Bishop Hill Acton analysis
Feb 25, 2010 Climate: CRU Climate: Jones Climate: Parliament I've now had a chance to cast an eye over Sir Edward Acton's contribution to the Parliamentary Select Committee's inquiry into CRU. Like many commenters, I'm not impressed.
It's every man for himself
The contribution is billed as as being submitted by Sir Edward, "with additional comment provided, where indicated, by the University's Climatic Research Unit". It's interesting to note, therefore, that the controversial sections are attributed to the CRU rather than to Sir Edward, so there's a strong hint that the UEA boss is not confident enough of what Jones et al are saying to want to put his name against it. Joint and several liability is a dangerous thing when giving evidence to one's political masters, it seems.
Refuting illusory allegations
When we look at the CRU sections we see firstly that they are denying strongly that they have fabricated primary data. That they haven't done so is unsurprising, because as far as I am aware nobody has ever accused them of such a thing. This looks rather like the politician's trick of refuting an allegation that hasn't been made.
Still no code
There is a lengthy section dealing with allegations that CRU has exaggerated global warming by manipulation or selection of data. Most of this is verbiage, which doesn't address the primary issues of the non-availability of the CRUTEM code and the question of how individual stations are chosen. Claims that the adjustments are explained in published papers and unpublished technical reports can be tested in seconds, and a brief perusal suggests that anyone who reads the cited documents will be none the wiser as to how the adjustments actually work in practice. We need the code not more empty words.
Different code doesn't help
There is an interesting point at section 3.4.8 in which it is claimed that "the different computer program used to produce the CRUTEM3 dataset has now been released by [the Met Office] with the support of CRU". This rather curious form of words - a "different" computer program - presumably refers to the code in which John Graham-Cumming has just found an error. As has been noted previously, this is not the adjustment code that everyone wants to see and is not even the actual code used by the Met Office to create the HADCRUT global temperature series. Again, this looks like smoke and mirrors rather than an attempt to get to the truth.
Hiding the decline
When it comes to "hiding the decline", we start to see why Sir Edward wouldn't want to put his name to the CRU's explanation. There is another repetition of the risible claim that this was something to do with using reliable temperature data rather than unreliable proxy figures. Everyone knows that the decline was hidden so that the proxy reconstructions of the medieval warm period looked more reliable than they really are. We know the context and it makes it worse. Really, these people just have to stop it.
It's interesting to see this in the UEA submission though, because of course we now know that there will be nobody giving evidence to the panel who can challenge this sort of misleading story. As many have noted, it's almost as if Phil Willis and his colleagues on the committee set out to avoid hearing the truth.
FoI and the station data
The FoI sections are particularly interesting, with Jones et al repeating their claims that the CRU data was subject to "formal non-publication agreements", despite the fact they appear to have been able to distribute the data to sympathetic researchers. One for the select committee to probe there.
They also harp on about the "overwhelming deluge" of FoI requests in summer 2009. Given that these were all essentially for the same information, it seems pretty clear that this is an excuse, and a feeble one at that. It has been pointed out that it should have taken no more than an hour to find the four agreements that were actually held by CRU and no more than another hour to send identical replies to each of the requesters. This is a simple issue for lay people to understand and the select committee should be able to demolish Sir Edward and Professor Jones next week. If they want to.
FoI and Briffa's data
CRU are saying that they directed requests for Briffa's tree ring data to the appropriate institutions. This again looks like an attempt to mislead, because the request was for the data as used by Briffa, not for something held elsewhere that may or may not have been the same. In the Hockey Stick Illusion, I describe several instances where the data used by Mann in his Hockey Stick study was not the same as the data held in the archives, and these differences were often of critical importance. If you want to replicate a study you need the original data as used.
It's also worth noting that if the data were embargoed as CRU is claiming, it is surprising that Briffa should choose to publish them in journals that required him to make the data available on request.
FoI and the ICO
CRU says that the ICO has clarified that no breach of the law at CRU has been established. This seems to contradict the ICO's earlier statements that there had been. I wonder if we are merely dealing with a piece of semantics here - i.e. that the ICO believes a breach to have taken place but that since no trial has taken place CRU scientists are in the clear.
There's also a neat repetition of the "emails were private" canard. Remember, this was correspondence relating to the IPCC review process, which was meant to be open. Breaking the rules and doing the review in secret doesn't make the correspondence "private". Frankly the select committee should be hauling the CRU witnesses over the coals for this kind of thing.
And there we have it...
All in all, it's not a pretty sight and it will be fascinating to see whether anyone on the Select Committee is up to challenging this sort of nonsense. There is unfortunately only half an hour for questioning, and even this is split between Acton and Jones. Instead of grilling Acton and Watson, precious time will be wasted on giving a platform to the already ubiquitous AGW activists-cum-cheerleaders, Julia Slingo and Bob Watson. Again, one comes away with a strong impression of a charade being performed for the benefit of the cameras rather than an attempt to hold civil servants to account.
Reader Comments (15)
You just leave my Phil alone, Bishop bloody Hill. Bishops can be unfrocked, you know.
You say "there will be nobody giving evidence to the panel who can challenge this sort of misleading story"; but that is only for oral evidence. There will hopefully be plenty of written evidence on this topic.
Stopit Mum. You know it wer that unfrocking that caused Phil in the first place. And look wat a bad lad 'e turned out to be all cos of that unfrocking.
The "Mother of all Parliaments" living up to its name.
You have a list of MPs on the committee right?
My suggestion would be to send each of them a nice letter, thanking them for their hard work and diligence, how much you appreciate it, and suggesting 2 or 3 choice questions they could ask, and why you think they should ask it. i.e. issues that they might want to look into.
Concentrate on stuff that is clear, such as the FOI requests, rather than the hyper-technical stuff.
Pity that the bugger doesn't live up to a precept of his ancestor:-
"nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity".
Lord Acton
They've allocated 40 minutes to Acton and Jones, 4-4:40pm. Otherwise, a brilliant summary.
It is as if Sir Edward has not read the e-mails for himself.
Perhaps he should have a look at a summary of the "naughty" bits lifted from the US Senate Minority Staff Report:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=44e23459-2c9f-4bc6-bc1b-36ccec0daae0.
The whole report is here:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=7db3fbd8-f1b4-4fdf-bd15-12b7df1a0b63.
From page 34 there is a collection of complete e-mails .
Let's hope Phil Willis is a tad more accurate on Monday than he was yesterday, when he bade farewell rather than au revoir to John Beddington:
Beddington must have been aware of the mistake but chose not to expose it. That was out of politeness no doubt - hopefully on substantive issues next week such delicacy will give way to a burning desire for the truth.
I feel a whitewash looming. Nobody did anything wrong, they've been challenged about it & found squeeky clean save for a few minor procedural issues! Prof Jones must keep his desk much tidier in the future. Five'll get you ten? We'll see.
Shall I let you in on the darkest secret of the innermost ring of the global climate conspiracy, Alan the Brit? Not one of them - or us - knows what is going to happen on Monday. It depends on the quality of the questions, the skill of Lawson and Peiser and the willingness of other witnesses like Thomas and Beddington - and indeed Russell - not to soften the blows that should fall on the miscreants of CRU, UEA and climate science at large. It depends on mistakes and botchups, as always, on all sides. Things that are not determined yet.
There are many things about the global warming debate that I dislike. One I hate more than most is prediction of doom when it is not certain. I dislike it as much here. Hope springs eternal in the human breast for a reason. Sanity may well be one of them. Making sure we do all we can to win the day for truth is another. Are you planning to email any members of the select committee in the next 24 hours, with polite, respectful suggestions of what it may be helpful to ask? It doesn't sound like it. If it's bad news on Monday let's face it full in the face. Today let's watch and pray.
I agree with Richard Drake - much will depend on how the day starts with the first witness Lord Lawson. If he poses the key questions that should be asked and answered, with reference to the Acton submission, it will put pressure on the Committee to ask those questions when Acton appears. We can be sure that some of the Committee will have been nobbled so they do not rock the boat, and some are comitted warmists. But not all necessarily are. And some will probably be quitting Parliament after the election and may be ready to defy their whips and do the job they were elected to do.
As an aside, I read that the political blogger Guido Fawkes says that the BBC politics team has been put on red alert this weekend for an election call. If true, I wonder if this would put the kybosh on the Committee`s deliberations. Even if they took the evidence, there seems no way they could produce a report.
The various inquiries into the Iraq war give a good indication how these inquiries into Climategate will go.
We know they acted unlawfully, they know they acted unlawfully, the inquiries know they acted unlawfully, their guilt is plain but they will escape justice.
The closing of ranks by the establishment be it political, scientific or both always result in a whitewash.
Don't worry. We're going to win because we're smarter than they are.
I don't mean in a narrow academic sense; I mean in an social intelligence, broad worldview sense.
For example, we know exactly who our enemy is. I can easily imagine myself as Phil Jones, being gradually seduced, by a mixture of my own green inclinations, peer pressure, funding pressure, groupthink mentality and personal ambition, into the kind of unethical behaviour patterns he is now known to have displayed. The same goes for the rest of the ClimateGate gang, in differing proportions.
In fact, it gets even better. Not only do the AGW crowd not know us, but they think they do and they're wrong.
There is a particular sort of free-marketeer we could rightly called pre-Green -- someone who genuinely doesn't care about trashing the planet as long as they can make a profit. This is the realm of the demon versions of Big Oil, Big Tobacco and so on.
Equally, there are free marketeers we could plausibly describe as post-Green -- aware of a wide range of environmental concerns but also respectful of the industrial processes which have enabled our comfortable, efficient lifestyles. I believe that many, if not most, "deniers" fall into this category.
But the true Green cannot see this distinction. The true Green only sees Green and not-Green, and so, lumps all not-Greeen "deniers" into the pre-Green category, as greedy, unheeding and uncaring polluters. They truly cannot fathom our mentality, which is why they project their own characteristics onto us and refashion us in terms they understand -- we must be deliberate stooges of Big Oil, reckless saboteurs of the planet, well-funded guerillas of capitalist ogres, "well-entrenched", as they incredibly suppose, in media, academia and government.
They do not give us the credit for being independent free-thinking humans who have made common cause. In fact, they literally cannot, because that is not a worldview to which they yet have access. Their mentality has stalled at Green, with its characteristics of groupthink, organisation and propaganda; they cannot conceive of an integrated post-Green worldview which allows a loose coalition of disparate people to unite in a mission against humbug and moral self-righteousness.
Notice the AGW crowd's bewilderment when we challenge some of their precious beliefs. Why, they wail, would anybody behave like that if they weren't being "organised" and "funded"?
We know our enemy, and our enemy doesn't know us. That is why we shall win.
@Rick Bradford - one of the best comments I've read, wonderfully put.