Bishop Hill ++++Whitewash starting++++
Nov 27, 2009 Climate This from a correspondent - no verification as yet:
1) Lord Rees (Royal Society) to be asked by UEA to investigate CRU leak.
2) Foreign Office and government leaning heavily on UEA to keep a lid on everything lest it destabilises Copenhagen.
3) CRU asked to prepare data for a pre-emptive release in past couple of days but trouble reconciling issues between data bases has stopped this.
Bishop Hill
TonyN in the comments notes this article by Roger Harrabin where the official position on the inquiry is put.
One senior climate scientist told me that the chair would have to be a person accepted by both mainstream climate scientists and sceptics as a highly respected figure without strong connections to either group.BBC News understands that senior individuals at UEA have acknowledged the potential damage to the university's reputation from the CRU affair and are anxious to clear the institution's name.
It's not going to be Lord Rees then, is it?
Reader Comments (39)
The report by Edward J. Wegman, George Mason University, David W. Scott, Rice
University, and Yasmin H. Said, The Johns Hopkins University showed that Manns work was rubbish, it also showed that the peer reviewing was not independent. Essentially none of the AGW has ever been independently reviewed.
Yet here we are several years later and Mann is still the gatekeeper. I have little confidence that they won't manage to keep the lid on this. They have, after all, come up with the answer the politicians (there pay masters) want, which is to give more power to politicians..
LOL!
So those databases were as ropey as the leaked info suggested, which again tends to confirm the genuineness of the leak.
We really need to find out who harry really is and send him at least a sympathy card and a case or two of hard liquor.
Yeah, their code and data is pretty much buggered. And since even they cannot reproduce their results it is therefore required the entire theory be thrown out.
Someone should demand they produce updated products now, let them fail and let start over.
Hilary Benn MP on R4 this morning
"The most important meeting of mankind, EVER is only weeks away in Copenhagen"
How I laughed
"Lord Rees (Royal Society) to be asked by UEA to investigate CRU leak"
Ah, so it'll all be alright then!
Interview with Lord Rees:
"What one single thing convinces you most that climate change is taking place?
The main reason for concern is that the carbon dioxide level is rising by 0.5 per cent a year and is now at a level that it has not been at for the last half a million years. I think if we knew nothing else than that, there would still be great reason for concern.
What is the most important thing you are personally doing on climate change?
I am becoming more and more conscious of the need to avoid waste. I use a small economical car, for instance.
If you were the Prime Minister, what one thing would you do about climate change?
I think Tony Blair has already played an important role leading the G8 nations on the climate change issue. I think he was right to do this and the issue is now high on the international agenda. The recently published Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change will have an impact internationally as well as help the G8 nations move further on this subject.
Do you agree with the Bishop of London that “making selfish choices such as flying on holiday or buying a large car are a symptom of sin”?
Bishops are experts in defining sins and I am not, but one change that may happen and I hope will happen over the next few years is that it will become socially unacceptable to be conspicuously wasteful.
There’s so much noise about climate change, are people in danger of becoming complacent?
It’s a difficult issue for the public because the downside is very long-term and is international, unlike pollution for instance, which people are concerned about because it affects their localities. The effects of carbon dioxide emissions are worldwide rather than local and the most severe effects will be far in the future. "
So, we'll get a nice balanced report then, just like Stern.
To investigate the leak.... um.
Right. So who's going to investigate the data?
I have serious doubts that these eminent fellows of the Royal Society will do anything except exonerate the CRU lot.
Its not so much using a thief to catch a thief - its a veritable thieves' kitchen, where they're all in it together.
But hey - they're Lords, and scientists, so it must be all right, no?
In honour of the Climate Change wonks and their recent embarrassment, I'd like to offer my opinion of the whole Global Whatever in song. . .
D
The SINGLE most important reason for AGW: fortran.
Well, he's only investigating the leak itself. Seems the AGW crows finally started thinking about information security. For as long as His Lordship authority is limited to leak plugging that shouldn't be a big problem.
I really can't see how a leading alarmist like Rees, who recently co-authored a statement on climate change with the MO and NERC, can be impartial, but then again the UK government are continually getting away with appointing their own men to "investigate" their own wrong-doings, so i guess it's par for the course
What I think is most amusing about their pre-emptive data disclosure dea is that those above clearly thought that'd be a perfectly simple thing to do - after all it must all be there, documented, squeaky clean, robust and easily replicable.
HAHHAHAHAHAAAHH
investigating the fact of the leak or the content of the leak?
I think we should be told......
Don't forget 4) Government leans heavily on the BBC to make no mention of Climategate.
In light of 2) above it looks as though it might be the leak and not the contents of the leak.
One wonders what is the timetable for all this?
I did a Google search on: ' "Lord Rees" global warming '. It shows him to be an interesting choice by the University of East Anglia, for review of the CRU 'leak'.
From the summary at intelligencesquared.com: (i) Lord Martin Rees shares his thoughts on the future and the perils facing the earth in the 'Anthropocene' epoch. (ii) High on Lord Rees' list of priorities is combatting climate change, a challenge that brings other problems in its wake. (iii) The problems of climate change are likely to be exacerbated by population growth ...
From a cache of Royal Society webpage (seemingly no longer directly available): Lord Martin Rees, the President of the Royal Society, today (22 June 2006) welcomed the publication of a report by the United States National Research Council that endorses scientific evidence showing that the global average temperature over the past few decades has been higher than for at least 400 years.
From the BBC: But Professor Julia Slingo, chief scientist of the Met Office, Professor Alan Thorpe, Nerc's chief executive, and Lord Rees, president of the Royal Society, said cutting emissions could substantially limit the severity of climate change.
From a speech by Lord Rees: High on this list are concerns about energy supply and energy security -- crucial for economic and political stability, and linked of course to the grave threat of climate change. The essential scientific basis of climate change should be uncontroversial. CO2 was identified as a greenhouse gas by Sir John Tyndall 150 years ago. It’s also uncontroversial that the measured CO2 concentration has been rising for the last 50 years. And that, if we pursue ‘business as usual’, the concentration will reach twice the pre-industrial level by 2050, and three times that level later in the century. The higher its concentration, the greater the warming -- and, more important still, the greater the chance of triggering something grave and irreversible: rising sea levels due to the melting of Greenland’s icecap; runaway release of methane in the tundra, and so forth. The IPCC studies still quote substantial uncertainty in just how sensitive the temperature is to the CO2 level, and what regions will be affected most. It is the ‘high-end tail’ of the probability distribution that should worry us most -- the small probability of a really drastic climatic shift. Global warming involves long time-lags -- it takes decades for the oceans to adjust to a new equilibrium, and centuries for ice-sheets to melt completely. So, even though global warming has seemingly already begun, its main downsides lie a century or more in the future.
Best regards
And from Delingpole's article
"First, Lord Rees – formerly Sir Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal – is very much of the catastrophist mindset which helped launch the whole AGW scare in the first place. Five years ago, he declared:
“I think the odds are no better than 50/50 that our present civilisation will survive to the end of the present century.”
Second, he has previously suggested that there might be certain areas where frank and open scientific enquiry is not a good idea.
“He asks whether scientists should withhold findings which could potentially be used for destructive purposes, or if there should be a moratorium, voluntary or otherwise, on certain types of scientific research, most notably genetics and biotechnology.”
Well he seems like the ideal choice then :(
The outline for goverment budgets and taxation for the next 5 years must already be fixed, based on the bonanza of the AGW/CC racket - future long term planning afterall is their job. On these budgets rest also the budgets/fortunes of transnational bodies such as the EU, UN and lots of poor countries.
Now because of the careless handling of files, all is in jeopardy. I pity the authorities. They have been put in an inviduous position. What to do? What to do?
For government ministers, the best option generally, is to deny everything and brazen it out. Also get as much of the media on side. With media such as the BBC, dependent on taxation as it is, they dont even have to ask.
I have created a petition on the UK Number 10 web site to gather signatures for an inquiry into this affair. If you are a UK citizen or resident please add your name to this petition.
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/HADLEY-LEAK/
Thanks
"...and I have every confidence that Mr. Fox will solve the mystery of the break-in to my chicken coop.
At least it's a very high level whitewash! The only person I can think of as more likely to turn the CRU circus into a pantomime is Lord Stern!
I'm pretty confident that when the official whitewash happens - as it inevitably will - the reaction to it will make the current furore look rather tame!
HdK
Rees is one of the climate alarmists. He is anything but independent. Rees is part of the problem. You should have heard him on the radio the day after the Ofcom ruling on the Great Global Warming Swindle. He said Ofcom were wrong to rule that the programme wasn't dangerous because it might make people thing that man made global warming isn't happening. That's begging the question. But on the wider front, in my view Rees is one of the most corrupt scientists in the UK. His behaviour at trying to stamp out any dissent from his own pet theories in astronomy and cosmology, and trying to manipulate the peer review process are legendary. Scientists who dissented from the Big Bang were treated the same way as climatologists who question 'The Team' today. The difference is that it matters not a fig to normal life whether Rees is right or wrong in astronomy, but it matters a great deal when we're being sold a pup on global warming and have to pick up the bill of trillions. The Royal Society has, under Rees, become a crude advocacy group and he has ruined it. The Society fosters views on geoengineering - all academics wanting to get their noses in the trough. And their report on "Ocean acidification" is a propaganda piece containing blatant lies - it literally says that ALL the peer-reviewed literature supports their position. Heard that before somewhere?
Why does this remind me of an episode from Yes Minister?
Sir Humphrey Appleby would be proud... such courage, indeed.
So it's all Mann-made?
(Apologies for this weak joke, but I have yet to see it elsewhere, so had to make it!)
Oh dear. Rees. Rolls eyes. Mind you, since he apparently believes that we're all going to die in a grey-goo smog of nanoparticles, it's not clear why he also worries about our roasting in the hell of Global Warming. Seems a bit redundant, somehow. Further, shouldn't a jolly good grey goo keep out the sun's rays rather satisfactorily?
Still, no need to wonder whether such an inquiry would be held with the highest standards of propriety. No need to wonder at all.
"2) Foreign Office and government leaning heavily on UEA to keep a lid on everything lest it destabilises Copenhagen."
The Foreign Office are a law unto themselves. They do not have British interests at heart. It is laughable if they truly are trying to interfere in the peer review process. That is what the leak has done - moved the papers from CRU etc into the realm of proper peer review by anyone who has the expertise and desire to pick through the data and code.
The leak has opened Pandora's box. Things cannot be put back to how they were. This is much akin to the MP's expenses leak - before we suspected MPs were largey without honour and then we knew. Before the breakout of data, emails and Harry's Read Me we suspected the science was far from settled, and now we know even the most ardent in the arena of climate change have doubts about various aspects of it. The science is settled no more.
Anyone here willing to pay yet more tax or accept more new restrictions on their freedom as a result of the hockeystick graph?
Don't put your thoughts in writing!
"3) CRU asked to prepare data for a pre-emptive release in past couple of days but trouble reconciling issues between data bases has stopped this."
I find this very encouraging. It indicates there are people in power who actually fell for the fake science, believing it was real, somewhere. If they were merely scamsters, they would not have asked this, they would have known better.
From a BBC News website report by Roger Harrabin
So at least we know what the remit will be.
Actually I think that Reece is rather a good choice; appointing him would confirm most people's suspicions that the problems revealed by the emails are not confined to CRU and the Hockey Team.
I would support the suggestion by commenter G. Karst at Lucia's "The Blackboard" that Dr. Judith Curry (professor, Georgia Tech) be nominated to act in some capacity in any review if she would be willing and able to serve.
She has shown a willingness to listen to both sides and I can't think of anyone else who might be trusted on both sides of the issue.
My the Brits are so polite. Here we have the biggest hoax since the Piltdown Man and people are mildly exercised that Her Majesty's Government or whatever you term it is just not being firm enough. People! Don't you understand that fraud is a crime? Some of the perpetrators should do jail time! You're part of a democracy, right? Get your "representatives" on top of this!
What about two lords: Monckton and Rees. Wouldn't that be a great couple?
Frankly all that is required is the publication of the raw Temp data from each of the reporting countries , even local temps (preferably rural for the past 100 to 150 years) then let the WWW distributed intelligence srevice do the rest (Fake but accurate anyone!). Gatekeepers like Reese (no matter how well intentioned )are unnecessary and merely add to the well founded suspicion that a coverup is underway.
@J
"CRU asked to prepare data for a pre-emptive release in past couple of days but trouble reconciling issues between data bases has stopped this."
I find this very encouraging. It indicates there are people in power who actually fell for the fake science, believing it was real, somewhere. If they were merely scamsters, they would not have asked this, they would have known better."
Not exactly. What it shows is the politicians making sure THEIR backs are clear, by requiring the scientists to produce what they claimed was true.
Politicians are past masters in the skills required for avoiding personal scandal. The standard line is that THEY are never responsible for anything - they just 'take advice'. So when they want to push a policy, they pressure civil servants, advisory scientists and the rest to say things that will support it. If these people will not lie, they sack them and get more compliant 'advisers'. Then, when everything goes wrong, they hang these advisers out to dry.
Politicians are uninterested in climate change, as such. They ARE interested in how to run countries, modify people's behaviour and justify taxes. They bought into climate change for this purpose - they could equally have bought into nuclear power, or a space race. And they now probably have too much invested in it to drop it....
"And their report on "Ocean acidification" is a propaganda piece containing blatant lies - it literally says that ALL the peer-reviewed literature supports their position. Heard that before somewhere?"
I find it amazing they don't see the incredible weakness in such statements. One of the first things you learn when dealing with research is that no matter how well settled an issue is, there will always be a 'noise' factor in the research, some of which will always suggest something opposite of settled fact. Hell, in nutrition you see it all the time. Go to the NIH database and search and you'll find all kinds of nonsense in 'peer reviewed' papers. These guys don't seem to get that if the peer reviewed research is 100% in their favor, that means there's actually a serious problem with the research. You always expect to find variances and contradictions because of errors, differences in methods, data, etc. A lack of such 'noise' means there isn't enough research, not enough independent research, or that someone is stacking the peer review deck, either intentionally or not.
I suppose of course it's possible that the Earth's climate system is the most well understood system in the history of science, and that's what eliminates the expected noise. But for some reason I seriously doubt that.
Notice that the BBC is referring to the emails as "stolen". Isn't this a somewhat prejudicial thing to say, given that the police have not completed their investigations?
Perhaps the BBC should be offering a retraction.