Stephen Schneider

Andy Revkin is reporting that Stephen Schneider has died of a heart attack. Story here.

I'm  sure we would all like to pass on our condolences to his family.

Update on Jul 20, 2010 by Bishop Hill

John Graham-Cumming recalls an exchange he had with Schneider over the communication of confidence intervals.

Another HSI review

The Maui News has a review of The Hockey Stick Illusion.

The Hockey Stick Illusion deserves space on the shelf of classic books about science fraud like Peter Medawar's The Strange Case of the Spotted Mice. Montford, though not a scientist, is a good choice to tell this story, for, as Medawar said, "There is poetry in science but also a lot of bookkeeping."

More on Oxburgh's eleven

When my FoI request to Imperial led to the disclosure of the Hand and Hoskins emails, there were many redactions of names, which I found rather frustrating. From the language of many of the emails, it appeared that many of the names were of senior people and should thus have been disclosed. I queried this with Imperial who have now disclosed almost all of the relevant detail.

One interesting snippet has emerged from this. When the original emails were released I reported on an inquiry made to Lord Oxburgh by Oliver Morton of the Economist about how Oxburgh's Eleven papers were chosen. When he replied, Oxburgh said in essence that he didn't know.

What I received was a list from the university which I understand was chosen by the Royal Society The contact with the RS was I believe through [name redacted] but I don't know who he consulted. [Name redacted], when I asked him, agreed that the original sample was fair.

Well, now we know who the redactions were. The contact through with the Royal Society was through Martin Rees - we knew that already. The other redaction, the other person consulted about whether the sample of papers was reasonable, was...Phil Jones.

Now, whichever way you look at it, this is a funny question to put to the accused if one's objective is a fair trial. I mean, what could Jones say? "You've picked all my bad papers"? And of course Jones must have known that the sample was not representative.

14th July 2010

At the Guardian debate on the 14th July 2010, Professor Trevor Davies said:

We are determined to be more helpful with respect to openness.

The same day, UEA wrote to me, indicating that Professor Acton had reviewed my request under EIR for copies of correspondence relating to the Oxburgh panel and had decided to reject it.

Not very determined then.

US suspends funding of CRU

There is apparently an article in the Sunday Times in which Jonathan Leake reports that the US government has suspended funding of CRU. The DoE will make a decision about whether to restart funding at a later date.

The Times is now behind a paywall so there's no link, but if anyone can point to an online copy please feel free to post a comment.

Update on Jul 18, 2010 by Bishop Hill

The article is reproduced at GWPF. See here.

New Scientist on Russell

I hadn't seen this editorial by New Scientist, which is rather critical of the Russell Report.

Without candour, public trust in climate science cannot be restored, nor should it be.

Yup.

Our best people

While looking for something else, I came across this, which is the list of names submitted by the British government to the IPCC for consideration as authors of the Fifth Assessment Report. One entry caught my eye. I noticed it because instead of the usual affiliation details - University of this, Department of that - it said:

University of Birmingham / Do It Yourself Non Governmental Organisation (DIYNGO)

Huh?

Click to read more ...

The police inquiry

One Climategate inquiry we still haven't heard about is the police investigation into the release of information from CRU. It is rather extraordinary that nine months or so into the investigation, there is still no news on what the nature of the offence, if any, actually is.

This being the case, I wrote to Norfolk Constabulary to ask how much money had been expended on the case so far and how many officers were currently involved. Here's the response:

The Norfolk Constabulary’s investigation has been allocated a specific cost code. At the time of receiving your request, the total recorded cost against that cost code stood at £54,691.

The number of officers working on the case fluctuates depending upon workloads at any given time. Currently, one officer is working full time with management being provided on a part-time basis by two senior officers (as required). Other officers and staff will undertake work on the case when required but this is managed in line with the demands of other investigations.

One would hope that having expended £55k they would have worked out the nature of the crime they are investigating.

The Guardian debate

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.

Click to read more ...

Back

I'm back!

HSI in the National Post

Peter Foster has written a long and very supportive review of The Hockey Stick Illusion in Canada's National Post.

The Hockey Stick Illusion leaves no doubt about Mr. Montford’s reporting abilities. He tells a gripping detective story in which the star gumshoe is semi-retired Canadian mining consultant Steve McIntyre. Mr. McIntyre, unfortunately for his opponents, happens to combine mathematical genius with a Terminator-like relentlessness. He also found a brilliant partner in Ross McKitrick, an economics professor at the University of Guelph. Their story is one of intellectual determination in the face of Kafkaesque “peer review” and Orwellian “freedom of information.”

Josh 27

Acton on the SAP

Lord Oxburgh recently told Steve McIntyre that the Science Appraisal Panel was not actually appraising the science of CRU at all but instead was looking for evidence of misconduct. Martyn in the comments notes the way Professor Acton described the panel to the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee.

Ah. Muir Russell's independent review is not looking at the science it is looking at allegations about malpractice. As for the science itself, I have not actually seen any evidence of any flaw in the science but I am hoping, later this week, to announce the chair of a panel to reassess the science and make sure there is nothing wrong.

It does look as if Professor Acton has made fools of our elected representatives. I wonder if they will take this lying down?

(H/T Martyn in the comments)

Josh 26

The ICO rules

The Information Commissioner has ruled on David Holland's EIR request - the one that was so central to the Climategate affair. This appears to be very important. In essence the Commissioner has set a wider rather than a narrower scope on EIR by ruling that information need not have a direct effect on the environment for it to be subject to the regulations. UEA have been found to be in breach of the regulations.

Full story here.