Mann lecture at Mount Holyoake

This video is of Michael Mann lecturing at Mount Holyoke College - a liberal arts college in Massachusetts - a few days ago. The quality of the video is poor but I think it's adequate. I'm posting it up now and will take a look myself later on tonight.

H/T Batheswithwhales

There is an introduction about the greenhouse effect which looks pretty dull. It starts to get interesting from about 20 mins or so.

The good bit though is at 34:30 or so, when Mann ascribes the divergence problem to "pollutants" and says that is was "scientifically appropriate" to delete the divergent data.

Still tricking people

I was sent this presentation given by Australian scientist, Professor Will Steffen. This was apparently presented to the Multi-party Climate Change Committee (MCCC) in Canberra.

Interestingly Professor Steffen has chosen to present a copy of the spaghetti graph from Mann et al (2003). The full complement of authors is: Mann, Ammann, Bradley, Briffa, Jones, Osborn, Crowley,  Hughes, Oppenheimer, Overpeck, Rutherford, Trenberth and Wigley. In other words, the author team includes just about every scientist implicated in wrongdoing in the Climategate emails.

Here's the spaghetti graph - with a blowup of the interesting part. It's the orange line (Briffa 2001) you are interested in:

It does rather look to me as if Professor Steffen has chosen to present a spaghetti graph which truncates the divergence in Briffa's famous tree ring series.

"Hide the decline" still being used to "trick" people over a year after it was exposed.

Mann writes doggerel

Michael Mann has written to top US newspaper the Payson Roundup defending his honour...

Editor:

An individual named Terry Putnam did a grave disservice to your readers by making false and defamatory statements about me and my climate scientist colleagues...

I always liked the good old days when letters to the editor began "Sir", or perhaps "Dear Sir".

Read the whole thing.

The wind from Hawaii

Science has obtained statements from Eugene Wahl and Michael Mann regarding recent reports about the "delete all emails" episode. The major point of interest is that, Mann says that, contrary to some reports, he said nothing to Wahl, merely forwarding Jones' request to the AR4 delete emails:

Mann, reached on vacation in Hawaii, said the stories yesterday were "libelous" and false. "They're spreading a lie about me," he said of the Web sites. "This has been known for a year and a half that all I did was forward Phil's e-mail to Eugene." Asked why he sent the e-mail to his colleague, Mann said, "I felt Eugene Wahl had to be aware of this e-mail … it could be used against him. I didn't delete any e-mails and nor did I tell Wahl to delete any e-mails." Why didn't Mann call Wahl to discuss the odd request? "I was so busy. It's much easier to e-mail somebody. No where did I approve of the instruction to destroy e-mails."

Wahl confirms Mann's story in a separate statement.

I must say, I wasn't aware that Mann had added nothing. Does anyone know where this was revealed?

Update on Mar 9, 2011 by Bishop Hill

As I look at the Daily Caller story again, I can't actually see anything inaccurate in it. The author, Chris Horner, is quite clear that he is accusing Mann of being involved in the deletion of emails - which, by his own admission, he was, having forwarded the request to delete to Wahl.

Something of a smokescreen going on here I would say (or am I missing something?).

Update on Mar 9, 2011 by Bishop Hill

Mann's explanation for why he forwarded the message is rather bizarre, isn't it?

I felt Eugene Wahl had to be aware of this e-mail … it could be used against him. 

Now, if he wanted Wahl to be careful in case the email was used against him, surely he would actually have said so in the email: something along the lines of "Gee whizz Gene, if somebody gets hold of Jones' crazy request all hell is going to break loose. Better call him up and tell him not to be so silly".

Surely forwarding the email without comment could be misconstrued as, you know, actually wanting him to delete stuff?

Update on Mar 9, 2011 by Bishop Hill

H/T to Woodentop in the comments. If Mann thought that deleting the emails was a bad thing to do, something that might be used against Wahl, why would he have responded to Jones request by saying:

I'll contact Gene about this ASAP. His new email is: generwahl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

talk to you later

Why, why, why?

Josh 84

To go with this post at WUWT.

Aiding and abetting

An article by Chris Horner looks at the question of whether Michael Mann was involved in deletion of emails during the aftermath of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report. Mann was apparently asked whether he was involved, directly or indirectly, in any such actions. His reply was that he deleted nothing.

Horner's point is that we now know from the investigation of Wahl that Mann was involved. As he helpfully paraphrases:

PSU: This is potentially very grave. We must know: Did you do A or B?

Mann: I did not do A.

PSU: Ah. There we go. It appears there is no evidence he did A or B.

H/T GWPF.

Update on Mar 8, 2011 by Bishop Hill

McIntyre has now posted up partial transcripts of Wahl's interview during the investigation into NOAA's involvement in the deletions.

Virginia assembly refuses to block Cuccinelli

The Cavalier Daily, a publication serving the University of Virginia, is reporting that attempts by Democrat legislators in the Virginia assembly to end Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's powers to demand documents from university staff have been blocked. Had they been successful, Cuccinelli would have been prevented from pursuing his investigation into Michael Mann's grant applications.

Climategate - emails were deleted

Steve M is reporting some fascinating new information about a US Department of Commerce investigation into Climategate. As part of this inquiry they have interviewed Eugene Wahl about the notorious "delete all emails" message sent by Jones to Mann, in which Mann was asked to pass the request on to Wahl.

According to the report, Wahl has confirmed his belief that he did delete his AR4 email correspondence in accordance with Mann's request.

Full story here.

The Beddington challenge

Judith Curry has taken up Sir John Beddington's challenge to scientists to stand up and be counted in the battle against pseudoscience, with a long post on the subject of the Trick to Hide the Decline.

It is obvious that there has been deletion of adverse data in figures shown IPCC AR3 and AR4, and the 1999 WMO document.  Not only is this misleading, but it is dishonest (I agree with Muller on this one).  The authors defend themselves by stating that there has been no attempt to hide the divergence problem in the literature, and that the relevant paper was referenced.  I infer then that there is something in the IPCC process or the authors’ interpretation of the IPCC process  (i.e. don’t dilute the message) that corrupted the scientists into deleting the adverse data in these diagrams.

McIntyre’s analysis is sufficiently well documented that it is difficult to imagine that his analysis is incorrect in any significant way.  If his analysis is incorrect, it should be refuted.  I would like to know what the heck Mann, Briffa, Jones et al. were thinking when they did this and why they did this, and how they can defend this, although the emails provide pretty strong clues. Does the IPCC regard this as acceptable?  I sure don’t.

It's pretty interesting to see Sir John Beddington, Sir Paul Nurse and rest of the scientific establishment, as well as most of the sci-bloggers in the UK, all lining themselves up on the side of pseudoscience on the Climategate issue and Hide the Decline in particular. I wonder how long they can sustain the charade that everything is well in UK climatology?

Marshall rethinks

A few weeks ago I reported on a skirmish in the battle over the University of Virginia's struggle to withhold emails from the state attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli. A state congressman, Bob Marshall had proposed legislation that would allow for government employees to be fired for breach of FOI legislation.

Now, we hear, Marshall's bill has been rebuffed by a subcommittee of the legislature and he has been told to try again.

[T]he bill Marshall offered before the FOIA/procurement subcommittee of the House general laws committee contains language he didn’t intend. It allows a judge to terminate the employment of a public employee if they’ve been found guilty of violating FOIA. Marshall, who does not possess a law degree, offered a disclaimer. He’d simply asked for staff to create a bill that contained punishment for violating FOIA, he said.

“I just asked … to draw me up a statute where there was something punitive there,” Marshall said

Republican probe off again

The back-and-forth over the proposed global warming hearings in the US House of Representatives appear to be off again. According to The Hill, although a New Yorker profile of new House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Darrell Issa, suggested that he was keen to do an investigation, a statement yesterday by Issa's spokesman said that no such inquiry would take place.

Issa spokesman Kurt Bardella on Monday pushed back against the depiction of Issa’s climate plans in The New Yorker piece, claiming that Issa had been asked about the issue rather than raising it as a priority.

“We are not pursuing a Climategate probe,” Bardella told The Hill on Monday morning.

Virginia legislators to thwart Cuccinelli

Democratic senators in the Virginia State legislature are going to launch an attempt to thwart Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's probe into the work of Michael Mann. Their aim is to repeal the section of the Virginia legal code that permits the AG to issue demands for information - the so-called CIDs that Cuccinelli is currently directing at the University of Virginia.

The senators, A. Donald McEachin and J. Chapman Petersen, will meet this morning with Del. David J. Toscano, D-Charlottesville, at the Capitol to discuss the legislation.

“This particular statute has been used to get at an issue that would be discussed more appropriately by scientists, not legislators or elected officials. This bill would repeal the whole statute. I’m not sure it has to go that far, but that’s what the bill seeks,” Toscano said.

Officials in Cuccinelli’s office said they have not seen the bill and cannot comment until they get a chance to read it.

The idea of repealing legislation to prevent an investigation, even a politically inspired one, from going ahead seems extraordinary to me.

Cuccinelli appeals

I have covered the ongoing back and forth between the University of Virginia and VA Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, as the latter tries to obtain Michael Mann's emails to further the investigation into grant applications made by the hockey stick maestro.

I'm slightly confused by all this toing and froing. Last I heard, Cuccinelli had applied for the release of the emails once again - this was back at the end of September - with the university applying to have the demand set aside in mid-October.

Click to read more ...

No US Climategate probe?

Darrell Issa, the Republican leader who has in the past demanded a probe into Climategate appears to have backtracked rather. According to The Hill, Issa is now saying that while he thinks there needs to be an inquiry into the emails, this will not be his top priority.

I will have limited resources and limited time. I am looking at things that fall between the cracks, but also I am looking for the largest dollars of waste, and although this is a significant issue, it may not be the issue that first comes to my committee, and we are willing to realize that I only have so many resources and so much time.

Ciccerone circumspect

The Columbia Journalism Review reports on Mann's comments at the ScienceWriters2010 conference, which I posted about here. The report also covers comments made by NAS boss, Ralph Ciccerone, at the same meeting. Ciccerone of course needs little introduction to readers here because of the role he played in the shenanigans over the Hockey Stick hearings.

Asked in an interview about what he thought of media coverage over the past year, Cicerone was characteristically circumspect: “I don’t have any fault with the media coverage. The media was covering the news. That was no surprise.”

Looking ahead, given the politicized environment in Washington, Cicerone said he was counting on science media coverage of new evidence documenting the impact of climate change around the globe “to help clear the air.” He noted that ongoing measurements of surface temperature, ice, and sea level provide “consistent signals that the planet is warming…. We need to keep watching the data. We’re confronted with a long-term issue that isn’t going to go away. We need to keep the focus on this issue.”

Many commentators have suggested that the Climategate story was blown up from nothing by a coalition of sceptics and media pundits. It's therefore interesting to see Ciccerone putting this argument to bed.