scriptbabe451 's Public Library

Does anyone here understand the difference between a whistleblower and a thief? Try thinking about this as an act of civil disobedience; that might be more familiar.

Young scientists are starting to look at this and ask: "why should I go into science if the Powers That Be will destroy my best work if it doesn't agree with their preconceived notions?"

Posted by: MrPete

Whilst all of the Denialati Neroes fiddle over the non-scientific event that is the crime of theft from UEA, it seems that the planet is burning slightly warmer than previously thought.

On the ABC's PM program this afternoon there was a segment on the more rapid loss of eastern Anarctic ice than expected. The Nature Geoscience advance online publication is here.

Let's see the spin on this one.

Posted by: Bernard J.

MrPete, it seems that you have not a clue about what real whistleblowing is. Oh, and as an aside, Jean S's effort at Climate Audit is a more egregious example of data laundering than anything that you might imagine that the UEA team was involved with.

Sadly for you, science and understanding are not on your side. Cluelessness certainly is though - i

Mr Pete writes:

Wow, this group has certainly circled its wagons nicely.

Mr Pete code for:

Wow you people certainly ask for the evidence, you don't accept baseless smears with out asking for the detail.

Mr Pete writes:

Every hour you defend the Team, you lose credibility on this.

Mr Pete Code for:

If you keep asking for the facts and details and don't start accepting the trash talk, then you are really disagreeing with my POV.

Mr Pete writes:

Read some people on CA for the truth.

Mr Pete code for:

Blog science is tops, forget peer review, fact checking and the basic scientific method, the key to science in view is find someone on the internet who says what I want to hear.

Mr Pete writes, "Try thinking about this as an act of civil disobedience; that might be more familiar."

In pacifist terms, the act of civil disobedience is to disobey an unjust law and suffer the consequences of the act to highlight the injustice. Only when the perps step forward and allow themselves to be prosecuted will I think about this as "civil disobedience".

Posted by: Deech56 | No

The techniques are readily available. They are what scientists go to school to learn."

Wow. I wasn't aware fraud was a legitimate scientific principle. They teach that in school do they?

The techniques ARE NOT readily available to duplicate Mann's results with the raw data. If you've followed this at all you know this.

Posted by: JP

How can this be ethical science?

Michael Mann to Andrew Revkin

"Skepticism is essential
for the functioning of science. It yields an erratic path towards eventual truth. But legitimate scientific skepticism is exercised through formal scientific circles, in particular the peer review process. A necessary though not in general sufficient condition
for taking a scientific criticism seriously is that it has passed through the legitimate scientific peer review process. those such as McIntyre who operate almost entirely outside
of this system are not to be trusted."

Phil Jones to Michael Mann

"The other paper by MM is just garbage - as you knew. De Freitas again. Pielke is also losing all credibility as well by replying to the mad Finn as well - frequently as I see
it.I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-revi

ow can this be ethical science?

i want to here you say this again, in a courtroom. and you will be waving the STOLEN MAIL, that is your evidence, in the air.

pure comedy. (ps: thanks for the "the office uk" reference above. Gareth is the perfect image of the average sceptic)

Posted by: sod | N

@Bradley J. Fikes

Are you serious? All the second quote is missing is a great big winking smiley face at the end. You'd have to be pathologically determined to find something to take offence at in these emails to be at all concerned by that.

This is your evidence of rigging the peer review process? Describing junk papers as the junk they are and making fun of them? Quick, call the thought police!

Posted by: Dave

Dave,
This is your evidence of rigging the peer review process? Describing junk papers as the junk they are and making fun of them? Quick, call the thought police!

"Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !

Care to describe how that is ethical?

The techniques ARE NOT readily available to duplicate Mann's results with the raw data. If you've followed this at all you know this.

Posted by: JP | November 23, 2009 8:29 AM

Then how do you explain Amman & Wahl's ability to duplicate them? Not only that, but duplicate McKittrick & McIntyre's erroneous, mistake ridden attempt to duplicate them?

Posted by: luminous beauty |

If scientifically suspect articles are consistently getting through to certain journals (E&E in the above case, I recall offhand), then it's entirely fair to argue that those journals are not adequately peer-reviewed, and should not appear in a summary of the science. Which is what IPCC AR4 was.

Now, tell me this. Did Phil Jones have ultimate say into what went in and what stayed out of the final IPCC report? And if not, how the hell do they declare, rather than argue, what is defined as peer-reviewed literature? And how the hell do they have the power to 'rig' peer review?

Clutching at straws, really.

Posted by: Bud |

MrPete@182: McIntyre understood Yamal better? That's a good one, considering that Briffa demolished just about any and all claims. Delayed Oscillator takes it even further
http://delayedoscillator.wordpress.com/
(scroll down to find the many blogs on Yamal).

Of course, since you are an avid CA believer, you more than likely follow the two-step rule:
1. McIntyre is always right.
2. In case he is not, rule one applies.

@200, Bradley J. Fikes:
You conveniently forget the manipulation of the peer-review process by De Freitas. Jones at worst tries to manipulate the process back to its original: everyone treated the same, you look for experts in the field to review the paper, not for people who will review the paper and will approve of its finding regardless of any flaws in the methodology.

Posted by: Marco

even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !

Utter corruption!

Posted by: con |

My favorite line in this satire was delivered by Kevin Trenberth:

"The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t."

This one line epitomizes the fear of being wrong about AGW, which can easily be confirmed by reading comments on sites like this...

If the earth's climate doesn't cooperate with climate model projections and peer reviewed theories, then the credibility and reputations of many scientists and their affiliated organizations are at stake.

This would be worse than a travesty, it would forever leave a stain on the scientific community and bring to light the ideologies, politics, egos, bias, monetary forces and marketing techniques behind creating a consensus to sell societal change.

Question: If this "lack of warming" were to continue unaccounted for the next 18 years or so, would this travesty then become a disaster?

Posted by: Betula |

@Bradley J. Fikes

Care to describe how that is ethical?

Care to describe how it is not? Please point to the precise parts that are evidence that unethical behaviour took place, especially given that this is a response to a blatant manipulation of the peer-review process in an attempt to lend a gloss of credibility to junk science. Please explain why it would be unethical to discuss (remember - this is a discussion, not evidence of any subsequent action) potentially tightening the rules of conduct to prevent such a farce from being lent undue weight. Why is a discussion of a possible change to the rules to avoid abuse of the rules by other parties prima facie evidence of an ethics violation? In detail please - just pointing at an email and saying "there you go" is childish.

Betula,

The fact is that the problem Trenberth was agonizing over could have been obviated in 2003 but for the intransigence of the BUllSHit administration.

Posted by: luminous beaut

he fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.

Be sure of your theory before implementing it us public policy!

What happens if the cooling continues until 2030 to the temperatures of the 1970s?

From: Michael E. Mann,

Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2003 11:18:24 -0400

Attached are the calibration residual series for experiments based on available networks back to:
AD 1000
AD 1400
AD 1600
(...) But basically, you'll see that the residuals are pretty red for the first 2 cases, and then not significantly red for the 3rd case--its even a bit better for the AD 1700 and 1820 cases, but I can't seem to dig them up. (...) p.s. I know I probably don't need to mention this, but just to insure absolutely clarify on this, I'm providing these for your own personal use, since you're a trusted colleague. So please don't pass this along to others without checking w/ me first. This is the sort of "dirty laundry" one doesn't want to fall into the hands of those who might potentially try to distort things...

em! Dirty Laundry indeed!

Posted by: con |

@con:
You fail again in the context. Trenberth is discussing a complex climate model that has troubles modeling some short-term variations. There is no doubt on the theory. None.

Posted by: Marco

Marco

If there was no doubt in the theory, why is this difference between projection and observation?

IPCC projection is invalid!

Posted by: con

Bradley J. Fikes confuses inclusion of garbage with proper ethics. Let me just re-quote the start of that email for you again:

The other paper by MM is just garbage - as you knew.

Quite. The ethical thing to do is include something that you think is garbage. Garbage is ethically positive. One more time:

The other paper by MM is just garbage - as you knew.

Good ol' garbage. Ethically, garbage is superior. Just ask Bradley J. Fikes. He loves garbage. And again:

The other paper by MM is just garbage - as you knew.

If I were a scientist and I was working on a very important document and some asshole buffoon was trying to inject garbage into it, I shouldn't try to keep the garbage out. Garbage good. Garbage real good!

Garbage.

Posted by: pough | November 23, 2009 1:20 PM

The graph is from IPCC, the observation is from HadCRU. What is wrong with Orssengo's chart posted @229?

What, you mean apart from the really obvious stuff like taking a smoothed curve and then

What is wrong with Orssengo's chart posted @229?

For starters, the author: he has no credibility at all -- a rather important point that you ignored when it was pointed out ot you. Seriously, Girma has gummed up several threads with idiotic logic and flat-out lies, and has even admitted he has a purely political agenda that has nothing to do with truth or honest science. He's a crank and a troll.

Second, why did Girma only cite ONE source of "actual measurements?" Is there only one group on Earth monitoring temperature changes?

And third is his brief, crappy, and self-righteous writing:

The main issue in the global warming debate is the truth. The only question in this debate is “does human emission of CO2 causes global warming?” One way to answer this question is to compare the IPCC projections for the mean global temperature anomaly with actual measurements as shown in the above chart.

The tone here is typical of the deluded conspiracy-buff: "My only concern is THE TRUTH, which no one else cares about!"

And that's only what a non-scientist like myself can find wrong with that chart.

Posted by: Raging Be

Brad writes:

There should be some provision that if you take public funds, your data will be made available to the public.

What you describe here is a two tiered standard of science, that sounds very dodgy and perhaps unworkable.

Basically, science with any govt funded will be open to scrutiny in a way that private science will not.

Tim Flannery seems to have started 'crossing over to the other side'. Is it possible our favourite alarmist is making a visit to the sceptic's camp? This from Lateline last night....

"We’re dealing with an incomplete understanding of the way the earth system works… When we come to the last few years when we haven’t seen a continuation of that (warming) trend we don’t understand all of the factors that create earth’s climate...We just don’t understand the way the whole system works… See, these people work with models, computer modelling. So when the computer modelling and the real world data disagree you’ve got a very interesting problem… Sure for the last 10 years we’ve gone through a slight cooling trend."

Mmmmm.... soun

On Flannery (#271)

Lank releases what you might call a "random selection" of quotes mined from the interview. A slightly fuller version:

"The thing is we deal with an incomplete understanding of the way the Earth's system works, we know enough to say as the IPCC said that greenhouse gases cause warming," he said.

"They are 90 per cent-plus sure that it's caused by humans, we can go that far.

"In the last few years, where there hasn't been a continuation of that warming trend, we don't understand all of the factors that creates Earth's climate, so there are some things we don't understand, that's what the scientists were emailing about."

And:

"These people (scientists) work with models, computer modelling. When the computer modelling and the real world data disagrees you have a problem. That's when science gets engaged.

"What Kevin Trenberth, one of the most respected climate scientist in the world, is saying is, 'We have to get on our horses and find out what we don't know about the system, we have to understand why the cooling is occurring, because the current modelling doesn't reflect it'.

"And that's the way science progresses, we can't pretend to have perfect knowledge, we don't."

What a flip-flop! Any minute now, he'll be announcing the conspiracy!

Posted by: Bud |

on,

You've an apt name. You've just been conned by Girma Oressengo. We fortunately have the evolution of Girma's ideas on record. They make quite entertaining reading. Readers can follow his evolution for 2000 posts. He pulls data from different data sets and basically shows him self up here.

Just take a look at the data he references from HadCurt says he is plotting. He applies a compress means function to achieve his results. But does this chart look like the one he produced for "realist" (sic)? Its far more wobbly, yet his is so smooth. Its a fraud!

Now look at the 12 month mean figures.

What's more IPCC didn't plot projections according to HadCrut. He's mixing data sets.

You believe Girma, you ain't sceptical in the slightest.

Posted by: Janet Akerman |

Now this blog has become a show of howling monkeys playing the game "Ostriches With Their Head Stuck in the Sand". What a show!

Yor friend George Monbiot has something for you, boys:

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/11/23/the-knights-carbonic/

How does it hurts? However, Monbiot is the kind of blind stubborn of the "epur si muove" kind.

Posted by: Eduardo |

Monbiot is a concern troll.

Jones has absolutely nothing to apologize for. Monbiot is playing the classic role of the Puritan who says "tut .. tut" when it is convenient for him to play the role of prim school marm upset that someone left a participle dangling.

Monbiot should get off his ass and do some actual investigative reporting into who stole the documents and who tried to hijack RealClimate's site to take over their front page and splooge them.

But for Monbiot, that would be "drudge" work far beneath his station and would require ... actual effort.

Posted by: Douglas Watt

Eamon@292

The email linked to is a reply to an initial email sent by Jones to Mann, the text of which is included in the reply from Mann to Jones. The relevant content is in the text of the initial email from Jones to Mann.

Posted by: Steve

Lets see...

Posting the same link several times as if repetition strengthens the argument? Check.

Ignoring substantive rebuttals? Check.

Random use of caps? Check.

Complete disregard for science, logic or reason? Check.

Belief that the work of Girma Orssengo is unassailable and impervious to criticism? Check.

I submit to you that "con" is in fact Girma. Either that or someone who has cribbed heavily from his copybook...

Posted by: Dave

Well, I just read a selection of emails and have to admit I feel more than a little bit dirty at invading people's privacy. But it is useful to actually see the context of a lot of the accusations that have been made, and you seriously need to have a predetermined conclusion in mind to read them as evident of foul play. Even the repeated references to the FOI are largely about the frivolity of FOI requests for data, and frustration thereof.

Posted by: Bud

What a line, guys. That had a lot of thought behind it.
Science should be about a pursuit of truth, and debate should be as well.
I am sorry to disagree with you folks.

The quote refers to the author's opinion of Steve McIntyre, that he (McI)'s not interested in the truth at all, just plausible deniability (and if you read the walking-on-eggshells prose employed by McI when he implies fraud etc, the accusation makes perfect sense).

The author would agree with you about science, which is why the author loaths McIntyre.

Posted by: dhogaza

When the primary objective of the request is harrassment."

That's a load of crap. I've read the reasons for the requests and they are perfectly valid.

Besides the word "hide" was not about the FOI requests. It was about faking up the temperature graphs. "Trick" was used to "hide the decline" which means that in context it was being used to obfuscate. I'd use the word "lie" but some here my get confused and think I meant to say they were resting on their sides. They were not trying to protect themselves against harrassment. It's quite obvious from the emails that they had private data that was needed to check their work that they were not producing, and in fact were threatening to destroy.

Posted by: Brian Macker |

Besides the word "hide" was not about the FOI requests. It was about faking up the temperature graphs. "Trick" was used to "hide the decline" which means that in context it was being used to obfuscate.

Sorry, you don't know WTF you're talking about.

And, of course, the whole kerfluffle is over one graph in one brochure by one organization. The e-mail refers to nothing in regard to what's in the scientific literature.

The divergence problem being referred to is widely described in the relevant literature, with nothing being hidden whatsoever, unless, as Gavin Schmidt has said several times, you consider "publishing in Nature" to be "hiding stuff".

Posted by: dhogaza

and in fact were threatening to destroy.

yes. and when he wrote, that he would kill his wife when dinner wasn t ready, he was planning murder.

Brian, why don t you post your e.mail account and password, so that we can look at your mail?

Posted by: sod |

My first ever visit to this blog. I discovered here during my reading of 1200+ often very lengthy comments in Real Climate about the email scandal that should concern every scientist in general and every climate scientist in particular.

However, I stopped reading the comments for this post at the 100th comment. No need to read further. This blog has the most arrogant, condescending and repulsive set of commenters I've ever come across in the blogosphere. Ad hominem attacks that involve repeating the same 'gotcha' question that's supposed to nab a denialist idiot with pants down, complete indifference to what even to this lay person appears to be a flagrant breach of scientific ethics, petty pre-occupation with spellings erros and commenter's moniker, sleight of hand dismissal of commeters because they are not scientists or climatologists, and on and on... The whole works of obnoxiousness in full display in less than 100 short comments.

While the Real Climate website has shown some true courage and openness following the email scandal, the mob in this neighbourhood is in an aggressive, irrational and juvenile denialist mood about the damage the recent revelations may cause to science of climatology.

Posted by: sHx | No

Re: sHx/#315

You know, I always wondered why people judge the quality of a blog (i.e. articles written by a single author or small group) by the comments (i.e. small replies written by a diverse group the author isn't responsible for). By analogy, do you judge the quality of an artist or band by the quality of their work, or by their fans/critics?

Posted by: Brian D

Hx,

No details, just assertions?
Ready and willing to debate the facts, you are not.

Brian you have just attribted your preferred meaning to the words used in the emails:

...the word "hide" was not about the FOI requests. It was about faking up the temperature graphs. "Trick" was used to "hide the decline" which means that in context it was being used to obfuscate.

Brian, are you sure of your interpretation on these matters?

Have you every used the word "trick" and "hide"? Does that mean each occasion is valid evidence that you were obfuscating the the truth? Every used slang words?

I suggest that if we had your email account I could used your standard of argument to judge you guilty of anything I wished.

I also suggest you educate yourself on the issues that the people in question were discussing before you hang them in your frenzy. The context brings light that you are ignoring.

No doubt, instances of cherry-picked and poorly-worded “gotcha” phrases will be pulled out of context. One example is worth mentioning quickly. Phil Jones in discussing the presentation of temperature reconstructions stated that “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the ‘trick’ is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear.

Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all.

As for the ‘decline’, it is well known that Keith Briffa’s maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the “divergence problem”–see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682).

Those authors have always recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while ‘hiding’ is probably a poor choice of words (since it is ‘hidden’ in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens.

Posted by: Janet Akerman