and trade as the ‘answer’ to the various scare(s) arising – though he’s also been pretty good at the scaremongering.
The other related area to look is Maurice Strong and the influence on Strong and his peers of the ideas of David Mitrany’s ‘functionalism’: that the only way that the world would ever buy into ‘global governance’ (which the people concerned may have wanted for the very best of reasons, of course) is through a slice and dice approach using areas like environmental concern. An excellent article on that is Outflanking the Nation-State by Will Banyan, published in er, Paranoia Magazine.
And there’s the problem, right there! None of the above proves conspiracy – but we know from history that sometimes a pernicious conspiracy really does arise – like the Nazi party coming out of the Thule Group in Munich. It’s no good ignoring the fact and hoping you never have to deal with the public evil as it gains strength and makes its claim on the affections, prejudices and ambitions of many others not in its inner circle.
And then, sometimes, a whistleblower arises as well, from within the heart of the beast. If the background to our civilisation were perchance a Christian one (and I know it’s a debatable point) I would suggest massive praise to the god of Jesus Christ for that, just as I’m sure Lord Monckton would!
BBC head firmly back in the sand
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8389706.stm
the last 2 weeks never happened.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107104574568834054939774.html
UK Channel 4 News had Ross McKitrick and Bob Watson tonight (2nd Dec). McKitrick came across very poorly compared with Watson’s slick performance.
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/science_technology/hacked+emails+revive+climate+debate/3447647
Google has to kiss the butt of the Socialist government so they don’t get sued for antitrust. The GOV is holding that over their heads. The emails I think will turn out to be hacked by a top opposition government official being involved but he will never be exposed. A small time hack will take the fall for the hack. I think Steve not getting his FOIA requests, and thencrying like a baby about it was the oil that greased the hack. Kudos to Steve! I am honored to be commenting on your forum.
UK Environment minister (14th in 12 years, so real commitment) Ed Milipede is to host Telephone conf call
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/02/ed-miliband-obama-phone-in
CNN has finally got into it. Asking for people to respond to their question?
http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2009/12/02/has-scientific-community-has-been-honest-about-global-warming/
Here’s the URL for today’s Nature editorial, as mentioned by per. Nature has upped the ante in a remarkable fashion.
Ross does seem to have had a slight disadvantage of about an extra 3/4 second delay in his audio link – makes it quite hard not to appear to be butting in when you hear the question later than the other guy and haven’t heard that he’s already into his reply! Not quite sure why the interview was held from Brazil rather than one of the studio newsreaders but I guess that’s TV for you.
At least they’ve taken it mainstream. Even my dad will have heard of it now – he relies on radio and TV rather than the net and had absolutely no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned the leak to him on the phone yesterday!
Here’s what seems to be the authoritative explanation on the Daily Kos of the ‘trick’ and ‘hiding the decline’.
WOW
4:05 P.M. Eastern Standard time. The CBC has acknowledged “climategate”, in a radio report.
I guess it’s official now.
I thought McKitrick came over much better than Watson.
Phil Jones has apparently been interviewed “as a victim of crime” by Norfolk Police:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1232722/Professor-climate-change-scandal-helps-police-enquiries-researchers-banned.html
Seems a little unfair – when my car was stolen and torched all I got was a victim support leaflet through the post rather than a chauffeur to the station 😦
I would agree with the Bishop. Ross held his own, the devil is math though, so tossing “the data” around as much as they do, detracts from the transparency issue.
Re: kh1234567890
I could not disagree with you more. Every statement Ross McKitrick made addressed issues in the way you would expect a scientist to. For someone who has been around scientists his answers were gratifyingly responsive. For someone who is used to PR hacks his performance might cause confusion because McKintrick assumes his audience is intelligent and thoughtful.
Slick doesn’t cut it in science but is great in car sales.
It’s probably a Pygmalion thing. The UK don’s English accent turns off the critical faculty in some people…probably the same people who find that flat US/Canada Industrial Great Lakes nasal English accent provincial.
Very interesting that Gavin at RC says of the Popular Mechanics piece, “The piece by Peter Kelemen at Columbia in Popular Mechanics is quite sensible, even if I don’t agree in all particulars.”
Well, I’m sure he has no problem agreeing with the last para of that piece, but at least implicitly he’s suggesting that some of the other (quite strong) criticisms of conduct here are justified or the article could not on the whole be deemed “sensible”. Tho of course he won’t say which.
Well, here’s a little Climategate one I got published at Mail on Line. Steve gets a mention:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1232662/Dont-hold-breath-expecting-climate-change-data-revealed.html
Now wait a minute NW! (said in a flat US/Canada Industrial Great Lakes nasal English accent provincial). have I just been profiled?
Sean Peake, I speak with feeling (in the same nasal accent), having grown up in that area myself.
We should all just be thankful Ross isn’t from Alabama. In that case, it would hardly matter what he had said.
It appears that as of 3 December, NATURE editorially reverts to a series of little logical bandages to cover various Climate-gate
wounds:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v462/n7273/full/462545a.html
They’re trying to palm a few cards here. Notice how their defenses
rest on the E-MAILS only. There’s no discussion of the blocks of
data the FOI leaker included in the original posting. There’s no
mention of the whacky computer programming. And there’s no hint
that the “scientists” including the Nature editors and reviewers
suspected the studies were non-reproducible since the originsl data
had been “lost”, scalped, or blended beyond simple statistical
necessity.
The Nature editor has circled one more wagon.
Very good analysis of the lack of mainstream coverage
http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2009/20091202135822.aspx
Tomorrows headline UK Guardian
Copenhagen climate change talks must fail, says top scientistExclusive: World’s leading climate change expert says summit talks so flawed that deal would be a disaster
So you read it expecting Climategate, sorry its the Guardian so no such luck. Just James Hanxen against Cap & Trade but still for AGW
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/02/copenhagen-climate-change-james-hansen
I just had a comment on the Nature editorial by someone describing themselves as a paleoclimatologist. Worth reading.
Radio 4 ‘World Tonight’ had a long sequence this evening including an interview with Michael Mann. I thought the interviewer was quite rough with him, and Mann came across as nervous and defensive. If Jones was hoping for any support though, he’s have had a rude shock as Mann basically left him high and dry. With friends like that… This was perhaps the best coverage on the BBC I’ve heard.
@Cumbrian Lad
I haven’t seen the interview myself so I am going by your take and if true this basically confirms what I speculated yesterday on Jeff ID’s Air Vent, that there is a schism forming in the team.
When Phils announcement that he was “stepping aside” there was no response by RC. I mean not just no announcement with Gavin’s spin, I mean no comments either for about 3 hours before they let some go though and of those it ended with a person posting Phils move, then RC went quite again for quite awhile. To me it sure seemed that Phil didn’t give Gavin a heads up that he was stepping down, Which you would think he would do so that Gavin could basically have the Teams Spin ready to go when the news broke. Now if Upside Down is looking to throw Phil under the Bus maybe we are starting to see the US side of the team break away from the CRU side.
CNN this evening finally did a small piece on Climategate. But they didn’t interview a non-warmist scientist. Only the “experts” from the other side.
Jack Cafferty is also finally dealing with it:
Has scientific community been honest about global warming?
http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2009/12/02/has-scientific-community-has-been-honest-about-global-warming/
(316 Comments)
(I wish Lou Dobbs hadn’t left until the story broke. snip)
The BBC Michael Mann radio interview is here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qtl3
As Cumbrian Lad has said, the interviewer (who happens to live two streets away from me here in London) did a really good job in the time available, rattling Mann so much he almost seemed about to break down at various points. Mann disassociated himself from Phil Jones on several occasions!
DOES THIS ANSWER THE BIG HACKING QUESTION AND WHO?
This interesting comment came from the Hill.com about Barbara Boxer calling it “theft of email gate” . This guy commenting sounds very sure of himself. Does he know something about how exactly this “breach” of data was done, or not a breach.
**********************************************************************
“Unfortunately for Boxer, this cache of info (email, data and computer code) wasn’t stolen – it was compiled for the FOI requests this band of trolls were so actively refusing – and then placed on a public server at CRU. A whistleblower sent it to BBC over a month ago…you can see how well that worked out for him…and then reposted where it actually got the attention it deserved.BY TRUTH on 12/02/2009 at 16:07”
WHISTLE BLOWER? IS THIS THE ANSWER WE ALL WERE LOOKING FOR?
Another interesting comment.
**********************************************************************
At 11/25/2009 1:08 PM, Blogger Michael said…
The CRU has a history of putting its internal data on the public side of its servers. In the July 2009 “leak”, it turn out that the director of the CRU put that data for a FOI on the public side of their server.
The data that has just come out matches a second FOI request. After the police investigation, we will find that the CRU is being the CRU and manage’s their data files in the same manner they conduct their science.
BBC radio 4 “The wortrld tonight” has an interview with Micheal Mann and some other relevant ifo. Listen from around 0:18.30 to 0:34.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00p1mvf
Sorry, I’ll try to spell it right this time:
BBC radio 4 “The world tonight” has an interview with Micheal Mann and some other relevant info. Listen from around 0:18.30 to 0:34.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00p1mvf
Terry, thanks for posting that, I had searched for it in vain earlier. One thing I sensed (maybe incorrectly) is that rattled or not, Mann is a fighter and he’ll be getting better at this. He will fight hard. Just my sense. If he and others have really engaged in the bare-knuckled stuff the emails suggest, we should expect this.
George Hanson, this sounds like surmise to me (from various existing reports and theories) rather than privileged knowledge on the part of this poster.
By the way, I have become confused about the exact details of the BBC thing. At one point, it seemed we had cleared this up. The weather guy at the BBC had simply confirmed that some emails involving him (personally) about a month prior to the release were genuine. I thought we had understood that he didn’t actually receive the zip file. He was just confirming (as others did) that emails he sent or received were genuine. Is this others’ understanding too?
Seems that some strange amalgams of truth and fiction are becoming memes out there. Maybe in my own head too, a bit. Hard to keep track of everything.
The Scientific Tragedy of Climategate
Can climate change science recover from the damage done by leaked emails?
By Ronald Bailey, Reason, December 1, 2009
http://reason.com/archives/2009/12/01/the-scientific-tragedy-of-clim/
Michael Mann is getting appropriate attention too!
http://www.examiner.com/x-28973-Essex-County-Conservative-Examiner~y2009m11d30-Details-emerge-on-PSU-investigation-of-Mann
CBC’s The National nightly news reports the story briefly and belatedly but, IMHO, reasonably. More than 300 Canadians have petitioned for a commission of inquiry (http://gopetition.com/petitions/royal-commission-to-determine-extent-of-global-warming.html), with another signer calling for participation by Steve McIntyre.
“Climate-gate” mentioned during CBCs The National (hour long newscast)
Phil Jones’ resignation and accusations of manipulating data (around 2 minutes)
http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/TV_Shows/The_National/Technology_&_Science/ID=1348863654
«Scientist’s work under review after allegations his team manipulated data to make climate change seem more severe»
Christopher Booker short interview. CBC’s reporter (Adrienne Arseneault) can’t avoid stressing on “seems” and other words to make sure that the public is sceptic about the sceptics’ claims. Interview with a guy from LSE: «this changes nothing to basic physic, and it is basic physics, the earth is getting warmer». Showing ecologists parading in support of UEA. Andrew Weaver (University of Victoria, BC) playing the victim. The sceptics are represented by a comedy show and radio adverts (don’t they have arguments?)
There is another shorter report:
CBC shorter report :
http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/TV_Shows/The_National/ID=1348714508
Google Insights for Search – analysis for ‘climategate’
http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=climategate&geo=%2CUS%2CAU%2CGB%2CSE&date=today%201-m&cmpt=geo
UK displays the lowest coverage
CNN, NYT, and CBC all had to capitulate because they realized the story wasn’t going away. The Embargo failed.
December 2, 2009, 10:43 PM
A Climate Scientist on ‘Data Mining’ for Dirt
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
New York Times
Ben Santer, a specialist in climate modeling at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and veteran of the climate wars of the 1990s, distributed “An Open Letter to the Climate Science Community” tonight…
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/a-climate-scientist-on-data-mining-for-dirt/
This is the best overview of the scandal that I’ve yet seen:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107104574572091993737848.html
Don Surber attacks “mad scientists”:
“The leaked e-mails remind me of the memos leaked by tobacco company officials. Only the stakes are higher this time. These mad scientists want to take over the world.”
http://www.dailymail.com/Opinion/DonSurber/200912020646
Point of interest for people when reading comments ref the orginal hacking (if it was hacking) being an illegal act, in UK law a precedent has been recently set that illegal acts can be justified by it offsetting a geater damage. It was set in a case against protesters who were arrested within the private property of a coalfired electric generating station in an attempt to shut it down and producing less CO2. They caused £30K of damage but used the defence that they were preventing a greater damage to the planet caused by the CO2. So the hacker/whistleblowers defence could be he was trying to save the expense of the Cap and Trade taxes on the public.
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/kingsnorth-trial-breaking-news-verdict-20080910
And if you cant get him on being illegal then get him on waiting until 2 weeks before Copenhagen before releasing. What sort of a defence is that.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/copenhagen/article6941880.ece
“Hans Labohm, a Dutch economist, told a hearing on Wednesday that “climate change has always been with us and always will be”.
Speaking ahead of the UN summit on climate change in Copenhagen Labohm, a member of the influential IPCC, said, “We are told that temperatures and sea levels are rising and the polar caps are melting.
“That is the bad news. The good news is that none of it is true.””
http://www.theparliament.com/no_cache/latestnews/news-article/newsarticle/eu-hearing-told-climate-change-claims-are-exaggerated/
While Ben Santer in his “Open letter to the climate science community” concedes that NCDC, GISS and HadCRUT are derivates of the same primary dataset, but believes that inherent confirmation power would stem from “different choices in the treatment of the raw measurements”:
While the NCDC and GISS groups largely relied on the same primary
temperature measurements that had been used in the development of the
HadCRUT dataset, they made very different choices in the treatment of the
raw measurements. Although there were differences in the details of the
three groups’ results, the NCDC and GISS analyses broadly confirmed the
“warming Earth” findings of the CRU and MOHC scientists. [1]
… the Met Office Hadly Center still believes these dataset would be “completely independent” :
The Met Office Hadley Centre, which uses CRU data, said the same warming trend had been detected by two other completely independent sets of data held in the US, at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which is part of Nasa, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Dr Peter Stott, of the Met Office, wrote in a briefing on its website that the three data sets agree that “global-average temperature has increased over the past century and this warming has been particularly rapid since the 1970s”. [2]
[1]http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering/browse_thread/thread/d3aec95a5f27fbb6?hide_quotes=no#msg_8aab47682ab84454
[2]http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/copenhagen/article6941880.ece
JohnH,
The reports that focus on the allegedly illegal act of hacking never seem to balance their reports with the alleged illegal refusal to hand over the FOIA requests or data destruction.
They talk about quotes being taken out of context, yet they never even attempt to provide the context.
Democrats: “ClimateGate” Leak A Non-Scandal
“If you’re a U.S. politician calling for expensive new laws relating to global warming, you know you’re in trouble when Jon Stewart lampoons the scientists whose embarrassing e-mail messages were disclosed in what’s being called “ClimateGate.”
“But Democrats put a brave face on it on Wednesday, with Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey saying that the leaked files and allegations of scientific misconduct should not stand in the way of the U.S. Congress swiftly enacting cap and trade legislation to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/12/02/taking_liberties/entry5866076.shtml
Daily Mail Poll
93% think data is being suppressed
7% think it is not
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230635/Scientist-climate-change-cover-storm-told-quit.html
The twisted logic continues !!!
Another response, not entirely out of the ballpark, is: 2. “These people behaved dishonorably. They must have thought this issue was really important, worth risking their scientific reputations for. I will revise upward my estimate of the seriousness of the problem.”
http://clivecrook.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/climategate_and_credibility_an.php
A comprehensive report by Christopher Monckton:
Click to access Monckton-Caught%20Green-Handed%20Climategate%20Scandal.pdf
Conrad Black weighs in at National Review, naming Steve and Ross on the second page:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDA4NWUzN2VhMWM3OWJjM2I3M2Q0ODgxOTQwYmRiN2M=&w=MA==
R
Climate gate made the Colbert Report. Embarassing appologist professor/politician said something like: they lied because it was so important for people to see how big an issue it was. No kidding, I wish I could quote directly.
Steve: What is the date for this??
Update: details of Climatic Research Unit investigation unveiled – December 03, 2009
The University of East Anglia, UK, today released details about the investigation into the alleged hacking of e-mails from its Climatic Research Unit (CRU), which has sparked worldwide fury, lamentation, gnashing of teeth – and a robust editorial in this week’s Nature.
According to a statement, the university has commissioned an independent review to:
Determine whether there is any evidence of the manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice and may therefore call into question any of the research outcomes.
Review CRU’s policies and practices for acquiring, assembling, subjecting to peer review and disseminating data and research findings, and their compliance or otherwise with best scientific practice.
Review CRU’s compliance or otherwise with the University’s policies and practices regarding requests under the Freedom of Information Act (‘the FOIA’) and the Environmental Information Regulations (‘the EIR’) for the release of data.
Review and make recommendations as to the appropriate management, governance and security structures for CRU and the security, integrity and release of the data it holds.
The review will be led by Sir Muir Russell, a former civil servant and former Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Glasgow. He’s also Chairman of the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland.
http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2009/12/update_details_of_climatic_res.html
Delingpole is going head to head in a debate with Monbiot tonight at 1800 GMT – if you have any simple killer facts he can use – sure he’d appreciate it.
Post them here
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100018696/climategate-which-part-of-over-dont-these-people-understand/comment-page-2/#comment-100096269
CNN. Yes I said CNN! But they will take it down in an hour like they did last week.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/12/02/climate.stolen.emails/index.html
That CNN story makes it a non story. Just a HO HUM. Expected of them.
And they call us deniers Oo
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2009/12/02/huffington-post-suffers-climategate-panic-attack
I suspect you would disagree with Mr Mann here on his own assertion of being untouched,Mr McIntyre?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6718183/Climategate-Phil-Jones-accused-of-making-error-of-judgment-by-colleague.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8392611.stm
Saudi Arabia getting their say
In case you missed it, the Dec 2, 2009 Congressional hearing is partially archived here:
Sensenbrenner’s Opening Statement 6:10:
Sensenbrenner questions Holdren over Climategate 5:30:
Related: Previous call by Rep. Candice Miller on House Floor:
Some comments:
At the beginning of the hearing, Sensenbrenner asked for Holdren and the NOAA gal to be put under oath, the Chairman, Markey, said there was no need to do so.
These congressmen need to get better briefings, define objectives in their questioning, use more adversarial techniques, and be stingy in their use of a very short window of time.
Roger Harriben muses on the questions the inquiry may need to consider
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8391221.stm
Richard Black on effect of Climategate on Copenhagen, Saudi Arabia delegate says it will stop agreement is the high point and then it descends to the normal denying the skeptics.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8392611.stm
Global warming controversy hits NASA climate data,
Stephen Dinan, Washington Times, December 3, 2009
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/03/nasa-embroiled-in-climate-dispute/
Excerpts:
“The fight over climate science is about to cross the Atlantic with a U.S. researcher poised to sue NASA, demanding the release of the same kind of information that landed a leading British center in hot water over charges that it skewed its data.
…
“Christopher C. Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said NASA has refused for two years to provide information under the Freedom of Information Act that would show how the agency has shaped its climate data and explain why the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data dating as far back as the 1930s.
“NASA and CRU data are considered the backbone of much of the science that suggests the Earth is warming as a result of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. NASA argues that its data suggest this decade has been the warmest on record.
“On the other hand, data from the University of Alabama-Huntsville suggest temperatures have been relatively flat for most of this decade.”
Nils-Axel Mörner, formerly head of Geodynamics at Stockholm University, challenges the IPCC prediction of sea level rise in ‘Why the Maldives aren’t sinking’ http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5595813/why-the-maldives-arent-sinking.thtml
2009 December 3 Plato Says permalink
Roger Harriben muses on the questions the inquiry may need to consider
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8391221.stm
Quoted from Harribin,from the above link:
‘And most scientists I have spoken to say that if any potential anomalies in the CRU data were to be uncovered they probably wouldn’t prove significant because that data set is almost identical to other ones.’
Pielke Snr would find that gratifying confirmation! If one source is fixed they all are!
You know the good thing about a World-Wide conspiracy? It needs to be conducted openly – They have to bring those they hope to tax with them. MOST of their strategy will be revealed in plain sight because of it. Hulme and Ravetz being given BBC Coverage to put forth their ideas for the healing of Science when they desire the doctrine of ‘post-normal science’ to prevail. Harribin subtly steering the agenda while claiming to be reporting.This current time will be quoted and discussed in PR circles for a hundred years.
GOOGLE SCANDAL
Much has been made of the mysterious absence of “climategate” from the google autosuggest function.
Google has pulled a bait-and-switch, or to use one of Steve M.’s terms, put the pea under the thimble.
Google now autosuggests “climate gate scandal.” Sounds great, huh?
The problem is the number of hits you lose by selecting their ingenuous selection.
climategate – 27.5 million hits
climate gate – 7.02 million hits [74% fewer hits]
climate gate scandal – 6.43 million hits [86% fewer hits]
What about links to news stories ?
climategate – 3066 hits
climate gate – 573 hits [~81% fewer hits]
Google’s suggestion:
climate gate scandal – 64 hits [~98% fewer hits]
ingenuous, above, should be disingenuous
From the BBC’s hardcore current affairs prog Newsnight aired at 2230 GMT BBC2
“And Science Editor Susan Watts will revisit the Climatic Research Unit stolen e-mails row.
It was announced today that an independent review will investigate claims that the e-mails showed scientists were manipulating climate change data.
Tonight Susan will be revealing new information about what went on inside the prestigious institute.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/fromthewebteam/2009/12/thursday_3_december_2009_in_mo.html
BBC 5pm Radio 4 ‘PM’ radio programme just carried the Climategate story as the first item of news. It was quite a measured report, which didn’t play down the story. Also interviewed was Professor Edward Acton, vice chancellor of UEA, who said he had asked Sir Muir Russell (sp?) to head an independent enquiry. Asked when he first new about the hack, Acton said it was on the 18th, and that the story broke two or three days later. That’s odd. The Air Vent first heard from FOIA on the 17th. WUWT carried the breaking story on the 19th. The story had already broken by the time Acton said he learned about it, not two or three days later.
There are two Climategate related cartoon here in the Winnipeg Sun:
http://www.winnipegsun.com/comment/cartoons/
Gore cancels Copenhagen event:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.berlingske.dk%2Fklima%2Fal-gore-aflyser-foredrag-under-cop15&sl=da&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
His presentation needs ‘freshening up’ in light of recent events perhaps?
Google just added another autosuggestion: “climate gate emails”
It autosuggests in the general Google search bar, where it returns even fewer hits than “climate gate scandal”
3.4 million hits vs. 6.43 million hits
[compared to 27.5 million for “climategate”]
It DOES NOT autosuggest under Google news, where it returns more hits than “climate gate scandal”
129 hits vs. 65 hits
[compared to 3079 hits and growing for “climategate”]
3 December 2009 BBC PM Radio Programme 5p.m
Amazing News from the UK!
I have just heard the BBC’s flagship radio news programme “PM,” lead with the story on Saudi Arabia’s challenge to the Copenhagen conference because of the revelations of “Climategate”. The programme acknowledged the worldwide impact of climategate and intervied the BBC’s chief environmental correspondent, Roger Harrabin to explain the climategate affair. The presenter then intervied a representative from the university of East Anglia.
He asked (words may not be exact) : “When were you aware of the leak”
Answer (very nervous) : ” 18 November ”
The interviewer then quite aggressively suggested that the university had been lax in its response to the evolving scandal and that the university was not aware how damaging the affair would be. He suggested the university should have acted much sooner.
By his tone the interviewer was patently unaware that his own colleague, Paul Hudson, an underling of Roger Harrabin, had received the e-mails on October 12. (see Paul Hudson’s blog site) It seems the BBC, or its environmental department at least, is trying to cover this story up from its own journalists! The journalists from its most listened to evening radio broadcast at that!
The programme can be heard on the BBC iplayer 4December.
The 6 o’clock radio made no mention of the above. Back to the usual silence.
I just couldn’t believe my ears!
Steve: the Paul Hudson thing has been discussed. He did not have the email package which go up to Nov 12, 2009.
Hi Again
Just read Frank Davis’s comments posted above. We’re obviously thinking along the same lines… Frank must be just a little bit faster than me on the keyboard! Well done , Frank!
My understanding is that Roger Harrabin did not receive a full package and was only confirming that emails that had been sent to him a month earlier from within the CRU were within the full package and so he was confirming they did not seem to be faked or edited as they were unchanged.
Martin, it’s available now. The interviewer, Eddie Mair, is no mug. Usually very well informed and not afraid to speak plainly.
Sorry meant Paul Hudson not Roger Harrabin.
Internally there is competition within the BBC and R4’s journalists enjoy more freedom, hence the infamous quoting of Dr Kelly ref Iraq WMD which is only now being properly investigated due to Blair being out of the way and Labour seemingly doomed at the next election. This has caused the civil servants to queue up to stick the knife into Tony B.
Al Gore canceled his speach in Denmark on the 16th and gave no reason. Rush Limbaugh asks “I wonder if Climategate has something to do with it?” They are “livid” he went on to say. Mmmmmmmmm?
Martin Judge
Paul Hudson is not an underling of Roger Harribin at the BBC. He’s a weatherman at BBC Look North, a different part of the organisation. As others have said, he only had the emails that he was directly involved with. His involvement is most likely a red herring.
I may be a bit behind this but has anyone seen this from Nature today…it is an editorial statement from the journal about this…here is the header
Climatologists under pressure
Stolen e-mails have revealed no scientific conspiracy, but do highlight ways in which climate researchers
could be better supported in the face of public scrutiny.
Click to access 462545a.pdf
I just cannot believe such a stupid statement from this journal !!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8392611.stm
It took a major statement by the Saudis, but at least it is on the http://www.bbc.co.uk home page now as a lead story.
What about CNN?
Your search climategate did not match any documents
Mark Steyn in Maclean’s (largest weekly news magazine in Canada)
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/12/03/the-science-of-global-warming/
This Associated Press entry on ClimateGate appeared this Thursday
afternoon (ET) under “World News”:
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20091203/D9CC0CT01.html
Good summary minus the bluster.
PM 3 DecemberRadio Programme
Thanks to both mrsean2k and Johnh above for the insight into the BBC’s inner machinations. I would love to know what’s really going on in there.
Is there a brave whistleblower out there who will tell us?
I think this might be the Colbert Report referred to, but I don’t seem to be able to play it at the moment:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/257648/november-30-2009/11-30-09-in–60-seconds
Also, a variation on the AP story (above) popped up on Yahoo! at about
4:00 PM (ET):
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091203/ap_on_sc/eu_climate_hacked_e_mails
This has some of the bluster left in.
Heard a report just after 4 p.m. on CBS news radio, filed by London correspondent Larry Miller. (This is the top-of-hour national feed that airs on CBS stations; here on Detroit’s WWJ, it’s usually a four or five minute segment before they kick back into local news.)
For a quick piece, it was about everything we could want: a summary of the basics, noting that East Anglia has launched an investigation amid allegations that researchers have “overstated” the case for global warming.
A casual listener could certainly have been left with the message that global warming science should perhaps be considered with a grain of salt.
From Australia’s ABC:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/04/2761602.htm?section=justin
Mostly about James Hansen hoping Copenhagen fails but it does get into the CRU emails toward the end. Almost the only item the ABC has reported on the emails so far.
[q]Sorry, I don’t buy it. I’m a skeptic about the motivation behind the scam. If Jones were living in a villa, driving a Rolls, eating high on the hog, etc., I might buy it. I also don’t accept the idea that he and others decided ab initio, “We’re going to scam the world.” But I still haven’t figured it out. Does anybody with inside knowledge have a theory?
Is it possible they came up with a scientific theory, initially actually believed it, got defensive about it when it was challenged, and then it took on a life of its own where they felt they couldn’t turn back or admit its problems?
Nobody in the press has come up with a decent explanation for the conspiracy yet. Just to get grant money sounds too simplistic. For grand global political control sounds too farfetched. Are there any leaked emails which explain or provide possible clues about what happened?[/q]
I don’t have any inside information as to the specifics of this case, but do have some experience with the quest for grant dollars as a young physicist, and it seems awefully plausible to me. The whole ozone hole thing was a big deal when I was a senior, and I heard from lots of profs and post-docs that if you wanted to get a grant, you put the word “ozone” in your grant proposal.
I suspect there’s a lot of truth to your middle theory. However, if people were doing really good, rigorous science all along, they wouldn’t have anything to fear. It turns out, though, that even scientists have the full panoply of human biases and emotions, so that’s not too common. Consider, for example how much courage it would take for a young Ph.D. preparing to publish his first paper to publish results that conflict with the accepted wisdom. There’s a pretty strong preservation instinct that will direct you to go double check everything about your methodology, and see if you can’t shake out results less likely to make people question your competence. On the other hand, if you get the results everyone is expecting, hey, your done! Publish and enjoy. At this point, we’ve had at least 20 years of this confirmation bias going on, and I expect that it has poluted the raw data, even if we were permitted to see it.
RE: kh1234567890 — channel 4 interview with Ross McKitrick
Ross was superb– he dealt with the problems presented in the interview with measured, insightful responses.
Indeed, to borrow a phrase:
[I]… often use the term ‘[McK]trick’ to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem.”
Steve, any TV interviews on the horizon?
Climate e-mail hack ‘will impact on Copenhagen summit’
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website
“E-mails hacked from a climate research institute suggest climate change does not have a human cause, according to Saudi Arabia’s lead climate negotiator.”
…
“It appears that the material was hacked or leaked; a police investigation has yet to reveal which.”
…
“The university has just announced that the review will be chaired by Sir Muir Russell, a former civil servant.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8392611.stm
Does anyone have any news from PM Gordon Brown responding to Climategate?
BBC1’s news at 10 just reported on the independent inquiry for about 20 seconds, they put “CRU” and “prestigious” in the same sentence.
P.S. “It appears that the material was hacked or leaked; a police investigation has yet to reveal which.”
If that is the case, why is virtually the entire media reporting it was hacked?
Martin Judge wrote: The 6 o’clock radio made no mention of the above. Back to the usual silence.
BBC Radio 4 The World Tonight at 10 pm carried a brief report mentioning the Saudis and the email controversy. The World Tonight is rather more international in its outlook than PM.
Story mentioning the Mann investigation at Penn State:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100018534/east-anglia-cru-welcome-to-the-piltdown-institute-of-mann-made-global-warming/
With that mention perhaps referring to this (canned?) reply I received from Penn State:
“Dear Chris:
Thank you for your email. As Vice President for Administration, I help the President respond to emails and important issues brought to his attention. Let me share with you that Professor Michael Mann is a highly regarded member of the Penn State faculty conducting research on climate change. Professor Mann’s research papers have been published in well respected peer-reviewed scientific journals. In November 2005, Representative Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) requested that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) convene a panel of independent experts to investigate Professor Mann’s seminal 1999 reconstruction of the global surface temperature over the past 1,000 years. The resulting 2006 report of the NAS panel (http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11676) concluded that Mann’s results were sound and has been subsequently supported by an array of evidence that includes additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions.
As you know, in recent days a lengthy file of emails has been made public. Some of the questions raised through those emails may have been addressed already by the NAS investigation but others may not have been considered. The University is looking into this matter further, following a well defined policy used in such cases. No public discussion of the matter will occur while the University is reviewing the concerns that have been raised.
Thanks again for writing.
Sincerely,
Tom Poole
Thomas G. Poole, Ph.D.
Vice President for Administration”
I’m curious if anyone is aware of how much grant money East Angila’s CRU has recieved for 2007, 2008 and the 11 months to date in 2009. The Wall Street Journal reported in a Dec 2nd article that CRU recived 19 million dollars from 2000 to 2006 (Reported as six times their previous 1990’s grant money). But nothing is said about the last 3 years of grants. What with climate change and AGW’s increased exposure the last three years and supposely billions being allocated by governments for investigating the problem, I can’t help but wonder if the grants recieved for 2007-2009 follow a hockey stick pattern? Does anyone know what the recent grant amounts have been – Or is it a state secret? I think that the media is quietly avoiding this interesting “follow the rest of the money” question.
—-
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB40001424052748703939404574566124250205490.html
bingo ! just watched bbc newsnight. first time i have seen an almost honest interview, watson from uea grilled and pressurised to call this affair a scandal, wriggled out though, embarrased and on the back foot. newsnight scotland followed with a debate on alternative energy, mostly wind, for the first time i sensed a level of questioning and an almost shock of the interviewees at the temerity of being actually questioned,it was so refreshing.
An article (in Dutch) tells the story that Rob van Dorland of the Dutch KNMI was put under pressure by Mann and Jones to retract his words written in the article of Marcel Crock in NWT (Natuurwetenschap en Techniek) about the hockeystick story. Which he did: he was “wrongly cited” by Marcel… See: http://climategate.nl/
Meanwhile even the Flemish TV (very warmist) has covered climategate, citing one email, the “We don’t have an explanation for the lack of warming now, and that is ridiculous”, but that was during an interview with Pachauri (evidently in the European Parliament buildings in Brussels), who suggested that that didn’t affect the IPCC report, as a few scientist doing wrong would be corrected by the rigorous procedures used by the IPCC (you know 450 scientists writing the report, 2500 reviewing it), so that “an individual or two of them by intent or by accident leaving out something, they don’t get away with it”. No word that one of the lead authors was involved…
The short video abstract is here:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/Pachauri.wmv
Video of the Munk debate of 1st Dec on global warming with:
Pro global warming
Elizabeth May
George Monbiot
Con global warming
Bjorn Lomborg
Lord Nigel Lawson
PRE-DEBATE
PRO: 61% CON: 39%
POST-DEBATE
PRO: 53% CON: 47%
http://www.munkdebates.com/
Grist.org Geoffrey Lean
Environmental groups unprepared for ‘Swift Boating’ of climate science
Are the climate skeptics increasingly winning the battle for public opinion? On the very eve of the Copenhagen conference, there are signs that they are—and that environmental groups are allowing them to.
Steve
this is worth a listen.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2009/2757619.htm
h/t to Wayne Findley
there’s an article being posted on a few sites that are exposing ‘climategate’, which needs investigation. it is:
The cost of Copenhagen may not hit your pocket
http://refreshingnews9.blogspot.com/2009/12/cost-of-copenhagen-may-not-hit-your.html
note in above article:
“The research was carried out by Cambridge Econometrics, a consultancy known for its modelling of the European economy, for the journal New Scientist”
note:
East Anglia Confirmed Emails from the Climate Research Unit – 939165392.txt
(mike hulme to sujata gupta)
This may well not be news to you, but the UK government has recently requested bids from UK universities to house a new ‘National Climate Change Centre’. The Centre would receive funds of 2 million pounds sterling per year for (at least initially) five years…
We have a Consortium in place as follows
6-7 Senior Partners – (UEA, UMIST, U.Southamton, Dept. Economics at U.Cambridge..)
http://eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=147&filename=939165392.txt
(terry barker copied in email on above page)
Cambridge Econometrics – Chairman, Terry Barker
Since 2005 he has also been the Director of the Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research…
He was a Co-ordinating Lead Author (CLA) for the the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control (IPCC)’s Fourth Assessment Report, 2007, for the chapter on cross-sectoral mitigation. Previously he was CLA in the Third Assessment Report, 2001, taking responsibility for the chapter on the effects of greenhouse gas mitigation policies on the global energy industries. He was a member of the core writing team for the Synthesis Report Climate Change 2001…
Achieving the climate 2 C target through carbon trading
The Tyndall Centre has published a Briefing Note in which Terry Barker reviews how economies can speedily reduce their emissions without excessive cost and damages to government, business and household finances. The most effective policies appear to combine the carbon market’s price, environmental tax reform for small energy sources, and emission trading schemes for large sources of greenhouse gases, with direct incentives for low-carbon innovation and research and development funded from tax revenues and emission permit auctions. Such portfolios of market-based instruments can be made even more effective if complemented by technological forcing through standards, such as a requirement for carbon capture and storage by a specified date on all new coal plant. For further information: http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/publications/briefing_notes/bn25.pdf …
http://www.camecon.com/aboutce/cvs/tsb.htm
LOL
Micheal Mann throws Phil Jones under the bus:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6718183/Climategate-Phil-Jones-accused-of-making-error-of-judgment-by-colleague.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/12/crus_phil_jones_thrown_under_t.html
I left this bit on the mirror. A professional pilots site has interesting commentary, and though not “Press” as such, posters are from all over the Planet, and true to form, pilots are sceptical by nature of everything. There are great links to Media in Oz, NZ, the Beeb, and others. Hope it helps, regards,Will
“British journalist and environmental activist George Monbiot took aim at Canada’s climate policies today, calling this country a “corrupt petro-state” whose government behaves with “the sophistication of a chimpanzee’s tea party.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/sciencetech/environment/copenhagensummit/article/732958–climate-writer-blasts-canada-as-a-corrupt-petro-state
Hey Canucks,
Watch Rex on CBC National tonight (Dec 3). He’s very complimentary to SM and RM.
http://www.cbc.ca/thenational/indepthanalysis/rexmurphy/story/2009/12/03/thenational-rexmurphy-091203.html
Business and Media Institute summary of US (non-)coverage of Climategate.
12 Days, 3 Networks and No Mention of ClimateGate Scandal
I have a cameo appearance on CTV News in Canada tonight; some screen shots of Climate Audit and… a little bit of the Hide the Decline video with a dancing Michael Mann.
CBC Finally. Rex Murphy video out tomorrow here
http://www.cbc.ca/thenational/indepthanalysis/rexmurphy/story/2009/12/03/thenational-rexmurphy-091203.html
I especially like if you expand the “Read more about two of Rex’s favourite sources on climate change” button on the page…
you will find Steve and Ross have an admirer.
“There is no reason Steve McIntyre should not be at least as well known on the subject of global warming as David Suzuki, but it is one of the oddities of the global warming debate that only the leaders of the orthodoxy are household names”
The issue of motivation has been disclosed for one figure central to Climategate. It was not financial as the Wall St Jrnl pontificated, or political as others suggested. It was academic pride.
According to the Register:
“Three years ago [Ph1l] J0nes confessed to climatologist Christy both the state of the “science”, and some of his own motivations.
“As you know, I’m not political. If anything, I would like to see the climate change happen, so the science could be proved right, regardless of the consequences. This isn’t being political, it is being selfish”.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/30/crugate_analysis/page3.html
I find this confession more plausible than the financial, political, or, more recently, “mad scientist” explanation (Daily Telegraph).
Of course motivation may vary from one scientist to another but the fear of your theory being discredited or smashed is extreme pressure indeed.
Finally, tonight, the PBS Newshour mentioned the scandal in its “News Wrap” simply noting that Jones had stepped down:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec09/othernews_12-03.html
The text was:
“A British university announced today it will investigate claims that researchers manipulated climate data. Last month, thousands of e-mails from the scientists were stolen and put on the Internet. There have been claims the e-mails show the scientists hid evidence that undercuts the case for manmade warming. The head of the research unit resigned this week.”
Very brief, but this signals that they will probably do an in-depth segment sometime soon. Took them two weeks to take any notice at all, but better late than never.
LMB, thanks for this:
Somehow, I don’t think members of the British cultural elite ought to be cracking wise about corruption right now.
Sorry for repeat of Howard.
Rex was very good in his assessment IMHO.
Not impressed by Monbiot in the Munkdebate, I actually found his ironical tone irritating.
ClimateGate? It doesn’t exist. So says the LA Times.
Wall St Jrnl:
“What is happening at East Anglia is an epochal event. As the hard sciences—physics, biology, chemistry, electrical engineering—came to dominate intellectual life in the last century, some academics in the humanities devised the theory of postmodernism, which liberated them from their colleagues in the sciences.
“Postmodernism, a self-consciously “unprovable” theory, replaced formal structures with subjectivity. With the revelations of East Anglia, this slippery and variable intellectual world has crossed into the hard sciences.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB40001424052748704107104574572091993737848.html
First post here. Glad to have found you all. Pardon my layman’s lack of scientific knowledge – I’m a pr/ad guy but I saw something a couple weeks ago on which I’d appreciate some feedback.
I was stunned by this recent NBC report that recently drilled ice-cores reveal a 20 degree fahrenheit temperature increase over just 2 years!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/34050658#34050658
They don’t specify the time period for the increase but project leader Dorta Dahl Jensen (sp?) states on camera: “If you asked anyone with a climate model can this happen? They would say no way the climate system can behave like that but we see it in the ice cores.”
It struck me that this would have huge implications for the current debate as further evidence that large pre-carbon climate changes were real and dramatic and of course that climate models are problematic.
Of course the NBC story concludes by framing the “lesson” as a cautionary tale that things might get worse than we even think . . . I’m not surprised that the MSM has been silent but I don’t seem to have found any references to this over the last couple of weeks I’ve started finding sites like CA.
Am I missing something? Has someone addressed this? If so can someone steer me to it? Or am I completely misreading the meaning/implication of the reported 20 degree rise? Thanks in advance for any insight you guys might provide.
Lead item on BBC Radio 4 news this morning !! “IPCC to investigate allegations that British scientists…etc etc.”
R4 BBC, John Humphries (the old grumpy non PC one) told not to use the word ‘deniers’ by Richard Black as ‘there are bona fida scientists who do not believe in AGW’, JH defence was he said ‘so called deniers’. UK chair of UAE investigation has no oppostion from skeptics detected on blogs so far according to Richard Black.
RB must be understanding the tide is turning and is getting ready to be able to say ‘not me gov’.
IPCC investigation still top headline at 7am on BBC R4 Today program, Roger Harrabin is doing the detailed sub headline.
R4 Today program is the lead morning radio news program in the UK listened to be the Elite and major decision makers.
Roger Harrabin is in for a long day, the will not doubt be on demand by the rest of BBC news to support broadcasts thoughtout the day.
Is this Al Gores first comments
He also brushed aside questions over the reliability of climate science that have followed the publication last month of leaked e-mails between climate experts. He claimed that the scientific consensus around climate change “continues to grow from strength to strength”. He added: “The naysayers are in a sunset phase with a spectacular climax just before they subside from view. This is a race between common sense and unreality.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/copenhagen/article6943447.ece
R4 update, comments include ‘climategate will make it very hard for the US to ratify any agreement made at Copenhagen.’
Just trawlled through the UK ‘quality paper’ websites, no mention yet of the IPCC investigation. Went the the Independent who have made not a single mention of Climategate yet. And found this
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-how-i-wish-that-the-global-warming-deniers-were-right-1833728.html
Need to get Roger Black to tell him ‘Deniers’ is not allowed anymore 😉
Comments are strongly negative
eg
There’s no point in fooling myself any more. You’re a muppet, Hari.
How many times have I read your contributions and blindly believed your contributions, I wonder. Too many times, I realise now. You should be ashamed of yourself, betraying your profession so blatantly and treating your readers like fools. Knowing what I know, and reading what you write, I’m filled with disgust.
I’m done giving you any more of my time. Your integrity as a journalist and commentator is toast.
Mr Hari, I have enjoyed some of your columns and agreed with many, and I have admired the way you stood up to the bully Littlejohn on TV. But this is tripe from first to last. Please examine the evidence somewhat more closely. Also, do you disassociate yourself from the Independent’s decision to not report anything about climategate, even the substantive fact of Prof Jones’ standing down?
Climategate: UN panel on climate change to investigate claims
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6724249/Climategate-UN-panel-on-climate-change-to-investigate-claims.html
HARRY_READ_ME.txt has finally been reviewed by a reporter…
I’ve been poring over one of many leaked computer files from the “climategate” scandal.
It’s worse than those e-mails revealing leading climate scientists did a “trick” to “hide the decline” in global temperatures and privately called it a “travesty” they couldn’t explain recent cooling.
This document has the innocuous header “HARRY_READ_Me.txt.”
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/lorrie_goldstein/2009/11/29/11967916-sun.html
“Today” program on BBC radio 4. This is being posted here before the relevant audio segment has been posted at the BBC site – it may be there shortly, as prior audio segments are already there. A pretty good and balanced interview, I thought. Beeb radio seems much more open than Beeb TV.
Brief overview:
08:10 -08:21
Emails stolen from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit reveal that figures on global warming were changed to exacerbate the threat. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has told the BBC it is taking the matter very seriously and will investigate the emails. Saudi Arabia has said that the emails will have a “huge impact” on the talks and that countries will now be unwilling to cut emissions. Environment correspondent Richard Black outlines the accusations. Philip Scott, emeritus professor of Biogeography at the University of London, and environmentalist and writer Jonathon Porritt, discuss whether the row could have the potential to derail the Copenhagen climate talks.
0821
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/listen_again/default.stm
Yes, the story was given as the headline news item and given the prime slot 8.10-8.20 on BBC Radio 4 this morning. Philip Stott represented the sceptic side, not very well.
Amusingly, the BBC environment correspondent Richard Black was also speaking – this is the guy who still has not discussed the story on his blog.
Very funny to hear that the IPCC is to investigate – Perhaps bankers you investigate bankers bonuses.
Even Science magazine of this week now has a fairly balanced article by Eli Klintisch, citing several involved (Jones declined comments), including Judith Curry and Steve McI:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/326/5958/1329
Much more balanced than the Nature editorial…
Good morning all from a frosty UK!
Climategate chronology and BBC
Thanks to Michael Larkin above for the reference to the BBC radio programme: “Today.” I agree that the radio coverage by the BBC is more open than most other media outlets though the 3 December “Newsnight” TV progamme did highlight the poor quality CRU computer programming. This is rarely mentioned yet is so critical to the debate. Is the programming being commented upon outside the UK?
Events are happening so fast it is difficult to keep up. Has anyone produced a timeline for the unfolding of climategate? Something on the lines of:
October 12 Paul Hudson informed of leaked e-mails
November ?? WWUT contavted
November ?? Climate Audit contacted
November 18 UEA acknowledges leaked e-mails
November ?? UK Telegraph publishes article
If someone has, where is it?
Last question before I flee off to work. Monbiot ( The Guardian ) and Delingpole ( The Telegraph ) were meant to have debated the subject last night. Does anyone know how it went?
Regards to all.
Hey, Steve M,
”Robert Watson, one of the UK government’s chief scientific advisors, has called for all the raw data to be published.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8394483.stm
Who’s going to tell Professor Watson that all the raw data has been, er, ”inadvertently deleted”? :-))
I just blogged on the sudden media turnaround in the past 24 hours – I anticipate that the US media will follow the British lead today. CRU is being sacrificed, the new narrative will aim to preserve the AGW theory by excising exposed scientists and circling the wagons around those that are left. The blogs will be targetted for destructions. We already see this in the UK – AGW critics are today labeled “saboteurs” by Brown’s government – how long before re-education camps?
QBeamus
Good Morninhg America
UN to investigate?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6944035.ece
Won’t they leave our Gav’s mates alone?
Martin,
Good idea. I’d like to see a chronology “Stickied” to the top of the CA Blog. It’d be a good overview of developments. Alternatively, a new thread. (This thread, btw, is already 472 posts long. We can’t expect everyone to read it all for a snapshot of developments.
QBeamus
You raise an interesting question, which has deeper implications regarding the competition for research money.
When I was in academic geology, the hot topic was extinction events, so any way you could even speculatively tie your research to the death of the dinosaurs was seen as a positive – and this was with NERC money ultimately provided through the UK Government.
Once you get into climate change research and are adding in the money from interested parties such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth etc (as well as having people like Jonathan Porritt acting as scientific advisers to the Government), plus the public and media interest consideration, suddenly keeping the research bandwagon rolling could easily take on a life of its own. How honest and moral would a scientist have to be to turn round to all these backers and say ‘Sorry, the new data suggests we’re only going to have 0.2 degrees heating in the next 100 years’.
When you can’t stand the heat
Al Gore gets out of the kitchen
http://www.examiner.com/x-11224-Baltimore-Weather-Examiner~y2009m12d3-Climategate-emails-force-Al-Gore-to-cancel-talk-at-Copenhagen
Re:Martin Judge…
James Delingpole has just put up a new thread on his blog and according to the man himself, he thinks it went OK…he comments that if Monbiot did not come out with so many things wrong he might even like the chap..
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100018847/climategate-goes-uber-viral-gore-flees-leaving-evil-henchmen-to-defend-crumbling-citadel/
This from Stephan Lewandowsky an “Australian professorial fellow in the school of psychology at the University of Western Australia.”
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/fraction-too-much-fiction-in-climategate-20091205-kb9g.html
“Fraction too much fiction in ‘climategate'”
“Stolen emails do not support wild claims of scientific misconduct.”
It is a pretty standard “nothing to see, move along” article, but he seems to hint at having some insight to the divergence problem that may of interest to the technical readers here, although it does sound a bit woolly to me 😉
“Oh, and by the way, within the past few months the missing piece of the puzzle has been found; we now have a reason why those recalcitrant tree rings stopped indicating the temperature from 1960 onward – an effect due to special conditions at that particular altitude. Now the more than 1200 proxy measures confirm that our rapidly changing climate has not been encountered in the past 1000 years.
Beautiful science like this is a human achievement that ranks equal to Beethoven’s 9th symphony. Why would anyone forgo that for the hysterical caterwauling surrounding some cherry-picked stolen emails?”
I don’t think this contains the “they lied because it’s so important” quote alluded to previously:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/256924/november-30-2009/something-is-melting-in-denmark—dan-esty
but interesting all the same. IME, Esty comes across very well considering, but Colbert has some excellent responses to the “it was just simplification” line.
If none-US viewers are struggling to see this, use Firefox and an appropriate add-on and all is well, as explained here:
I’ll keep digging for a bit now I can view them.
Hmm I can probably break it down about those trees like this:
Trees make good Thermometers until they stop being good thermometers, then we ignore them and just use when they were good thermometers.
Martin et al:
I was at the debate last night and asked the one question both Monbiot and Delingpole immediately agreed with, namely, shouldn’t all data and computer code be released together with any work in climate science, to allow replication, just as in other disciplines.
(In passing: it’s hardly possible to understate the contribution our host has made in this area. But I didn’t mention Steve’s name because a major part of the crowd showed Pavlovian tendencies on the mention of certain key words – ‘Ian Plimer’, ‘fossil fuel industries’, ‘polar bears’, ‘glaciers’ etc – and there was even one questioner who said surely it was OK to pervert peer review if by doing so you were going to save millions of lives. “Climategate heroes, return, all has been whitewashed?”)
Even now, there are bound to be many attempts to wriggle out of this ‘Open Climate Initiative’, as I like to call it – and I think we do need a name. I’m learning myself about the crucial details (like residuals). But fairly soon I believe that truly scientific standards will come to apply and it will make a world of difference. Delingpole called Climategate a game-changer and it surely is – but this is the most fundamental change needed on the scientific side and I think it’s worth drawing everyone’s attention to it, at every opportunity.
Winnipeg free Press today. Environment Minister Jim Prentice is concerned about the possible tampering, but still believes in science.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/canada-targeted-as-climate-laggard-78502047.htm
Yesterday I commented Climate Feedback regarding the Nature editorial. Several other comments have been published since that time but not mine. It seems if I do not also put it here that Olive just wont post it. Here it is:
Olive, thank you for pointing out that scientists are or should be skeptics. All of the best climate scientists are skeptics – Roger Pielke, John Christy, Roy Spencer, Richard Lindzen and William Cotton among others.
Those who hold fast to the global warming faith without taking time to consider how CRU malfeasance may have affected the science, such as climate sensitivity estimates, conclusions from paleoclimate research, changes in uncertainty estimates, etc., are not scientists. They have a cargo cult religion. They believe warming will return any day now.
I am not sure what “denialists” are supposed to deny exactly. But I deny the claim the IPCC adequately understands natural climate variability. If CO2 was the major force driving late 20th century warming, the warmest year on record would not be 1998.
Atmospheric CO2 probably has caused some warming, but I deny the claim that anyone knows how much of 20th century warming was from CO2 and how much was natural.
I am skeptical of the honesty of the CRU cabal. And I am skeptical that Nature will ever return to being a respected journal while the writer of the editorial (Phil Jones? Michael Mann? Joe Romm?) is still associated with the journal.
It would have been far better for Nature to have allowed Derek Lowe to opine on the CRU emails. Lowe is a well-respected working scientist who puts forward no view of climate science. However, he is a very clear view of the CRU scandal. See http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2009/12/01/climategate_and_scientific_conduct.php
Or perhaps Nature might have chosen Clive Crook of the Atlantic. He also has a reasonable view. See http://clivecrook.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/11/more_on_climategate.php
I weep for what Nature used to be.
Editorial in the Australian – pretty big stuff – “Scepticism is no longer out of order”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/realistic-rational-copenhagen/story-e6frg71x-1225807113195
I see I’m awaiting moderation for what I thought was an on-topic and marginally useful prior comment. Glitch, or have I inadvertently misbehaved?
Steve: Dunno. My main buttons are alleging motives (yes, even now), policy, politics, excessive angriness, piling on. But I sometimes err and I’m very tired right now.
Sydney Morning Herald; here we go again.
“NASA has just reported the hottest June to October period ever. Download the data and see for yourself. If climate scientists played less than straight, why was Adelaide’s 2008 heatwave – by itself a once-in-3000-years event – followed by spring temperatures this year that equalled all previous summer records?
Make no mistake, this is climate change”
Oh dear “once-in-3000-years event “? I hope that original inhabitants of this Land have accurate thermometers 3000 years ago.
snip – another controversy, another time. Sorry.
Stewart
If only politicised Climate change idea was guided by “excessive materialism in the West, fighting for the planet has become a way to scale back development, restrict free markets and redistribute wealth across the globe” I will be happy to contribute. However, Governments of Developed Countries promised to Developing countries and Undeveloped countries So and So billions in compensation for taking the steps to reduce the CO2. Only if they keep their promises and only if money is used for the good purpose. It is absolutely unrealistic. We are not out of the financial crisis yet and having in mind that not significant changes were made to prevent further Market manipulation by the Big Banks & Co we are soon to face much bigger problems.
Climate change could be really good excuse for why ordinary people must suffer.
If only we stop pretending, stop listening false prophets, philosophers and fake scientist (see post-normal science) we can analyse situation as it is and take step to sort it out in our own countries and further.
Hi All….Back home from the daily the daily grind…thanks to Richard, LBM and Snowmaneasy for their comments above. Reading the thread I’m surprised to read the apparent lack of coverage on Aussie media channels. I would have imagined with the recent political problems due to the carbon bills, climategate would have receiveved wider media coverage.
I have just seen a piece on BBC 24 commenting on the Saudi reaction to climategate. I think the Saudi intervention has given the green light for the mainstream media to start covering the story more freely.
Piers Corbyn (Weatheraction.com) predicts snow for Obamah’s visit to Scandinavia…could be fun!
Thanks to Steve and all his backroom staff for keeping CA going during this incredibly busy time…..you must be shattered….thanks.
CFP,
RE your post http://camirror.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/press-coverage/#comment-3175
20F is certainly an astonishing change over the course of two years. Perhaps they haven’t done a full analysis of their data yet. It will be interesting to see if that value holds up to further scrutiny. I’d keep my powder dry about referencing that value as accurate.
Here is a short article by Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, the person making the statement, and a link to her CV.
http://cires.colorado.edu/events/lectures/dahljensen/
Climategate Code Proves Inadequate, bogus data. (obviously British, not sure what channel)
Jana –
Not quite sure about why your comments were directed at me. I wasn’t endorsing everything in the editorial, if that is what your comments were directed at. I was just bringing it to the attention of readers.
Anyway, I think we are both sceptical about the larger claims relating to AGW, so I don’t know if we have cause to argue.
@diberville2009
This is Newsnight, BBC2, fairly well respected.
@SteveM, it popped up a while ago, thanks. Not a complaint, I just want to make sure I self-edit appropriately.
Climategate Code Proves Inadequate, bogus data. (obviously British, not sure what channel)
Think this Channel 4 but 100% its UK evening news. Jon Snow would have done a more searching item.
BBC Radio 4 PM today interviewed UEA Professor Andrew Watson, a colleague of Prof Phil Jones. The ‘Nature trick’ and ‘hide the decline’ email line was read out to him. He said that it “sounds awful” but what had happened was “a little bit of manipulation for presentation of a few diagrams” and there was “no fudging the fundamental data”. He was also asked about email deletion and attempts to get papers excluded from IPCC reports. Watson said that despite this attempt, the cited papers were actually published by the IPCC, so the IPCC did their job. Watson also said that “severe character assassination” was taking place.
These strike me as significant concessions. The fundamental data wasn’t fudged, but the presentation of it was. But what people actually see at the end of the day is what they are presented with, not the fundamental data. Watson appeared to be conceding that the presentation didn’t reflect the fundamental data. And he also appeared to be conceding that attempts were indeed made to exclude papers – just that these attempts weren’t successful. i.e. they tried to nobble the opposition, but didn’t pull it off. But why were they trying?
Scotland Yard is now investigating UEA/CRU for violations of the FOIA.
http://www.troymedia.com/?p=6408
Sir Muir Russell to head the Independent Review into the allegations against the Climatic Research Unit (CRU)
Today the University of East Anglia (UEA) announced that Sir Muir Russell KCB FRSE will head the Independent Review into allegations made against the Climatic Research Unit (CRU).
The Independent Review will investigate the key allegations that arose from a series of hacked e-mails from CRU. The review will:
1. Examine the hacked e-mail exchanges, other relevant e-mail exchanges and any other information held at CRU to determine whether there is any evidence of the manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice and may therefore call into question any of the research outcomes.
2. Review CRU’s policies and practices for acquiring, assembling, subjecting to peer review and disseminating data and research findings, and their compliance or otherwise with best scientific practice.
3. Review CRU’s compliance or otherwise with the University’s policies and practices regarding requests under the Freedom of Information Act (‘the FOIA’) and the Environmental Information Regulations (‘the EIR’) for the release of data.
4. Review and make recommendations as to the appropriate management, governance and security structures for CRU and the security, integrity and release of the data it holds.
Sir Muir will have the discretion to amend or add to the terms of reference if he feels necessary, devise his own methods of working, and call on appropriate expertise in order to investigate the allegations fully.
The University has asked for the Review to be completed by Spring 2010 and this will be made public along with UEA’s response.
Not exactly press coverage, but too good not to share: “Iowahawk Geographic: The Secret Life of Climate Researchers.”
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2009/11/iowahawk-geographic-the-secret-life-of-climate-researchers.html
Frank
An important point to note:
The global temperature record (from CRU) is used as a reference with which computer models for climate variation are compared. These models are the only basis currently available to ‘understand’ the climate. Currently these models have been argued not to match the recent record, skimming the confidence intervals if you like (I won’t go in to this as it covered on Lucia’s blog) which implies that the values for CO2 forcing are too high. Now, as the emails and the HARRY code are saying, the CRU global record has been adjusted such that the past is cooler and the present is artifically warmer in a way that appears to match CO2 levels (something already apparent to many on CA). This will feed into the models during the calibration period before say 1980 (I’m not sure of the details) and produce a stronger ‘correlation’ to Co2 forcing which in turn reduces the variance between predictions and data for the recent decades, which even though the models may be overestimating they can be argued to not overestimate by that much. As theu hindcast the past well then at least there is some agreement that the forcing levels are correct.
So if the temperature rise in recent decades isn’t as marked then the models are certainly overestimating Co2 forcing. Also if the past is not adjusted the correlation in the calibration period drops so that other factors in the models have to be tweaked to compensate. This reduces the case for CO2 being the main driver for past and recent warming and introduces much more doubt about the efficacy of reducing CO2 emissions.
SO when you say the fundamental data wasn’t fudged, I don’t know what you mean. The fundamental data used in a lot of model validations is the CRU dataset as available in the public domain. The same one that is fudged. If they had used raw data available to all with a verified and agreed best practice to generate a measured global average, the model agreement may be a bit different.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/climategate-investigator-is-member-of-vehemently-pro-man-made-global-warming-organization.html
The white wash begins. No subtlety about it either.
[UK] “Government forced to defend climate change advert”
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/science_technology/government+forced+to+defend+climate+change+advert/3450237
@Diberville 2009
The programme is BBC News and the science correspodant is Susan Watts.
This is probably the first time the BBC has allowed a fair crack of the whip to a climate rationalist? Who won hands down.
The Sydney Morning Herald has found HARRY_README, and particularly the part about Australian temperature records.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-email-mess-hits-australia-20091204-kb39.html
This may not count as press coverage, but the graphic is nice. A plaque for the planet’s most influential tree:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/04/flat-earth-climate-change-copenhagen
Gordon Brown calls people names
Tom Friedman at CNN.
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2009/12/03/cb.tom.friedman.cnn.html
Friedman hits good points here. My problem is that to get to his conclusion he has to go through this idea that CO2 released in the atmosphere lasts 3000 years. My understanding of the science is that’s not a thing you can state quite a simply as he does. Wouldn’t the proper way to express the life of CO2 in the atmosphere be in terms of half lives. I suppose one could argue that once the Keeling curve rises 10 percent it takes a long time to retreat from that rise but I can’t imagine anyone could in seriousness put a number of 3000 to that even if you did say plus or minus 500 years.
Regarding the apparent appointment of Sir Muir Russell, I’m having trouble locating any reasonable basis for his appointment. Does he have any background in science or computer science or data management or application of the FOIA that make him the best choice? Perhaps if I reviewed old episodes of Yes Minister!
Micky C
SO when you say the fundamental data wasn’t fudged, I don’t know what you mean.
I was reporting what Prof Watson said, not what I think, nor what is actually the case. He said that the while the fundamental data wasn’t fudged, its presentation was. That seemed to me to be a significant concession on his part. Of course, it may be that the fundamental data was also fudged. That’s a separate matter. I was just reporting, with eyebrow raised, what Prof Watson said earlier today.
Carbonhagen is only days away. Whilst I anticipate the barrage of AGW propoganda was surprised to see this in the Sydney Moaning Herald this morning;
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-email-mess-hits-australia-20091204-kb39.html
where they are starting to pick up on the mess of the Australian data records;
Quote’
LONDON: Australian weather records for an international database on climate change were a “bloody mess”, riddled with entry errors, duplication and inaccuracies, leaked British computer files reveal.
The Herald found the criticism in a 247-page specialist programmer’s log, unearthed among the thousands of files hacked from East Anglia University, which is at the centre of a climate change email scandal.
Labelled “HARRY-READ-ME”, the log catalogues problems with the raw, historical climate data sent from hundreds of meteorological stations around the world.
The Australian data comes in for particular criticism as the programmer discovers World Meteorological Organisation codes are missing, station names overlap and many co-ordinates are incorrect.
At one point the programmer writes about his attempts to make sense of the data. “What a bloody mess,” he concludes. In another case, 30 years of data is attributed to a site at Cobar Airport but the frustrated programmer writes: “Now looking at the dates. something bad has happened … COBAR AIRPORT AWS [automatic weather station] cannot start in 1962, it didn’t open until 1993!”
In another he says: “Getting seriously fed up with the state of the Australian data … so many false references … so many changes … bewildering.”
more here;
http://www.twawki.com
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/simonheffer/6729062/Forget-climate-change—save-the-planet-from-the-thermomaniacs.html?state=target#postacomment&postingId=6731330
Now Simon Heffer – a fairly prominent UK right-of-centre journalist/commentator (I’d call him a Conservative but he spends most of his time criticising them!) comes out as a thermo-sceptic. Several UK Conservative politicians have also indicated various degrees of scepticism in the last week – as well as Lawson who’s been semi-sceptic [we need better terms now!] for a while, Lilley, Davies and Hannan have made public statements criticising the rush towards Copenhagen. Enough to get Milliband for the Government to froth at the mouth about “right-wing climate saboteurs”. Two weeks ago these sort of statements simply would not have happened – they probably believed it but they would never have dared *say* it for fear of being a laughing stock, especially in the warmist mainstream media.
The other thing I note about Heffer’s column is the near total lack of warmist comments. Usually in Delingpole or Brooker’s stuff there are several true believers ready to argue the usual nonsense (I had one yesterday asserting that “the models work” because they had successfully predicted past climate – I had to tell him gently that as an achievement that ranks with filling in yesterday’s crossword by copying today’s answers, and it certainly doesn’t prove that they ‘work’). But now I’m sure there’s a lot fewer than there were.
Climategate has changed the world – with the help of the internet and those who’ve worked on it to try and bring out the truth.
“why was Adelaide’s 2008 heatwave – by itself a once-in-3000-years event – followed by spring temperatures this year that equalled all previous summer records?” – Jana (quoting)
This always annoys me, this whole “7 of the warmest 10 years are in the last decade” type of argument.
If you’re on top of a big hill – in this case a 300 year big hill – then every step is a high one, whether slightly up or slightly down.
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&start=15&edition=1&ttl=20091204223322&forumID=7310�
BBC “Have your say” online comments thread.
This is really quite remarkable. The BBC barely mentioned Climategate for the first couple of weeks, dignifying it merely with comments about hacked emails and RC-like dismissals of any relevance. Whilst at the same time broadcasting a new climate scare story every other day.
So what do we see after this barrage of propaganda – well, going down the list of “most recommended” comments the top 22 comments are sceptical about AGW and Copenhagen. That simply doesn’t normally happen on these boards – there’s almost always both ‘sides’ represented in the top 10 or even the top 5. So this sort of total dominance by one side is quite extraordinary and very encouraging.
Well Phil, you’re not going to like what the NYT has posted as a discussion group. (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/science/climate-change-conversations.html?ref=science) Talk about pandering!
On the subject of the lifespan of a CO2 molecule in the atmosphere, Freeman Dyson has some trenchant analysis in an article in The New York Review of Books. His figure is about 12 years in the article but that drops to 5 if you consider the oceans – as he does in an answer to a reader’s letter. I also enjoy his detached perspective on where things stand in this piece published in June of 2008.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21494
The final conclusion is in on Global Warming. No more investigations needed. The severely left wing socialist newspaper Huffington Post just ran a story about AlGore canceling his Coppenhagen speech. The comments run about 90% against Global Warming. There you go! No more investigations needed. The Huff Post has spoken!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/04/gore-cancels-climate-lect_n_379645.html
Here is a reasonable opinion piece.
http://www.denverpost.com/harsanyi/ci_13921733
Hi All
Just heard the UEA’s Prof. Andrew Watson say of an American politician ( I think it was Murano ) : “…what arsehole.” This was at the end of a lively exchange between the two at the end of a BBC Newsnight programme piece on climategate..
Not exactly the language of a measured English don. The climategate debate is obviously heating up. This little faux pas could bring it to the attention of the British tabloids. Then it would get lively.
What will Mr. Murano’s reaction be?
UK Met office to relook at 160 years of temp data to insure it is correct,
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6945445.ece
But will take 3 YEARS!!!!
“The Met Office plans to re-examine 160 years of temperature data after admitting that public confidence in the science on man-made global warming has been shattered by leaked e-mails.
The new analysis of the data will take three years, meaning that the Met Office will not be able to state with absolute confidence the extent of the warming trend until the end of 2012.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6945445.ece
It’d be nice if they shared the project plan for this – I’m sure with a few more hands to the pumps it could be done in less than three years….
Missed this gem
“The UK Government is attempting to stop the Met Office from carrying out the re-examination, arguing that it would be seized upon by climate change sceptics.”
Watergate redux: Break-ins reported at another top climate research center (Canada)
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-12-04-watergate-redux-break-ins-reported-at-another-top-climate-resear/
Interesting stories here.
http://www.american.com/archive/2009/december-2009/the-meaning-of-motley-cru
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Former-NASA-climate-scientist-pleads-guilty-to-contract-fraud-8613137-78268862.html
The second one is not really about CRU leak but it does mention it.
I noticed in the HuffPo comments another article that Obama has “abruptly” rescheduled his Copenhagen visit as well.
I listened to BBC Radio 4 Any Questions earlier this evening. A question about the reliability of climate studies came up, and all 4 panelists (none scientists) seemed to have been deeply shocked by the Climategate revelations. Nonetheless, all seemed to think that we should go ahead anyway with restrictions of one sort and another because it was the right thing to do, regardless of the science. The programme repeats tomorrow so I’ll try and catch it again
Re Martin:
I thought that was his comment but my brain rejected what my ears were telling it cos he couldn’t have really, could he???
[quote]
#
UK Met office to relook at 160 years of temp data to insure it is correct,
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6945445.ece
But will take 3 YEARS!!!!
[/quote]
One of the first tips I learnt when taking an exam at school was to answer the question set in the paper, and not to answer your own question. It seems the MET are doing exactly the latter: answering a completely different question to the ones being posed.
Martin, maybe Watson should have put that in an email?
US TV NBC news doing a story on their evening news as I type – this is the first airing of this story on network news. AGW got the better of it but this is a breakthrough story. I’m sure it will be on the NBC website soon but the closing line was “An ever changing world still debating how much it is changing.”
Don’t think Obama will take any other position but to tax the Lousy businesses. After all, these businesses have the money so they deserve to have it stolen from them through whatever means. NO NO NO. Obama will talk as if no Climategate exists. He re-scheduled Doppenhagen because he sees a way of pushing this “tax” when he goes up there on another day later in the week. But if Obama does not go, then it’s all over! What done in the Global Warming crowd was the fact that these past 10 years have been so cold. But yet instead of taking a slower approach and smoothing this renamed “Climate Change” theory across. They screamed that the world was now turning into a desert just at the time when everyone was freezing for 10 years. It did not take a scientist for the people to understand that they needed more snow shovels, more coats and mittens more often. Common sense ruled in the peoples minds while the politicians screamed with fury about the dying Polar Bears and warming trends that was evident did not exist. So a Whistle blower (God Bless him) acted and gave us Climategate. I am thrilled that all this data will finally be released. This will take years to unravel. If I rob the local pharmacy with a gun and take $1,000 I will be in prison for 30 years. Yet AlGore and his band of merry men have stolen trillions! And they will walk away from this rich men. makes me sick! It will be interesting to see who released these emails, that’s the big shoe waiting to drop in this whole story. Steve, add the legal defense fund link on your site here please, even now, so we can donate cause someone is going to need it at some point.
Re: LMB
In further news. Andrew Weaver the target of the attack said a squash racket was used to smash his window in order to gain access to the stolen computer. It was left at the scene of the crime by the perpetrator in his haste to flee.
🙂
The UEA professor on tonight’s ‘Newsnight’ programme (BBC 2) really lost it TWICE. During the interview he told Murano ”Will you shut up!” and, as someone has said above, at the end of the interview he said of Murano ”What an arsehole!”
They’re really rattled. We’ve got ’em on the run. I include the BBC. The UEA professor in tonight’s programme was allowed several minutes of uninterrupted propaganda but Murano (he was brilliant) was constantly interrupted by the interviewer. The UEA professor was given seventy percent of the talk time!
Watson on Newsnight was sticking firmly to the lack of remit he has (and knowledge) regarding the review. He finished with the strawman: temperatures have been rising over 160 years.
Well that cleared up everything.
In a fit of self importance the UN wants to do it’s own Climategate investigation. Um, Hello!?! Under what authority? You haven’t passed your global government yet. You have largely become irrelevant now Mr. Pachauri.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20091204/UN_probe_091204/20091204?hub=SciTech
Here’s the US TV network’s first toe dipping into the Climate Gate pool:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/ns/nightly_news
I’m very sorry that web-based BBC Newsnight on the web seems limited to the UK. When I try to run the BBC iPlayer in California, I get this explanation:
Sounds like Newsnight’s been a barrell of monkeys so I’m sorry I can’t see it. If anyone knows a workaround, please show and tell.
CFP, I thought it particularly entertaining that the NBC segment is immediately followed (with an utterly straight face) by a quick report on an extremely unusual 4-inch snowfall today in Houston.
Perhaps, for the sake of the younger warmsters (Post Nixon) instead of calling this Climategate we call it The Climatrix? Same thing in terms of the end goals of the AGW masters.
Google have launched this site to show your vote for Copenhagen
http://www.showyourvote.org/vote?skin=mini&bg_color=
http://greensmps.org.au/blog/show-your-vote#comment-6330
But there is no option to vote against it! Hardly what I would call democratic. Also expands the meaning of Googlegate
Sean,
Yes, the word “Climategate” doesn’t quite fit. “-gate” is affixed to too many scandals and pseudo scandals in the US Government. But the Obama administration had nothing to do with the scientific fraud.
The hack/leak was more like the Titanic hitting an iceberg. Perhaps Obama is more like the captain of the Titanic if he insisted on full speed ahead despite warnings.
In other news… I’d been trying to find stock news wrt the scandal. Delingpole (DT) hasn’t reported on it (?) yet gave this advice:
“If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth … has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed.”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/
Perhaps the FT or BusinessWeek will address this issue if he doesn’t.
NW – iPlayer is indeed restricted to UK viewers for specific BBC shows (ones not shown on BBCA I presume) – haven’t got much time to write a transcript – except to say that Watson’s final words were clearly audible: “What an asshole” directed at Marc Morano.
Well Here is a link to a letter to the editor by Dr. Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b8df4bd0-e13e-11de-af7a-00144feab49a.html
What she has to say is very interesting.
Finally George F. Will writes an article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/04/AR2009120403073.html
Absolutely fantastic and hits at the core of the issue: “Skeptics about the shrill certitudes concerning catastrophic man-made warming are skeptical because climate change is constant: From millennia before the Medieval Warm Period (800 to 1300), through the Little Ice Age (1500 to 1850), and for millennia hence, climate change is always a 100 percent certainty. Skeptics doubt that the scientists’ models, which cannot explain the present, infallibly map the distant future.”
More on gorgle ooops google here;
Google has ensured that if you are skeptical about global warming alarmism then you DONT
have a vote. On the tails of being accused of censoring online searches
through restricting autosuggest on Climategate Google’s new actions now
show that they are really only interested in one side of the debate –
and its not your side!
more here http://www.twawki.com
One thing is missing in both the media, and the blogs–the effect on models.
I believe Pachauri did a solemn turn when he found out climate science is not all on board, and the modelers complained.
Because the false data undermines their own work.
And there is the angle, if the temps are exaggerated, how does this effect the modeling results? If real temps are used, how much “global warming” will the new calcs show?
I think this point should be emphasized:
It is not only the data that is threatened, but the models dependent on it too.
Google’s evil
For a search engine that claimed not to do any evil, Google is being mighty coy about ‘climategate’.
http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=28639:googles-evil&catid=69:business&Itemid=58
I don’t know what the algo is but in my experience sometimes the autofill gives climategate; sometimes it doesn’t. I have no idea why it does sometimes but not always.
In any case, I don’t think it’s such a big deal; because probably 99% of the people who look for “climategate” already know about the titanic scam.
Yahoo has a big write up about Coppenhagen, they talk about Obama going later in the week now because he feels it’s a better effect. I wonder if he is trying to see how this scandal develops. The article mentions the UN, but nothing of the scandal. And nothing about AGore canceling his speech for fear of hecklers. Gore came to a Chicago bookstore where I live last week and several people started to debate him. He stopped listening to them and had security throw the debaters out. They cannot debate this GW issue. They just pretend that it is a conclusion. The problem is the GW people used complicated science knowing no one could dispute what they could not understand. But they failed in the fact that people know it’s been cold for 10 years. What warming everyone has been saying. I find that even on the most liberal of sites, when they put an article up on Climategate, the comments are massive against GW. And a lot of those commenting are liberal.
George,
The timing is horrible for Al Gore and Barack Obama. I don’t know if we can fault the president, though; it’s his advisers, the people around him, who are probably unwilling to let him see the peril of his situation defending “conventional wisdom” about the climate. How much does he even know about the scandal if he only watches the major network news (ABC, CBS, NBC) and reads the major papers (NYT/WP)?
It’s just a horrible time when there’s a recession and 10% unemployment to be diverting taxpayers’ money towards fake emergencies and any projects based on bogus science.
Obama is lucky that he’s not tainted by the scandal–yet–but he could be if he resists the revelations and keeps moving forward with his old plans based on science fiction.
—
All The President’s Climategate Deniers
“Science czar John Holdren, who will testify on Capitol Hill this week at a hearing on Climategate.”
http://www.dailynews-record.com/opinion_details.php?AID=42835&CHID=59
This is where it gets interesting.
For those who are new to the brouhaha, this article by Steven Hayward in The Weekly Standard is an excellent overview of the actors, the emails and HarryReadMe.text, and places everything in the larger scientific context in a very clear manner:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/017/300ubchn.asp
the dear old Oz (“The Australian”, for the benefit of foreigners) continues to stick its fingers in ears and yell “ner ner I can’t hear you!”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/obama-performs-backflip-on-climate-talks/story-fn3dxity-1225807279122
so Obama “boosts” Copenhagen by delaying his arrival to the end, thus giving the maximum time for Fabrigate to unravel the warmist cause and give him the maximum opportunity to cancel his visit on what by then will look like statesmanlike grounds. Versus going there early, nailing his colours to the AGW mast, going home and finding out that he’s just become a poster-boy for a bunch of voter-toxic clowns?? That’s a boost?
And could Australia be having the first Fabrigate election?
Note that Labour hasn’t even bothered to run (it’s an affluent electorate), relying on a Greens blow-in from Canberra to best the Liberal candidate, on the grounds that Green issues are the Libs’ weakness, they having just dirtied their nappies by replacing a warmist with a sceptic – a conventional view, apparently shared by Catherine Best – is it now about ten days out of date?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/count-on-in-higgins-by-election/story-fn3dxity-1225807285396
This will be fascinating.
It looks as if all the Conservative columnists are, unsurprisingly, hammering away on the Climategate issue (Malkin, Coulter, etc.). However, their audience already didn’t believe in global warming, so it’s only preaching to the choir.
The preachers to the unconverted are few, and include: Jon Stewart.
Has anyone found a converted reporter? Who has given up on Global Warming? Until the reporters get converted, we probably won’t hear many new stories in significant papers. Not that it’s easy to give up on a core belief for 20 years overnight.
Has anyone seen a leaked email from a major news department which reveals editors deliberately blocking reports on Climategate? I’d pay good money for that! Surely there is at least one extremely frustrated reporter in America who wants to build his or her career on this story but they are not allowed?
I think this is a terrible time for the press to be silent when newspaper circulation everywhere has been dwindling. Climategate challenges their relevance and honesty. Many readers could soon abandon the press for its long-term failure to investigate climate theories and/or its failure to report Climategate. How do you forgive a paper or network for doing that?
For those location challenged, the good bit of the ‘What an a***hole’ BBC Newsnight Watson – Murano interview is here :
Hi All
Professor Watson and the American (Morano) “Arsehole”
With regards EP’s comment about the Newsnight interview not been able to be seen outside the UK broadcasting region; isn’t there a way the piece can be put onto YouTube for global circulation?
I appreciate the incident is really a bit juvenile but it does show how heated the debate is becoming and American readers in particular should have the opportunity to view it.
Any (legal!) ideas on how to do it?
kh1234567890
You are obviously a mind reader! Thanks for providing the link!
Bob Ward of the Grantham Trust. “Why don’t you wait for the enquiry you have already made up your mind”
Fraser Nelson of the Spectator “No I just read the emails”
Priceless watch here almost as good as the arsenal interview?
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5601393/what-happens-when-you-try-to-debate-climate-change.thtml
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6729732/Copenhagen-climate-summit-gloomy-Swede-Svante-Arrhenius-saw-chill-wind-of-change.html?state=target#postacomment&postingId=6735103
Article in the Daily Telegraph by Geoffrey Lean. Begging the question and special pleading in one go?
My post below which should see the lght of day but just in case?
“What the sceptics would have to reveal is a massive conspiracy involving almost all the world’s scientists in the field to invent – not just massage – data, to falsify satellite pictures, and the like.”
You are not up to speed on this issue:-
1 Many scientists throughout the world dispute the claims by the IPPC.
2 It is a relatively small number of scientists involved with the IPPC, a core of about 50.
3 The leaders of the core are those named in the emails.
4 You are begging the question no one is saying there is a world wide conspiracy among scientists. In fact the opposite the conspiracy is a small group which forms a cohort. The emails spell out the conspiracy you should read them and the comments on the computer code.
Few scientists sweet on M & M
Two Canadians, Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, are a thorn in the side of climatologists who say the planet is under threat from man-made global warming
http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/scientists+sweet/2306270/story.html
Today’s printed Daily Telegraph has a report on the front page: that Gordon Brown, our prime minister, has called sceptics ‘flat-earthers’ and ‘anti-science’.
Not only is this an insult to me personally, it is an insult to most of the British people as well as the American people, and to thousands of scientists who don’t subscribe to the global warming dogma. I base this assertion on the fact that opinion polls, both in the UK and US, show that the majority of people think climate change is natural – also confirmed by the recent Science museum poll.
I would imagine that most people on this forum know far more about climate science than Brown does. I would also imagine that most people here are also passionate about the honesty of science. To call us ‘anti-science’ is disgusting. He should apologise.
The Telegraph also carries a full-length editorial on Copenhagen. Although it does mention Climategate in passing, most of it is the usual drivel about ‘saving the planet’. And yet….
On the page immediately opposite the editorial there is a piece of almost equal length by Simon Heffer, who does a good job of ripping this delusion to shreds. Heffer is a strong climate change sceptic. So, even in the Daily Telegraph, whose coverage of climate has long been completely biased and one-sided, there is now at least some balance in their coverage. The letters on the same page are also mostly sceptical.
The curious thing is that the Telegraph’s coverage started to get more balanced weeks before Climategate erupted.
Another top writer at the Telegraph, Charles Moore, is also perilously close to being a sceptic. The Telegraph printed an xcellent article last Wednesday with the heading: ‘Saving’ the planet will be the real disaster’. I think many here would strongly agree with that. And yet this was printed in the Daily Telegraph. Maybe there is hope after all….
Chris
Hi All
Recommend watching Stacey’s (above) link for another lively TV debate.
Some academics are getting very hot, bothered and unacademic like.
Chris Wright
The Telegraph have a bit of a split personality on political coverage [the Barclays Bros who own it and the Editor are chums of Gordon, and it’s recruited a load of lefty journalists over the last couple of yrs], however they’ve had an enormous boost from the stuff James Delingpole has been doing, so I guess they are following the money.
For those who aren’t aware – the DT is the biggest circulation serious paper in the UK by quite a margin.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/advertising/research/6690847/ABCs-The-Daily-and-Sunday-Telegraph.html
I liestened again to BBC Radio 4 Any Questions, chaired by Eddie Mair, with panelists A.A.Gill (writer), John Sergeant (ex-BBC journalist), Daniel Finkelstein (journalist-writer), Shami Chakrabati (lobbyist). The second question asked was: Can we believe the evidence for man-made global warming?
John Sergeant said we couldn’t believe the scientists at the centre of the scandal. Climate science had once been a quiet backwater, but had become very big very rapidly, and the scientists “couldn’t resist over-egging the data”. The worst of it, he said, was that the raw data had been destroyed. “It’s one of the worst things that’s happened in public life that I can remember”. He said he wasn’t a denier, and that we should move away from fossil fuels, and that was simple common sense. Temeperatures were predicted to rise between 1 degrees and 6 degrees, and if the latter it was very serious.
A.A.Gill was pleased to see the scientists get their come-uppance. But there were a lot of things we should be doing anyway. “Waste less. Care more. Use less.” In many ways the science was beside the point.
Daniel Finkelstein said it was a “genuine scandal” and there’d been a “disaster at the University of East Anglia”, but he didn’t think it meant that the majority of climate scientists were wrong.
Shami Chakrabati said “Science is sometimes too important to be left to scientists alone”. She said she believed the planet was warming, and the greatest risk lay in doing nothing about it.
So all these non-scientists were shocked and dismayed at the UEA revelations, and fell back on common sense arguments for doing something about climate change.
Try Climategate on Bing, the web autocomplete is better than Google but you are still given climate-gate, big advantage is the lack of Gore being forced down your throat. News autocomplete is not working for me on Bing.
Frank Davies
In response
I’ve just been listening to Any Answers [phone in response to panel discussion Any Questions] on BBC Radio 4.
The callers were 50/50 – ‘if they’re so confident of their data, why do they use the language/tactics they did?’, ‘I haven’t read the emails – I’m a scientist and the deniers are wrong’ and ‘the IPCC are the experts – look at all those peer-reviewed papers’.
The R4 audience is typically intelligent, interested in high quality facts/debate and likes to think of themselves as well informed.
I imagine they will not like to learn they’ve been hood-winked.
Front page of Toronto Globe and Mail today.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/breach-in-the-global-warming-bunker-rattles-climate-science-at-the-worst-time/article1389842/
Plato
”The callers were 50/50” because the producer decreed this. The BBC does not dare give the number of calls for or against. That would be democratic. The BBC is a ‘liberal’ institutional dictatorship.
Climategate is a deniers conspiracy !!!!
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/technology/Climategate+doesn+change+facts/2305942/story.html
Terry – agreed, Have Your Say is another kettle of fish – I can’t recall the top 20 ‘recommended’ posts being all on one side.
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=7310&edition=1&ttl=20091205155704
A little light relief – a comment from HYS
“Don’t worry, I saw a factual documentary on the end of the earth last night. Seems we will all be saved by Bruce Willis who will blow up a massive asteriod heading towards earth. Seems this is documentary was based on the same drivers as the IPCC and others,…It made lots of money.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry
Bob Ward, communications and policy director at the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics, which is headed by Lord Stern
“I don’t think there’s been a rise in scepticism,” he said. “All that’s happening is that the sceptics are now down to a small enough group that they are able to band together and gloss over their differences.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/04/climate-sceptics-public-opinion
I caught a bit of CNN this morning. They interviewed Gavin Schmidt and some of the top doggies. They talked about an investigation but kept reiterating that the evidence showed man made warming. I did not see any interviews of the opposite side.
JohnH – that is worthy of Comical Ali as the tanks rolled into Baghdad in shot.
“I think the American people want to know the former VP’s response to Climategate. He can keep his Nobel, but I want his response. How much longer can he hold out?”
A recent video shows what happened when multiple Americans tried to confront Al Gore about Climategate at a book signing.
This sort of ‘street action’ is sadly what will have to happen.
Have no doubt Gore cancelled his COP-15 appearance because in Europe such tactics are much more common than here in the US.
Very compelling footage.
johnh 2009 December 5,
Have a look at some of the cartoons of the Edmonton Journal, much better than the story by Graham Thomson…
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/technology/Climategate+doesn+change+facts/2305942/Malcolm+Mayes+Cartoon/1007472/story.html and click on “next” until the cartoon of December 2…
Today’s Winnipeg Free Press in:
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/canadian-duo-ripped-in-emails-in-climate-gate-78587177.html
Canadian duo ripped in emails in ‘climate-gate’
Findings poked holes in scientists’ major works on global warming
And pics of Steve and Ross.
UN to hold full investigation
err NO
In a statement, Professor Thomas Stocker, co-chairman of the IPCC’s working group 1, condemned the act of posting the private e-mails on the internet, but avoided commenting on their content.
He went on to point to a key finding that states: “The warming in the climate system is unequivocal.
“[It] is based on measurements made by many independent institutions worldwide that demonstrate significant changes on land, in the atmosphere, the ocean and in the ice-covered areas of the Earth.
“Through further independent scientific work involving statistical methods and a range of different climate models, these changes have been detected as significant deviations from natural climate variability and have been attributed to the increase of greenhouse gases.”
He added: “The body of evidence is the result of the careful and painstaking work of hundreds of scientists worldwide.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8397265.stm
Terrific Weekly Standard cover story “Scientists Behaving Badly” in which Steven Hayward coins the phrase the “CRUtape Letters”
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/017/300ubchn.asp
Ah actually that was me. Which just adds to the list:
treemometer, Piltdown Mann, ( or pennstate mann )
a bunch of others.
From the Washington Post:
In E-mails, Science of Warming is Hot Debate
Stolen files of ‘Climate-gate’ suggest some viewpoints on change are disregarded
By David A. Fahrenthold and Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post, Saturday, December 5, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/04/AR2009120404511.html
Some good commentary in Canada’s National Post today (Dec. 5, 2009):
“One rollicking climate change debate: Corcoran vs. Cary”
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/04/one-rollicking-climate-change-debate-corcoran-vs-cary.aspx
“Lawrence Solomon: Dirty climate data”
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/04/lawrence-solomon-dirty-climate-data.aspx
“Lawrence Solomon: Even before Climategate, the public suspected fraud”
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/12/04/lawrence-solomon-even-before-climategate-the-public-suspected-fraud.aspx
Nice little bit about the trees courtesy of Christopher Booker @ the DT:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6738111/Climategate-reveals-the-most-influential-tree-in-the-world.html
CFP, Hayward’s article is great: If anyone has friends or family that need a wide and deep introduction, this is about as good as is currently available.
FYI, WUWT claims that “CRUtape letters” was first coined by Steve Mosher on their site. It certainly does beat “climategate.”
Thanks,
It’s true. hasnt caught on much though.
Thanks NW – I’ll be sure to credit Mosher from now on. I agree on the value of the Hayward piece – I’ve been distributing it far and wide.
nz herald.co.nz is reporting that NIWA ( national institute of water and atmospheric research ) New Zealand has released the raw data for their temperature series. It is apparently on the NIWA site, however I have had a look and it does not seem easily
accessable. Lots of bluster and a guest appearance from their , ahem ! ex chief Dr Salinger, him of the UAE connection. Has anyone with more experience had a look ?
Very good summary of the facts gleamed from the CRU emails and code
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6738111/Climategate-reveals-the-most-influential-tree-in-the-world.html
and the best public comment
snip – piling on
Also from the antipodes :-
” CLIMATE SCEPTICS WIN AUSTRALIAN BY-ELECTIONS”
Sydney Morning Herald reports Tony Abbott’s liberal party wins two by-elections, “solid performance surprised many” seems some sheeple just don’t do as their told !
The Australian, Dec 5 2009
“Saudis Rain on Summit’s Parade”
news item
“SAUDI Arabia has seized on a series of stolen British university emails to become the first country to cast doubt on the consensus about man-made climate change ahead of next week’s Copenhagen summit.”
Prof Phil Jones says – “One has to wonder if it is a coincidence that this email correspondence has been stolen and published at this time. This may be a concerted attempt to put a question mark over the science of climate change in the run-up to the Copenhagen talks,”
Quite possibly ……
LMB’s comment of December 5, 2009 refers to Al Gore and his reluctance to respond to the ClimateGate scandal, and the possibility that his “post-political career should be devastated by scandal”.
This brought to mind the sad tale of an earlier Vice President of the United States. It is parallel only in the yearning for political power, influence, wealth and fame, and for suffering a discouraging political defeat.
1. Both had successful early careers.
2. Both were Vice Presidents.
3. Both lost a bid for the Presidency by narrow votes in a body other than the electorate.
4. Both tried a different path to power and wealth after that defeat.
I do not think that Al Gore should try for a top position in a regime of “global governance” under the UN. That would be item #5
If you have not already identified the other Vice President, see the official biography:
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=B001133
whoops must stop blaming the united arab emirates “UAE” for everything ! it should be the “Uea” sorry, sorry, sorry.
The Saudi family is the only family with a permanent seat at the UN.
Phil Jones should have accused them of a conflict of interest – they’re safeguarding the inheritance of their great great great grandchildren.
In defending his Dad, Roger Pielke, Jr. nails NOAA’s Tom Karl for misrepresenting what the scientific literature has to say about land use’s impact on climate change.
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/12/spinning-literature.html#comments
Pretty strong stuff:
“The story has an interesting quote from Tom Karl, of NOAA NCDC, related to my fathers work that continues to reflects the myopic perspective of leading climate scientists who seek to present their own views over other legitimate scientific perspectives.”
Non-think prevails on climate change religion by Terry McCrann
“… the climate change invented in the Climate Research Unit in Britain, the holiest of holy places of the First Church of Climate Apocalypse and Purportedly Pissed-off Gaia. The church that is about to have its great synod at Copenhagen this month.
…
In effect, Ridout and her peers are demanding the certainty of the positioning of the deckchairs on the Titanic.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/non-think-prevails-on-climate-change-religion/story-e6frg9if-1225807117805
I’ve been getting a steady feed of news on the “Climatism Scandal” by entering a few choice keywords for Google Alerts in my G-Mail account. Things have picked up a lot in the last day or two. I’m spending far too much time reading all the comments to the news feeds Google has been sending my way though, but I have noticed a couple of things:
– When the scandal first broke the AGW crowd and the skeptics were pretty much evenly represented in the comments with the usual mudslinging in both directions.
– In the last couple of days the skeptics appear to be overrunning the comments. Many appear to be freshly minted skeptics or those that have finally found their voice.
All I can say is there seems to be an “unprecedented” (sorry, couldn’t resist) rise in the news emanating from the MSM. I suppose it could be that they’re finally shaking off the effects of being clipped upside the head by a sliced golf ball coming off Tiger’s #1 wood. Time will tell I guess.
The next two weeks should be fairly entertaining. Something I’ve been patiently waiting the better part of 15 years for. I was disappointed to hear that “Comical Al” Gore canceled his speaking engagement in Copenhagen as it will certainly ratchet down the entertainment value a notch.
Anyhow…,
The revelations in FOI2009.zip file appear to confirm that M&M have been on the correct scent for quite some time. Thanks to the dogged determination of M&M and the courage of an, as yet unnamed whistleblower, these bozos will finally take their rightful position in the “Scientific Hall of Shame”.
Dan
P.S. I generally don’t make a habit of name calling or bad-mouthing anybody for anything but I’ve been feeling a little cocky lately. Sorry.
“Cooler Heads with Dr Richard Lindzen on Cap and Trade”
You just had to know that Elizabeth May would eventually find a sympathetic outlet for her naive point of view. It looks like the Montreal Gazette has come to her rescue:
http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Harper+Tories+message+says/2306268/story.html
The keywords here are “stolen email” as opposed to “leaked documents”. I much prefer the word “liberated” to either.
Dan
Andrew Bolt in the Herald Sun speculates on why Wigley fits the profile of a possible leaker without actually accusing him. In doing so he opens a new can of Phil Jones deceit with which I was previously unfamiliar – very damning stuff:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/climategate_which_one_blew_the_whistle/
uh oh, the coverup begins:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/dec/06/break-in-targets-climate-scientist
like watching a penguin try to fly
After this scandal got tagged with the moniker “ClimateGate” (hate that name but oh well) it was only fitting that someone would call the source of FOI2009, “Deep Vortex”.
Could Deep Vortex by any chance have a Russian accent?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1233562/Emails-rocked-climate-change-campaign-leaked-Siberian-closed-city-university-built-KGB.html
And could Deep Vortex been snooping around in Andrew Weaver’s UVic office?
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=2301809
I’ve always been interested in the climate – being totally fascinated finding a fern fossil on the Peace River as a young kid and being told by an old timer that the area was at one time tropical – and I’ve always been interested in spies and spy stories. This whole scandal is getting more intriguing by the minute.
The house is a mess and the dishes are piling up but I just can’t seem to pull myself away from the computer in case I miss something. Damn Comical Al for inventing the internet!
Dan
‘Climategate’; Praise to the Whistleblower!
December 4, 2009
The hero of ‘Climategate’ who retrieved the 1000 emails and 2000 documents from the East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, and who released those document onto the Internet for the World to see, did more for the American people in that one act, than Obama has done in the twelve months he has been in office.
http://www.examiner.com/x-27109-Galveston-County-Conservative-Examiner~y2009m12d4-Climategate-Praise-to-the-Whistleblower
The Truth About ‘Climategate’
Hacked e-mails have compromised scientists—but not the science itself.
By Sharon Begl
Dec. 5, 2009
http://www.newsweek.com/id/225778
lol.
LMB, Ms Begley at Newsweek. Nice pickup. This is one of the least informed and (sadly) most representative posts from the advocacy media.
I am sharing my comment, not sure if appropriate on this forum. BTW, after reading most comments at Newsweek, couldn’t find one that wasn’t anti AGW.
snip – too much piling on
The UK Independent not being Independent, I used to rate this paper.
Its the russian hackers fault.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-change-conspiracies-stolen-emails-used-to-ridicule-global-warming-1835031.html
US Ambassador to the UK on BBC Andrew Marrs show this morning.
‘Leaked emails are having no effect in the US on public opinion’
The BBC’s Environment Correspondent has told commentators on his blog to stop posting comments about ClimateGate! Apparently that’s because the alleged falsification of research is boring and no-one wants to read about it – so stop nit-picking. Seriously:
…I’ve another request, too – if you can restrain yourselves from plastering this thread with stuff about ClimateGate, please do.
There are more than 700 comments on the previous thread, the vast majority related to it. I know from e-mails that some readers find endless picking over of climate science repetitive and boring – and when they do, they don’t read through the comments. Fresh, pertinent and interesting are my suggestions.”
BBC – Richard Black’s Earth Watch
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/12/copenhagen_countdown_3_days.html
http://www2.macleans.ca/category/opinion/mark-steyn-opinion/
Back in the summer, I wrote in a column south of the border:
…“If you’re 29, there has been no global warming for your entire adult life. If you’re graduating high school, there has been no global warming since you entered first grade. There has been no global warming this century. None. Admittedly the 21st century is only one century out of the many centuries of planetary existence, but it happens to be the one you’re stuck living in.”
snip – please comply with blog rules on politeness and not venting.
More is coming to light about how and why the CRU emails were hacked – see this story from the UK’s Mail on Sunday (a right-wing conservative newspaper):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1233562/Emails-rocked-climate-change-campaign-leaked-Siberian-closed-city-university-built-KGB.html
There is a bitter irony here. It looks as if all you good folks so eager to expose a grand conspiracy on the part of climate scientists have in fact been playing the part of (very willing, albeit unwitting) accomplices in one of the cleverest pieces of black propaganda of recent years. It seems increasingly probable that the whole exercise has been masterminded by the Russian security services – formerly known as the KGB – who have a proud track record in this respect.
Vladimir Putin, a former KGB man himself, must be delighted at the ease with which action to place curbs on the fossil fuel industry has been sabotaged. He’s no doubt having a good laugh at your expense.
RE: PhilA (Way back up this post)
Concerning suitable phrases for “skeptics” and “semi-skeptics” I think that, with regard to those with scientific training the correct term would be “rational scientist”. You can abbreviate that to just “scientist” if you wish.
I have a further comment regarding the terms “flat earth” and “deniers” used by many proponents of AGW, including significant politicians such as UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband. If these comments are directed at people who have relevent scientific training (I include myself in that definition) to be able to arrive at their own opinion on the merits of the underyling science then using such ad hominen attacks against suitably trained scientists is the moral and intellectual equivalent of racism or religous intolerance.
As for the AGW supporters who use all these phrases I have another word for them. They are “climate change lemmings”
Hi All
IPCC Himalayan Glacier Error
Aother related story which you have to pinch yourself to believe. It seems that the somehow the IPCC managed to get the year 2350 confused with the year 2035 and so predicted the melting of Himalayan glaciers within a few decades instead of 300 years as a piece of research suggested.
This error is so bad I find it hard to believe and I wonder if there has been any competent follow up to the story to confirm it?
The actual claim can be found at the BBC web address. I don’t know how the story managed to sneak in past the BBC scrutiny panel. Perhaps it was because the story originated in New Dehli and not London ( …or East Anglia)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8387737.stm
‘Climate-gate’ forces weather data review
http://www.smh.com.au/world/climategate-forces-weather-data-review-20091206-kcrk.html
RE: Himalayan Glaciers
This past week I was in Delhi teaching a course on geostatistics and use of proxy data for predicting hydrocarbons. I use the world temperature graph as an example of the importance that your stationarity assumption has on any predictions you may make and the associated uncertainty.
The class was made up graduate / PhD delegates with 5 – 25 years of professional scientific experience. One interesting comment that was passed to me during general discussion is that claims about the retreat of Himalyan glaciers have been strongly refuted by a very important Indian glacier expert. Apparently he publicly stated that this was not true and that they are in fact advancing. I have no references but I do intend to try and follow up to find out what this story is based on. If any one has any input I would appreciate their comments.
Martin,
Do you know if reporters are reading through the many emails? It seems surprising to me at least all the good (damning) emails have already been found. (They read them all already?) I’d expect some media outlets to produce new material at least once a week if not every day. Or is it all too sophisticated for the average journalist?
—
There’s nothing like a big coverup to get American bloggers invading news Comments. The US has a history of politicians being done in more by the coverup than the crime itself. I’m still looking for one news report which shows politicians understand the risks in Climategate coverup. This new article at least hints at it:
‘Climategate’ could threaten Dem agenda
Politico – Lisa Lerer – 1 hour ago
“The scandal thus far has not gained significant traction with voters beyond the conservative base, given that a majority of Americans – and most policymakers – still believe global warming to be a scientific fact. But Republicans hope that their ongoing investigation will push the issue into the mainstream.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30172.html
Re: My own post Himalayan glaciers
Found a recent link to this here dated 13.11.2009 :
Oops – need to learn about putting in links:
http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content/himalayan-glaciers-not-melting
Barbara Boxer:
“You call it climate gate I call it email theft gate,” she said on Wednesday. “It seems to me the[y] must have been hacking this for years and just before Copenhagen they came out with them.”
Isn’t that a false assumption? Isn’t it more likely all the emails were automatically stored on the server and then accessed+copied once?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30172_Page2.html
The Daily Telegraph today has a long article:
Were Russian security services behind the leak of ‘Climategate’ emails?
By WILL STEWART and MARTIN DELGADO
6th December 2009
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1233562/Emails-rocked-climate-change-campaign-leaked-Siberian-closed-city-university-built-KGB.html
Isn’t it more likely a non-Russian copied the data and merely posted it onto a Russian server because getting files off Russian servers is notoriously difficult (more difficult than in any other country, because they don’t respect America or American laws)?
17 days after the story broke, German television finally gets around to making a 3 minute report on it.
http://klimakatastrophe.wordpress.com/2009/12/06/climategate-in-der-tagesschau/#comment-2774
Al Gore has now got his very own version of ‘Downfall’
from http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091206/D9CDQI000.html
COPENHAGEN (AP) – The U.N.’s top climate official on Sunday conceded that hacked e-mails from climate scientists had damaged the image of global warming research but said evidence of a warming Earth is solid.
As if that is the debate. Well at least the guy is acknowledging there is a problem.
ThinkingScientist – RE: Himalayan Glaciers
I read the Raina report about a month ago. What he reports is that some are growing and some are retreating. He also reports that the source of the glaciers, the Himalayas, are not in danger of becoming snow free.
His general tone is that westerners are too quick to cherry pick and that there is no sense of impending catastrophe among Indian glacier experts.
LBM and ThinkingScientist
My understanding of the Himalayan glacier story is limited to the BBC link page given.
I think “ThinkingScientist’s” comments and “Doug in Seattle” resonse are both very important as they draw attention to the fact that debate is a virtual “Western” affair. The voices of Asia and Africa are hardly heard at all.
Perhaps a reader(s) can suggest some suitable link to non-Western media channels to so their opinions can be viewed.
Does anyone know the true source of this new journalistic meme about Russian involvement?
Quite frankly, there is zero new evidence in the Daily Mail and Independent stories that allege (or hint at) such a connection. The Daily Mail story is partricularly fact-free: It is just innuendo and surmise.
We all knew that the zip file appeared on a server in Tomsk on the very first day.
So, where is this new journalistic meme coming from and what is its support? Aside from the zip file showing up on a Russian server?
Why hasn’t any clever person with too much free time done something with Southpark’s “Blame Canada” music video anyway? This would seem ripe for parody, both given Ross and Steve’s nationality and Monbiot’s over-the-top hissy fit about it being corrupt and unsophisticated.
The Times has picked up on the Russian connection, looks like the info is coming from the UN but no hard facts, just a guess by the looks of things.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/copenhagen/article6946281.ece
Reliable Sources (CNN/Howard Kurtz)
This weekly program (Sunday morning talk show in America) deals with bias in the main stream media, including stories that are not reported or reported with bias.
Kurtz just ended his show by reprimanding a reporter for what she left out of her interview with Derek Jeter.
Mr. Kurtz, however, left out of his entire one-hour show anything about Climategate. This is astonishing.
Although CNN (not reporting Climategate) is owned by TIME (not reporting Climategate), and he does work for the Washington Post (not reporting Climategate), so it’s not completely surprising.
Nevertheless, I expected more, and I still consider it an epic fail by the veteran journalist. Climategate is the biggest story that the MSM has underreported or not reported in decades, and he didn’t even touch it once. (Instead he talked about Tiger Woods, the Selahis (?sp), etc.)
Howie, man, come on, what happened?
Did anybody else see other Sunday morning talk shows? Did Climategate come up? (I haven’t seen it yet on Inside Washington, but I haven’t finished watching it.)
Arthur Dent
Thought the Al Gore Downfall video was brilliant. Thanks, but I can only find the Spanish version on YouTube.
Have you got the exact YouTube address? I want to send the English language version onto friends, who, though they haven’t been following the climategate story, do enjoy a good laugh!
johnh, ok thanks for the Times online post. There we have:
We already know some of this is wrong…don’t we? My current understanding is the first upload of the zip file was to RealClimate’s own server. (The article later admits as much.) And when that act didn’t work out, the zip file went onto the Russian server and links went up on Climate Audit and the Air Vent. Isn’t this the currently understood timeline, on the basis of what Gavin, Jeff Id and Steve have all publicly reported? (Actually, it is reported this way at the very end of the article.) Intervening servers in Turkey and Saudi Arabia are also noted.
Oh and have you ever seen this form in your list of valid Aristotelian yllogisms?
Premise 1: The zip files were uploaded from a Russian server.
Premise 2: Some Russian hackers are paid for services.
Conclusion: Russian hackers are responsible for the act.
What a singularly cogent argument.
Arthur Dent
Apologies- missed URL sign. Thanks again.
NMartin Judge
BBC online report on clash between Ed Millipede and Nigel Lawson on The Politics Show, Eds not for turning. Didn’t see it to know if the reporting is correct.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8398103.stm
If I was an AGW supporter the last person I would want on my side is Gordon Brown or any of his cabinet eg Ed. Gordon is a Jonah to all he touches.
And to think I pay directly for this tosh
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8397742.stm
Err what about Climategate mateys
You would think the BBC is solely funded by the UN
This and a lot more from an article in the Arizona Daily Star.
http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/320270
Overpeck seems to think that McKitrick doesn’t understand the peer review process. Now that may be very well and true as it’s defined by the CRU.
Dan
IPCC Himalayan Glacier Error
This error and the general state of Himalyan glaciation is explained in a guest blog by Madhav Khahdar in Roger Pielke’s (snr) December 1 climatescience website.
It was Canadian Graham Cogley of Trent University who made the discovery.
I imagine Canadians aren’t very popular in some quarters these days.
Guardian is back to normal, climategate deniers
‘Fourteen days to seal history’s judgment on this generation’
Tomorrow 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/06/copenhagen-editorial
the yamal story got coverage from the UK daily telegraph, a major newspaper, today:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6738111/Climategate-reveals-the-most-influential-tree-in-the-world.html
it is a fantastically esoteric subject for an article by a sunday newspaper; but there it is !
congrats
per
Its russia secret service now, must be a ploy to smear climategate
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1233562/Emails-rocked-climate-change-campaign-leaked-Siberian-closed-city-university-built-KGB.html#ixzz0YtnXN2XM
Funny now quickly MSM are picking this up in comparison to how slowly they picked up on climategate.
I came across this elsewhere and just have to share it.
Apologies if it’s already been posted here, but I’m not going to check through 621 messages.
Time magazine in 1974 on the imminence of a new ice age:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914-2,00.html
The “science” of climatology doesn’t seem to have changed much, lol.
Good grief! 621 comments and counting! Short media notes from Sweden.
This weekend saw a major breakthrough in coverage. *Both* main TV companies, SVT and TV4, took up Climategate. SVT also in the form of a ca 3-4 minute report, which was at least partly accurate. Swedish paleoclimotologist Wibjorn Karlen, appearing in the Climategate mails, was interviewed and was actually allowed to explain that his findings about historical Nordic climate contradicted CRU’s.
Also, Swedish Google hits on “climategate” today jumped from 80 000 to 110 000. A mystery is why Sweden, Stockholm and Swedish is high up in Google Trend statistics. My theory: Google senior advisor Al Gore told them to make English language search indexing slow, so other languages will climb in comparison. Google will have some explaining to do when all this is over.
A fitting phrase: the…snowball has begun rolling.
–Ahrvid
When trying to find a solution ends up worsening the problem–
Copenhagen climate summit: 1,200 limos, 140 private planes and caviar wedges
Copenhagen is preparing for the climate change summit that will produce as much carbon dioxide as a town the size of Middlesbrough.
By Andrew Gilligan, 10:55PM GMT 05 Dec 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6736517/Copenhagen-climate-summit-1200-limos-140-private-planes-and-caviar-wedges.html
A little light relief:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5595813/why-the-maldives-arent-sinking.thtml
Us attitude to climate according to CBC
http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/TV_Shows/The_National/ID=1352011621
No strictly Climategate, but the CBC mentions it then moves to show how thin the new ice is in the Arctic…
http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/TV Shows/The National/ID=1351267759
diberville2009,
The CBC is now broadcasting “An Inconvenient Truth” (10 PM EST) by Al Gore.
lol.
“An Inconvenient Truth” is worth a closer look now. Reporters should review it.
Gore’s documentary has a clip of Sen. Inhofe saying: “This could be, maybe, the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”
Before that video, during a public lecture, Gore gets on a special portable elevator for his presentation on Global Warming, using the prop to show the temps are ‘off the charts.’
That elevator scene would be great for Jon Stewart or a YouTube mashup.
Gore argues that out of 928 peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals, not one disagreed with the basic idea of global warming.
Ironically, Gore also talked about a leaked email which “revealed” a plot to sow doubts about global warming.
Then he showed a news report by Andrew Revkin on the NYT website: “Bush Aide Edited Climate Reports.”
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0DE1D71338F93BA35755C0A9639C8B63
There’s also a clip of Gore grilling somebody in Congress (?) accusing them of science fraud. Has anybody found that on YouTube?
So Climate Audit’s existence gets acknowledged by the BBC, coming near the top of their list of climate related websites and blogs, just above CRU 😉
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8376286.stm
IPCC
UN climate convention
British Antarctic Survey
Climate Audit
Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia
…
Al Gore on his pedestal in An Inconvenient Truth
(Sorry, the img didn’t embed.)
Try again:
See: http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/4710/algore.jpg
Al Gore on his pedestal in An Inconvenient Truth
500 CANADIAN SCIENTISTS: CLIMATE CHANGE HAPPENING FASTER THAN WE THOUGHT, CANADA MUST DO MORE
Canada’s Scientists Have Spoken
Letter:
http://wwf.ca/conservation/global_warming/copenhagen/december2009/take_action/letter_signup_form.cfm
(A related ad will run in newspapers on December 5.)
http://www.wwf.ca/conservation/global_warming/copenhagen/december2009/take_action/scientists_voice.cfm
(Lists all the professors)
P.S. Has Stephen Harper yet spoken out about Climategate?
Martin Judge
This wa sthe origianl You Tube Address
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ymxLA5oRYI&feature=PlayList&p=D4141295C50190F7&index=12]
The UK’s Chief Scientific Officer has just called for the UEA to ”publish the raw data” on The World at One BBC programme.
Hasn’t anybody told him yet… or is he deliberately playing dumb so as to con the public into thinking all the raw data is still there for independant examination?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qptc
LMB,
Re Harper & Climategate : no I don’t think he has said anything about it.
I really hope he will stick to his guns : we can’t do more than the US, -3 %, we can’t have a deal without the BRIC doing its part since they now emit more CO2 than us.
Here in Quebec, the provincial government wants us to reduce our CO2 emissions to 20 % below 1990’s level (which were already not respected after the Kyoto deal). We don’t have much coal power stations to close, since we already rely so much on hydro power. I believe this is sheer madness.
The UK Met office is too release the temp records tomorrow, so 3 years of work actually only took 3 days.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/07/met-office-temperature-records-climate-change
And as it only covers 100 years its bound to show an increase in temp, but not prove its man made. But it will no doubt be spun as proof of AGW.
Lots of coverage from RT which airs both views :
etc.
LMB said: “…Gore gets on a special portable elevator for his presentation on Global Warming, using the prop to show the temps are ‘off the charts.’”
Please look at the scene again LMB. The red curve went off the chart, but that was CO2. There is no particular controversy in the recent rise of CO2.
Gore’s blue curve is temperature. It is not seen trending up in the same way.
What Gore did was to suggest a causal link from CO2 to temperature. He then showed CO2 rising steeply to suggest temperature should be expected to follow.
HTH.
Corbett report
http://www.youtube.com/user/corbettreport#p/a/u/0/qo1MYWUSKHY
Alternative Copenhagen conferences – an overview
(unfortunately, the guest is not very fluent in English)
announces new site on Climate : http://climategate.tv/
Audio interview with Lord Monckton of Brenchley from Copenhagen
http://www.cfact.tv/2009/12/07/lord-monckton-on-climategate-at-the-2nd-international-climate-conference/
Hi Guys
Though I am a warmy I hold this site in high regard and appreciate the efforts of its principal and the main contributors.
It does concern me when i see copenhagen press releases entitled ‘Leaders Defend Climate Science’
which describes a film
“Complete with scenes of ice caps melting, torrential rain and African droughts, the child wakes in a deserted landscape and starts running for her life across cracking earth, losing her toy bear as she is followed by tornadoes and rising seas forcing her to cling for life to the last palm tree. The film ended with a plea by children to the more than 2000 delegates to “Please help save the world”.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/leaders-defend-climate-science-20091208-kg40.html
The serious issue of sensible policy to reduce harm from human activities which in one way or another will be damaging
Steve,
Are you going to start a new thread for the Campbell Brown episode you just appeared on? I think you should. It’ll bring in lots of new visitors to your site, and it would be easier to address the issues that came up during the show in a new thread instead of at the end of this long thread.
Just saw your back cover of Niagara This Week – your list with Tim Ball.
At first I just saw the green ‘global warming’ and thought to myself, great, not more of this bullsh** but was exceedingly pleased to see that it was the opposite.
If only people on the ‘left’ – particularly the NDP – would ditch the green movement altogether and go back to their labour roots and expose this as what it really is – yet another front in the war on the middle class.
It used to be that environmentalism was primarily an elitist cause and I wonder sometimes whether it’s a coincidence that the ‘green movement’ has become automatically aligned with left-wing politics. And only the so-called ‘right-wing’ outlets even cover the skeptic side, which makes it all the easier to dismiss in some people’s minds.
German TV (ARD) on Climategate
OPPS another leak but not a sign of the Russian secret service this time.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/08/copenhagen-climate-summit-disarray-danish-text
A post on CBSNEWS Blogs by Declan McCullagh: “Physicists Stick to Warming Claim Post-ClimateGate”, December 8, 2009.
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/taking_liberties/main504383.shtml
This is in the best traditions of a free press. A just the facts presentation that shows some respect for its readers.
I could not believe CNN’s spin on global warming. They just had Dr. Gupta shed much of his credibility by telling viewers that global warming is harmful to health because a longer growing season would effect people with allergies. While his comment is true, he entirely forgets about the other side of the equal sign; longer growing seasons mean more biodiversity, more agricultural productivity, and more food for a world that wants and needs it.
http://us.cnn.com/video/?/video/health/2009/12/08/gupta.climate.change.health.cnn
Climategate: Gore falsifies the record
Q: How damaging to your argument was the disclosure of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University?
A: To paraphrase Shakespeare, it’s sound and fury signifying nothing. I haven’t read all the e-mails, but the most recent one is more than 10 years old. These private exchanges between these scientists do not in any way cause any question about the scientific consensus.
He invented the internet and now he invents what’s on the internet. 🙂
“the most recent one is more than 10 years old”
Huh? The most recent one is just days before the zip file appeared!
‘Climategate’ effects unclear
By Laura Nichols
Penn State Collegian
I’m looking for a forum where Penn State students are discussing their professor Michael Mann and Climategate.
Does anyone have a URL?
The Harvard Crimson has comments for their campus news articles. I read them when Harvard professor Gates was in the news. I like to read students’ opinions when their professors are in the news.
Apparently Penn State won’t let you comment on their news stories.
Beyond Penn State, has anyone found any college students online discussing Climategate?
Physics Group Splinters Over Global Warming Review
Respect for Hal Lewis and William Happer:
“It is Socolow whose entire research funding stream, well over a million dollars a year, depends on continued alarm over global warming,” says William Happer, a fellow Princeton University professor and head of the Happer physics lab who has raised the question of a conflict of interest. The reason: the ostensibly neutral person charged with evaluating a statement endorsing man-made global warming is a leading proponent of precisely that theory whose funding is tied to that theory.
. . .
Hal Lewis, a professor emeritus of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara who has been an APS member for 65 years, says that he asked both the current and incoming APS presidents to require that Socolow recuse himself from a review of this subject, and both refused.
–
Thank you, gentlemen, for your courage, integrity, and leadership.
“It’s a Climategate Christmas”
Youtube has a new musical satire on Climategate by Minnesotans for Global Warming.
It’s even funnier than the first!
They should get the Ignobel prize for humor.
Laugh at:
Dyson’s voice was a reminder of Galileo’s observation,
“In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.”
Post #750
Portrait of a local climate skeptic
Retired mining analyst Stephen McIntyre isn’t a warming denier. He’s merely a stickler
http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/737357–portrait-of-a-local-climate-skeptic
There was an editorial in Nature about climategate, which was really rather robust.
I think there may be some correspondence about this editorial coming up.
per
Some good articles in Canada’s National Post today (Dec 18, 2009):
“Terence Corcoran: A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism — Part 1”
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/12/18/terence-corcoran-a-2-000-page-epic-of-science-and-skepticism-part-1.aspx
“Lawrence Solomon: Wikipedia’s climate doctor”
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/12/19/lawrence-solomon-wikipedia-s-climate-doctor.aspx
The National Post web site has Part 2 of Terence Corcoran’s look at Climategate:
“Terence Corcoran: A 2,000-page epic of science and skepticism — Part 2”
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/21/terence-corcoran-a-2-000-page-epic-of-science-and-skepticism-part-2.aspx
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