Buy

Books
Click images for more details

The story of the most influential tree in the world.

Twitter
Support

 

Recent comments
Why am I the only one that have any interest in this: "CO2 is all ...
Much of the complete bollocks that Phil Clarke has posted twice is just a rehash of ...
Much of the nonsense here is a rehash of what he presented in an interview with ...
Much of the nonsense here is a rehash of what he presented in an interview with ...
The Bish should sic the secular arm on GC: lese majeste'!
Recent posts
Links

A few sites I've stumbled across recently....

Powered by Squarespace

Entries in Climate: Oxburgh (86)

Wednesday
May192010

The idea of Oxburgh

Updated on May 19, 2010 by Registered CommenterBishop Hill

One of the most troubling aspects of the scientific inquiry into the Climatic Research Unit was the appointment of Lord Oxburgh as chairman. Oxburgh's many links to the renewables industry and to green campaigning organisations (disclosed or otherwise) are now common knowledge among followers of the climate debate.

Click to read more ...

Thursday
May062010

House hearings on Oxburgh

The US House of Representatives Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming has been having hearings on Climategate and more particularly the Oxburgh report. In the words of the committee's web page.

The scientists addressed the claims of deniers head-on. Thursday’s panel featured a member of the investigative panel convened by the University of East Anglia and led by Lord Ron Oxburgh to review the stolen emails from that school’s Climactic Research Unit. The “Oxburgh Inquiry” exonerated the scientists who were attacked following the emails, saying they “saw no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work.”

Click to read more ...

Thursday
May062010

Ferman on Oxburgh

Joe Farman, the scientist who discovered the hole in the ozone layer was interviewed on BBC radio's Today programme this morning and made some trenchant remarks that will be of great interest to readers here.

Farman seems to have a pretty low opinion of climatology and how it spends its money..

Too much too much money is going into expensive climate modelling computers, and not enough into basic observational science, he says.

and he thinks sceptics have been ritually ignored...

Dr Farman also blamed the science establishment for "brushing aside" specific criticisms of climate science.

Farman seems similarly underwhelmed by Lord Oxburgh's review of the probity of CRU's work.

He said the teams investigating the controversy at the University of East Anglia should have invited some climate sceptics on board. "Lord Oxburgh's review (which cleared researchers at the Climatic Research Unit of any wrong-doing) was not convincing, he said.

Lord Oxburgh has been criticised for completing his review too quickly. But he stressed at the time that his remit was to determine whether the researchers had conducted their work honestly, not to make judgements on the quality of their science.

He told me he had not chosen to put a climate sceptic on his review team because their meetings would have degenerated into polar arguments on the science, rather than concentrating on the key issue of probity.

It's remarkable to compare these remarks with the way Lord Oxburgh's report was relayed to the public by the media, who portrayed the report as complete exoneration for Jones et al. Scientists know the Oxburgh report was a farce. Why not environment correspondents?

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/display/configuration/CommentManagement
Monday
May032010

No change at the Royal Society

Under the leadership of Lord Rees, the Royal Society's reputation has sunk dramatically, with this once august body now widely seen as a political body and a surrogate arm of the government, more interested in the next tranche of funding than truth. Their role in Lord Oxburgh's whitewashing may well hang over them for a long time to come.

Click to read more ...

Sunday
Apr252010

Falck Renewables and the mafia

Remember Falck Renewables, the Italian company whose UK arm was headed up by Lord Oxburgh? Observers wondered if the chairman of a green energy company wasn't quite the right choice for the head of the investigation into CRU.

Tom Fuller has been doing some research into the company and has discovered that the Italian side of the business seems to have been implicated in a mafia investigation.

Read the whole thing.

 

Tuesday
Apr202010

Understanding Oxburgh

Speculation alert

I struggle to make sense of Lord Oxburgh and his report. The investigation they performed was so cursory and the report they produced so brief, it is hard to credit that they thought that they would get away with it. The report is a whitewash, but it's a really bad one, since there is no attempt to make it look as if they looked diligently into the question of the integrity of the CRU. Why would a group of intelligent people involved in a coverup not make more effort to cover their tracks?

Click to read more ...

Monday
Apr192010

Oxburgh addendum

The Oxburgh panel have appended a short addendum to their report:

Addendum to report, 19 April 2010
For the avoidance of misunderstanding in the light of various press stories, it is important to be clear that the neither the panel report nor the press briefing intended to imply that any research group in the field of climate change had been deliberately misleading in any of their analyses or intentionally exaggerated their findings. Rather, the aim was to draw attention to the complexity of statistics in this field, and the need to use the best possible methods.

Sunday
Apr182010

Quote of the day

One vindication looks like good fortune. Two vindications look like a careful arrangement.

Adapted from an idea by reader, Bob Layson, in the comments.

Sunday
Apr182010

Judith Curry on Oxburgh

Judy Curry continues her tireless efforts to bring down abuse on herself from all sides.;-) I'm reproducing her comments from the earlier thread here because they are important and because they seem to be attracting some interest around the blogosphere. Real Climate's Gavin Schmidt has weighed in here with a typically robust response.

The primary frustration with these investigations is that they are dancing around the principal issue that people care about: the IPCC and its implications for policy. Focusing only on CRU activities (which was the charge of the Oxbourgh panel) is of interest mainly to UEA and possibly the politics of UK research funding (it will be interesting to see if the U.S. DOE sends any more $$ to CRU).

Click to read more ...

Sunday
Apr182010

McKie makes fool of himself

With George Monbiot backing out of Climategate reporting in disgust, the reins at the Guardian seem to have been handed over to Robin McKie, the science editor, who weighs in today with an amusing piece entitled "Doubt climate change - just don't deny it".

Click to read more ...

Friday
Apr162010

+++Acton's Eleven - the response+++

Over the course of the day I've made several telephone calls to the Royal Society, without being able to get a response to the simple question of who it was within their ranks who selected the eleven CRU papers for Lord Oxburgh's panel to examine. These papers, you will remember "were selected on the advice of the Royal Society".

Just after 4pm I finally got through to the person responsible and seconds later an emailed response arrived as well. This was fortuitous because I was able to ask some questions on the contents.

Click to read more ...

Friday
Apr162010

Acton's eleven

Steve McIntyre has followed up on the intriguing question of who selected the eleven papers for the Oxburgh panel to assess.

Oxburgh didn’t disclose how they selected their supposedly “representative” and “fair sample”. “Fair sample” and “representative” are statistical terms – terms were used in a report coauthored by a very senior professional statistician in a context where statistics are very much at issue. So I presume that the Royal Society took some care to ensure that the eleven publications actually were “representative” and a “fair sample” – and not ones that were pre-selected by UEA, rather than the Royal Society.

Click to read more ...

Wednesday
Apr142010

Intriguing possibility

From Lord Oxburgh's report, paragraph 3 of 26.

The eleven representative publications that the Panel considered in detail are listed in Appendix B. The papers cover a period of more than twenty years and were selected on the advice of the Royal Society. All had been published in international scientific journals and had been through a process of peer review. CRU agreed that they were a fair sample of the work of the Unit. The Panel was also free to ask for any other material that it wished and did so. Individuals on the panel asked for and reviewed other CRU research materials.

So, not only did the Royal Society pick the members of the panel, but they also picked the papers that were to be examined.

I wonder who it was within the Royal Society that might have done this work. I mean, one would need a pretty in-depth understanding of climatology to be able to pick a representative sample of papers from the CRU oeuvre would one not? That sort of understanding isn't found on every street corner. So who might they have turned to?

How about the Royal Society Advisory Group on Climate Change? You know, the one with Phil Jones as a member.

They wouldn't have would they?

Wednesday
Apr142010

The Oxburgh report

Tuesday
Apr132010

Slap it on all over

Rumour has it that Lord Oxburgh has completed the scientific review of the CRU, which will be published tomorrow. That was quick, wasn't it? I don't know about you but I haven't even seen terms of reference yet. Whitewashing is a quick job isn't it?

Is anyone going to take any bets as to whether the scope of Lord O's work is so restricted as to prevent him investigating the most serious allegations?