Monday
Nov232009
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Consensus-breaking
Nov 23, 2009 Climate Is this the moment when reputable climatologists start to distance themselves from the Hockey Team? Judy Curry's piece at Climate Audit was the start of it, but now Hans von Storch has called for Mann and Jones to be barred from taking part in future IPCC reviews.
Who else is brave enough? Now's the moment ladies and gentlemen.
Reader Comments (13)
"This will be interesting," is an understatement. But there will be at least 2 categories of AGW believers, when it comes to the "scientists." One category will be those that bail like rats from a sinking ship, at least where it involves the CRU(East Anglia) crew and those they spoke with. The other category will involve the rats trying to bail out the sinking ship. We are already seeing both types in action. Let the rat races begin in earnest.
I copy what I posted at WUWT:
The public data these people keep scheming to keep away from the public needs to be forcefully and urgently obtained by legal action on the clear grounds they may very well destroy it, as Jones has said he would. If they have already destroyed it, they need to be prosecuted as criminals.
Already dropped a line to my MP here is Canada, and include the Prime Minister and Environment Minister for good measure. I've been barking in his ear for a few years now.
"I have more than once expressed my concerns over what I perceived to be fear-mongering concerning global climate change, and how the main stream media is fully compliant in spreading the fear. As you may be aware by now, the CRU was hacked last week, and a large portion of their internal data, documents and e-mail were placed on the internet. http://www.anelegantchaos.org/cru/index.php Review of the information contained in that hack shows a coordinated effort by a core group of scientists to mislead both policy makers and the public on the certainty of their work and the robustness of their conclusions. A certainty that is not supported by their own research, and is at the core of their own bitter internal disagreements. Obviously the science is far from settled.
The documents show clear indications of efforts to evade freedom of information requests, of collusion to misinform policy makers, of collusion to prevent the publication of conflicting science papers, of collusion to marginalise and ridicule any dissenting opinion, of collusion in the influence of the IPCC process, tax fraud, and an overall air of superiority that I find distasteful.
Here is a small piece from some of the programming code, "Plots 24 yearly maps of calibrated (PCR-infilled or not) MXD reconstructions of growing season temperatures. Uses “corrected” MXD – but shouldn’t usually plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures." Which leads me to question just what sort of artificial adjustment is required in climate science to "look closer to the real temperatures"?
Don't take my word for it, try here, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125883405294859215.html?mod=googlenews_wsj , or here, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/hackers-expose-climate-brawl/story-e6frg6nf-1225801879912, or here, http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1213483&srvc=business&position=recent
There is more than enough information contained within these documents to convince me that these gentlemen are not capable of separating their personal views from the data revealed in their scientific work. They have become advocates, and as such cannot be trusted to provide a balanced view of the state of climate science. Considering what is at stake, they cannot be trusted.
It should be the position of the Canadian Government that these gentlemen are no longer welcome at any climate related conference or meeting. They should be immediately stripped of any responsibility within the IPCC, and removed from the peer review process. I have no control over their current employers, but their influence into the Canadian Climate debate needs to end today."
Unbelievably, George Monbiot says: ''I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.''
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/nov/23/global-warming-leaked-email-climate-scientists?showallcomments=true#end-of-comments
The BBC (in the form of the BBC2 Newsnight program) has finally picked up on this scandal and is giving it the usual Paxman (hard questions on both sides) treatment now. Prof. Fred Singer is being interviewed on the skeptics side. Unfortunately, and perhaps understandably, Paxman has insufficient background knowledge to understand the context of the CRU emails so has left it to the interviewees to state their sides.
Bod Watson of UEA has agreed the language in the emails is fast and loose, and a member of the public could look at the emails and "believe they were being fooled".
Both sides are calling for an independent inquiry into the email scandal. A UEA spokesman even agreed to one - but unfortunately stated that he knew the inquiry result already, before it had been held, thus rather ruining any sense of an open and unprejudiced hearing.
At least the leak/hack has finally been treated with serious national airtime by the BBC, if not with the depth that would be wished for.
What ought to happen is simple.
HMG to CRU "Can you demonstrate that your code does what you've claimed for it?"
CRU "No"
HMG "Well fuck off then".
When the dust settles, my guess is that this email explains the "leak."
1241415427.txt
I think that, in the far distance one can perceive the coming end of the global warming virus and in the light of these most recent revelations a suitable epitaph from Charles Darwin would seem to be appropriate:
'Ignorance more frequently begats confidence than does knowledge' - Charles Darwin 1871
"Mann and Jones to be barred from taking part in future IPCC reviews."
That's it?
They should be "duck walked to jail where they can be the "girlfriend" of some 300 pound dude named "Bubba"!
@hunter
Are you referring to the business discussed here?
http://www.countingcats.com/?p=5023
@MikeE
yes, I posted my first impression here, then added some commentary to that site as well.
What ought to happen is simple.
HMG to CRU "Can you demonstrate that your code does what you've claimed for it?"
CRU "No"
HMG "Well fuck off then".
HMG "And we'll have our money back as well, you theiving twats."
Like a previous commenter, I wrote to the Canadian Minister of the Environment, as follows:
Sir,
Given the recent revelations that the alleged scientists at the CRU and other 'scientific' centers have been playing a long con, can you provide assurance that Canada WILL NOT AGREE to any agreements at Copenhagen which are based upon conclusions respecting so-called global warming arising from the clearly deficient and biased writings of these people?
The AGW crowd ( now clearly revealed as being the All-Gaia-Worship believers) have declaimed that we (being all of the world) absolutely must cut off our noses to spite our faces, and pay for the privilege too. because:
1) the world is getting warmer;
2) the world is getting warmer because of CO2 increases;
3) CO2 is increasing because of man-made production;
4) the world will become uninhabitable unless we stop producing CO2;
5) we must send billions of dollars to the third world as penance;
6) we must reduce our economy to year 1800 levels to reduce our CO2 production, with devastating results on our way of life.
I would hope, and I wish your assurance that the government of Canada will not take steps which will destroy our economy and our way of life without undeniable and explicit public proof not only of the truth of each of those propositions, but the undeniable and explicit proof of the relational deductions between them. In (U.S.) legal terms, these items need to be provable on a Daubert standard with full and open debate on the data and the statistical methodology involved in reaching any conclusions.
Any proponent of global warming in the Department under your purview (I hate to use the anodyne 'control') should be told in no uncertain terms, that he must make available for review, ALL of the data and ALL of the statistical calculations and algorithms upon which his conclusion is based.
As a lawyer with an undergraduate degree in geology, I am appalled at what I am now reading about the games played by the CRU fraudsters. It is not how science is supposed to be conducted, nor how an argument is to be made and sustained. I hope that no Canadian scientists is involved.
Also as a geologist, I am aware that Ottawa has spent about 90% of the last three-quarters of a million years under a few kilometers of glacial ice. And that the five inter-glacial periods in that timespan averaged only just over 10,000 years each . And that the ice retreated from this area about 12,800 years ago. So maybe we are overdue for a downturn on the thermometer.
Were I in your position, I should have no hesitation in purging from the government's services, ANY scientist who, at this stage, declaims that 'the science is settled'. He (or she) either has an agenda, or is too stupid to understand reality. The science CANNOT be 'settled' given what we now know about the evasions, obfuscations, and lies of that small group of alleged scientists who have manipulated the UN and the IPCC. There were only about 40 people involved in the actual writing of the IPCC summary. The Wegner report showed that it was a farrago of statistical lies and cheating. I earnestly hope that the department my father was once proud to serve within is not so tainted.
To summarize:
At the moment it appears that:
a) there is NO valid scientific evidence of global warming;
b) there is NO valid scientific evidence that CO2 levels have anything to do with global temperature;
c) there is NO valid scientific evidence that increased CO2 levels are harmful; and
d) there is NO valid scientific evidence that reducing increases in CO2 levels or reducing CO2 levels will have ANY effect on future global temperatures.
e) Moreover, of course, there is no valid model for what future global temperatures will be UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. The AGW alarmists cannot model our present weather from historical data, so how can we expect to model the future if we cannot trust either the data or the model.
It becomes more and more clear that we cannot afford to even THINK about the craziness of CO2 reduction or 'cap and trade' without a thorough examination of the reasoning behind the validity of the proposition.
AGW alarmism is a boil which should be lanced. Reducing wastage of energy, reducing waste period, and reducing environmental pollution are all ends which self-evident and good in and off themselves. I recycke because I recognize the advantage. My wife keeps the thermostat too low for my liking. Doing these sort of things does not require that we transport ourselves into ancient past levels of technical living, while sending untold amounts of money somewhere to pay someone vast amounts for a carbon credit which he got for free. That is what the greenies demand we all do, in order to save... I'm not sure what.
Sir, I would like your assurance that you, as the Minister will require of your staff and employees, the utmost of scientific rigour before ANY policy proposal is brought forward. And that the same will apply to any position the government of Canada will take in Copenhagen.
Citizen Off-Piste
PS. As an aside, it is worth noting that the sun continues to play coy and is effectively spotless, the results of which are "scientifically unknown" according to some alarmists. However the temperature records for the Maunder minimum period and teh Dalton minimum are well known in the historical temperature record.
PPS. I decline to copy this to my own MP. Mr Szabo is a nice enough guy, even for a Liberal, but, to quote Churchill, if he tripped over the (scientific) truth, he would pick himself up, and hurry along as if nothing had happened.
Please let me know if anything I say offends you.
I may wish to offend you again in the future.