Better...but enough?

I thought the committee's performance was much better than last time around - I got the impression of best efforts being made by most members, but it's always difficult for people coming to an issue fresh to properly question people with an in-depth knowledge. This is only worse when the witnesses are such expert dodgers and weavers and avoiders of questions.

When you are live-blogging you can't really watch the video, so I'd like to take another look at how the witnesses reacted. There are certainly a number of the responses where the answers appeared to contradict my understanding of the facts. There was obviously also a great deal of waffling and avoiding of questions, particularly by Russell. One hopes that the committee were suitably unimpressed.

The question now becomes whether the committee will issue a report, take the issue forward in some other way, or simply let it drop. I have no feeling for which way they will turn. They can have little doubt that all was not well with the inquiries, and logic would therefore dictate that they take some further action. But of course, logic is not always a factor in matters of public policy.

Inquiries liveblog

10:38 And that's it.

10:35 Miller asks if the panel have anything else to add. Acton welcomes panel's involvement and government response.

10:35 Mosley asks what changes have been made at UEA. Acton says CRU drawn closer into ENV, to ensure no repeat of FOI problems. Encouraging closer involvement with statisticians. Davies says investing in data archiving.

10:34 Mosley asks if UEA was involved in the IAC report. Davies said not as a university, but individuals may have been.

10:32 Russell says Holland's evidence was taken into account.

Click to read more ...

BBC to cover S&TC today

I see that the BBC is going to cover the S&TC hearings today. AFAIK, they didn't attend Oxburgh's appearance the other day, so I wonder what brought this rush of blood to the head.

The link for the Beeb's coverage is here. It's worth glancing at their description of the background to the hearings. Our national broadcaster seems to be completely unaware of why the Science and Technology Committee have decided to interview the principals from the UEA inquiries.

It's probably something to do with the unique way they're funded.

S&TC to grill Russell, Davies, Acton

The big news of tomorrow is likely to be the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee interviewing UEA bigwigs Acton and Davies, together with Sir Muir Russell. The three of them are going to have to explain some of the oddities over the inquiries into the Climategate affair.

The hearings start at 9:20 am and video should be available here.

This should be compelling viewing for climate geeks. As ever, I'll be liveblogging events here.

Santer's claws

Ben Santer is interviewed at the Climate Sight blog, and he remains something of a catfighter, aiming his claws at, among others, sceptical bloggers:

These fringe voices now have megaphones,” he continues, “and have means of amplifying their voices and trumpeting shoddy, incorrect science. We’ve seen the rise of the blogs, we’ve seen the rise of these “independent public auditors” who believe that they have carte blanche to investigate anyone who produces results they don’t agree with, and if that individual doesn’t comply with their every request, they indulge in this persecution campaign on their blogs and make your life very uncomfortable. I’ve had direct personal experience with that.

Does he sound slightly hysterical to you?

ClimateSight article

Update on Oct 26, 2010 by Bishop Hill

Commenters note that the Santer article has been taken down. I've retrieved it from Google cache and posted it at the bottom of the header post as a PDF.

Political science

Martin Rees appears unable to resist the temptation to ride roughshod over the Royal Society's tradition of avoiding political controversy. His latest contribution is a fairly naked piece of political advocacy - an open letter to media and business leaders, written jointly with Anthony Giddens, a left-wing academic. In it, the two men call for "a renewed impetus to international collaboration", reduced carbon emissions and the like.

It is remarkable to see two such prominent academics demonstrating such a remarkable lack of familiarity with simple logical thinking: they allude first to the floods in Pakistan, then say that they cannot be connected to climate change and then state that they represent "a stark warning".

Strewth.

Climate education

There are a couple of interesting posts I'd like to draw your attention to on the "Climate change in schools" front.

Climate Lessons is preparing a list of all the global warming websites directed at children and is looking for help and assistance.

Meanwhile, Harmless Sky asks "What the hell are we doing to our children?"

Judy C in Scientific American

There is a major profile of Judy Curry in Scientific American. Read it here.

Update on Oct 23, 2010 by Bishop Hill

WUWT is reporting that the current issue of SciAm has more sceptic friendly coverage as well. They'll be reviewing The Hockey Stick Illusion next!

Shade on Hulme

John Shade, who runs the Climate Lessons website left these thoughts on Mike Hulme's lecture as a comment. I thought they were worth pulling into a post of their own.

I must confess to having enjoyed the talk by Professor Hulme. He spoke clearly and in a structured way, presented lots of ideas, and generally came across to me as intelligent and thoughtful. I just wish I were bright enough or informed enough to follow all of them. As it is, I still got lots to think about from it, and the notes which follow are in part intended just to share my puzzlements and prejudices.

Click to read more ...

McKitrick on the Hockey Stick

This was posted in the comments on WUWT. I'm not sure if it's recent or not, but it hasn't been on YouTube for long. I've never seen it before.

Climate cuttings 39

Another round of Climate Cuttings to set you up for the weekend...

Vaclav Klaus rounds of his trip to the UK with an article in the Spectator: Thank Heavens for Bob Carter.

Carter himself is meanwhile telling the residents of Hong Kong about what we know (or not) about the climate.  Buy Bob's book here.

Also in the Spectator, Rod Liddle says that Dellers has lost his sense of humour over the 10:10 video. Liddle thinks it was "quite funny, and nicely done and even self-deprecatingly ironic". Right.

McIntyre seems to have got hold of one of Ray Bradley's emails, in which Mann's lieutenant says he has offered to drop his plagiarism charge if Wegman requests the withdrawal of his report to Congress. Commenters wonder if this amounts to blackmail and interfering with the congressional record. More at WUWT.

Donna Laframboise notes the curious case of Richard Klein, who moved from Greenpeace campaigner, to MSc, to IPCC lead author, to IPCC coordinating lead author and finally to his doctorate, in that order.

Michael Mann et al try the ad-hominem approach to dealing with Nature's positive review of Pielke Jnr's book.

And lastly, Nature reports that space tourism will accelerate climate change.

Mike Hulme on climate models

There is video available here of a lecture given by Professor Mike Hulme entitled "How do Climate Models Gain and Exercise Authority?". Hulme asks whether deference towards climate models is justified and whether we should have confidence in them. I think the answer is "We don't know".

UVa versus Cuccinelli redux

The Madison Eagle is reporting that the University of Virginia has applied to have Ken Cuccinelli's demand for Michael Mann's emails thrown out again.

Cuccinelli sent a third, more limited subpoena — known as a civil investigative demand — to UVa on Sept. 29. Cuccinelli says he is investigating Mann for possibly violating Virginia’s Fraud Against Taxpayers Act because Mann received a $214,700 university grant while he was employed at UVa between 1999 and 2005.

On Wednesday, UVa’s lawyers filed papers requesting that Cuccinelli’s latest demand be “set aside” as well.

ICO rules against Hoskins

David Holland writes:

The Information Commissioner has just issued Decision Notice FER0239225 on my complaint against the University of Reading for its refusal to disclose information relating to the IPCC Fourth Assessment process.

It is broadly similar to that issued in relation to the University of East Anglia, in particular confirming that such information is subject to the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 which has fewer opportunities for refusal.   As a result of the Information Commissioner's intervention some 368 emails were disclosed.   One issue in this case is that employee concerned, Professor Sir Brian Hoskins had not given the University’s Information Officer the opportunity to examine the emails that he held in order to determine if they should have been disclosed, until the Information Commissioner contacted Reading.

The Information Commissioner continues to investigate similar complaints against the MOD/Met Office and the University of Oxford.   Professor Myles Allen of Oxford had made his attitude to Freedom of Information requests very clear at the Royal Institution debate on Climategate on 14 June 2010.  

Oxford has recently added a novel defence to its refusal to disclose, which the Commissioner is considering, and which I will dispute should it be seriously entertained.   Oxford is arguing that Professor Myles Allen took extended unpaid paternal leave while undertaking his duties as an IPCC Review Editor and thereby undertook his work for the IPCC on a “personal basis”.   The IPCC shows Allen’s affiliation as Oxford and he copied the pro forma Review Editor’s Report onto University letterhead before sending it to the IPCC Working Group.   His IPCC duties ran from at least 17 November 2005, when he was appointed, to 4 January 2007, when he submitted his Review Editor’s Report.

The ICO's ruling is attached below.



ICO ruling on Holland's Reading FOI request

UKRIO on retractions

The UK Research Integrity Office has issued new guidelines on retractions of journal articles (H/T COPE). I thought it was interesting to compare the guidelines to the events surrounding Phil Jones' 1990 paper on urban heat islands, which is now of course the subject of a fraud allegation from Doug Keenan. Keenan's claim is that Jones continued to cite the paper even when he knew that some of the underlying data could not be relied upon. Jones' defence is that a subsequent paper he published has shown the findings to be broadly correct.

UKRIO says that papers should be retracted

when there is clear evidence that the reported findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct, such as fabrication of data, or honest error, for example. miscalculation or experimental error;

I think on the basis of this statement, Jones would still argue that the findings were reliable since they were backed up by his later study. However AFAIK, there was a gap of several years in the middle when Jones knew of the problems with his 1990 paper, but hadn't yet published his new findings. This suggests that his conduct at the time was not up to the standards required by these new guidelines (although I am not aware of what rules applied at the time).

The guidelines also make the interesting point that one of the reasons for retraction is so as not to bias future meta-analyses:

A retraction can help reduce the number of researchers who cite an erroneous article, act on its findings or draw incorrect conclusions, such as from ‘double counting’ redundant publications in meta-analyses.

It is therefore interesting to consider the effect of Jones 1990 on any metaanalysis of UHI papers. One assumes that such a study would still pick up Jones 1990 because it has never been retracted. It therefore seems to me that it is incumbent upon Jones to retract the paper, even at this late stage.