Media relations - it's all in the timing

The University of East Anglia today announces "The world's first MBA course aimed at preparing the next generation of business leaders and managers for a low-carbon economy".

Cosa nostra

In email number 1092418712, we see Phil Jones invited to review a paper by sceptics McKitrick and Michaels. The email is from the editor of the International Journal of Climatology, Andrew Comrie.

===== Original Message From "Andrew Comrie" <comrie@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
=====
Dear Prof. Jones,

IJOC040512 "A Socioeconomic Fingerprint on the Spatial Distribution of
Surface Air Temperature Trends"
Authors: RR McKitrick & PJ Michaels
Target review date: July 5, 2004

I know you are very busy, but do you have the time to review the above manuscript for the International Journal of Climatology? If yes, can you complete the review within about five to six weeks, say by the target review date listed above? I will send the manuscript electronically...

Jones replies that he will do it. Some time passes and we gather that with the review complete, Jones is now sending the paper to Mann. Mann replies as follows:

At 08:11 13/08/2004 -0400, you wrote:

Thanks a bunch Phil,

Along lines as my other email, would it be (?) for me to forward this to the chair of our  commitee confidentially, and for his internal purposes only, to help bolster the case against MM??

let me know...

thanks,

mike

So if I'm understanding this correctly, there is a formally convened committee of some kind for making the case against sceptics. This sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory, but I'm struggling to put another interpretation on these words. (As an aside, that question mark in the first line is strange too.)

Jones replies:

Mike,
I'd rather you didn't. I think it should be sufficient to forward the para from Andrew Conrie's email that says the paper has been rejected by all 3 reviewers. You can say that the paper was an extended and updated version of that which appeared in CR. Obviously, under no circumstances should any of this get back to Pielke.

Cheers

Phil

This is all very odd. What has Pielke got to do with it? Was he one of the other reviewers? It's anyone's guess.

But above all who are "our committee".

Update on Dec 1, 2009 by Bishop Hill

Remember this?

MANN: "Let's let our supporters in higher places use our scientific response to push the broader case against MM."

A pattern emerging here, I would say.

Some more climate scandals

Doug Keenan is an independent scholar who has some amazing stories to tell of civil servants flouting freedom of information laws in order to withhold climate data. There is also the story of his fraud accusation against one of Phil Jones' sidekicks.

Climategate is just the tip of the iceberg.

Briggs' guide to global warming

Matt Briggs has written a layman's guide to what is and isn't evidence for anthropogenic global warming. Matt has a way of explaining things very, very clearly, that cuts through so much of the nonsense spewed by the media.

Read the whole thing.

Don't forget GISS

While we're all banging on about CRU, it's important not to forget that there are other people producing temperature series and temperature reconstructions.

And other people looking at what they do.

One of these is EM Smith who runs a blog called Musings from the Chiefio. Like Climate Audit, it's pretty hard going sometimes but as the first outsider to actually get NASA's GISSTEMP global temperature index running, it's very important. Fortunately, the Chiefio has written a layman's introduction to what he has found.

It's all disturbing, but his comments on "The Great Thermometer Dying" are simply astonishing.

Since about 1990, there has been a reduction in thermometer counts globally. In the USA, the number has dropped from 1850 at peak (in the year 1968) to 136 now (in the year 2009). As you might guess, this has presented some “issues” for our thermal quilt. But do not fear, GIStemp will fill in what it needs, guessing as needed, stretching and fabricating until it has a result.

Read the whole thing.

Tom Crowley on BBC

Regular readers of Climate Audit will probably need a strong stomach to take Crowley's comments in this BBC Radio interview.

Update on Nov 30, 2009 by Bishop Hill

There is a transcript here.

Is Obama's climate czar implicated in Climategate?

Republicans on Capitol Hill certainly seem to think so and have started an investigation into his conduct.

Having reviewed Holdren's correspondence in the emails I can't see it myself. Now if there really are more emails to come, maybe my views will change, but saying you don't think much of someone's paper doesn't seem like a crime to me.

Another climatologist speaks out

I've been getting some traffic from a French site called Rue89 and I've picked up this quote by a French climatologist, Serge Galam, from there.

The debate is not over, even among the "warmists" ... but it should have been public like any scientific debate.   These emails show a discrepancy between the assertion that a spectacular scientific truth is established, the debate declared closed, and the fact that the proponents of those views recognize among themselves that uncertainties remain..."

The translation is mine via Google. French article here.

Do CRU have the raw data or not?

AJ Strata has an important post examining the various CRU claims that they have deleted or not deleted the raw data for their temperature index.

Bookselling

With America at Thanksgiving this weekend the Climategate pace has slowed slightly, allowing me to take stock of where I am. Blog traffic has been unbelievable, and it's been fascinating to see the relative power of old-new-media (like Instapundit; my first Instalanche!) and the new-old-media sites like the newspaper blogs. Thanks to everyone for the links.

I've also had some interest from big media. BBC radio is coming to see me next week (gulp) and there is the possibility of some independent radio too. I have precisely zero interest in becoming famous, so this is going to be bit of a trial to me, but I guess it's a cross I will have to bear.

All that traffic did good things for the book, which at one point last weekend was inside the top 1000 on Amazon UK, which I think must be pretty good seeing you can't actually buy it yet. I've finished writing a new chapter on Climategate, which adds a lot of corroborating evidence to the case I build in the rest of the book. It's amazing how little contradiction there was between what I'd written before and what was revealed last week. The new material all went off to the publisher on Friday, so with a bit of luck we can get it finalised and off to the printer next week.

Another upshot of the attention is that I have managed to get a foot in the door at an Australian publisher. It's early doors yet, but it's encouraging just to make contact, as anyone who has ever tried to get a book published knows. I still need to find someone in the US, which is obviously likely to be a big market for me. So if anyone out there knows someone in a US publisher who would like to buy up the rights to a very readable and very topical title on global warming scandals, do please put me in touch. Likewise I'm happy to speak to people about all the other rights - translation rights, TV and so on. Don't be shy.

Still not straight with us

Steve McIntyre notes that in their online confession to what they did in the "Nature" trick, CRU still snipped off a bit of the curve so it didn't look as bad as it might have done.

How do these people sleep at night?

McKitrick on Saiers

To summarise: in 2004, James Saiers was replaced as the GRL editor in charge of the McIntyre/McKitrick paper by Jay Famiglietti. Saiers says that his departure from GRL was nothing to do with any plot to oust him. Famiglietti won't talk about it on the record.

As I mentioned in my previous post, this doesn't quite stack up, so I emailed Ross McKitrick on the subject. Here's his reply.

Famiglietti said that GRL had received 4 comments on our paper, an unusually high number. He decided to take over handling of the file, and his first plan was to publish all the comments. I didn't check if Saiers was no longer an editor at that point. We were focused on making him follow the GRL procedures with respect to the Ritson and WA comments, which had already been rejected under Saiers' editing. The thing to check would be when Saiers stepped down as editor. By his description it was long after the excitement about our paper had passed, which suggests that he was still an editor when Famiglietti took over the file. If that is the case then he was not "ousted" as GRL editor, but he was obviously ousted from handling our file, which is just as bad. And the fact that he was allowed to serve out his editorship under quarantine does not diminish the seriousness of Wigley's proposed witch hunt.

Will there be FOI prosecutions at CRU?

This certainly seems to be a possibility based on the story in the Telegraph.

James Saiers on journal knobbling

Pielke Jnr has emailed James Saiers one of the journal editors who was the target of a Hockey Team plot to oust him from his position. This is what Saiers had to say

I haven’t looked for, and don’t intend to look for, my name in the CRU emails, but one of my colleagues did alert me to an email written by Wigley in which he suggested that, if I were a climate skeptic, then steps should be taken to get me “ousted.” Wigley’s suggestion stems, I believe, from the publication of a GRL paper (by McIntyre and McKitrick) that criticized certain elements of Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick paper. This paper caused a bit of a stir and because I oversaw the peer review of this paper, I assume that Wigley inferred (incorrectly) that I was a climate-change skeptic. I stepped down as GRL editor at the end of my three-year term, long after the excitement over the McIntyre and McKitrick paper had passed. My departure had nothing to do with attempts by Wigley or anyone else to have me sacked.

Now this is very odd. Saiers' position as editor in charge of the McIntyre and McKitrick paper in Geophysical Review Letters was taken over by the journal's editor in chief, Jay Famiglietti, who then refused to discuss the circumstances surrounding his taking over unless it was off the record.

Why would he do that if it was merely because Saiers was stepping down at the end of his term? And wouldn't Saiers be expected to finish off his existing papers before leaving? And why would the editor-in-chief take over himself?

It doesn't quite stack up in my book.

Mann to be investigated by Penn State

The conduct of Hockey Stick maestro, Michael Mann, is to be investigated by his university, Penn State. Anthony Watts has the story.