Acton and “Natural Person Powers”

Jan 15, 2013 – 10:11 AM

In its refusal of David Holland’s FOI request for Muir Russell documents, the UEA has argued that it did not have a contract with Muir Russell; instead, Muir Russell was a “public appointment”. I did a blog post two years ago in which I raised questions about the veracity of UEA’s answer. The issue is at stake in David Holland’s tribunal hearing today. I have a few more thoughts on whether the UEA’s powers entitle it to make “public appointments”. Related to this is whether the UEA Vice Chancellor can unilaterally make “public appointments”.

The UEA refused Holland’s FOI 10-144 as follows:

The University does not consider that there was a contractual relationship with Sir Muir Russell or the inquiry team; it was by way of a public appointment (as is commonplace in these circumstances).

In its internal appeal, the UEA re-iterated this assertion, as it did in its refusal of Holland’s related 11-022. In its submission to the ICO in the appeal, the UEA maintained its claim that there was “no contractual relationship”.

Let’s step back for a moment and ponder precisely how (and whether) the UEA is empowered to make “public appointments”. In my earlier post, I reviewed some of the policies governing UK public appointments, but did not examine the charter of the UEA and the office of the Vice Chancellor, which I’ll do today.

Let’s start with a simple case. The Global Warming Policy Foundation contracted with Andrew Montford to write a report on the Climategate inquiries a couple of years ago. No one would argue that the Global Warming Policy Foundation had made a “public appointment” of Andrew Montford. The Global Warming Policy Foundation, for obvious reasons, has not chartered to make “public appointments”, though, like any other organization, it has the right to enter into contracts, as it did with Andrew Montford.

The question then is: how, in law, does the Vice Chancellor of the UEA have a right to make “public appointments” that is not possessed by, say, Benny Peiser of the GWPF?

The logical place to look is in the charter of the University of East Anglia. But the charter merely says that UEA has the powers of a “natural person”, “including but not limited to” various itemized powers, including the right to enter into contracts and the right to do things “necessary or convenient” to the furtherance of its objectives:

4. Powers of the University
4.1 Subject to the provisions of the Charter and Statutes, and in the furtherance of its objects, the University shall have all the powers of a natural person including, but not limited to, the power:
…
4.1.7 In relation to the transaction of University business:…
4.1.7.2 to enter into contracts;
…
4.1.9 to do anything else necessary or convenient, whether incidental to these powers or not, in order to further the objects of the University as a place of education, learning and research.

This last item (4.1.9) does not, as I read it, confer powers that are additional to the “natural person powers” conferred in section 4.1, but itemizes one of the powers of a “natural person”.

The term “natural person powers” has legal meaning. “Natural persons” are entitled to do a variety of things under common law, but they are not entitled to make “public appointments”. Only the Crown can make public appointments. Indeed, when one looks carefully at the list of public appointments covered in the UK Code of Practice for Public Appointments, the public appointments pertain to departments of the Crown. The “remit” of the Commissioner for Public Appointments specifies appointments made by “Ministers” of the Crown:

The Commissioner for Public Appointments regulates the processes by which Ministers (including Welsh Ministers) make appointments to the boards of certain public bodies and certain statutory offices in England and Wales.

The University of East Anglia is not a department of the Crown. It has been endowed by its charter only with the powers of a “natural person”; nowhere in its charter is it empowered to make “public appointments”. The Vice Chancellor of the University of East Anglia, regardless of his self-conceit, is not a Minister of the Crown and is not entitled to make “public appointments”. The UEA claim to the contrary is yet another fabrication.

And even if the University of East Anglia were empowered to make “public appointments” (which seems very dubious), could the Vice Chancellor personally make a “public appointment” without submitting the “public appointment” to the Council of the University? Seems highly implausible to me.

It seems incontrovertible to me that Vice Chancellor Acton is not empowered to make “public appointments”. And that UEA merely contracted with Muir Russell and the various members of the panel.

Arguments would still remain, but arguments based on the premise that Acton’s actions of 2-3 December 2009 constituted a “public appointment” process should be rejected by the Tribunal.

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in climategate, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Comments (43)

Acton and Muir Russell at Tribunal

Jan 14, 2013 – 10:20 AM

Tomorrow (15 January 2013), the Information Tribunal will hear David Holland’s appeal of the ICO decision (FER0387012 ) regarding the connection of the Muir Russell Review and UEA in respect to FOI legislation (see FOI correspondence here.) Both Muir Russell and UEA Vice Chancellor Acton are scheduled to appear.

The hearing is at Court Room 7, Field House, 15 Breams Building, London EC4A 1DZ and commences at 10:30. Acton is scheduled for 11-12:30. Muir Russell is scheduled for 1:30-3:00. Also scheduled to attend on behalf of UEA are Brian Summers and Jonathan Colam-French plus three attorneys from Mills and Reeves. Muir Russell is also anticipated to have his own counsel present. David Holland is representing himself.

David will have an extremely difficult time pinning down either Acton or Russell. The transcripts of the Science and Technology Committee show that both are prone to give lengthy and unresponsive answers, thereby running out the clock.

For example, Muir Russell was asked how they chose the three examples of peer review – which barely scratched the surface of the peer review controversy and included an incident with the editor of Energy and Environment that was not of the faintest interest in the major climate blogs or commentary. Muir Russell falsely said that the three incidents were “at the top of the head” when the story broke and then ran the clock with diversionary puff about Richard Horton.

Q104 Pamela Nash: This question is to Sir Muir. In your review you found no evidence to support that there was any subversion of the peer review process and you examined three specific instances. Could you tell us why those three instances were chosen?

Sir Muir Russell: They were the three that had been at the top of the head, as it were, in the comments that were made when the whole story broke. I keep going back to what I said to Mr Williams. They were the things which we thought, as we were looking at the issues, were solid and good examples to pick and to test the accusations that had been made. I know there are comments that say, “You could have found more. There could have been others.” They weren’t in the forefront at the time. If you look at the footnote in Montford, I think it is, about one of them, it says that it wasn’t actually clear what the allegation was, so one has to be balanced. We couldn’t do everything but we looked at three very solid accusations.

The Soon and Baliunas was one that came up all the time and we looked at that fairly thoroughly.

The editor of Energy and Environment had sent a lot of emails to me about what we would do. So it was important to check out that position.

Then there was the Cook stuff and there is quite an extensive explanation of what was actually going on there. I think you will find three quite detailed explanations based on information that we got about what was actually happening.

Then, of course, we did the important thing of getting Richard Horton to work on peer review for us. You will see from the record of the predecessor Committee that one of the things that had happened that was, let’s say, uncomfortable, because I was quite uncomfortable sitting here when being asked about it, was that Dr Campbell of Nature had to leave the group because he had been interviewed and had said there was nothing wrong with what CRU had done. That was a prejudicial thing about the inquiry. It had nothing to do with his views about climate science. It was prejudicial about the inquiry, and he very properly said, “I have to leave.” So we brought in Richard Horton, not as a full member in the sense of being on the team and looking at all the work that we had done, because it would have been very difficult to catch up on that, but we brought him in to give us advice on peer review. We peer reviewed that because we got Liz Wager of COPE to have a look at that as well. You will see all that in the report. So I think that setting that set of judgments against the facts of the cases as we found them was really quite a good and balanced way of getting a serious big picture about what these people had been doing in relation to peer review and also peer review more generally so there are specific answers and there are some general points to go forward with on peer review. I put my hand up and say, yes, there could well have been other cases that we might have looked at, but these were the ones that everybody seemed to think were at the top of their heads at the

Another kind of problem will be how to handle totally unresponsive answers, the unresponsiveness of which is clear in transcripts, but, unless you are a litigation lawyer, hard to pick up at the time. Consider the following from Acton to Stringer:

Q96 Graham Stringer: And you recorded those meetings with Professor Jones and his team?

Acton’s answer was completely unresponsive:

Professor Edward Acton: If you examine our website you will find that these statements have been there for some time.

A recent FOI from David Holland has revealed that the UEA claims not to have a copy of the full statements from Briffa or Jones given to Acton nor any information on whether the supposed statements were signed nor even information on the date of the supposed statements.

It will also be very hard for David to pin Acton down when he makes statements that cannot be corroborated and sometimes seem to come out of thin air. For example, Acton told the following to the Science and Technology Committee:

Can those e-mails be produced? Yes, they can. Did those who might have deleted them say they deleted them? No. They say they did not. I wanted to be absolutely sure of those two, and I have established that to my satisfaction.

However, at the time, the key emails from Wahl to Briffa could not produced.

David’s task tomorrow will be very difficult, but he’s done a remarkable job thus far against UEA obstruction and I wish him well tomorrow.

The actual issue of the relationship between the Russell review and the UEA is an interesting one.

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in climategate, Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments (44)

Duke C Punctures More Attempted UEA Obtuseness

Jan 11, 2013 – 1:20 PM

CA reader Duke C has some results from his FOI request that look like they bear directly on my longstanding appeal for the Wahl attachments that the UEA purport to be unable to locate on the backup server. Continue reading →

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in climategate, Uncategorized | Tagged | Comments (45)

More Tricks from East Anglia

Jan 9, 2013 – 1:00 AM

David Holland’s recent FOI has yielded more unbelievable assertions from the University that inspired the Monty Python sketch on idiocy. The FOI request was directed at untrue evidence given to Parliament by UEA Vice Chancellor Acton in connection with the notorious deletion of emails by Briffa, Jones and associates.
Continue reading →

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in climategate, FOIA, Uncategorized | Tagged | Comments (64)

A New Puzzle: Two Versions of the Sommer Report

Jan 7, 2013 – 11:20 AM

A recent David Holland FOI has turned up an astonishing new riddle about the relationship between UEA and the Muir Russell panel: there are two different versions of the Sommer Report on the Backup Server, both dated 17 May 2010 and both entitled “UEA – CRU Review: Initial Report and commentary on email examination”. One version was included in the Muir Russell archive of online evidence – see here – it was only two pages long. A different 10-page version was produced by UEA in response to David Holland’s FOI – see documentation or here as html. The longer version contains details not included in the (apparently) expurgated version published by Muir Russell. The short version is derived from the longer version. Although the two versions of the report are both said to have the same author and bear the same date, there are differences in formatting that, in my opinion, point strongly to the shorter version having been prepared by someone other than Peter Sommer for reasons that, at present, are not entirely clear. If, on the other hand, Sommer himself did prepare the shorter version as well as the longer version, the UEA appears to have withheld correspondence documenting their reason for requesting a second version of the report and whether the second version was backdated. Continue reading →

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in climategate, Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments (62)

AGU Honors Gleick

Jan 5, 2013 – 5:45 PM

If I was hoping to think about more salubrious characters than Lewandowsky, Mann and Gleick, the 2012 AGU convention was the wrong place to start my trip. All three were prominent at the convention. Continue reading →

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments (230)

Checking in and travel plans

Dec 3, 2012 – 5:30 PM

As readers have noticed, I’ve been tuned out for a few weeks. No single reason.

I did a considerable amount of fresh work on issues related to Hurricane Sandy, but found them hard to reduce to a few posts. So I’ve got topics in inventory.

I also had a bout of periodic weariness. I just turned 65 and continue to tire more quickly than I used to. Various leg injuries have contributed to a decline in fitness as well. Nor is it easy to continue to muster enthusiasm for analysis of dreck from people like Mann, Lewandowsky, Gleick, Gergis, Briffa, Jones etc. Wading into WG2 is even worse.

I’ve also been busy on some business issues. Trelawney Mining got taken over last June (it was a considerable success; our first property visit was mentioned in a CA post a few years ago) and we’re working on a new venture. One of my sons is involved in small-cap mining as well and I’ve been helping him as well. I find it very hard to focus on more than one thing at once.

Also, my wife and I are going to visit our daughter in New Zealand and our son in Thailand over Christmas. I’m going to be away for about 4 weeks. The flight to New Zealand goes from San Francisco so I’m going to go to AGU this year, starting tomorrow. And will try to blog on anything interesting.

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (102)

BBC’s “Best Scientific Experts”

Nov 13, 2012 – 9:50 AM

There is an unusual story developing as a result of an ongoing FOI request from Tony Newbery, some excellent detective work by Maurizio Morabito – see discussion at Bishop Hill here. Also see context from Andrew Orlowski here.

Several years ago, the BBC stated in a report:

The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus [on anthropogenic climate change].

Tony Newbery (see Harmless Sky blog) was curious as to the identity of these “scientific experts”, and filed a Freedom of Information Act request. Rather than simply complying with the request, the BBC refused the request. Tony appealed to the ICO and lost. The ICO agreed that the BBC was a “public authority” but held that the information was held “for journalistic purposes” and exempt:

The Commissioner is satisfied that in view of the fact that the purpose of the seminar was to influence the BBC’s creative output, the details requested about its organisation, contents, terms of reference and the degree to which it impacted upon changes to Editorial Standards by BBC News constitute information held by the BBC to a significant extent for the purposes of art, literature or journalism. Information about the content of the seminar was used to shape editorial policy and inform editorial decisions about the BBC’s coverage and creative output. The details about the arrangements for the seminar are held to facilitate the delivery of the event and to ensure that the appropriate people were in attendance.

Tony appealed to the Information Tribunal. The BBC appeared with six lawyers. BBC official Helen Boaden argued that the meetings had been held under Chatham House rules and that the identity of the participants was therefore secret. Tony was again given short shrift, with the members of the Tribunal being surprisingly partisan, as reported by Orlowski.

Out of left field, Maurizio located the information on the Wayback machine here. Rather than the participants being the “best scientific experts” as claimed, they were almost entirely NGO activists. And rather than the meetings being held under Chatham House rules as Boaden had told the tribunal, seminar co-sponsor IBT had published the names of attendees of the meeting, describing the purpose of the meetings as follows:

The BBC has agreed to hold a series of seminars with IBT, which are being organized jointly with the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme, to
discuss some of these issues.

The document located by Maurizio includes names from other meetings as well. The names are presently being fisked at Bishop Hill and Omnologos.

For the record, I do not share the visceral disdain for the BBC coverage of most commentators at Bishop Hill. I am not exposed to BBC regular programming and my own experience with the BBC (mostly arising from Climategate) has been constructive. I thought that their recent reprise on Climategate was as balanced as one could expect. I also think that their original coverage of Climategate was fair under the circumstances. While Roger Harrabin approached Climategate from a green perspective (something that does not trouble me – indeed, on a personal level, I like most green reporters), in my opinion, he treated his obligations as a reporter as foremost in his Climategate coverage, and, as a result, his coverage of Climategate was balanced. Indeed, I think that one of the reasons that he was particularly troubled by the Climategate conduct and dissatisfied by the “inquiries” may well have been the inconsistency between the Climategate attitudes in private and the public posture of green organizations in the seminars that were the subject of Newbery’s FOI.

Update: Ironically, Harrabin is not listed as an attendee at the Jan 2006 conference on climate change that was the subject of the OI request (though he attended other conferences and was involved in starting the seminar program.) Further update – however, other information indicates that he was at this conference and that the list is in error on this point.

Update: The non-NGO “experts” were Robert May (a population biologist and former Royal Society president), Mike Hulme of East Anglia, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen of the Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark (an ice core specialist), Michael Bravo of Cambridge (a specialist in the history of Antarctic exploration and public policy), Joe Smith of the Open University (active in BBC science progamming), Poshendra Satyal Pravat, Open University, who was then doing a PhD in theories of social and environmental justice and Eleni Andreadis of the Harvard Kennedy School (public policy). Virtual no representation from climate science.

Harvard-Kennedy School Class of 2006: One of BBC’s scientific experts at the 2006 meeting was Eleni Andreadis, then studying at the Harvard Kennedy School. She made a short film of interviews with HKS graduates (see here here).

Another member of the Harvard-Kennedy class of 2006 is very much in the news today: Paula Broadwell was also a student at the Harvard Kennedy School in 2006, where she met David Petraeus after a lecture.

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (139)

Nic Lewis on Statistical errors in the Forest 2006 climate sensitivity study

Nov 8, 2012 – 8:03 AM

Nic Lewis writes as follows (see related posts here, here)

First, my thanks to Steve for providing this platform. Some of you will know of me as a co-author of the O’Donnell, Lewis, McIntyre and Condon paper on an improved temperature reconstruction for Antarctica. Since then I have mainly been investigating studies of equilibrium climate sensitivity (S) and related issues, since climate sensitivity lies at the centre of the AGW/dangerous climate change thesis. (The equilibrium referred to is that of the ocean – it doesn’t include very slow changes in polar ice sheets, etc.) Obviously, the upper tail of the estimated distribution for S is important, not just its central value.

People convinced as to the accuracy of AO-GCM (Atmosphere Ocean General Circulation Model) simulations may believe that these provide acceptable estimates of S, but even the IPCC does not deny the importance of observational evidence. The most popular observationally-constrained method of estimating climate sensitivity involves comparing data whose relation to S is too complex to permit direct estimation, such as temperatures over a spatio-temporal grid, with simulations thereof by a simplified climate model that has adjustable parameters for setting S and other key climate properties. The model is run at many different parameter combinations; the likelihood of each being the true combination is then assessed from the resulting discrepancies between the modelled and observed temperatures. This procedure requires estimates of the natural spatio-temporal covariability of the observations, which are usually derived from AO-GCM control runs, employing an optimal fingerprinting approach. A Bayesian approach is then used to infer an estimated probability density function (PDF) for climate sensitivity. A more detailed description of these methods is given in AR4 WG1 Appendix 9B, here.

I have concentrated on the Bayesian inference involved in such studies, since they seem to me in many cases to use inappropriate prior distributions that heavily fatten the upper tail of the estimated PDF for S. I may write a future post concerning that issue, but in this post I want to deal with more basic statistical issues arising in what is, probably, the most important of the Bayesian studies whose PDFs for climate sensitivity were featured in AR4. I refer to the 2006 GRL paper by Forest et al.: Estimated PDFs of climate system properties including natural and anthropogenic forcings, henceforth Forest 2006, available here, with the SI here. Forest 2006 is largely an update, using a more complete set of forcings, of a 2002 paper by Forest et al., also featured in AR4, available here, in which a more detailed description of the methods used is given. Forest 2006, along with several other climate sensitivity studies, used simulations by the MIT 2D model of zonal surface and upper-air temperatures and global deep-ocean temperature, the upper-air data being least influential. Effective ocean diffusivity, Kv, and total aerosol forcing, Faer, are estimated simultaneously with S. It is the use of multiple sets of observational data, combined with the joint estimation of three key uncertain climate parameters, that makes Forest 2006 stand out from similar Bayesian studies.

Forest completely stonewalled my requests to provide data and code for over a year (for part of which time, to be fair, he was recovering from an accident). However, I was able to undertake a study based on the same approach as in Forest 2006 but using improved statistical methods, thanks to data very helpfully made available by the lead authors, respectively Charles Curry and Bruno Sanso, of two related studies that Forest co-authored. Although Forest 2006 stated that the Curry et al. 2005 study used the Forest 2006 data (and indeed relied upon that study’s results in relation to the surface dataset), the MIT model surface temperature simulation dataset for Curry et al. 2005 was very different from that used in the other study, Sanso et al. 2008. The Sanso et al. 2008 dataset turned out to correspond to that actually used in Forest 2006. The saga of the two conflicting datasets was the subject of an article of mine posted at Judith Curry’s blog Climate Etc this summer, here , which largely consisted of an open letter to the chief editor of GRL. Whilst I failed to persuade GRL to require Forest to provide any verifiable data or computer code, he had a change of heart – perhaps prompted by the negative publicity at Climate Etc – and a month later archived the complete code used for Forest 2006, along with semi-processed versions of the relevant MIT model, observational and AO-GCM control run data – the raw MIT model run data having been lost. Well done, Dr Forest. The archive (2GB) is available at http://bricker.met.psu.edu/~cef13/GRL2006_reproduce.tgz .

The code, written in IDL, that Forest has made available is both important and revealing. Important, because all or much of it has been used in many studies cited, or expected to be cited, by the IPCC. That includes, most probably, all the studies based on simulations by the MIT 2D model, both before and after AR4. Moreover, it also includes a number of detection and attribution studies, the IPCC’s “gold standard” in terms of inferring climate change and establishing consistency of AO-GCM simulations of greenhouse gas induced warming with observations. Much of the core code was originally written by Myles Allen, whose heavily-cited 1999 Allen and Tett optimal fingerprinting paper, here, provided the statistical theory on which Forest 2006 and its predecessor and successor studies were based. Allen was a co-author of the Forest et al. 2000 (MIT Report preprint version of GRL paper here), Forest et al. 2001 (MIT Report preprint version of Climate Dynamics paper here) and Forest et al. 2002 studies, in which the methods used in Forest 2006 were developed.

The IDL code is revealing because it incorporates some fundamental statistical errors in the derivation of the likelihood functions from the model-simulation – observation discrepancies. The errors are in the bayesupdatenew2.pro module (written by Forest or under his direction, not by Allen, I think) that computes the relevant likelihood function and combines it with a specified initial distribution (prior) using Bayes theorem. There are three likelihood functions involved, one for each of the three “diagnostics” – surface, upper-air, and deep-ocean, which involve respectively 20, 218 and 1 observation(s). The bayesupdatenew2 module is therefore called (by module bu_lev05.pro) three times, if an “expert” prior is being used. Where the prior used is uniform, on the first pass bayesupdatenew2 also computes a likelihood for a second set of discrepancies and uses that as a “data prior”, so the module is only called twice.

Each likelihood is based on the sum of the squares of the ‘whitened’ model-simulation – observation discrepancies, r2. Whitening involving transforming the discrepancies, using an estimate of the inverse spatio-temporal natural variability covariance matrix, so that they would, in a perfect world, be independent standardised normal random variables. The likelihoods are computed from the excess, delta.r2, of r2 over its minimum value, minr2 (occurring where the model run parameters provide the best fit to observations), divided by m, the number of free model parameters, here 3. The statistical derivation implies that delta.r2/m has an F_m,v statistical distribution, in this case that delta.r2/3 has an F_3,v distribution, v being the number of degrees of freedom in estimating the spatio-temporal natural variability covariance matrix. The math is developed in Forest et al. 2000 and 2001 out of that in Allen and Tett 1999, and I will not argue here about its validity.

The statistical errors I want to highlight are as follows:

(a) the likelihoods are computed using (1 minus the) cumulative distribution function (CDF) for a F_3,v(delta.r2/3) distribution, rather than its probability density function. A likelihood function is the density of the data, viewed as a function of the parameters. Therefore, it must be based on the PDF, not the CDF, of the F distribution. The following code segment in bayesupdatenew2 incorporates this error:

r2 = r2 – minr2 +1e-6
nf = 3
pp= 1.- f_pdf(r2/float(nf),nf,dof1)

where dof1 is the degrees of freedom used for the diagnostic concerned. Despite the name “f_pdf”, this function gives the F-distribution CDF.

(b) the same calculation, using the F_3,v(delta.r2/3) function, is used not only for the surface and upper-air diagnostics, but also for the univariate deep-ocean diagnostic. The use of the F_3,v distribution, with its argument being delta.r2/3, is based on delta.r2 being, when the model parameter settings are the true ones, the sum of the squares of 3 independent N(0,1) distributed random variables. That there are only 3 such variables, when the diagnostic involves a larger number of observations and hence whitened discrepancies, reflects the higher dimensional set of whitened discrepancies all having to lie on a 3D hypersurface (assumed flat) spanned by the parameters. However, when there is only one data variable, as with the deep-ocean diagnostic (being its temperature trend), and hence one whitened discrepancy, delta.r2 is the square of one N(0,1) variable, not the sum of the squares of three N(0,1) variables. Therefore, the deep-ocean delta.r2, divided by 1 not 3, will have a F_1,v distribution – implying the unsquared whitened deep ocean discrepancy r will have a Student’s t_v distribution. Here, delta.r2 = r2, since a perfect fit to a single data point can be obtained by varying the parameters, implying minr2 = 0.

(c) there is a statistical shortcoming in the Forest et al 2006 method in relation to the use of an F-distribution based PDF as a likelihood function. A geometrical correction to the F-distribution density is need in order to convert it from a PDF for the sum of the squares of three N(0,1) distributed variables to a joint PDF for those three variables. The appropriate correction, which follows from the form of the Chi-square distribution PDF, is division of the F-distribution PDF by sqrt(delta.r2). Without that correction, the likelihood function goes to zero, rather than to a maximum, at the best-fit point.

There may be many other errors in the IDL code archive – I’ve identified a couple. Any readers who are familiar with IDL and have the time might find it interesting to study it, with a view to posting any significant findings – or even to rewriting key parts of it in R.

As it happens the F_3,v PDF is not that different from {1 – CDF} once the parameter combination is well away from the best fit point, so the effect of error (a) is not very substantial. Nevertheless, that Forest made this error – and it was not a mis-coding – seems very surprising.

The effect of (c), which is partially compensated by error (a), is likewise not very substantial.

However, the difference in the behaviour of the likelihood function resulting from error (b) is substantial; the ratio of the Forest 2006 to the correct likelihood varies by approaching 3x as the parameters are moved away from the best fit point. And the deep-ocean likelihood is what largely causes the estimated PDF for S ultimately to decline with increasing S: the two other diagnostics provide almost no constraint on very high values for S.

In addition to the Forest 2002 and 2006 papers, I believe these errors also affected the Forest et al. 2008 Tellus A and the Libardoni and Forest 2011 GRL papers, and probably also 2009 and 2010 papers lead authored by Forest’s regular co-author Sokolov. It is to be expected that there will be multiple citations of results from these various studies in the AR5 WG1 report, . I put it to Myles Allen – who seems, along with Gabi Hegerl, to be the lead author of Chapter 10 primarily responsible for the sections relating to climate sensitivity – that in view of these serious statistical errors, results from the affected papers should not be cited in the IPCC report. However, whilst accepting that the errors were real, he expressed the view that the existence of these statistical errors didn’t really matter to the results of the papers concerned. His reasoning was that only error (b) had a potentially substantial effect, and that didn’t much matter since there was anyway considerable uncertainty in the ocean data that the studies used. I’m not sure that I agree with this approach.

I would be surprised if the basic statistical errors in the IDL code do not significantly affect the results of some or all of the papers involved. I would like to test this in regard to the Forest 2006 paper, by running the IDL code with the errors corrected, in time to put on record in my “expert reviewer” comments on Chapter 10 of the Second Order Draft of IPCC AR5 WG1 report what the differences in Forest 2006’s results resulting from correcting these errors are, if significant. At least Myles Allen and Gabi Hegerl will then be aware of the size of the differences when deciding whether to ignore them.

Unfortunately, IDL seems to be a very expensive product – the company selling it won’t even give any pricing information without many personal details being provided! There is an open source clone, GDL, which I have tried using, but it lacks too much functionality to run most of the code. I’ve implemented part of the IDL code in R, but it would take far too long to convert it all, and I couldn’t be confident that the results would be correct.

So, my question is, could any reader assist me by running the relevant IDL code and letting me have the results? If so, please can you email me via Steve M. The code in the GRL2006_reproduce archive should be fully turnkey, although it is written for an old version of IDL. I can supply an alternative, corrected version of the bayesupdatenew2.pro module and relevant information/instructions.

In case any of you are wondering, I submitted a paper to Journal of Climate in July detailing my reanalysis of the Forest 2006 datasets, focussing on improving the methodology, in particular by using an objective Bayesian approach. That was just before Forest released the IDL code, so I was unaware then that he had made serious statistical errors in implementing his method, not that they directly affect my paper.

Nicholas Lewis

For the convenience of readers who would like to look at the bayesupdatenew2.pro code without downloading a 2GB archive file, it is as follows:

pro bayesupdatenew2,prior,data,post,expert=expert,hik=hik,mtit=mtit,usegcms=usegcms,alf=alf,dt=dt,indiv=indiv,yrng=yrng,$
  label=label,dataprior=dataprior,dof1=dof1,dof2=dof2,noplot=noplot,igsm2=igsm2,mcmc=mcmc,i2post=i2post

if (n_params() eq 0) then begin
  print, 'Usage: bayesupdatenew2,prior,newp,post,expert=expert,$'
  print, '   hik=hik,mtit=mtit,usegcms=usegcms,alf=alf,dt=dt,$'
  print, '   indiv=indiv,yrng=yrng,label=label,dataprior=dataprior,$'
  print, '   dof1=dof1,dof2=dof2,noplot=noplot,igsm2=igsm2,mcmc=mcmc,i2post=i2post'
  print, ' prior = a priori estimate of pdf'
  print, ' data = r2 data used to estimate new pdf'
  print, ' post = a posteriori estimate of pdf'
  print, ' dataprior = 1 if using r2 values for first prior'
  print, ' dof1, dof2 = degreees of freedom for likelihood estimators'
  print, ' dof2 = used for dataprior'
  print, ' FOR USE WITH GSOVSV FORCING'
  print, 'i2post = 1, use igsm2 posterior for aerosol prior'
  return
end

if (not keyword_set(yrng)) then yr = [0,10.] else yr = yrng
if (not keyword_set(dof1)) then dof1 = 12
if (not keyword_set(dof2)) then dof2 = 12 

;set colors
loadct,1 
gamma_ct,0.3



; prior - taken from somewhere old posterior or expert judgement
; data - provided by new diagnostic
; post - returned by updating procedure

kk= findgen(81)*.1 & ss = findgen(101)*.1 +.5 & aa = -findgen(41)*.05+0.5

np = n_elements(data)
;print, 'np = ',np

; create probability from r2 values
r2 = data
pp = fltarr(np)

r2neg = where(r2 le 0., nu)
print, 'Number of negative points=', nu

if (nu ne 0) then r2(r2neg) = 0.

if (keyword_set(igsm2)) then begin
  minr2 = min(r2(1:50,0:75,0:40)) 
  print, 'Minrp2 in igsm2 domain:',minr2
endif else minr2 = min(r2)

print, 'minr2 =',minr2
print, 'Range r2:',range(r2)
;stop

r2 = r2 - minr2 +1e-6
nf = 3
;dof = 12
;for i = 0,np-1 do pp(i)=  1.- f_pdf(r2(i)/float(nf),nf,dof)
print, 'Computing p(r2) for HUGE data vector'
pp=  1.- f_pdf(r2/float(nf),nf,dof1)
help, dof1

;stop

;interpolate prior to r2 points
; note: no prior for aa = alpha
if (keyword_set(expert)) then begin

; returns 3d joint prior on r2interp grid
  expertprior,krange,kprior,srange,sprior,prior,opt=expert,$
      hik=hik,/threeD,/forcing,igsm2=igsm2,mcmc=mcmc,i2post=i2post
;  priorx = krange & priory = srange & priorz = jprior = jointprior
endif ;else begin
;  priorx = kk & priory = ss & priorz = prior 
;endelse

if (not keyword_set(expert) and  keyword_set(dataprior)) then begin
    r2p = prior 
    r2pneg = where(r2p le 0., nup)
    print, 'Number of negative points=', nup
    
    if (nup ne 0) then r2p(r2pneg) = 0.

    print, 'Range(r2p)', range(r2p)
    if (keyword_set(igsm2)) then begin
      print, 'Keyword set: igsm2'
      minr2p = min(r2p(1:50,0:75,0:40)) 
      print, 'minr2p ',minr2p
    endif else minr2p = min(r2p)
    r2p = r2p - minr2p + 1e-6
    print, 'Computing p(r2) for HUGE prior vector'

    prior2 =  1.- f_pdf(r2p/float(nf),nf,dof2)
    print,'Range prior2 before ', range(prior2)

    help, dof2
    if (keyword_set(igsm2)) then begin
      prior2(0,*,*) = 0.        ;KV = 0.
      prior2(51:80,*,*) = 0.    ;KV > 25.
;      prior2(*,76:100,*) = 0.   ;CS > 8.
      prior2(*,76:100,*) = 0.   ;CS > 8.
;      prior2(*,*,0:4) = 0.      ;FA > 0.25 
    endif else begin
      prior2(0,*,*) = 0.
      prior2(*,96:100,*) = 0.
    endelse
    
endif else prior2 = prior

;stop

; multiply probabilities
post = prior2 * pp

; interpolate to finer grid to compute integral
; separate into aa levels
nk = findgen(81)*.1
nk = nk*nk
ns = findgen(101)*.1 + 0.5

; estimate integral to normalize

ds = 0.1 & dk = 0.1 & da = 0.05
;totpl = fltarr(6) ; totpl = total prob at level aa(i)
;for i =0,5 do totpl(i) = total( smpostall(i,*,*) )/(8.*9.5*2.0)   

;where intervals are k=[0,8], s=[0.5,10.], a=[0.5,-1.5]
totp = total(post)/(8.*9.5*2.)

;stop

;normalize here
post = post/totp
;print, post

smpostall = post

if (not keyword_set(noplot)) then begin 

;estimate levels for contour from volume integral
clevs = c_int_pdf3d([0.99,.9,.8],smpostall)
;clevs = c_int_pdf3d([0.90],smpostall)
rr= range(smpostall)
print, 'range post:', rr(1) -rr(0)
;clevs = findgen(3)*(rr(1) - rr(0))/4+min(smpostall)
print,' clevs =', clevs
;stop
if (not keyword_set(indiv)) then !p.multi=[0,2,4] else !p.multi=0
clabs=replicate(1,40)
pmax = max(post)
;print,'max(post), imax', max(post), where(post eq max(post))
ccols = [indgen(3)*50 + 99,255]

pane = ['(a) : ','(b) : ','(c) : ','(d) : ','(e) : ','(f) : ','(g) : ']
titl= ['F!daer!n = 0.5 W/m!u2!n','F!daer!n = 0.0 W/m!u2!n','F!daer!n = -0.25 W/m!u2!n',$
       'F!daer!n = -0.5 W/m!u2!n','F!daer!n = -0.75 W/m!u2!n',$
       'F!daer!n = -1.0 W/m!u2!n','F!daer!n = -1.5 W/m!u2!n']

alevs = [0,10,15,20,25,30,40]
for i = 0,6 do begin
  ii =  alevs(i)
  ka = nk & sa = ns

  contour, post(*,*,ii), sqrt(ka), sa, $
  xrange=[0,8],yrange=yr,/xstyle,/ystyle,$
  levels=clevs,c_labels=0,/cell_fill, c_colors=ccols, $
  title=pane(i)+mtit+' : '+titl(i),$
  xtitle='Effective ocean diffusivity [cm!u2!n/s]',$
  ytitle='Climate Sensitivity [!uo!nC]', $
  xticks = 8, xtickv=findgen(9),$
  xtickname=strmid((findgen(9))^2,6,4); , charsize=chsz

  contour, post(*,*,ii), sqrt(ka), sa,/overplot, $
  levels=clevs,c_labels=0
  
  imax = where(post(*,*,ii) eq pmax, icount)
  ix = where(post(*,*,ii) eq max(post(*,*,ii)))
;  print, imax, ix
  if (icount ne 0) then oplot,[sqrt(ka(imax))],[sa(imax)],psym=sym(1) else $
  oplot, [sqrt(ka(ix))],[sa(ix)], psym = sym(6)
;  for j=0,ni-1 do  oplot, [sqrt(ka(j))],[sa(j)], psym = sym(11)
  
  if (keyword_set(usegcms)) then begin
    getaogcmlist,gcms,nms,opt=usegcms
    oplot,sqrt(gcms(0,*)),gcms(1,*),psym=sym(4),symsize=1.0
    if (keyword_set(label)) then $
          xyouts,sqrt(gcms(0,*))+.15,gcms(1,*),nms,charsize=chsz
  endif

  if (keyword_set(dt)) then begin
      dtread,i,dtdata,obs,dttitl,period=dt,/smooth
      dtlabs = replicate(1,31)
      dtlevs =  findgen(31)/20.
      dr =  range(dtdata.dt)
      ddr = dr(1) - dr(0)
      if (ddr lt 0.5) then dtlevs = findgen(31)/50.
      contour,dtdata.dt,sqrt(dtdata.k),dtdata.s,/overplot, levels=dtlevs,$ 
        c_labels=dtlabs, thick=5
      contour,dtdata.dt,sqrt(dtdata.k),dtdata.s,/overplot, levels=[obs],$ 
        c_labels=dtlabs, thick=5, c_linestyle=5
  endif
    
endfor
!p.multi=0

if (keyword_set(alf)) then begin
  na = -findgen(41)*.05+0.5
  set_plot, 'ps'
  !p.font=0
  device, /encapsulated, /helvetica, font_size=18
  device,/color,bits_per_pixel=8,xsize=20, ysize=5./7.*20
  i = where( na eq alf, nl)
  i = i(0)
  if (nl lt 1) then print, 'No matching aerosol forcing' else begin
    ii = where( na eq alf,ni)
    ka = nk & sa = ns
    
    contour, post(*,*,ii), sqrt(ka), sa,$
    xrange=[0,8],yrange=yrng,/xstyle,/ystyle,$
    xtitle='Rate of Ocean Heat Uptake [Sqrt(K!dv!n)]',ytitle='Climate Sensitivity (K)',title=mtit+' : '+titl(i),$
    levels=clevs,c_labels=0,/cell_fill, c_colors=ccols
    
    contour, post(ii), sqrt(ka), sa,/irregular,/overplot, $
    levels=clevs,c_labels=0
      
    if (keyword_set(usegcms)) then begin
      getaogcmlist,gcms,nms,opt=usegcms
      oplot,sqrt(gcms(0,*)),gcms(1,*),psym=sym(4),symsize=1.0
;    xyouts,sqrt(gcms(0,*))+.15,gcms(1,*),nms,charsize=chsz
    endif

    if (keyword_set(dt)) then begin
      dtread,i,dtdata,obs,dttitl,period=dt,/smooth
      dtlabs = replicate(1,31)
      dtlevs =  findgen(31)/20.
      dr =  range(dtdata.dt)
      ddr = dr(1) - dr(0)
      if (ddr lt 0.5) then dtlevs = findgen(31)/50.
      contour,dtdata.dt,sqrt(dtdata.k),dtdata.s,/overplot, levels=dtlevs,$ 
        c_labels=dtlabs, thick=5
      contour,dtdata.dt,sqrt(dtdata.k),dtdata.s,/overplot, levels=[obs],$ 
        c_labels=dtlabs, thick=5, c_linestyle=5
    endif

  endelse

  device, /close,color=0,encapsulated=0
  set_plot, 'x'
  !p.font = -1

endif
endif 

return
end
By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in Modeling, Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments (122)

“Olympic Mann”

Nov 1, 2012 – 5:36 AM

There has been much publicity about Michael Mann’s claims to have been awarded a share of the Nobel Peace Prize. Somewhat overlooked in the excitement about “Nobel” Mann were the accomplishments of “Olympic Mann” at multiple Olympics, celebrated in Josh’s cartoon at left showing “Olympic Mann” in an iconic pose.

In Mann’s lawsuit against National Review, Mann accused them of defamation of a “Nobel peace recipient”. National Review recently honored Mann’s “award” of a Nobel Peace Prize with a full page ad in the Penn State student newspaper (h/t WUWT here.)

With no sacrifice in accuracy, Mann could additionally have accused National Review of defaming an “Olympic gold medalist.”

By Stephen McIntyre | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | Comments (141)