Bishop Hill CRU "not especially honest" on MBH98
Nov 25, 2011 Email 1656
date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:05:20 +0100
from: "Douglas Maraun" <d.maraun@uea.ac.uk>
subject: Informal Seminar TODAY
to: cru.internal@uea.ac.uk
Dear colleagues,
I'd like to invite all of you to todays discussion seminar, 4pm in the coffee room:
"Climate science and the media"
After the publication of the latest IPCC, the media wrote a vast number of articles about possible and likely impacts, many of them greatly exaggerated. The issue seemed to dominate news for a long time and every company had to consider global warming in its advertisement. However, much of this sympathy turned out to be either white washing or political correctness. Furthermore, recently and maybe especially after the "inconvenient truth" case and the Nobel peace prize going to Al Gore, many irritated and sceptical comments about so-called "climatism" appeared also in respectable newspapers. Against the background of these recent developments, we could discuss the relation of climate science to the media, the way it is, and the way it should be.
In my opinion, the question is not so much whether we should at all deal with the media. Our research is of potential relevance to the public, so we have to deal with the public. The question is rather how this should be done. Points I would like to discuss are:
-Is it true that only climate sceptics have political interests and are potentially biased? If not, how can we deal with this?
-How should we deal with flaws inside the climate community? I think, that "our" reaction on the errors found in Mike Mann's work were not especially honest.
-How should we deal with popular science like the Al Gore movie?
-What is the difference between a "climate sceptic" and a "climate denier"?
-What should we do with/against exaggerations of the media?
-How do we avoid sounding religious or arrogant?
-Should we comment on the work/ideas of climate scepitics?
If you have got any further suggestions or do think, my points are not
interesting, please let me know in advance.
See you later,
Douglas
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Douglas Maraun
Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia
Reader Comments (119)
Maraun is still retained on CRU staff as Associate Fellow. He started there around February 2007. Previously he was at the Nonlinear Dynamics Group, Institute of Physics, University of Potsdam. He is now based in Kiel.
Professional Career:
since 1/2011
Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, Kiel, Germany
Juniorprofessor for Marine Meteorology
07/2009-12/2010
University of Giessen, Giessen, Germany
Akademischer Rat at the Department of Geography
02/2007-05/2009
University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
Senior Research Associate in the Climatic Research Unit
09/2006-01/2007
University of Potsdam
Senior Research Associate in the Nonlinear Dynamics Group, funded by the
Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 555, Project C1, of the German Research Council (DFG)
01/2002-09/2006
University of Potsdam
Research Associate in the Nonlinear Dynamics Group, funded by the
Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 555, Project C1, of the German Research Council (DFG)
04/2002-07/2002
University of Bergen/Norway
Practical training in the group of oceanography at the geophysical institute, work on THC box models
10/1995-03/2002
Universities of Ulm and Freiburg
Student Research Assistant in various Departments
Education:
1/2002-9/2006
University of Potsdam
PhD student in the Nonlinear Dynamics Group (supervisor: Jürgen Kurths),
Thesis: What Can We Learn from Climate Data? Methods for Fluctuation, Time/Scale and Phase Analysis
09/2002-12/2002
Travelling in South America
10/2000-03/2002
University of Freiburg
Diploma thesis "Parameter estimation in nonlinear protein folding dynamics" in the Stochastic Dynamical Systems Group (supervisor: Jens Timmer)
08/1999-01/2000
Norwegian Institute of Technology, Trondheim/Norway
Physics
10/1998-03/2002
University of Freiburg
Physics
04/1998-09/1998
University of Ulm
Physics
10/1995-03/1998
University of Ulm
Electrical Engineering
07/1994-09/1995
Itzehoe
Zivildienst (Civil Service)
06/1994
Itzehoe, his hometown
Abitur (school leaving exam)
I think "climate science" has reached that stage in the Titanic movie where the orchestra's still playing and the first class passengers are enjoying dinner while, deep in the bowels of the ship, the designer is explaining to the captain that there are just too many holes below the waterline - and she's going down.
"...we know with certainty that we know fuck-all"
Nov 25, 2011 at 8:32 AM | Foxgooose
Foxgooose & Philip: I worked for an international company where we had project teams made up of all countries. One particular French guy thought we were ignoring him. The story went that he eventually blew his top, claiming: 'You English! You think I know fuck nothing!! Well, I show you, I know fuck all!!'
Magic.
Some questions for Richard Betts.
Have you personally deleted any emails concerning your role as an IPCC author for AR4 and AR5?
Have you been asked to delete any email correspondence concerning IPCC AR authorship, IPCC AR process or from others offering advice and support on IPCC AR authorship and process?
Do you know of other IPCC AR authors and contrubuters who have deleted emails concerning their work with the IPCC?
The reason I ask is that I know no one in the media will do so.
Mac -
I don't think that trying to interrogate Dr Betts is very helpful. He has shown himself to be a reasonable and good natured man who does speak clearly when he chooses. Let that be his choice. Don't set out (inadvertently) to prove that we (skeptics) are not reasonable adults.
Phillip Bratby What's the difference between "not especially honest" and "not honest?
"Not honest" = "dishonest"
"Not especially honest" = "no more honest than usual" = "no less dishonest than usual" ?
SayNoToFearmongers One thing CG 2.0 makes clearer than ever, the "just pathetic" Michael Mann is held in particularly low regard by sceptics who have seen his dishonesty comprehensively and forensically exposed by Steve McIntyre and our own Bish, and is also comprehensively and apparently universally reviled by people who he has had professional contact with - how does this guy (a) keep his employment, and (b) sleep at night? His work has been shown to be so worthless that it's not even wrong and everybody knows it.
Michael Mann is a Man on a Mission and I feel sure that it simply does not cross his mind that he has ever done anything untoward.
Thanks ScientistForTruth 11:21 AM:
So he embarrassed his colleagues at CRU a few months after arriving by discussing their “not especially honest” behaviour, and left a few months before Climategate1. I wonder if he still had access to his email account?
Snotrocket
That quote is attributed by David Niven to Michael Curtis (film director) on the set of the Errol Flynn 'Charge of the Light Brigade". It is from his autobiography 'Bring on the Empty Horses'.
Mac
Your questions to Dr Betts are pertinent, but why should the one climate scientist willing to engage in constructive dialogue be held to higher standards than everyone else? Given that deleting embarrassing emails was obviously perfectly normal practice, it would be odd for one person to insist on holding on to his.
Hickman is calling on Graun readers to help catch the hacker at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/nov/25/clues-climate-email-hackers-message
What I find interesting is that he warns readers what comments the moderators are liable to delete as being off-topic, despite the fact that Guardian journalists like Monbiot have frequently stated that moderators are entirely independent of journalists.
Conistion and GC
I think it is entirely legitimate to see what standards Richard Betts set himself on email deletion in comparison to others involved in the IPCC process.
We must not let Phil Jone's excuse to be allowed to stand as a defence on deletion, namely, "Why do people need to know who wrote what individual paragraph?"
This is a matter of public accountability because what Richard Bett does or does not do impacts on us all.
GC
Leo Hickman suspects a Frenchman did it ......................... don't we all.
@Stuck-record ... almost right :-) Michael Curtiz. Hungarian. He was the source of the shouting arrogant Film Director stereotype... and his English was exactly like that...
I suppose Mr Hickman is out of ideas on what to investigate.
Stuckrecord/jiminy cricket: Many thanks for adding to my edukashun. :) I thought it was a tad apochryphal (the quote).
Leo Hickman has narrowed his search for the French hacker down to this guy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGMVwcxF2Nk
Sherlock Hickman says in his massive annotation to FOIA’s Readme text:
“The fact that the file was announced on at least four blogs frequented by climate sceptics - Watts Up With That, Climate Audit, Air Vent and TallBloke - shows that the perpetrator closely follows such debates. The choice of those blogs is somewhat intriguing, though. Why not announce it on equally popular blogs such as Bishop Hill (a UK-based blog with a much higher profile than UK-based TallBloke)?”
He’s on to you, Your Grace. Do’t be surprised if they stop you as you board that plane.
@geoffchambers...
You could equally say, if he respected BH, he may not want to give BH the noise and the hassle and possible police inquiries that goes with it. Knowing the focus of the site would be perfect for dissemination after.
Really "zeds under the bed" stuff...
Interesting tidbit from Insider Hickman: ""Also, they were not part of a prepared file made by the FOI officer, as is still commonly assumed. They were taken from a back-up server."
Again. Like R Black, Mr Hickman either has inside knowledge of an ongoing police investigation (that has not been publicly released), is being lied to by UEA/someone inside, or is making it up.
Answers on a postcard.
It was Bill and Melinda Gates wot done it.
The first phrase "Over 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day." is lifted from this
Of course, the Gates 'solution' to this problem is to reduce the number of people being born.
Could Dr DM be the insider leaking these emails? After realising the deception going on, especially amongst The Team, he may have thought "enough is enough".
geoffchambers,
"He’s on to you, Your Grace. Do’t be surprised if they stop you as you board that plane."
It was somewhat convenient that the Bishop was away from his desk... :D
Dr. Maraun's CV lists him as a "Senior Research Associate in the Climatic Research Unit" in 2007-2009. This was just after completing his PhD. He was a postdoc at CRU, i.e. a temporary researcher on temporary funding. Contrary to some suggestions above, there's nothing strange at all about him leaving after ca. 2 years in the UK - he moved to Giessen, either because the money for his position in Norwich ran out, or because the "Akademischer Rat" position (not sure what that is) was preferable. All of this is pretty normal.
@geoffchambers
Hickman is getting a fairly good going over for corporate hypocrisy at the moment. Look now before their 'moderators' = censors = inquisition delete all the good stuff
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/nov/25/clues-climate-email-hackers-message?commentpage=all#start-of-comments
Stuck-record quotes Hickman: ""Also, they were not part of a prepared file made by the FOI officer, as is still commonly assumed”.
What is he on? Who ever suggested that the FOI officer put all the embarrassing stuff ever said in 20 years on one file? To do what with? Dump it on Steve McIntyre’s desk with a “Do your worst?”
I had thought they might have already existed in a prepared file, partly because “FOIA2009” is such a bizarre title for a hacker to choose. (Very little of the contents is about FOI requests, though almost everything is the kind of stuff you’d prefer not to be the subject of FOI requests).
My guess is that Phil, Keith and co put it all together so it would be nice and handy to release if anyone asked for it.
geoffchambers its one of CIF's 'problems' that they make this claim of moderate independence, when ever one knows that is not reality and its clear some authors do run of to mods to get posts deleted. Its like their 'we never disappear posts' claim, which is rubbish they do it all the time . Often the approach to history and reality on CIF is '1984' in nature, its their ball and you have to accept you play be their 'rules' or they take it home in a huff.
I rather liked this comment from ambodach on the Hickman column at 1.15pm today:
The Guardian appears to have an ambivalent stance towards leaked information. Here it appears critical of those who leaked e-mails from the University of East Anglia - yet another article from the same day's newspaper quite uncritically proclaims "Twickenham's leaked rugby reports: truths from the touchline". Moreover, a google search for "Guardian" and "leaked report" returns over 170,000 hits - obviously many duplicates and false positives. So the use of leaked information appears to be acceptable or otherwise according to the prejudices of the Guardian's editorial policy.
Nov 25, 2011 at 11:47 AM | Mac
I tidy up my Inbox just like anybody else (actually probably nowhere near often as I should from a tidiness / disk space perspective) but I certainly have not deleted anything to do with IPCC on the grounds that I don't want anybody to see it. In fact I tend to keep the more important stuff like IPCC emails, precisely so I can go back and see what I said or what other people said to me.
Neither have I ever been requested to delete any emails, as far as I recall.
But anyway, I tend to go by the general rule of thumb that anything in an email could potentially be read by anybody anyway, so deleting them in order to hide something would be pointless - they'll still be on the recipient's/sender's server, and possibly others in between, and might even be archived somewhere anyway.
You know as much as me about what other IPCC authors do with their emails!
Cheers
Richard
Best lead so far on Leo’s thread is surely this, from Blue Gene:
“Climate skeptics are primarily "delusional-disorder/ paranoids" who may also be scientifically illiterate far-right anti-government anarchists. The culprit is most likely a Christian Identity/Patriot movement "Sovereign citizen" anarchist”.
The game’s up. He’s got us bang to rights.
When Leo tracks him down, what’s the betting the Guardian discovers he’s being doing naughty things with swedes?
Very often Hickman, Carrington and co simply believe their briefings. They are so convinced of the rightness of the cause and that the other side must be ignorant pinheads* by dint of the fact that they are 'on the other side' of a given argument. (*See last fifteen years of the Euro debate).
At least Monbiot, for all his faults actually investigates, a bit. He is, despite being a mad left-winger, a journalist.
Hickman simply isn't. He is a useful idiot.
The words 'back-up server', however, are very interesting. Anyone else remember that before ClimateGate 1 UEA kept forgetting that some of their public FTP servers had no password protection? The geniuses kept putting files they didn't want M&M to get on them.
Doh.
I wouldn't put it past the Team to start spinning an open ftp server as a back-up server.
Does anyone think that anything will happen this time to change things for better?
"I tidy up my Inbox just like anybody else (actually probably nowhere near often as I should from a tidiness / disk space perspective) but I certainly have not deleted anything to do with IPCC on the grounds that I don't want anybody to see it."
I doubt anyone here thought you did, maybe mac, but then again he may just be teasing you. I do have a question though Richard, and that is about the contents of the emails and the way people slag others off behind their backs. I spent some time as a rather unsuccessful researcher, and then went on to being one of the people who decided what would be researched and who and how much we would pay for it. The latter job brought me into contact with people from a lot of the major universities, mostly in the computing and communications research, so I have good insight into the stresses and strains of keeping funding for research flowing in, and what people are prepared to do to get funding. As a final bit of my CV I became head of a global engineering organisation and served at board levels in a few major global companies. I tell you all this because I am leading to a question. In all the years I served in the email era I have never seen emails of the sort we are seeing in the UEA files, the backbiting, the slagging off, the plotting and planning etc. Never, and nor have I had cause to delete emails, and don't know of any of my colleagues over the years have. Is what we are seeing here the norm for climate science? Do you experience the kinds of emails seen here at the Met Office? Because whatever they prove, or don't prove, whatever context they're in, they are quite frankly, for want of a better word, "unprofessional".
Hi geronimo
From what I've seen so far in the emails, the language of Met Office scientists seems to be appropriate and my wider experience within the Met Office is that my colleagues and I use appropriate, professional language in emails.
Well, if you ignore the big oil money they're all getting ;)
If it was done by a hacker, who'd have to be someone who knows a lot about computers and networks, then that rules out Bill "what's a network?" Gates.
Interesting comment Geronimo. I've certainly seen emails in my corporate life that I would describe as 'politicised'. The same sort of thing you would in earlier years have seen as 'war by memo'. I think that in the early days emails were treated more as letters -more carefully scripted and thought about. Now that they are ubiquitous I think the standard of writing is becoming nearer to conversational, and that's what gives many of them their 'bite'. It is interesting to see the characters coming through though, and in this batch moreso than the first I think we see guards down and true feelings expressed.
I've not seen many of the met office ones yet, but from what I have seen they are a lot more professional.
Richard Betts - thank you for your courteous and level headed replies to various questions, one or two of which (not all) border on the provocative.
Does anyone think that anything will happen this time to change things for better?
Nov 25, 2011 at 2:48 PM | genealogymaster
I had hopes last time and the whitewash was sadly 10 foot thick, I have no hopes this time.
Richard Betts has replied courteously but has left a small door ajar.
'my wider experience within the Met Office is that my colleagues and I use appropriate, professional language in emails.'
That is very specific to the Met Office can be taken many ways beyond the Met Office.
I also had many years in the Corp world in global manufacturing entities, I have never seem any emails of the type shown in climategate 1.0 or 2.0 before. They show ways of working and attitudes completely unacceptable in my working life.
@ Richard Betts:
Dear Dr Betts,
Given the many e-mails in Climategate 2 where some members of the Team are addressing uncertainties, bad science perpetrated by other members, lack of knowledge, failed models - isn't it now, at least, time for honourable scientists like yourself to come out from hiding behind the curtain of fear spread by the Phil Joneses, Manns and Trenberths and acknowledge that the shibboleth perpetrated by the IPCC and other political puppet masters are just that?
Isn't it in fact your duty to get out from under the activists and the politicians and tell what the Team has said behind their closed doors, namely that the AGW emperor is stark naked?
I cannot believe that you will stand by and see whole swathes of populations either kept in dire poverty in the developing world, or poor and especially old people here in our country become destitute and even dying because of the energy policies imposed on us thanks to this activist-driven non-science!
CumbrianLad: I'm not saying I haven't seen, or used, robust arguments with colleagues, but for instance I've never seen anyone called a "prat" or "jerk". I have of course heard them called that and much worse, and indeed have indulged in some rather fruity descriptions of colleagues myself, but it takes a first class prize idiot to put what we're seeing from the CRU and their collaborators into an email.
Richard, thanks for responding, I thought not.
Thanks Richard one of the reasons for asking was based on this.
I assume Richard you must have been aware of this issue considering the deletion of emails by a Met Office scientist, your own colleague, involved in the IPCC process and the untrue excuses offered up by the Met Office to prevent disclosure.
I ask again.
Do you know of other IPCC authors and contributers who have deleted emails concerning their work with the IPCC?
From the Hickman CiF thread:
"xavierv 25 November 2011 3:59PM
Just testing. Was I deleted for saying (correctly) that BBC's Alex Kirby said this to Phil Jones?
“I can well understand your unhappiness at our running the other piece. But we are constantly being savaged by the loonies for not giving them any coverage at all, especially as you say with the COP in the offing, and being the objective impartial (ho ho) BBC that we are, there is an expectation in some quarters that we will every now and then let them say something. I hope though that the weight of our coverage makes it clear that we think they are talking through their hats”.
and:
"xavierv 25 November 2011 4:09PM
Or perhaps I was deleted for referring (correctly) to the fact that Phil Jones (that's professor Phil Jones who heads a dept responsible for maintainign and analysing data) confesses in one of the e mails that he is incapable of plotting a total of 2 values on Excel".
4.30pm both had disappeared, without even a “this comment has been removed”.
The Guardian is doing everything to help the police in their enquiries, but doesn't want its readers to know what the enquiry is about.
Hi Mac
I think all the details of that FOI request are on What Do They Know. I don't think my answer changes in response to you repeating the question!
Cheers
Richard
Nov 25, 2011 at 4:14 PM | Viv Evans
Hi Viv
I don't believe I'm "standing by"...
I'm contributing to, and communicating, my science (and how it fits with the wider picture, with all its controversies and uncertainties) to the best of my ability.
Cheers
Richard
RB
I am glad you understand the importance of what is being asked. I also understand any reluctance to name names. I assume from your hestitancy to deal directly with the question posed there is a likelihood that others have not behaved in the same way as you in retaining emails and dealing with requests for information. It is interesting to note that the Met Office displayed the same attitude and conducted itself in the same manner in dealing with FOIA requests on the IPCC email correspondence as did UEA. It would appear that CRU contagion did travel far and wide.
Mac
The Met Office complies with its obligations under FOI / EIR - see
David Holland's latest enquiry and the material that was released (and also that which was not, for the reasons stated).
So no we don't exert a blanket refusal to release IPCC-related material! We deal with each individual request as appropriate, and release as much as we can.
Hi Richard
Here's wiki's definition of pseudoscience:
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status.Pseudoscience is often characterized by the use of vague, exaggerated or unprovable claims, an over-reliance on confirmation rather than rigorous attempts at refutation, a lack of openness to evaluation by other experts, and a general absence of systematic processes to rationally develop theories.
The wiki article expands:
A field, practice, or body of knowledge might reasonably be called pseudoscientific when (1) it is presented as consistent with the norms of scientific research; but (2) it demonstrably fails to meet these norms.
How close to this do you reckon climate science is getting? These quotes seem to me to describe what's up in these emails and models to a T.
We discussed recently the fact that GCMs rely on assumptions drawn from elsewhere, such as about energy price and population and technology in 100 years' time. There is, of course, no history of anyone successfully forecasting any of these over such timescales. There isn't even any respectable research industry that purports to be able to do so. Try to find someone willing to predict the price of coal in 2021, for example, and who doesn't get paid unless they get it right. No such person or body exists, with the possible exception of David Icke.
A GCM modeller modelling nonsense, and relying on the excuse for failure that others provide key inputs of key crap, is copping out. There's a moral duty to consider whether you can usefully model some things before you accept the money.
Notwithstanding this, we have people like BBD on here who have already made up their mind and have already decided what all evidence obtained in the future will say. The world's still overheating, even though we see from the horse's mouth itself that the models are crap, we know f*ck all and the consensus is really ~4 people bullying others into line. L'etat, c'est moi.
So isn't a science that relies on unverifiable inputs basically just decadence? Activity without purpose? It makes me think of Churchill in about 1912 waspishly describing the German Navy as a Luxusflotte, a nice-to-have luxury navy but without use or purpose.
What astounds me is the lack of scientific content. Perhaps its the difference between academia and my experience in the same time email frame in Earth Science involved in industry exploration, where the majority of emails are just vehicles carrying the scientific load in the form of attachments. Or maybe, we just had a lot more hard data, and a lot more potential models and learned to understand risk analysis pretty well (and humility)- we had to do the post-mortem analyses as well!
Don't forget Pharos that you're looking at just 5000 out of 220,000 emails about 2%. The rest might well be more technical.