Tag Archives: Climategate

Institute of Physicists under Attack

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Posted by JJ on March 14, 2010 – 9:25 am
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The UK Institute of Physicists submitted a strongly worded thirteen-point memorandum to the UK Parliament commission of enquiry into the CRU.  Leading scientists promptly attacked the submission in emotive terms, without addressing any of the points in the memorandum.  The I.O.P. response to the attacks is strangely meek.  It looks suspiciously like they are backing off, and I wonder why.

Every one of the numbered thirteen points in the “Memorandum submitted by the Institute of Physics (CRU 39)” is valid. There is no need for them to publicly apologise or, cap in hand, to stress that the I.O.P. “has long had a “clear” position on global warming, namely that “there is no doubt that climate change is happening, that it is linked to man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, and that we should be taking action to address it now”.  That “no doubt” sounds more like a recital of a creed than a scientific position.

For goodness sake, the IOP made submissions about disclosure of climate data, the implications for the integrity of scientific research, and appropriate terms of reference for the UEA independnt review. Valid submissions. So why is it subjected to attacks unsupported by any specific rebuttals of any of its points of submission?  Here they are:

John Houghton: “I consider it not only inappropriate but highly irresponsible for a body like the IOP to appear to presume a judgment on what is clearly not a simple issue without having the full facts and without presumably knowing the full context,”

Stefan Rahmstorf: “I was taken aback when I first read it,” he says.  “The evidence is both misinformed and misguided.”

Arnold Wolfendale: ‘the evidence is “not worthy” of the Institute and ‘the submission “further muddies the waters regarding global warming”.’

These generalised and emotive attacks are totally inaccurate as criticisms of the IOP submissions, but ironically, would be accurate if applied to the IPCC reports.  But for some reason the IOP does not call on the critics to be specific about their problems with the submission.  Instead, it rolls over, apologises and and quietly surrenders.

That is truly sad. The forces supporting AGW are mighty indeed if a body like the Institute of Physics is compelled to recant like Galileo. Are we returning to the dark ages?

References:

I.O.P. Memorandum:  http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc3902.htm

WUWT Report: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/13/iop-fires-back-over-criticism-of-their-submission-to-parliament/

AGW Religion:  http://www.herkinderkin.com/2010/01/anthropogenic-global-warming-as-organised-religion/

Red Herrings in the Enquiry Fishbowl

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Posted by JJ on March 6, 2010 – 6:09 pm
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In the wake of “”Climategate”, a British House of Commons panel has held an enquiry into the CRU unit.  Right there before the eyes of the world, they heard what Dr Phil Jones had to say:

  • “I have obviously written some very awful e-mails.”
  • “I don’t think anything in those e-mails supports any view that I’m trying to, or CRU has been trying to, pervert the peer review process in any way.”
  • CRU’s practice, he said, was to release “gridded data” (raw information that had been processed for analysis).
  • CRU withheld raw data in part because “most scientists don’t want to deal with raw station data, they want to deal with the derived product.”

Jones is the man at the very centre of Climategate – the man whose emails caused the fuss.  The man who sent an email urging all other associated climate scientists to destroy their data.  The man who, in an email to McIntyre, asked why he should provide data, when McIntyre would try to find something wrong with it.  The man who withheld data from McIntyre on the grounds of confidentiality while at the same time supplying the requested data to a scientist who supports AGW.

After his refreshing honesty in the interview with the BBC’s environment analyst Roger Harrabin, I felt some sympathy for Dr Jones, and said so, in an earlier blog entry.  But Jones has now lost that sympathy.  His answers at the parliamentary enquiry show that he has reverted to obfuscation.  Destroying data perverts the peer review process because it prevents other scientists from testing scientific conclusions. – Jones knows that.  Withholding raw data when it is requested by another scientists cannot be justified on the grounds that most others ask for the derived product -  Jones knows that.  All scientists, when reviewing the work of other scientists, try to find something wrong with it – that’s the scientific method, and Jones knows that, too.

But Jones was not the only witness at the enquiry to apply spin.

UK chief scientific adviser John Beddington said: “I think the general issue that global warming is happening and that it is induced by human activities is also correct.  I think this is unchallenged.”

Julia Slingo, head of the Met Office, said: “We know that (climate change) is unequivocal and that as the IPCC report said, over 90 percent, it’s very likely due to human activities.”  She said that the uncertainty is in projections of future warming, not in the cause.  She at least is right about the uncertainty of the projections.

The cause also is uncertain.  That climate change is caused by human activities is certainly challenged by scientists – by Lindzen, Watts, McIntyre, Woon, and others.  The data gathered so far do not show with any degree of certainty that human activities cause global warming, or that the warming is catastrophic.  We do not know that human activities cause global warming – that is no more than theory.

The parliamentary enquiry and more importantly, Joe Public the voter represented by parliament, deserve rather more than spin and red herrings.  Science itself demands more than that.

References:

NY Times Article on UK Enquiry: http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/03/02/02climatewire-climategate-scientist-admits-awful-e-mails-b-66224.html?pagewanted=1

BBC Interview with Phil Jones: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm

Judith Curry’s Appeal to Skeptics.

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Posted by JJ on February 24, 2010 – 11:40 pm
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Anthony Watt’s blog Watt’s Up With That featured a guest post by Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, on 24 February 2010.  A link is in the references section at the end.

Her post is a clever piece of propaganda, clad as a sweetness-and-light approach to skeptics.  Makes a change from all-out attack, I suppose.  She starts with a blurb about how Climategate and subsequent revelations of IPCC advocacy have led to a loss of public trust.  She goes on with her own “history” of Climate Change opposition, casting aspersions on its origins.  It’s a very long posting.

As one who is encouraged by the growing number of people who distrust Climate Change science, I was stunned by the number of  responses to her post that took this lady seriously.  However, a few of them saw the real point of her guest post, which is revealed in this extract:

“The failure of the public and policy makers to understand the truth as presented by the IPCC is often blamed on difficulties of communicating such a complex topic to a relatively uneducated public that is referred to as “unscientific America” by Chris Mooney.”

Says it all, really.  Her real position is that the truth of the IPCC’s conclusions is not even in question!   We, poor dumb-arsed people simply don’t understand it because the IPCC lack communication skills!  So she appeals to skeptics for more understanding to bridge the gap.

The IPCC’s conclusions are not truths or even approximations.  The best of them are wild exaggerations.  The worst are simply false.  And Anthropogenic Global Warming, the major position of the IPCC, is utterly unproven.  When pressed for the evidence, all we get is argument from ignorance.  “We can’t explain it if we discount man-made CO2 from our models, so therefore that’s the cause”.

Climate research can only earn credibility by being scientific.  If that happens, then trust will follow.

Any attempt to build trust in Climate Research while it remains fundamentally untrustworthy is despicable.

References:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/24/on-the-credibility-of-climate-research-part-ii-towards-rebuilding-trust/