In today’s post, I’ll show that even Andrew Weaver was tricked by Mann’s IPCC 2001 hide-the-decline. Weaver’s incorrect belief that the IPCC diagram showed “four” “independent” “hockey sticks” constructed using “different techniques” led him to believe that the research was much solider than it really was (or is), to say that our focus on the Mann reconstruction was “vindictive” and that any suggestion that our work might impact IPCC conclusions on the topic was “pure and unadulterated rubbish”. Because of Weaver’s rhetorical style (see yesterday’s post), the National Post news reporter slightly misunderstood Weaver as saying that our research was “pure and unadulterated rubbish” – a view that Weaver probably held – as opposed to saying that the idea that our research would have any impact on IPCC conclusions on the topic was “pure and unadulterated rubbish”
Cowan’s Article
On January 27, 2005, James Cowan, a news reporter for National Post, published an article about our work. (In the background section of her decision, J Burke referred to this article, but incorrectly attributed it to defendant Corcoran, rather than Cowan – a distinction that seems relevant to me if the incident is relevant.) Cowan had interviewed Weaver in connection with this article and summarized his interview as follows:
Andrew Weaver, a professor and Canadian Research Chair at the University of Victoria, also dismissed the research. “This is simply pure and unadulterated rubbish,” he said.”
For his part, Prof. Weaver described the researchers’ focus on Dr. Mann’s work as “vindictive,” noting numerous independent studies have reflected the hockey stick trend. “If you look in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [reports], there are four hockey sticks and they all show the same thing. And they were all done with very different techniques, so why focus on just the work of Dr. Mann?” Prof. Weaver said.
To the extent that this article attracted attention, it has been because of the phrase “pure and unadulterated rubbish” – a phrase that seems not to fall too far from the phrases used in connection with our earlier article: “random diatribes of absolute, incorrect nonsense” and “absolute balderdash” – see here.
However, today, I want to visit Weaver’s other statements that criticism of Mann’s incorrect methodology was “vindictive” and that the IPCC report contained “four hockey sticks and they all show the same thing” and “they were all done with very different techniques” and were “independent”, as Weaver’s statements were, as CA readers now know, untrue.
Here is the relevant Figure from IPCC AR3. It shows four reconstructions: two variations of the Mann et al 1999 reconstruction (obviously not independent); the Jones et al 1998 reconstruction and the Briffa et al 2001 reconstruction. Take a reminder look – comments follow.
|
|
|
Figure 1. Left – IPCC AR3 Figure 2-21 showing variations of the Mann et al 1999 reconstruction, the Jones et al 1998 reconstruction and the truncated Briffa et al 2001 reconstruction. Right- cover of Hiding the Decline, showing the actual Briffa reconstruction from data in Climategate dossier.
Obviously, Weaver’s claim that the 30-70N variation of the Mann reconstruction was an “independent” reconstruction using a “very different technique” was total bilge. It comes from Mann et al 2000 and uses the same data and methodology as the main reconstruction, but regresses onto 30-70N instrumental data. (Also, it only starts in 1600 and is not relevant to reconstructions starting in 1400 and earlier.)
The Briffa reconstruction actually is “independent” but, as CA readers know, it is not a “hockey stick”. At the time, no one, including myself, knew that Mann and Briffa had chopped off the offending portion of the Briffa reconstruction. Weaver was fooled by their deception just like everyone else. The first report of the trickery in the IPCC diagram came a couple of months later – at CA here.
Thus, the only “independent” “hockey stick” in the actual IPCC diagram was the Jones et al reconstruction, which also had multiple defects. It only had three series contributing to its medieval portion and there were serious issues with two of them: (1) the Tornetrask series used in the reconstruction was not the actual chronology, but one that had had a highly arbitrary bodge (an issue that attracted attention in Climategate); (2) the Polar Urals chronology looked very different when updated information was incorporated, a longstanding CA issue.
While Weaver only intended to say that it was “simply pure and unadulterated rubbish” to say that our research could impact the conclusions presented in the IPCC diagram with its four hockey sticks (as opposed to saying that our research was in itself “pure and unadulterated rubbish”, even Weaver’s intended meaning was unwarranted, given that Weaver had been tricked by hiding the decline and had mistakenly considered the two Mann variations as “independent”.
Weaver and Rutherford et al 2005
There’s a further interesting issue in Weaver being tricked about the Briffa hide-the-decline that I will note, but not discuss in detail today. Weaver had been editor of Rutherford et al 2005, which contained false statements about our work that Weaver refused to correct. Rutherford et al 2005 was a joint enterprise of Mann et al and Jones, Briffa and Osborn. One of its component datasets was the Briffa MXD data. So, out of all the climate scientists in the world, Weaver ought to have been uniquely able to spot the deletion of adverse data in the IPCC diagram t0 hide the decline in the Briffa reconstruction. Yet even Weaver was tricked.
I had written to Weaver at the time asking him to correct the false (even defamatory) statements about our work in Rutherford et al 2005. Weaver flatly refused, offering us only the right to submit a comment. In retrospect, there seems to be a considerable discrepancy in the redress offered to us, as opposed to the redress insisted upon by Weaver – again a topic for another day.
Another Reporter Wrongfooted by Weaver
In yesterday’s post, I discussed Witt’s analysis of Karl Rove-style insinuations, in which Witt observed that a key ingredient was placing a malicious phrase in the consciousness of the listener.
As Weaver had previously done in connection with our 2003 article, he had once again used a very malicious phrase in association with our work but, like Karl Rove, did not directly use the phrase as a descriptor of our research (only of its potential impact) in his interview with Cowan. Reporter Cowan missed Weaver’s segue and interpreted Weaver’s derogation of the suggestion that our work would impact IPCC conclusions as “pure and absolute balderdash” to derogation of our research as “pure and absolute balderdash”.
In terms of what Weaver believed, there is some collateral information that while he had not actually told the reporter that our research was “balderdash”, he did in fact believe that our work was “balderdash”. On the day that Cowan’s article was published, Weaver slagged us to a member of the University of Victoria faculty as follows:
I had a chance to speak to Andrew Weaver today, which resulted in a lot of heat and not much light… He hadn’t seen the Nat Post. As it happened, there was a copy handy, and I showed him the article. He checked directly for the bit quoting him, and, ignoring the rest, went on to say some things about you and McIntyre that were not, to put it politely, very nice. Something about being so ignorant as not to know the difference between radians and degrees, and so dishonest as to not recognize your error after the fact, and other things of the same sort. He explained how all of us, me included, will have a lot to answer for when the world meets its doom later in the century. [SM: As a note, the radians-degrees issue relates to a mistake in a paper by Ross and Pat Michaels, which was identified because Ross placed his code online and which Ross had immediately acknowledged and corrected with a corrigendum.]
Weaver subsequently (and independently) gave his side of the incident as follows:
A colleague at Uvic told me on Thursday [Jan 28] that he had read that I thought your research was “unadulterated rubbish”. I asked him what he was talking about and he pointed to a copy of the post that was on the floor nearby. When I read it I was steaming angry as this sort of stuff is precisely what causes controversy. As I explained I never said that about your research (in fact I specifically said I am unable to assess the research as I havent got the paper). I was reacting to the statement that does this mean its an end to the issue of climate change. As soon I was back in the office I sent a letter to the reporter.
The “Corrigendum”
Weaver’s letter to Cowan stated that he had not directly said that our research was “pure and unadulterated rubbish”, only that it was “pure and unadulterated rubbish” to think that our research impacted IPCC conclusions on the topic, reminding Cowan that Weaver had “explained” to him the “existence of other hockey sticks”:
Just for the record, I was a little dismayed that you have me quoted as saying “This is simply pure and unadulterated rubbish”. Immediately after a statement that “I “dismissed the research”. I think this might mistakenly be interpreted as I think their GRL paper is “pure and unadulterated rubbish”.
As you will recall, you read to me a piece from the press release they sent out that said something like: “Since the graph was published in Nature and Geophysical Research Letters by University of Virginia professor Michael Mann in the late 1990s, it’s been the basis for showing the effects of global warming.
You then asked me something like: “Does this mean that the theory of global warming has been disproven”.
I then said: “absolutely not”. Any statement like that is simply pure and unadulterated rubbish”. I then went on to explain the existence of other hockey sticks as you pointed out in an article.
Cowan didn’t respond to Weaver.
Meanwhile, I was irritated by the statement attributed to Weaver, with whom I’d had civilized correspondence about false statements in Rutherford et al 2005, though Weaver refused to do anything about them) and wrote him on January 29 as follows (giving a link to a preprint):
In the National Post, Jan. 27, 2005, you are quoted as saying that our research in Geophysical Research Letters is “simply pure and unadulterated rubbish”. This is intemperate language, especially in public discourse, and is inconsistent with the tone of your emails earlier in the month.
In terms of the substance of the comment, I would appreciate it if you would promptly clarify for me which specific claims or findings in our GRL article (see pre-publication version at http://www.climate2003.com/pdfs/2004GL012750.pdf) are “pure and unadulterated rubbish”. If you cannot do so, I would appreciate it if you would forthwith communicate an unambiguous withdrawal of these comments to the National Post, including an explicit statement that, on further reflection, you have been unable to identify any specific claims or findings in our GRL article which you can assert to be incorrect.
Weaver responded that he had been quoted out of context and that he did “not like being misquoted or being quoted out of context.”:
Thank you for your email. You will notice from my communication to the National Post below that I was dismayed that I was quoted the way I was. This email was sent on Thursday immediately after the article was brought to my attention. I do not like being misquoted or being quoted out of context.
The irony here is I told him that I did not have access to the published article yet. In fact, a question to you, why is it that GRL has not published it yet but you are issuing press releases suggesting it was to have appeared on Thursday. I specifically told the reporter, who I am copying on this communication, that I couldn’t comment directly on the papers as I did not have access to the published version. It seems very strange to me that press releases were being issued.
I replied to Weaver as follows:
I am pleased that your position is that you did not make the statements attributed to you. Given the wide circulation of the statement, I think that it would be appropriate if you sent a letter to the National Post clarifying the matter, in addition to your complaint to the reporter, and request that you do so.
As to your other points, I did not issue a press release. [… explanation]
I’ve received feedback from some prominent scientists saying that they find the analysis convincing – including from von Storch, who has been quoted publicly, and, in your field, Carl Wunsch (Wunsch does not want to be involved publicly).. What are your views?
Weaver replied on January 29 as follows:
Thanks Steve, I would be happy to send in such a letter. I was contemplating doing that anyway before you wrote but I was awaiting a response from Cowan, the reporter (none has been forthcoming). I do look forward to reading your article and will do so when I can find a few seconds.
He then sent a letter to National Post, with the following key paragraphs:
I was a little dismayed that you have me quoted as saying “This is simply pure and unadulterated rubbish”, immediately after a statement that “I dismissed the research”. I think this might mistakenly be interpreted as I think the McKitrick and McIntyre GRL paper is “pure and unadulterated rubbish”….
I also specifically noted that I couldn’t comment directly on the paper as I did not have access to the published version. In fact the Post purports that the article was “published today in Geophysical Research Letters”. As of the time of my writing this letter, the paper by McKitrick and McIntyre is still not published by GRL. [SM: this last sentence is a little cute to say the least, as it had been accepted, was in press and I had provided a preprint link to him.]
Ross had also sent an email to Weaver, also asking for a statement of clarification:
It is of course your prerogative to respond to our papers according to your professional judgment, but given your stature and the apparently complete misrepresentation of what you meant, a statement of clarification would seem to be important.
Weaver responded to Ross on Jan 31 as follows:
Anyway, it will be interesting to see how the community reacts to your GRL piece. I scanned it on the weekend and came to the conclusion that a quick scan does not do it justice. I also scanned the ‘realclimate.org’ site and noted a response which also required more in depth analysis too.
The next day (Feb 1), Weaver emailed Ross and I saying that reporter Cowan had reviewed his tapes and agreed that he had made an “honest error” in respect to Weaver’s comment:
I got an email from the reporter of the National Post. He concurred that he made an ‘honest error’ quoting me (he reviewed his tapes). He told me that the National Post would be formally publishing a correction likely in tomorrows paper.
The next day (Feb 2), the Post made a sarcastic correction as follows:
Andrew Weaver, a professor in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria, has described the contention that the theory of global warming is reliant on research published by Dr. Michael Mann as “unadulterated rubbish,” but he has not read a recent paper challenging Dr. Mann’s work, by Ross McKitrick and Stephen McIntyre, published in Geophysical Research Letters. Incorrect information appeared in the National Post of Jan. 27. The Post regrets the error.
This incident was discussed in J Burke’s decision as an example of Weaver requiring National Post to publish corrections without mentioning the fact that it was our insistence that prompted Weaver to actually insist on a correction. The incident was recalled in numerous later incidents, all concerning Weaver’s dismissal of our work – a backstory that I’ll discuss separately.
Conclusion
For the purposes of today’s post, it is interesting to see how Mann’s hiding the decline in the IPCC 2001 report impacted Weaver’s dismissal of any potential impact of our research – a connection that I had not noticed until today. At the time of the original incident, I, like everyone else, was unaware of the trick or of its connection to Weaver’s dismissal. There are also some loose ends connected with Rutherford et al 2005, which I was not aware of at the time of my correspondence with Weaver – some of which are quite ironic.
As a further strand to the discussion, I’ve never previously reported or discussed Weaver’s accusations that Climate Audit, then very new, had published material “defamatory” to Weaver. I corresponded with Weaver about it and his view about what was “defamatory” is quite interesting given subsequent events.
Climate Audit 
78 Comments
The link at the end of this sentence has a typo:
The first report of the trickery in the IPCC diagram came a couple of months later – at CA *here*.
The link has some spurious characters at the end.
Intriguing additional information. Your ability to recall and access earlier exchanges is astonishing and a warning to anybody seeking to rewrite the past.
The CA deadpan tone has surely never been used to better effect.
The radians error was brought to my attention in August 2004 while I was on holiday. I dealt with it as soon as I returned. On September 14 2004 I
submitted a correction to Climate Research acknowledging and explaining the error, putting the old results and newly corrected ones side-by-side for the reader. It was published right away and has been on my website ever since.
Then on January 28, 2005 more than four months later, Andrew Weaver said to a colleague:
Yeah, ignorant and dishonest.
Steve: Speaking of “ignorant and dishonest”, Weaver’s information on this would have come from a then recent realclimate article in which Mann and Schmidt stated:
Thank you for yet another datapoint to add to my (ever-growing) thesis that Weaver, Mann and their cohorts (and enablers and supporters) would make excellent “revisionist scholars” worthy of honourable mention in David “I see you, I sue you” Irving’s next assault on truth and memory. [See Deborah Lipstadt’s Holocaust Denial on Trial]
Now THAT’s a deadpan delivery.
The link to “A Strange Truncation of the Briffa MXD Series” in May 05 has some characters surplus to requirements in the href. The correct link’s here
So glad to see that a top climate scientist and editor of a major journal is so totally objective and unemotional about the science /sarc off.
The link to the original May post has only 11 comments–6 in May 2005 and 5 in September 2005. For such an important post, this seems sparse indeed. Were some comments dropped somehow?
Steve: Climate Audit was new and blogs were novel.
Answer as expected. What a truly fascinating niche in social media history this place is.
Wonderful TCO.
=========
Can you believe my neighbours? We have Elisabeth May as MP, and Andrew Weaver as MLA. Aaargh.
“is that becasue he practices the ‘dark arts ‘ or becasue his belief in ‘the cause ‘ is so strong no evidenced could ever cause him to question it ?”
No, it’s because The Science™—being infinitely persuasive—is robust to the removal, addition or modification of an arbitrary amount of constituent Science.
snip – foodfight
“The next day (Feb 1), Weaver emailed Ross and I saying that …”
“Ross and ME.” Weaver emailed Ross and ME!
You just lost all credibility, Steve.
Fair enough bentabou, but it’s not like that was Steve’s first strike. He also uses sarcasm too much—like all skeptics.
I’ve always been suspicious of such people.
Science has an exclusively trust-based epistemological engine. It’s the quintessential act of faith; of reliance on the correctness of strangers. How can you call yourself a science blogger when your readers have to use their brains just to figure out whether you mean one thing *or the exact opposite*?
You can’t. That was a rhetorical question.
At my blog I make no such demands of my visitors. My rule, as a climate commentator, is always assume your readers are incapable of thinking.
It’s a little thing called honesty.
Steve: At this blog, I try to write clearly, not least because I assume my readers are capable of thinking – an assumption that is regularly validated. Obviously, audiences vary from blog to blog.
snip
responding to OT
What’s substantive here is not the style but how much previous Steve and Ross have with Weaver. It is hard to take in and do justice to all this even in comments – at least I find it so. But as Canadian judges provide covering fire for a malicious lightweight like Weaver (did he ever read MM03 well enough to make any substantive criticism?) I for one am very grateful for the history lessons.
snip – nothing to do with Weaver
Thanks Steve—maybe it’s an Aussie thing, LOL! We don’t really “do” sarcasm.
Therefore, while there may be a relevant and useful rôle for irony and facetiousness online, I recommend your policies be strengthened to ensure that humorous and non-literal material is adequately evaluated and appropriately flagged in blog posts. Remember, confusion hurts—and ClimateAudit should be a safe place (mentally) for readers of all cultures.
snip – I dont mind some banter being online for a few hours, but it clutters the thread.
snip
And fair warning to Steve- that libel talk from Weaver not an empty threat, one of the puff pieces I saw mentioned fawningly that he has his lawyers on speed dial.
I wouldn’t be so sure about the communication between Weaver and his lawyers … at least not within the last week or so.
As I had noted in a recent post …
While Weaver was still claiming that Judge Emily’s decision in his favour “was a decision that [he] was very pleased with”, his lawyer seems to have decided that he’s not such a happy camper.
Consequently, the lawyer is preparing “a cross-appeal” (to that of the National Post). Furthermore, he intends to up the financial ante.
And here I thought that lawyers took their instructions and marching orders from their clients. Not vice versa. Silly me, eh?!
Who knows … perhaps the lawyer will call on Mann to trick Weaver, again;-)
And if the lawyer wins Weaver over (by whatever means), at the very least it will be entertaining to read the previously “absolutely thrilled […] and just ecstatic” Weaver’s reasons for the change of his poor little lamb’s heart!
Hilary:
In the US, I believe that cross-appeals are standard practice to gain leverage in negotiations with the other party and ensure that legal issues are not too narrowly defined.
An ancient and abusive excuse for hate and violence, ‘You made me do it’.
==========
What a tangled web we Weaver!
“solider” … no such word, “more solid”.
Oh, yes there is:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/solider
In that case, my humble apologies. My mainstream literature search did not find such a word. My English language education of the 60’s and 70’s always provided only for “more solid”.
Thankyou for more digging and explanation.
Weaver is a politician, examples of rhetoric include:
– He claimed that the search in NE Canada for Franklin’s lost ships was a front to map the sea floor for oil & gas exploration.
Never mind that his colleagues from the University of Victoria are deeply involved.
Never mind the need for accurate sea floor profile data to facilitate safe operation of ships in Arctic waters, so they don’t run aground like the Clipper Adventurer did two years earlier, while taking advantage of more open water that Weaver’s climate fantasies predict. See http://www.vicnews.com/news/169838946.html for his rant.
– Recently he claimed that the insurance premiums for the BC government’s plan that pays doctors for service to people are a “tax”. He’s financially incompetent.
We see a lot of people trying to have it both ways–wanting to seem reasonable and open to discussion and different interpretations of the science, but reverting back to harsh denunciations of any opposition to the consensus.
It always seems to take the same pattern as evidenced by Weaver here. I cannot believe it is coincidence. I don’t hold with conspiracy theories but it seems logical to assume that there are those who pounce on potential deviations from the Message and those people can be presumed to be influential.
Tom:
Redacted because I hate that “awaiting moderation” message. Repeated because the move to use of law to silence criticism of ‘the Message’ feels to me coordinated. Now two judges have made a complete horlicks of the initial cases, as we might say in the UK. Unhappy coincidence leading to delay and unnecessary cost, at best.
Reblogged this on I Didn't Ask To Be a Blog.
Sarcasm? Oh, I dunno. Steve might be forgiven expressing a little mild exasperation (the Canadian equivalent of a wild, uncontrollable fury) from time to time!
Someone eventually claiming to be Andrew Weaver (with some veracity) used to post on several forums under the name “warthog”. The waffling seems consistent.
Steve: what is the basis for saying that? Now that you mention it, it seems entirely possible that Weaver might have commented online.
The person posting as “warthog” claimed to be Andrew Weaver and Andrew Weaver subsequently admitted he posted as “warthog”. Does that answer your question?
Steve: do you have any links?
From 10 to 15 years ago? Ummm… I don’t think so.
Steve: can you look? it’s surprising what’s still around.
Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2003 12:48:57 -0800
Subject: Re: Change EMail
To:
Message-ID:
In-Reply-To:
Mime-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=”US-ASCII”
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit
From: Andrew Weaver
X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=1060167
X-Yahoo-Profile: crystal_ball_warthogs
Further to this…. effective immediately my bahari account is DEAD! Please
use:
warthogs@…
Andrew
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/fhltalk/conversations/topics/2525
This is from 12 years ago. Seems to be some sort of fantasy hockey league.
Yes, I saw that as well but the subject of the yahoo group was so weird that I guessed it must be some other Andrew Weaver. I don’t know, maybe not
Someone called Andrew Weaver using an email handle of warthogs (plural).
What kind of prior would we need to calculate the probability of that?
Prof Weaver admitting he’d been posting as warthog would be more conclusive.
The other thing is there seems to be nothing really interesting I could find with the warthog alias as compared to MapleLeaf. So, even if Weaver used the name warthog, so what.
Wasn’t Mapleleaf him?
Maple Leaf not Mapleleaf, sorry
If not Mapleleaf (interesting surmises) are we back to warthog?
Steve: Weaver might not comment on blogs.
The null hypothesis?
More from MapleLeaf and Weaver 3/9/2011: “In Canada it has been Weaver, and trust me when I say that doing so has not been easy for him.”
“I guess the point of my post was to express frustration that 3M (McIntyre, McKitrick and Morano, and others) can continue to lie, slander and misinform at will, without consequence. Who is going to be the poor sod to volunteer to be the “bulldog” in the USA. In Canada it has been Weaver, and trust me when I say that doing so has not been easy for him. But him doing so has made a difference to how some of the formerly irresponsible media now behave.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/03/wahl-to-wahl-coverage/
I’m confident that MapleLeaf is SKS’ Julian Brimelow. MapleLeaf’s whole schtick is so consistent with SKS that SKS seems like a logical place to look for possibilities. MapleLeaf is a Canadian academic. As is Brimelow. At Deep Climate, MapleLeaf said in 2009 that he was about to turn 40 – which fits Brimelow’s age. MapleLeaf complained about deniers getting onto Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Service (CMOS) threads; Brimelow is a member of CMOS. Kaitlyn ALexander of climatesight grew up on the Canadian prairies – remember MapleLeaf’s comment; Brimelow is at the University of Manitoba. MapleLeaf’s first comment at DeepClimate in October 2009 was on a very odd thread given MapleLeaf’s subsequent interests: it was on a thread about Vaclav Smil’s presentation at University of Waterloo, moderated by Andy Revkin; Smil is from the University of Manitoba. (Oddly, I attended Smil’s lecture via Revkin’s personal invitation.) The next topic at Deep Climate that MapleLeaf commented on was the Yamal controversy – see below. I can go on and on – I have very little/zero doubt that MapleLeaf and Brimelow (of SKS) are one and the same.
MapleLeaf/Brimelow is also “Lorax”, who commented feverishly at ClimateAudit about Yamal and other supposed misdeeds of mine in the first few weeks of October 2009, disappearing just before MapleLeaf was invented. CA commenter Antonio San observed similarities between comments by Lorax at CA and a commenter at CBC and Globe and Mail blogs, who had provided some biographical details. Lorax then claimed to have received “death threats” to his personal email and asked that the Lorax thread be taken offline. I was dubious that anyone would send Lorax “death threats” but acquiesced in Lorax’ request and took the thread offline (it’s still in CA offline records.) I was very polite and understanding with Lorax/Brimelow and it’s disappointing to read the subsequent and continuing venom in his new identity of MapleLeaf. (NOte: I’ve re-onlined the original Lorax thread here.)
Wow. Sockpuppet without the main hand needing to be present?
Yep, sounds reasonable
Maple Leaf was notorious for his sarcasm on Real Climate. I don’t visit them much these days so I don’t know whether he’s still around
Mapleleaf has never commented at Climate Audit or WUWT. He was a frequent commenter at RC, also commented at Deep Climate and Bart Verheggen (ouchangingclimate). Mapleleaf only appears to have made a single comment at RC since Andrew Weaver officially entered politics in Sep 2012. On 28-10-2013 here but was active commenter at RC for several years. In Keeping Our Cool, Weaver said that he visited RC every day.
Mapleleaf is obviously a Canadian and is an academic.
Mapleleaf expresses interest in libel laws on several occasions at RC:
07-03-2012 link In doing so he is thus very clearly giving MIT ownership of his misrepresentations and errors and libelling of NASA, and MIT ought to be very concerned about that.
09-02-2011 link What a mess….if this had played out in Canada, Eric would have grounds to sue for libel.
25-02-2011 link Is that because of the way the libel laws in the UK are drafted? If so, why then did Briffa and Jones and others not go after McIntyre– someone who seems to conveniently go after scientists outside of Canada. By the same token, why can’t scientists in the USA then go after people slandering them in Canada or the UK or anywhere else for that matter? –
Mapleleaf also reads National Post and frequently refers to National Post articles, mostly disapprovingly.
Mapleleaf says many defamatory things about me, but I hadn’t noticed most of them previously and hadn’t considered them as a group before.
Mapleleaf link endorsed the Copenhagen Diagnosis, of which Weaver was a co-author. I do not regard this as adding to evidence (if anything slightly against).
Mapleleaf said somewhere that he didn’t post on skeptic blogs, because he didn’t want his IP address known.
He may or may not be Weaver, but he certainly has many viewpoints in common with Weaver.
Steve: on further investigation, MapleLeaf appears to be SKS’ Julian Brimelow, who commented at CA in early October 2009 under the alter ego “Lorax”.
So it was still Mapleleaf. Didn’t remember, it was quite some time ago. He was very active and I think it was quite a common knowledge that Mapleleaf was Weaver
Steve: can you locate any such assertions? I wasn’t following it at the time. It makes sense. Reading the comments, Mapleleaf sure had a hate on for me.
I really don’t remember where and when I first saw the connection between Weaver and Mapleleaf. I can try to track it down but I’m not sure I’ll succeed.
Found quite a funny comment if MapleLeaf (that’s how he writes it) is Weaver:
“MapleLeaf
16/03/2010 at 5:12 pm
Hi Stephen,
Thanks for this! One small note– Andrew Weaver is a climate scientists and not a climatologist.
Other than that you hit the nail on the head.”
http://stephenleahy.net/2010/03/16/canadas-idea-of-working-on-climate-change-means-muzzling-climate-scientists-closing-research-stations-and-cutting-funding/
Stephen: Weaver elsewhere has shown that he’s taken issue with very minor misdescriptions. It’s not a well-traveled blog but the topic – anti-Stephen Harper opposition to cutting funding – is one that would interest Weaver.
Another one MapleLeaf talking about Weaver (and suing):
“MapleLeaf says:
March 9, 2011 at 4:15 pm
Karmel @4,
Going by the facts, I can only assume that you are referring to Mosher and Watts being busted (again) for lying and slandering respected climate scientists. Time to also ask Watts who Steven Goddard really is.
Time for someone to take legal action against these SOBs (including Inhofe) for damages. and if Inhofe did leak confidential material surely that is actionable. This really does show how truly desperate Watts, Mosher, McIntyre, Morano and Inhofe are.
Jim @9,
Weaver has sued, but there has been no decision yet, so it also premature to say he has been “successful”. that said, it did send a very strong message to the media to get their facts right and address the real issues instead of libelling people and spreading lies. The tone of the media has improved as a result of Weaver’s brave actions.”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/03/09/207662/inhofe-watts-horner-mcintyre-michael-mann-email/
“The tone of the media has improved as a result of Weaver’s brave actions.”
What a j..k!
Look at this blog.
http://climatesight.org/about/
Never heard of it. But the interesting thing is that the girl says that she has worked with Andrew Weaver.
Her name is Kaitlin but somehow in his comment MapleLeaf calls her Kate. You wouldn’t do it if you wouldn’t know her, would you?
“MapleLeaf on June 26, 2010 at 4:08 pm
Hi Kate,
Great site and great effort on your part. Can’t believe that I only stumbled on this now.
Keep up the excellent work.”
I think in lawyers’ words one would say “beyond reasonable doubt”.
Steve: some distance away IMO. For example 20-01-2011 link Commenter Holly wonders about Weaver’s case. mapleleaf says: “Holly no idea how Weaver’s case is progressing, probably tied up in the courts. I would counsel McIntyre and those supporting his antics to play close attention as to how the Canadian legal system deals with the libeling of Weaver by certain so-called journalists.” Unless he’s Eli-Rabett third personing.
This one from Deep Climate counts against Weaver being Mapleleaf. The Weaver lawsuit had been filed in April 2010 and named Corcoran, but MapleLeaf seems not to know this.
18-03-2010 MapleLeaf here wrote
Is this a Gleick self-promotion or third party? I’ll see what Mosher thinks.
In December 2010, Andrew Weaver said some nice things about me in connection with O’DOnnell et al. link . I can’t picture MapleLeaf doing that. Combined with other things, I think that they are different.
Looks like smoke and mirrors to me…
I think the man is clearly narcissistic
“I can’t picture MapleLeaf doing that”
I think that’s because as MapleLeaf he can speak anonymously and freely. It usually brings out the worst out of anybody. I’m quite certain that anonimously and honestly Weaver would not say anything good about you. So I don’t think that sows much of anything
mapleleaf and weaver.
First off I wondered whether Peter Hearnden ( the poster referred to by Weaver) was a sock puppet for Weaver. That would have been cool to have weaver refer to comments made by his own sock puppet. This theory didnt pan out ( see some style things below) Although the hearnden character was interesting.. followed him back through early CA posts
Finding a Distinctive thing to look for between Weaver and MapleLeaf is a bit hard until I get more weaver text. Mapleleaf does produce some well crafted sentences. I’d have to see more weaver text from other contexts. In his legalistic moments he has a propensity to use ‘:’
#####################
First, with respect to the statement:
Second, it is clear to me that an average lay
reader also has a similar impression to mine as
to the defamatory nature of your site
(please see one of the posts on your site):
I deem the sentence below to be defamatory
and to publicly
undermine my professional integrity:
I once more reiterate the comments
from one of your posters which underscore how other,
lay readers, clearly agree with me:
################
while not unusual it’s the type of thing I’d start to look at. In addition the use of parenthetical statements. Hearnden for example is fond of putting questions inside parenthetical statements and Hearnden is fond of things like
*reply*
*MORE*
*know*
to show emphasis. Weaver mapleleft do none of that.
Mosh – here Weaver uses two fewer prepositions (I know [that] I had read it..; first time [that] I had access) than I would have used. Misspelling on apostrophe [people’s web sites].
the difficulty in comparing styles is that i really have two different genres.. or rather two different writing situations. In the mails to you he is generally going to take more care, re read perhaps, re write. And in the blog comments mapleleaf is more extemporaneous. he does have an affinity for anaphora in his [mapleleaf] blog comments ( does a fair job too).
earlier the link to to ‘full’ correspondence didnt work for me. A quick read of everything and I can tell folks what to look for in the mapleleaf comments.
On subject matter ( litigation etc, copyright etc) he (maple) seems to have staked out a strong position that resonates with weaver’s actions. Hmm maybe weavers evil twin. can both twins be evil?
In his comments, MapleLeaf frequently mentions Weaver and places him on the pantheon. I chatted with Mosher last night and he wondered whether this was Gleickian. Readers will recall that Mosher spotted Gleick as the forger of the forged Heartland document in part because of the undue prominence assigned to Gleick in the forgery. One of the alternatives in the Gleick incident was whether it might have been someone close to Gleick, but not Gleick himself.
MapleLeaf started commenting at deepclimate and realclimate shortly before CLimategate. In December 2009 at deepclimate here, he said that he’s “almost 40” and in the Canadian federal civil service. The Canadian climate modeling center is at the University of Victoria, link, where Weaver is located. Weaver is just over 50 and was at the University of Victoria at the time, rather than the contiguous federal climate center.
On balance, it is my current view that Mapleleaf is/was a modeler/scientist at the Canadian climate modeling centre at UVic and that he knew Weaver personally, but is not Weaver. One of Weaver’s assertions at the time that he entered into the Climategate spotlight was his story of alleged hacks at the Canadian climate modeling center and the supposed impersonation of technicians. I haven’t seen any information on who provided this information to Weaver. It would be interesting to find out what Mapleleaf knows of these incidents.
in a position of greater signi
there are a variety of climate modelers in their late 30s there that could easily be respectful of Weaver.
Seems a bit early in the day to be false flagging.
Steve McIntyre –
Prepositions? The elided “that”s are acting as conjunctions. /grammar-police-mode
Sarcasm and pedantry. Where would we be on CA without them? 🙂
Kaitlin is from Winnipeg and is now working on her PHd in Australia. She worked with Weaver in 2012. She started her own AGW worshipping blog. She interviewed Ben Santer. She bit Mann’s book hook, line , and sinker. You can only comment on her blog if you are a believer in AGW. Anyone even mildly questioning that at her blog is deleted. She will no doubt graduate with the two she is working under in Australia. She looks like a candidate for the “Team”.
Steve: she’s working with Chris Turney of the Ship of Fools.
This means that she worked with Weaver (2012) AFTER the comment by MapleLeaf (2010). So, the “about” page was probably updated later. This weakens, of course the possible argument (or speculation) that I proposed.
I just now skimmed Kaitlin’s site. Wow, just wow! This is a site of a scientist (to be)?! With this extreme activist mindset (seems to be even more extreme than Greenpeace) I do wonder how on earth is she to be a neutral and honest scientist? How can she ever apply scientific method to her research? Just amazing.
I found this interesting bit. It’s from WUWT but it seems to originate from DeepClimate. Can’t locate it at the moment. (NB, not very important but look also at the same mistake seen elsewhere “…as a relatively young scientists…”)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/09/a-helpful-note-to-dr-eric-steig/
“TomRude says: December 10, 2010 at 10:46 am
Digging deep at DC, treasures abund… such as “Maple Leaf” by himself:
• MapleLeaf // January 6, 2010 at 4:54 am
John M., thanks for sharing. Perhaps I’ll be as brave and open as you when I’m 63. Right now, as a relatively young scientists, it is easy to burn bridges especially if the feds (Canadian) perceive one to be too outspoken on contentious issues such as AGW. They won’t/can’t fire you, but they can choose not hire you and or make your life a dead end in the civil service, hence the moniker ” MapleLeaf”.
You stated that “I do not understand what is going on with Springer, although I have a guess or two.”
I’m intrigued. Please do share some of your thoughts on this matter; I have they feeling that your intuition and insight might be valuable to DC.”
Sucking up to the Team and DC connections just in case…”
No certainty, of course, but for me it seems to indicate that MapleLeaf is rather not Weaver, but rather one of his coworkers/disciples. A man of his stature would probably not write something like this, even under anonymity. If not more smoke and mirrors
It is interesting how the AGW’s keep talking or suing about libel.
I would estimate that they have committed more libelous statements against their critics than the critics of AGW have made.
Is “unadulterated rubbish” (Weaver 2005) a bit like “True Lies” (Cameron, Schwarzenegger et al.) and “pure scientific fraud” (Mann 2003)?
I think this might mistakenly be interpreted as I think their GRL paper is “pure and unadulterated rubbish”.
============
this statement can be read 2 ways. The word “as” is confusing in context. Does it mean:
I think this might mistakenly be interpreted “because” I think their GRL paper is “pure and unadulterated rubbish”
I think this might mistakenly be interpreted “to mean” I think their GRL paper is “pure and unadulterated rubbish”
the word “as” is more commonly taken to mean “because”. thus the sentence seems to mean that the writer considers the GRL paper to be “pure and unadulterated rubbish”.
Steve – “Tortous”, not “Tortious” in the article title!
Great stuff.
4 Trackbacks
[…] Climate Audit: “even Andrew Weaver was tricked by @MichaelEMann’s IPCC 2001 hide-the-decline” [link] […]
[…] Climate Audit: “even Andrew Weaver was tricked by @MichaelEMann’s IPCC 2001 hide-the-decline” [link] […]
[…] https://climateaudit.org/2015/03/11/how-mann-tricked-weaver/#more-20768 […]
[…] to IPCC conclusions was “pure and unadulterated balderdash” (see recent CA post here.) Subsequent to Cowan’s article, Weaver purported to distinguish between (1) the claim that […]