Atomic Hairdryer has produced this report of the Guardian debate.
Guardian Climategate debate, RIBA 14th July 2010
Panel
Fred Pearce
Trevor Davies
Steve McIntyre
Bob Watson
Doug Keenan
Chair
George Monbiot
A pretty full house for this debate, so approximately 300 attendees.
Monbiot got off to a good start by explaining origins of Climategate as either a "hack or a leak, who knows", releasing email correspondence into the public domain. Those emails appeared pretty bad, with data manipulation, FOI obstruction and interference with the peer review process. Monbiot described the UEA's immediate response as catastrophic, with a failure to engage with critics or answer questions. He then moved on to suggesting the content was blown out of all proportion by the climate change denial community". He mentioned the three inquiries, the "half hearted and shoddy" Parliamentary enquiry, and the two UEA commissioned inquiries, describing the Oxburgh review as the science review with Russell reviewing conduct. The response to these reviews broadly exonerated UEA and the scientists, but still left issues unexamined.
For the debate itself, the format was 5 minutes for each panellist to speak, followed by a 15 minute panel discussion, and 45 minutes for audience Q&A, with strict time limits. Monbiot chose the questions for the panellists
Trevor Davies was asked to explain why CRU's response to Climategate was such a carcrash? Davies responded that it was difficult for employers to balance the duty of care as an employer towards its employees, and the public interest. The media wanted Phil, other UEA members gave interviews; some were shown, but most were not shown. Jones was being hounded by the press and incapable of talking to the media. As for the emails, he said they were a very small sample size and far from reality. He claimed the three investigations, plus Penn State's inquiry into Mann, a NAS report, and the recent Dutch report into the IPCC as vindicating the science.
He recognised that there were lessons to be learned regarding better public engagement, and interactions between blogosphere and media. UEA intended to take part in initiatives later in the year. His presence at the debate was part of this new willingness to engage. He felt UEA and climate science needed to explain uncertainty better, especially when data are integrated in reports. He said uncertainty over the Medieval Warm Period (MPW) had been an important part of the recent debate, saying its nature would always be relatively uncertain compared with the Modern Warm Period. He stated that greenhouse gases are the current driving factor. While the longer term is valuable for context, the models and observations are compelling and can only be explained by GHGs. These confirm the challenges facing mankind, irrespective of the nature of the MWP.
He felt they'd learned their lessons about obligations under the law, and towards society. They needed to be more helpful regarding FOI and EIR requests, but there were resource and governance implications and they'd begun to address those. In closing, he said they and other universities needed to be aware of unintended consequences from FOI and EIR regarding responding to fishing trips.
Steve McIntyre spoke next. Monbiot started by saying Steve had spent a very long time pursuing UEA for the temperature series data, to which Steve replied initially with a simple 'No'. Monbiot then added the Russell finding that the data were already online, and the tools needed to analyse it could be produced by a competent programmer in a couple of days, asking if Steve was just wasting his time, or CRU's time. Steve objected to being on the clock for this question. He explained Climate Audit (CA) had said the same thing last July, so Russell had confirmed that view. He then moved on to his presentation. Steve drew attention to the differences between Pearce's conclusions, and the Oxburgh & Russell reviews, with evidence of conflicts of interest, sloppiness but not fraud. Given the importance of climate science to the community, we should expect better. He mentioned the initiation of the Russell enquiry, which demonstrated its "independence" by using the House of Lords' logo and the UEA registrar's office as an email address. He pointed out that no CRU critics had been interviewed, and he was grateful to the Guardian for inviting him as none of the other reviews had.
He pointed out during Oxburgh interviews with Jones and Briffa, no transcripts or minutes were taken, and the very short time between their interviews and the report being written and published. He said post publication, a reliable source had informed him that Jones admitted during interview that "it was probably impossible to do the 1,000 year reconstructions with any accuracy". This comment was not included in the Oxburgh report, despite it being the most contentious issue wrt the Hockey Stick debate. Steve contacted Oxburgh to ask for this to be included, getting the response that "the science was not the subject of his inquiry". He then spoke of Phil Willis reaction to altering the terms of reference and accusing the university of "sleight of hand"
He said the Russell review also neglected to interview critics, highlighting the "natural justice comment" that those accused should be heard, but not authors of submissions and other parties. Panel members told Roger Harrabin that if they'd wanted to hear from Steve, they could read his blog. and this may not have been best for natural justice or a balanced inquiry. The Russell report had been due in Spring, but as of May, no CRU interviews had been conducted and Russell did not appear to have met with either Jones or Briffa after the unveiling of the panel in February. They had been interviewed on April 9th regarding the Hockey Stick, but Russell was not present, and neither were other panellists. He said Russell's handling of email deletion "beggars all imagination". On May 27th, David Holland had submitted an FOI request regarding 'backchannel' IPCC communications, the next day Jones emailed Briffa and UEA FOI staff to say there had been no such correspondence, and a day later to delete the emails. Steve then mentioned the ICO's statment regarding prima facie evidence of an offence. Despite evidence to the contrary, Russell review found there had been no FOI requests prior to Jones' "delete" email. He said although the public may not understand PCA, they can judge that sort of thing.
Steve then moved onto hiding the decline, saying any inquiry should have explained the legitimacy, or disowned what was done...which none of the inquiries had done. He mentioned the Penn State inquiry had adopted the RC view that it was a valid statistical method, and used a slide from John Stewart, who satirised the report. The Oxburgh review said it was unfortunate that the IPCC had neglected to explain it, ignoring the CRU's role in preparing the IPCC report. Russell dodged the issue entirely.
He closed by saying that if inquiries are not going to renounce this sort of conduct, there is a price to pay which is public confidence in climate scientists, and they needed to regain public trust.
Bob Watson was next. Monbiot asked if any of the emails had suprised him, or was it normal practise in his view. Watson said he'd only read a few of them. He said if you had read them, they could have been interpreted them badly. He thought the Oxburgh and Russell reviews had "high integrity", all the review panel members had "impecable integrity". His view was the reviews found no evidence for manipulation of data, no undue influence on peer review or the IPCC. He mentioned he'd chaired the IPCC and there was "no way" contentious views" could be blocked. He said though that there were major lessons to be learned regarding data sharing. He said UEA should be given credit for the Oxburgh and Russell reports, and the reviews had solicited evidence from a wide range of people.
He then moved onto criticisms of the temperature record, saying a key issue is that there are two other "unbelievably parallel" interpretations from NASA and NOAA, with very similar results despite the very different methods used. He said he'd explained this in at least ten or twelve TV interviews. He compared the print media to TV saying (broadly) that print had assumed guilt, but TV had been more balanced in reporting Climategate. He mentioned the Guardian, and Monbiot's calls for Jones to resign, and some critical reporting from Pearce. He stated the public needed to be informed, but there should have been more in-depth analysis. He said they'd learned that there must be much more open debate, with some people taking sides, becoming too defensive, and what was known, not known and uncertain needed to be better explained. Data needed to be open to independent analysis, but with appropriate procedures citing a US model as an example, but also mentioning intellectual property rights. He moved on to balanced reporting, saying that amongst the scientists, 90-95% of working scientists believe that humans are altering the climate, so how to balance majority, minority or differing views with certainties and uncertainties. On the IPCC itself, he said when errors were found, the IPCC had failed to admit the errors quickly enough. In closing, openness viewed as essential, balanced reporting equally essential.
Doug Keenan. He was there, honest. Possibly too honest. This is a placeholder! [BH adds: Atomic Hairdryer has checked out the legalities of reporting what was said by Doug K and is somewhat concerned. Readers may wish to refer to Doug Keenan's account of the affair.].
Fred Pearce. Monbiot said his results were quite different to the review conclusions, and asked Pearce to explain. Pearce said there were some areas where the reviews didn't go, and were more process focused rather than science focused. On some areas, they may have simply accepted the scientific judgement, and did not go deep enough. He didn't feel the differences between himself and the inquiries were that large though. He said he was disturbed by the Climategate emails on first reading and it merited investigation, but for him Climategate was more a tragedy than evidence of conspiracy. He said after "years of fighting off commercially and politically motivated critics", they'd lost sight of potential value in some of the criticisms. They'd failed to spot that there was a "new generation" of critics, who may better be described as "data libertarians" rather than sceptics or deniers.
He mentioned the "siege mentality" adopted by some climate scientists, highlighted in the emails. Opponents may have misintepreted the unwillingness to share data as evidence of something to hide, which was a mistake and a "tragedy of misunderstood motive". Over the years, it turned into a form of "data war", possibly leading to the leak, possibly originating from within the UEA. No conspiracy, but some grubby behaviour. He felt there had been abuses of the spirit, if not the letter of the FOI or EIR law, as well as conflicts of interest relating to peer review and IPCC process violations.
The reviews didn't go deep enough in explaining why some of the questionable decisions were made by the scientists involved. But he did not feel the inquiries were a whitewash, and were better than the Penn State inquiry. He described that in places as being rather "kafkaesque" using the example of Mann's success as a researcher and fundraiser was evidence of integrity. The British inquiries weren't as bad, and had some good things to say regarding data sharing, but more candour was needed, especially regarding discussion relating to uncertainty.
The debate then moved onto the panel discussion, with Monbiot managing the debate.
First question was to Davies regarding the independence and impartiality of the the reviews. Davies responded that they were independent, attracting some mild heckling. He felt the science had been addressed, even in the Russell report. CRU had made a 70-80 page submission to the review in March or April, containing some quite detailed science. He said that during the review, he'd asked whether journalists had read it but apparently none had. Regarding Oxburgh, he said there had been specific and misleading accusations about their investigation and cited UEA statements that it would, and that was Oxburgh's remit.
Next question was to McIntyre, again on the ease of DIY temperature reconstructions and the "crusade" to find the data was a waste of time. McIntyre replied that 98% of the Climategate emails were about the Hockey Stick, with CRUTEM appearing in 20 or so, all after 2005. Steve explained his issue related to the proxy reconstructions and historical record. He mentioned that around that time, Jones had "laid down the gauntlet" with his reply to Warwick Hughes, which lead to attempts to get the data. 2006 saw Willis Eschenbach's FOI request and led to the evasive, or as the Russell review described "unhelpful" behaviour, and mentioned a conversation with a reporter that described it as deliberately deceptive. Steve explained his own request wasn't until 2009, He noticed the Met Office had the data, and sent them an FOI request hoping for a more open response. That was refused and referred to CRU, but triggered a comment on CA that another researcher, Peter Webster had been sent the data by CRU. Steve asked for the same data, and that request was refused citing confidentiality agreements preventing disclosure to non-academics. He said that wasn't a smart strategy given CA's readership included many academics, who then asked for the data, whilst others asked for the confidentiality agreements. He'd said on CA not to expect the data, or any smoking gun. Most of the work could be replicated via GHCN and the only secret being hidden was "how banal" the CRU work was, and there was little value added.
Next question to Watson regarding CRU's reluctance to reveal data, and what did they have to hide? Watson didn't think they had anything to hide, but couldn't speak for the people concerned. He said that all the data is available for the modern record via the national weather centres. He felt there were two issues: the long-term record and the instrumental record. The long term record is nowhere near as accurate, it was important to understand natural variability but the real question was human influence. He said there were three main data sets, all in broad agreement, all peer reviewed by "some of the worlds best statisticians". He said that to say there was inconsistency would be quite wrong, and at IPCC, governments review it, citing the Saudi government hiring experts to defend their oil interests. Anything in IPCC has a very thorough peer review by sceptics, and supporters alike. Doug Keenan responded to Watson regarding peer review as a process, stating that he'd had a paper rejected 35 times and extended delays. Yet a paper by Foster et al, 2008 coauthored by Mann and Schmidt saying a method used by the IPCC was "complete rubbish", and should not be used to analyse temperatures, handing Watson a copy.
Next question was to Keenan regarding the fraud accusation he'd made earlier in his [missing] opening segment. Monbiot cautioned him that it was a serious claim to make. Keenan restated the accusation. This relates to Jones, Wang and the Chinese temperature record. [Keenan provided his justification, but I'm not comfortable with repeating it, just in case.] This question was removed from the audio recording, but Davies response left in.
Monbiot asked for Davies response to this serious accusation. Davies agreed they were serious, and said Jones needed to respond in detail. Monbiot asked for Davies to explain on Jones behalf. He said that the later GRL paper made it clear that station moves would not have made any difference to the original Nature papers conclusions, and the individual station moves were not important. The 2008 JGR paper showed the adjustments were "bimodal" and cancelled each other out. For seperating out urbanisation and global warming signal was confirmed "absolutely" by the later paper, and after a very tough peer review process for both papers. In addition, there had been confirmation in a paper by Parker 2010, possibly in Climate Research. Monbiot asked if Jones should have issued an earlier retraction when they became aware of the station moves. Davies said Jones has considered a clarification for the Nature paper, but felt a new paper would provide more support and detail. Keenan was asked to reply, and said the JGR paper claimed 40% of the temperature increase was due to urbanisation, and Pearce had reported the same in the Guardian. Davies responded that that was only in one small area. Keenan pointed out the survey was for Eastern China, and this conflicted with the original paper's claim that the urbanisation effect was negligible. Davies claimed that the global warming signal was still greater than the urban signal. Keenan came back that 40% was far more significant than the original paper. At that point, Davies said he didn't have all the necessary detail.
Next question was to Pearce, regarding the reporting. Given the complexity in climate science, as shown by the China discussion, how should science be reported? Pearce said "I wish I knew" and said it was very difficult, painstaking work. He felt the best way was via an adversarial system and allowing different people to argue it out. He said a problem with the IPCC was it required scientists to sit down and reach agreement about things where they may not agree, with a potentially subliminal effect of supressing debate. This needed to be opened out, and doing that is hard. He felt post-Climategate, there had been more candour, but there needed to be more space for debate without name calling. He repeated the "tragedy vs conspiracy" comment again, and pointed out there needed to be movement from both sides, away from entrenched views.
So on to the audience Q&A. The audience had a max of 20 seconds, and tried to ensure a gender balance.
Q. How much debate before action is taken?
BW: IPCC shows uncertainty, probably best system, needs more openness. Peer review it with sceptics, supporters, governments but sceptical views must be in the document.
(transcribing next one because it was a truly bizarre question, I thought Steve handled it well, but Monbiot didn't)
Q. To Steve, "really simple question", since 1980 temps increased by 0.6C consistent with wide range of evidence, where has that energy come from?
SM: <rather puzzled> why?
Q expanded.. since 1980, atmosphere and oceans have taken on billions and billions of joules of heat energy, why?
SM: I've been studying proxy reconstructions covering the last 1,000 years and they don't give a whole lot of information on that topic.
Q you've asked a lot of questions tonight and I asked for you to give just one answer.
SM: In terms of climate policy, I'd never suggested climate change is not an issue and governments should not adopt policy. I'd challenged whether proxy reconstructions should rise above phrenology, and I don't think they do, but that does not mean another line of evidence may not be valid.
GM: The intent behind the question(?) was do you accept that climate change is taking place?
SM: In terms of whether it's a big problem, a little problem, I don't know
Q: I don't care, I just want the answer to that one simple question, where have those billions of joules of heat come from?
SM: If you take the Lindzen point of view, CO2 will lead to a 0.8C increase, the big issue is whether water vapour and cloud feedbacks are mildy negative, or strongly positive, I don't know if..
Q: I'm asking about the history, the historical record..
(during this exchange the audience was getting rather bemused, heckling to move on, Monbiot seemingly reluctantly agreed. Curious who asked this question because I'd like to know what answer he was expecting, and why.)
Q: Whether public perception has changed or been damaged.
FP: Short term, yes, long term it will be more beneficial, science will be more open. Like MP's expenses, short term, bad for democracy but was a purging process. Climate science will come out stronger, science will improve.
Q: Media's role in reporting climate, and whether GM's views had changed.
GM: He'd been picked as the ideal chair as he'd managed to alienate everyone involved in the debate. He was shocked on first reading. As an environmentalist, felt let down, intial response perhaps hasty. Some serious issues, not all dealt with by reviews. Both sides have interest in ensuring science stands up, and for environmentalists, the cause stands or falls based on the science behind it.
TD: UEA was shocked to by the emails. Decided to assess based not on the small number of emails, but via independent reviews. Reviews may not have answered all the questions, but put the emails into some sort of context.
Q: Should emails be subject to FOI?
DK: Becoming irrelevant as scientists switch away from University systems to Gmail, citing Queens University Belfast as an example to avoid FOI
BW: Emails can be FOI, don't write hasty emails, think what you are writing. He was not aware of anyone that had switched messaging to avoid FOI.
Q: How much certainty before action, do we wait till it's too late?
DK: None of the science he's looked at stands up to scrutiny. He questioned whether Jones could pass an exam regarding statistical time series, and briefly explained what a time series is. Financial data and climate data are both time series, so common skill in analysing time series data. He went on to the cost of dealing with AGW, estimated at $45-50tn. If 3rd world economic development is hindered that way, how many people suffer, how many die, how many millions die? Economic development cannot be put back that much.
SM: Businessmen and goverments make decisions under uncertainty all the time. If he were minister of the environment (go for it!) he would take advice from institutions, no matter how much that may differ from personal views. But he would expect better performance that we're getting from those institutions. From his own position, he took an interest in the Hockey Stick due to the way it had been promoted.
BW: To say nothing stands up to scrutiny challenges the work of hundreds or thousands of scientists. GHG's must warm the atmosphere, question is when and how much, hence IPCC range of 1.4 to 6.4C over the next 100 years. On cost of action, it has to be compared to cost of inaction which affects developed and developing countries. $45tn over 100 years is "only a couple of percent of GDP", which would slow economic development by 1-1.5 years. It sounds a lot, but it's not over a 100 year time period.
DK: He's not opposed to global warming, and agrees with Steve
Q: Do people filing FOI have a responsibility to file proportionately? How does FOI fit with peer review?
TD: FOI brought in to challenge secrecy in public life, and laudable. Now confused with assumption that confidentiality has no place in a public body. Real problem for universities, emails used as speech. Risk of a "chilling effect" for internation science if focus is on emails. Better mechanisms for discussing science, peer review is there, is imperfect.
SM: Reviews showed data subject to FOI should have been public. Multiple FOI arose after obstruction and data should have been online in the first place. Escalation due to obstruction and untruthful excuses, which lead to the 60 confidentiality agreements. One email from Jones said those could have been handled by publishing a simple web page.
FP: Requests can be disproportionate, but law has mechanisms for vexatious requests. Scientists were slow to recognise implications of FOI. Jones was one of the first scientists to spot the implications. Where was the Royal Society responding to FOI challenges?
Q: (Piers Corbyn). Will they drop the denier label, and aren't solar/lunar influences more significant?
FP: Solar activity alters climate, nobody denies this. Issues are still human influences, real issues about feedbacks and AR5 may have wider error bars, which may make best case/worst case uncertainties greater. Sceptics have helped by highlighting where there are uncertainties, but also suggested that uncertantity means no action neede.
BW: All of the simulations show AGW, solar can have an influence, but not a significance over last 50 years. Climate change is classic risk management question.
Q: Why has FOI responsibilty been moved away from Jones to VC's office?
TD: UEA will be more open, FOI responsibility will be handled administratively within Science Faculty.
Q: During last interglacial, CO2 rose while climate cooled, so although CO2 causes some warming, natural cycles more dominant?
BW: It's the magnitude, no debate, have a warming effect. You only have to look at 3 planets to see effect, Mars, Earth, Venus, Mars has almost no GHG's (GM threatens to throw Corbyn out for mentioning orbital distance, density). Physics of radiative transfer are simple Mars cold, no GHG. Venus hot, lots of GHG. Earth, just the right amount. Interglacials more complex, multiple forces and feedbacks stimulated by solar changes feeding back on CO2, so would expect some time lags. Even ardent sceptics like Lindzen agree feedbacks are real, just high or low.
DK: Cites Gerrard Roe, GRL 2006 as perfect match between orbital variations and major climate changes, and removes CO2 lags.
Q: To Davies, any thoughts on new platform for open science, would it be widened to the public?
TD: We see problems with engaging across wide ranges of knowledge and opinions. Difficulty of engaging with "denialist" campaigns, does not see Russell recommendations as major challenge.
BW: Were mistakes in IPCC process, panel working on how to improve process with report due in September which can help open debate.
Q (Roger Harrabin) DK made comments about systemic failure of accountability in science (in censored section). He'd found it different to trace like of responsibility. Is Watson happy with accountability in science in general?
BW: He would not trust an single paper regardless of author. IPCC process bringing together multiple scientists is good process, but could be improved. IAC review is looking at improving accountability. Authors should not be preselected with one set of views. Full range of stakeholders need to be involved in (IPCC) peer review.
DK: Does not seem to be high level of integrity in academia in general. He'd recently filed an allegation against an non-AGW researcher, university refused to acknowledge complaint. No procedures to deal with allegations because their professors always act with integrity.
Q: Consensus becomes law, eg Newton and gravity. Given degree of consensus on AGW, should it be law or is it objection based on politics?
SM: No scientific law given uncertainty range regarding climate sensitivity, yet only a page and a half discussing this in AR4. IPCC becomes a 'shout out' to scientists who want to get their name in it creating artificial consensus. Suggested 300 pages on the water cycle and cloud feedback problems to explain current understanding in detail.
Q: Was Jones interviewed by Russell, if not, who did?
SM: Based on minutes, 8 exploratory meetings in December involving Russell and Jones. More in January prior to panel announcement on Feb 11th. Two subsequent meetings, one covering CRUTEM the other Hockey Stick, neither attended by Muir Russell. Bewildered why Russell did not attend only material interviews.
TD: Checking detail, confirmed interview.. he interviewed Jones.
SM: But not where any evidence was taken.
TD: Steve will have to remind me when panel was announced..
SM: February 11th Trevor
TD: Later interviews conducted by specialists..
GM: thank you, time to move on.
And then we adjourned to the pub.