Guest commentary from Ben Santer
Part 2 of a series discussing the recent Guardian articles
A recent story by Fred Pearce in the February 9th online edition of the Guardian (“Victory for openness as IPCC climate scientist opens up lab doors”) covers some of the more publicized aspects of the last 14 years of my scientific career. I am glad that Mr. Pearce’s account illuminates some of the non-scientific difficulties I have faced. However, his account also repeats unfounded allegations that I engaged in dubious professional conduct. In a number of instances, Mr Pearce provides links to these allegations, but does not provide a balanced account of the rebuttals to them. Nor does he give links to locations where these rebuttals can be found. I am taking this opportunity to correct Mr. Pearce’s omissions, to reply to the key allegations, and to supply links to more detailed responses.
Another concern relates to Mr. Pearce’s discussion of the “openness” issue mentioned in the title and sub-title of his story. A naïve reader of Mr. Pearce’s article might infer from the sub-title (“Ben Santer had a change of heart about data transparency…”) that my scientific research was not conducted in an open and transparent manner until I experienced “a change of heart”.
This inference would be completely incorrect. As I discuss below, my research into the nature and causes of climate change has always been performed in an open, transparent, and collegial manner. Virtually all of the scientific papers I have published over the course of my career involve multi-institutional teams of scientists with expertise in climate modeling, the development of observational datasets, and climate model evaluation. The model and observational data used in my research is not proprietary – it is freely available to researchers anywhere in the world.
The 1995 IPCC Report: The “scientific cleansing” allegation
Mr. Pearce begins by repeating some of the allegations of misconduct that arose after publication (in 1996) of the Second Assessment Report (SAR) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). These allegations targeted Chapter 8 of the SAR, which dealt with the “Detection of Climate Change, and Attribution of Causes”. The IPCC SAR reached the historic finding that “The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate”. Information presented in Chapter 8 provided substantial support for this finding.
I served as the Convening Lead Author (CLA) of Chapter 8. There were three principal criticisms of my conduct as CLA. All three allegations are baseless. They have been refuted on many occasions, and in many different fora. All three allegations make an appearance in Mr. Pearce’s story, but there are no links to the detailed responses to these claims.
The first allegation was that I had engaged in “scientific cleansing”. This allegation originated with the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) – a group of businesses “opposing immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions”.
In May 1996, a document entitled “The IPCC: Institutionalized ‘Scientific Cleansing’?” was widely circulated to the press and politicians. In this document, the Global Climate Coalition claimed that after a key Plenary Meeting of the IPCC in Madrid in November 1995, all scientific uncertainties had been purged from Chapter 8. The GCC’s “scientific cleansing” allegation was soon repeated in an article in Energy Daily (May 22, 1996) and in an editorial in the Washington Times (May 24, 1996). It was also prominently featured in the World Climate Report, a publication edited by Professor Patrick J. Michaels (June 10, 1996).
This “scientific cleansing” claim is categorically untrue. There was no “scientific cleansing”. Roughly 20% of the published version of Chapter 8 specifically addressed uncertainties in scientific studies of the causes of climate change. In discussing the “scientific cleansing” issue, Mr. Pearce claims that many of the caveats in Chapter 8 “did not make it to the summary for policy-makers”. This is incorrect.
The Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the IPCC SAR is four-and-a-half pages long. Roughly one page of the SPM discusses results from Chapter 8. The final paragraph of that page deals specifically with uncertainties, and notes that:
“Our ability to quantify the human influence on global climate is currently limited because the expected signal is still emerging from the noise of natural variability, and because there are uncertainties in key factors. These include the magnitude and patterns of long term natural variability and the time-evolving pattern of forcing by, and response to, changes in concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols, and land surface changes”.
Contrary to Mr. Pearce’s assertion, important caveats did “make it to the summary for policy-makers”. And the “discernible human influence” conclusion of both Chapter 8 and the Summary for Policymakers has been substantiated by many subsequent national and international assessments of climate science.
There were several reasons why Chapter 8 was a target for unfounded “scientific cleansing” allegations. First, the Global Climate Coalitions’s “scientific cleansing” charges were released to the media in May 1996. At that time, Cambridge University Press had not yet published the IPCC Second Assessment Report in the United States. Because of this delay in the Report’s U.S. publication, many U.S. commentators on the “scientific cleansing” claims had not even read Chapter 8 – they only had access to the GCC’s skewed account of the changes made to Chapter 8. Had the Second Assessment Report been readily available in the U.S. in May 1996, it would have been easy for interested parties to verify that Chapter 8 incorporated a fair and balanced discussion of scientific uncertainties.
Second, the “pre-Madrid” version of Chapter 8 was the only chapter in the IPCC Working Group I Second Assessment Report to have both an “Executive Summary” and a “Concluding Summary”. As discussed in the next section, this anomaly was partly due to the fact that the Lead Author team for Chapter 8 was not finalized until April 1994 – months after all other chapters had started work. Because of this delay in getting out of the starting blocks, the Chapter 8 Lead Author team was more concerned with completing the initial drafts of our chapter than with the question of whether all chapters in the Working Group I Report had exactly the same structure.
The reply of the Chapter 8 Lead Authors to the Energy Daily story of May 22, 1996 pointed out this ‘two summary’ redundancy, and noted that:
“After receiving much criticism of this redundancy in October and November 1995, the Convening Lead Author of Chapter 8 decided to remove the concluding summary. About half of the information in the concluding summary was integrated with material in Section 8.6. It did not disappear completely, as the Global Climate Coalition has implied. The lengthy Executive Summary of Chapter 8 addresses the issue of uncertainties in great detail – as does the underlying Chapter itself.”
The removal of the concluding summary made it simple for the Global Climate Coalition to advance their unjustified “scientific cleansing” allegations. They could claim ‘This statement has been deleted’, without mentioning that the scientific issue addressed in the deleted statement was covered elsewhere in the chapter.
This was my first close encounter of the absurd kind.
The 1995 IPCC Report: The “political tampering/corruption of peer-review” allegation
The second allegation is that I was responsible for “political tampering”. I like to call this “the tail wags the dog” allegation. The “tail” here is the summary of the Chapter 8 results in the IPCC Summary for Policymakers, and the “dog” is the detailed underlying text of Chapter 8.
In November 1995, 177 government delegates from 96 countries spent three days in Madrid. Their job was to “approve” each word of the four-and-a-half page Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC’s Working Group I Report. This was the report that dealt with the physical science of climate change. The delegates also had the task of “accepting” the 11 underlying science chapters on which the Summary for Policymakers was based. “Acceptance” of the 11 chapters did not require government approval of each word in each chapter.
This was not a meeting of politicians only. A number of the government delegates were climate scientists. Twenty-eight of the Lead Authors of the IPCC Working Group I Report – myself included – were also prominent participants in Madrid. We were there to ensure that the politics did not get ahead of the science, and that the tail did not wag the dog.
Non-governmental organizations – such as the Global Climate Coalition – were also active participants in the Madrid meeting. NGOs had no say in the formal process of approving the Summary for Policymakers. They were, however, allowed to make comments on the SPM and the underlying 11 science chapters during the first day of the Plenary Meeting (November 27, 1996). The Global Climate Coalition dominated the initial plenary discussions.
Most of the plenary discussions at Madrid focused on the portrayal of Chapter 8’s findings in the Summary for Policymakers. Discussions were often difficult and contentious. We wrestled with the exact wording of the “balance of evidence” statement mentioned above. The delegations from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait argued for a very weak statement, or for no statement at all. Delegates from many other countries countered that there was strong scientific evidence of pronounced a human effect on climate, and that the bottom-line statement from Chapter 8 should reflect this.
Given the intense interest in Chapter 8, Sir John Houghton (one of the two Co-Chairs of IPCC Working Group I) established an ad hoc group on November 27, 1996. I was a member of this group. Our charge was to review those parts of the draft Summary for Policymakers that dealt with climate change detection and attribution issues. The group was placed under the Chairmanship of Dr. Martin Manning of New Zealand, and included delegates from the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Kenya, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. Sir John Houghton also invited delegates from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to participate in this ad hoc group. Unfortunately, they did not accept this invitation.
The ad hoc group considered more than just the portions of the Summary for Policymakers that were relevant to Chapter 8. The Dutch delegation asked for a detailed discussion of Chapter 8 itself, and of the full scientific evidence contained in it. This discussion took place on November 28, 1996.
On November 29, 1996, I reported back to the Plenary on the deliberations of the ad hoc group. The Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti delegations – who had not attended any of the discussions of the ad hoc group, and had no first-hand knowledge of what had been discussed by the group – continued to express serious reservations about the scientific basis for the detection and attribution statements in the Summary for Policymakers.
On the final evening of the Madrid Plenary Meeting, debate focused on finding the right word to describe the human effect on global climate. There was broad agreement among the government delegates that – based on the scientific evidence presented in Chapter 8 – some form of qualifying word was necessary. Was the human influence “measurable”? Could it be best described as “appreciable”, “detectable”, or “substantial”? Each of these suggested words had proponents and opponents. How would each word translate into different languages? Would the meaning be the same as in English?
After hours of often rancorous debate, Bert Bolin (who was then the Chairman of the IPCC) finally found the elusive solution. Professor Bolin suggested that the human effect on climate should be described as “discernible”.
Mr. Pearce – who was not present at the Madrid Plenary Meeting – argues that the discussion of human effects on climate in the IPCC Summary for Policymakers “went beyond what was said in the chapter from which the summary was supposedly drawn”. In other words, he suggests that the tail wagged the dog. This is not true. The “pre-Madrid” bottom-line statement from Chapter 8 was “Taken together, these results point towards a human influence on climate”. As I’ve noted above, the final statement agreed upon in Madrid was “The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate”.
Is “suggests” stronger than “points towards”? I doubt it. Is “The balance of evidence” a more confident phrase than “Taken together”? I don’t think so.
The primary difference between the pre- and post-Madrid statements is that the latter includes the word “discernible”. In my American Heritage College Dictionary, “discernible” is defined as “perceptible, as by vision or the intellect”. In Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, one of the three meanings of the verb “discern” is “to recognize or identify as separate and distinct”. Was the use of “discernible” justified?
The answer is clearly “yes”. Chapter 8 of the IPCC’s Second Assessment Report relied heavily on the evidence from a number of different “fingerprint” studies. This type of research uses rigorous statistical methods to compare observed patterns of climate change with results from climate model simulations. The basic concept of fingerprinting is that each different influence on climate – such as purely natural changes in the Sun’s energy output, or human-caused changes in atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases – has a unique signature in climate records. This uniqueness becomes more apparent if one looks beyond changes averaged over the entire globe, and instead exploits the much greater information content available in complex, time-varying patterns of climate change.
Fingerprinting has proved to be an invaluable tool for untangling the complex cause-and-effect relationships in the climate system. The IPCC’s Second Assessment Report in 1995 was able to draw on fingerprint studies from a half-dozen different research groups. Each of these groups had independently shown that they could indeed perceive a fingerprint of human influence in observed temperature records. The signal was beginning to rise out of the noise, and was (using Merriam-Webster’s definition of “discern”) “separate and distinct” from purely natural variations in climate.
Based on these fingerprint results, and based on the other scientific evidence available to us in November 1995, use of the word “discernible” was entirely justified. Its use is certainly justified based on the scientific information available to us in 2010. The “discernible human influence” phrase was approved by all of the 177 delegates from 96 countries present at the Plenary Meeting – even by the Saudi and Kuwaiti delegations. None of the 28 IPCC Lead Authors in attendance at Madrid balked at this phrase, or questioned our finding that “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate”. The latter statement was cautious and responsible, and entirely consistent with the state of the science. The much more difficult job of trying to quantify the size of human influences on climate would be left to subsequent IPCC assessments.
Mr. Pearce’s remarks suggest that there is some substance to the “political tampering” allegation – that I was somehow coerced to change Chapter 8 in order to “reflect the wording of the political summary”. This is untrue. There was no political distortion of the science. If Mr. Pearce had been present at the Madrid Plenary Meeting, he would have seen how vigorously (and successfully) scientists resisted efforts on the part of a small number of delegates to skew and spin some of the information in the Summary for Policymakers.
The key point here is that the SPM was not a “political summary” – it was an accurate reflection of the science. Had it been otherwise, I would not have agreed to put my name on the Report.
A reader of Mr. Pearce’s article might also gain the mistaken impression that the changes to Chapter 8 were only made in response to comments made by government delegates during the Madrid Plenary Meeting. That is not true. As I’ve mentioned above, changes were also made to address government comments made during the meeting of the ad hoc group formed to discuss Chapter 8.
Furthermore, when I first arrived in Madrid on November 26, 1995, I was handed a stack of government and NGO comments on Chapter 8 that I had not seen previously. I had the responsibility of responding to these comments.
One reason for the delay in receiving comments was that the IPCC had encountered difficulties in finding a Convening Lead Author (CLA) for Chapter 8. To my knowledge, the CLA job had been turned down by at least two other scientists before I received the job offer. The unfortunate consequence of this delay was that, at the time of the Madrid Plenary Meeting, Chapter 8 was less mature and polished than other chapters of the IPCC Working Group I Report. Hence the belated review comments.
The bottom line in this story is that the post-Madrid revisions to Chapter 8 were made for scientific, not political reasons. They were made by me, not by IPCC officials. The changes were in full accord with IPCC rules and procedures (pdf). Mr. Pearce repeats accusations by Fred Seitz that the changes to Chapter 8 were illegal and unauthorized, and that I was guilty of “corruption of the peer-review process”. These allegations are false, as the IPCC has clearly pointed out.
The 1995 IPCC Report: The “research irregularities” allegation
The third major front in the attack on Chapter 8 focused on my personal research. It was a two-pronged attack. First, Professor S. Fred Singer claimed that the IPCC’s “discernible human influence” conclusion was entirely based on two of my own (multi-authored) research papers. Next, Professor Patrick Michaels argued that one of these two papers was seriously flawed, and that irregularities had occurred in the paper’s publication process. Both charges were untrue.
On July 25, 1996, I addressed the first of these allegations in an email to the Lead Authors of the 1995 IPCC Report:
“Chapter 8 references more than 130 scientific papers – not just two. Its bottom-line conclusion that “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate” is not solely based on the two Santer et al. papers that Singer alludes to. This conclusion derives from many other published studies on the comparison of modelled and observed patterns of temperature change – for example, papers by Karoly et al. (1994), Mitchell et al. (1995), Hegerl et al. (1995), Karl et al. (1995), Hasselmann et al. (1995), Hansen et al. (1995) and Ramaswamy et al. (1996). It is supported by many studies of global-mean temperature changes, by our physical understanding of the climate system, by our knowledge of human-induced changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere, by information from paleoclimatic studies, and by a wide range of supporting information (sea-level rise, retreat of glaciers, etc.). To allege, as Singer does, that “Chapter 8 is mainly based on two research papers” is just plain wrong”.
In the second prong of the attack, Professor Michaels claimed that a paper my colleagues and I had published in Nature in 1996 had been selective in its use of observational data, and that our finding of a human fingerprint in atmospheric temperature data was not valid if a longer observational record was used. Further, he argued that Nature had been “toyed with” (presumably by me), and coerced into publishing the 1996 Santer et al. Nature paper one week prior to a key United Nations meeting in Geneva.
My colleagues and I immediately addressed the scientific criticism of our Nature paper by Michaels and his colleague Chip Knappenberger. We demonstrated that this criticism was simply wrong. Use of a longer record of atmospheric temperature change strengthened rather than weakened the evidence for a human fingerprint. We published this work in Nature in December 1996. Unfortunately, Mr. Pearce does not provide a link to this publication.
Since 1996, studies by a number of scientists around the world have substantiated the findings of our 1996 Nature paper. Such work has consistently shown clear evidence of a human fingerprint in atmospheric temperature records.
Disappointingly, Professor Michaels persists in repeating his criticism of our paper, without mentioning our published rebuttal or the large body of subsequently published evidence refuting his claims. Michaels’ charge that Nature had been “toyed with” was complete nonsense. As described below, however, this was not the last time I would be falsely accused of having the extraordinary power to force scientific journals to do my bidding.
A Climatology Conspiracy? More “peer-review abuse” accusations
Mr. Pearce also investigates a more recent issue. He implies that I abused the normal peer-review system, and exerted pressure on the editor of the International Journal of Climatology to delay publication of the print version of a paper by Professor David Douglass and colleagues. This is not true.
The Douglass et al. paper was published in December 2007 in the online edition of the International Journal of Climatology. The “et al.” included the same Professor S. Fred Singer who had previously accused me of “scientific cleansing”. It also included Professor John Christy, the primary developer of a satellite-based temperature record which suggests that there has been minimal warming of Earth’s lower atmosphere since 1979. Three alternate versions of the satellite temperature record, produced by different teams of researchers using the same raw satellite measurements, all indicate substantially more warming of the Earth’s atmosphere.
The focus of the Douglass et al. paper was on post-1979 temperature changes in the tropics. The authors devised what they called a “robust statistical test” to compare computer model results with observations. The test was seriously flawed (see Appendix A in Open Letter to the Climate Science Community: Response to A “Climatology Conspiracy?”). When it was applied to the model and observational temperature datasets, the test showed (quite incorrectly) that the model results were significantly different from observations.
As I have noted elsewhere, the Douglass et al. paper immediately attracted considerable media and political attention. One of the paper’s authors claimed that it represented an “inconvenient truth”, and proved that “Nature, not humans, rules the climate”. These statements were absurd. No single study can overturn the very large body of scientific evidence supporting “discernible human influence” findings. Nor does any individual study provide the sole underpinning for the conclusion that human activities are influencing global climate.
Given the extraordinary claims that were being made on the basis of this incorrect paper, my colleagues and I decided that a response was necessary. Although the errors in Douglass et al. were easy to identify, it required a substantial amount of new and original work to repeat the statistical analysis properly.
Our work went far beyond what Douglass et al. had done. We looked at the sensitivity of model-versus-data comparisons to the choice of statistical test, to the test assumptions, to the number of years of record used in the tests, and to errors in the computer model estimates of year-to-year temperature variability. We also examined how the statistical test devised by Douglass et al. performed under controlled conditions, using random data with known statistical properties. From their paper, there is no evidence that Douglass et al. considered any of these important issues before making their highly-publicized claims.
Our analysis clearly showed that tropical temperature changes in observations and climate model simulations were not fundamentally inconsistent – contrary to the claim of Douglass and colleagues. Our research was published on October 10, 2008, in the online edition of the International Journal of Climatology. On November 15, 2008, the Douglass et al. and Santer et al. papers appeared in the same print version of the International Journal of Climatology.
In December 2009, shortly after the public release of the stolen emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, Professors David Douglass and John Christy accused me of leading a conspiracy to delay publication of the print version of the Douglass et al. paper. This accusation was based on a selective analysis of the stolen emails. It is false.
In Mr. Pearce’s account of this issue, he states that “There is no doubt the (sic) Santer and his colleagues sought to use the power they held to the utmost…” So what are the facts of this matter? What is the “power” Fred Pearce is referring to?
- Fact 1: The only “power” that I had was the power to choose which scientific journal to submit our paper to. I chose the International Journal of Climatology. I did this because the International Journal of Climatology had published (in their online edition) the seriously flawed Douglass et al. paper. I wanted to give the journal the opportunity to set the scientific record straight.
- Fact 2: I had never previously submitted a paper to the International Journal of Climatology. I had never met the editor of the journal (Professor Glenn McGregor). I did not have any correspondence or professional interaction with the editor prior to 2008.
- Fact 3: Prior to submitting our paper, I wrote an email to Dr. Tim Osborn on January 10, 2008. Tim Osborn was on the editorial board of the International Journal of Climatology. I told Dr. Osborn that, before deciding whether we would submit our paper to the International Journal of Climatology, I wanted to have some assurance that our paper would “be regarded as an independent contribution, not as a comment on Douglass et al.” This request was entirely reasonable in view of the substantial amount of new work that we had done. I have described this new work above.
- Fact 4: I did not want to submit our paper to the International Journal of Climatology if there was a possibility that our submission would be regarded as a mere “comment” on Douglass et al. Under this scenario, Douglass et al. would have received the last word. Given the extraordinary claims they had made, I thought it unlikely that their “last word” would have acknowledged the serious statistical error in their original paper. As subsequent events showed, I was right to be concerned – they have not admitted any error in their work.
- Fact 5: As I clearly stated in my email of January 10 to Dr. Tim Osborn, if the International Journal of Climatology agreed to classify our paper as an independent contribution, “Douglass et al. should have the opportunity to respond to our contribution, and we should be given the chance to reply. Any response and reply should be published side-by-side…”
- Fact 6: The decision to hold back the print version of the Douglass et al. paper was not mine. It was the editor’s decision. I had no “power” over the publishing decisions of the International Journal of Climatology.
This whole episode should be filed under the category “No good deed goes unpunished”. My colleagues and I were simply trying to set the scientific record straight. There was no conspiracy to subvert the peer-review process. Unfortunately, conspiracy theories are easy to disseminate. Many are willing to accept these theories at face value. The distribution of facts on complex scientific issues is a slower, more difficult process.
Climate Auditing – Close Encounters with Mr. Steven McIntyre
Ten days after the online publication of our International Journal of Climatology paper, Mr. Steven McIntyre, who runs the “ClimateAudit” blog, requested all of the climate model data we had used in our research. I replied that Mr. McIntyre was welcome to “audit” our calculations, and that all of the primary model data we had employed were archived at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and freely available to any researcher. Over 3,400 scientists around the world currently analyze climate model output from this open database.
My response was insufficient for Mr. McIntyre. He submitted two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for climate model data – not for the freely available raw data, but for the results from intermediate calculations I had performed with the raw data. One FOIA request also asked for two years of my email correspondence related to these climate model data sets.
I had performed these intermediate calculations in order derive weighted-average temperature changes for different layers of the atmosphere. This is standard practice. It is necessary since model temperature data are available at specific heights in the atmosphere, whereas satellite temperature measurements represent an average over a deep layer of the atmosphere. The weighted averages calculated from the climate model data can be directly compared with actual satellite data. The method used for making such intermediate calculations is not a secret. It is published in several different scientific journals.
Unlike Mr. McIntyre, David Douglass and his colleagues (in their International Journal of Climatology paper) had used the freely available raw model data. With these raw datasets, Douglass et al. made intermediate calculations similar to the calculations we had performed. The results of their intermediate calculations were similar to our own intermediate results. The differences between what Douglass and colleagues had done and what my colleagues and I had done was not in the intermediate calculations – it was in the statistical tests each group had used to compare climate models with observations.
The punch-line of this story is that Mr. McIntyre’s Freedom of Information Act requests were completely unnecessary. In my opinion, they were frivolous. Mr. McIntyre already had access to all of the information necessary to check our calculations and our findings.
When I invited Mr. McIntyre to “audit” our entire study, including the intermediate calculations, and told him that all the data necessary to perform such an “audit” were freely available, he expressed moral outrage on his blog. I began to receive threatening emails. Complaints about my “stonewalling” behavior were sent to my superiors at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and at the U.S. Department of Energy.
A little over a month after receiving Mr. McIntyre’s Freedom of Information Act requests, I decided to release all of the intermediate calculations I had performed for our International Journal of Climatology paper. I made these datasets available to the entire scientific community. I did this because I wanted to continue with my scientific research. I did not want to spend all of my available time and energy responding to harassment incited by Mr. McIntyre’s blog.
Mr. Pearce does not mention that Mr. McIntyre had no need to file Freedom of Information Act requests, since Mr. McIntyre already had access to all of the raw climate model data we had used in our study (and to the methods we had used for performing intermediate calculations). Nor does Mr. Pearce mention the curious asymmetry in Mr. McIntyre’s “auditing”. To my knowledge, Mr. McIntyre – who purports to have considerable statistical expertise – has failed to “audit” the Douglass et al. paper, which contained serious statistical errors.
As the “Climategate” emails clearly show, there is a pattern of behavior here. My encounter with Mr. McIntyre’s use of FOIA requests for “audit” purposes is not an isolated event. In my opinion, Mr. McIntyre’s FOIA requests serve the purpose of initiating fishing expeditions, and are not being used for true scientific discovery.
Mr. McIntyre’s own words do not present a picture of a man engaged in purely dispassionate and objective scientific inquiry:
“But if Santer wants to try this kind of stunt, as I’ve said above, I’ve submitted FOI requests and we’ll see what they turn up. We’ll see what the journal policies require. I’ll also see what DOE and PCDMI administrators have to say. We’ll see if any of Santer’s buddies are obligated to produce the data. We’ll see if Santer ever sent any of the data to his buddies”
(Steven McIntyre; posting on his ClimateAudit blog; Nov. 21, 2008).
My research is subject to rigorous scrutiny. Mr. McIntyre’s blogging is not. He can issue FOIA requests at will. He is the master of his domain – the supreme, unchallenged ruler of the “ClimateAudit” universe. He is not a climate scientist, but he has the power to single-handedly destroy the reputations of exceptional men and women who have devoted their entire careers to the pursuit of climate science. Mr. McIntyre’s unchecked, extraordinary power is the real story of “Climategate”. I hope that someone has the courage to tell this story.
Benjamin D. Santer
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow
San Ramon, California
February 22, 2010*
*These remarks reflect the personal opinions of Benjamin D. Santer. They do not reflect the official views of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory or the U.S. Department of Energy. In preparing this document, I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Tom Wigley, Myles Allen, Kristin Aydt, Graham Cogley, Peter Gleckler, Leo Haimberger, Gabi Hegerl, John Lanzante, Mike MacCracken, Gavin Schmidt, Steve Sherwood, Susan Solomon, Karl Taylor, Simon Tett, and Peter Thorne.
#290 kenneth
See my response to ‘Reasonable Observer’
and
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/the-hockey-stick
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/ross-mckitrick
http://www.ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/climategate
—
The Climate Lobby
Understand the Issue
http://www.climatelobby.com/fee-and-dividend/
Sign the Petition!
http://www.climatelobby.com
“RealClimate is not a data depository …. combined with his demanding attitude and tactics, are why he engenders animosity…”
Well, I dont agree on that. I never mentioned RealClimate. I think it would be wise to put all data on the web so its all in the open.
I’m suspecting is the lack of openness that has lead to the situation you are in now.Also the lack of some humility and acceptance of the fact that mistakes can happen. And then correct the mistakes. Thats what is expected of a scientist in all other areas of science.
And thats what leads to advance in science.
It is my impression that McIntyre has a lot of integrity, and only wants to correct mistakes. He has my respect.
[Response: Then why the endless series of personal comments and attacks on people’s integrity? I have many colleagues who manage to point out mistakes I’ve made in a constructive manner without questioning my honesty. – gavin]
kenneth:
You have unwittingly hit the nail on the head.
Yes, you are correct, a scientist would reproduce Dr, Santer’s work from the published data and methodology.
A scientist wouldn’t say “give me all the intermediate results of computation”.
If McIntyre wasn’t lazy or incompetent or both, he would not have needed the intermediate results, either.
An example:
Raw data:
temperature at 8 AM 36F
temperature at 11 AM 45F
temperature at 3 PM 65F
Methodology to compute the average temperature for the day: “add each recorded temperature and divide by the number of observations”.
McIntyre: “I need your intermediate results to recreate your computation. Can you please tell me what 36+45+64 is?”
Get it, now?
So, the commenter “Reasonable Observer” at #289 has posted yet another litany of blatant ignorance and malicious falsehoods, with the same arrogant, sneering tone that is characteristic of the Ditto-Head denialists who are certain that their unquestioning belief in everything that Rush Limbaugh and Fox News tell them makes them “skeptics” and thus morally superior to the hundreds of climate scientists who have studied the issue of AGW diligently and in-depth for decades.
Yawn.
Let me quote the Institure of Physics:
“The CRU e-mails as published on the internet provide prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law. The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital. The lack of compliance has been confirmed by the findings of the Information Commissioner. This extends well beyond the CRU itself – most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other international institutions who are also involved in the formulation of the IPCC’s conclusions on climate change.”
And then let me respond to your post:
“[Response:This statement reveals a completely biased viewpoint on this topic. If you think the blog post you reference is a better account of the Amazon drought sensitivity issue, you have very serious problems with your ability to separate fact from fiction. In our piece on the attacks on the IPCC we linked directly the statement by Daniel Nepstad at Woods Hole RI, who very clearly explained that the supposed issue boiled down simply to incorrect citation, and that the IPCC’s discussion was in fact a reflection of the science. And anyway, I thought you took all these various blogs with a “huge grain of salt”–Jim]”
Reading both blogs very carefully here is my view:
The original ER post is totally right. The Nepstad work cited in the WWF report doesn’t say at all what the IPCC report says. The original Nepstad work was on the vulnerability to fire of the Amazon during periods of drought and the 40% number in that report was on the Brazilian Amazon and not the whole thing.
[Response: Nepstad has explained all of this, and more.–Jim]
Nepstad then chimes in to say that he has other work that wasn’t cited. Apparently he extended the 40% number during later work to the whole Amazon. He also supports the IPCC statement. Fair enough. But to me there still seems to be a disconect between work on fire vulernability and the statement that the forest “could react drastically”.
[Response: Oh, the leading researcher on the topic is “chiming in” is he? Pretty audacious isn’t it?–Jim]
Then there is this Lewis guy who apparently has done some additional research that is on point but wasn’t available untill after the IPCC deadline. In any case, he believes: “The IPCC statement is basically correct but poorly written, and bizarrely referenced.”
[Response: See below on Lewis.–Jim]
It strikes me that the IPCC did a poor job. Maybe some evidence can be later found that tries to butress the statement, but even the scientists trying to support the IPCC don’t believe that they gave a good coherent summary of the science.
I would also note that the original blog post on ER is totally fair. The original cites clearly don’t back up the statement.
Of course, in your blog post you say: “This “issue” is thus completely without merit.”
[Response: You have got to be kidding. You think this piece (followed by this one), reflects better on the reality of how well the IPCC AR4 WG2 represented the susceptibility of Amazonian forests to drought, than the public word of the primary researcher involved himself? Did you even actually read these things? The first piece doesn’t even discuss the merits of the claims! And by the way “this Lewis guy” is Simon Lewis, one of the world’s leading researchers on tropical forest dynamics. But you are right on that last point, so let me rephrase: This issue is utterly and completely without merit, trumped up by those looking to find fault with the IPCC, with the usual help from bloggers and bad journalism.–Jim]
So? Who declared them judge and jury?
Especially when they include this:
“The lack of compliance has been confirmed by the findings of the Information Commissioner.”
There have been no “findings”.
Andreas Bjurström (217),
Your previous post (149) suggested that Sonja has written extensively in peer review literature. I asked for some references. None of the ones you provided are written by Sonja, nor do they appear to support her assertion that I challenged. I have no doubt that politics can and does sometimes interfere with science (just look at what our Sen. Inhofe is now attempting). But that alone doesn’t support Sonja’s blanket claim “Scientists were not asked test this as a scientific hypothesis but were asked to assume it in order to justify a major international policy”
If she said “some” (of the many, many, many) research projects were motivated by politics, I wouldn’t doubt that. But there is no evidence (certainly not in the references you provided) that any significant portion of the climate science done throughout the world over the past 5 decades was merely attempting to justify policy and not to test hypothesis. Such extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Neither you or she has provided that.
Kenneth @302:
Seriously, McIntyre only wants to correct mistakes? Well, he’s been pointed to mistakes of his own (amongst others after his attack on Briffa). Has he corrected and humbly acknowledged those corrections? No.
Santer discusses another example of McIntyre apparently not interested in correcting mistakes. Rather than correcting Douglass et al, he tries to go after the paper *correcting* Douglass et al. If he’d gone after *both*, he’d actually would do something useful, but the pattern will become clear with some more examples:
Take the Essex et al paper, claiming there is no such thing as a global temperature. It used two different methods to calculate an average, but also used a *different missing-value infill procedure* for the two methods. Take the same infill method, and the result is the same. Pure and utter data manipulation, but McIntyre has apparently banned discussions on “global temperature” on his blog.
There’s also the McKitrick & Michaels paper, confusing radians and degrees. McIntyre? Oh, he acknowledged the error, but not that it completely negated the conclusions from the paper. Rather, he decided to attack a smaller mistake in MBH98.
Soon&Baliunas? McIntyre decided not to discuss that paper. More worrysome, repeatedly his comments indicate that he’s not interested in finding out whether Soon&Baliunas is wrong. Stuff like “our text today provides an interesting oportunity to reflect on Soon and Baliunas, or rather the mugging of Soon and Baliunas by the Hockey Team.” and “I’m not going to discuss whether Soon and Baliunas actually committed the alleged confusion” (followed by a sneer to MBH98). Interesting how he himself sees his work as “auditing”, but criticism of Soon&Baliunas “mugging”.
Perhaps you now start to see that Steve McIntyre is apparently *not* out to correct mistakes, period. He’s out to correct *alledged* mistakes of *certain* people, however small they may be. And he uses those small mistakes to cover up the humongous mistakes of others.
votenotokyoto (252) wrote:
“Where is all the climate science?”
Try clicking on any one of the numerous links along the side of this page. Or even better, try reading an actual peer reviewed science journal.
The field of AGW isn’t on a 24×7 schedule, like the confusion and spin you’ll find at WUWT. When significant new scientific issues come up they are generally addressed here in a very timely manner.
Allen C 270
Models are a big part of the problem today. The global models don’t have enough resolution to get down to joe 6-pack’s regional level. Result is that “global temperature”, a statistical concept as the warmers do it, doesn’t swing with him/her.
Six months ago Michael Mann told the world that there was a mistake in the paleo-climate science, the two models he tried for his recent paper did not compute correctly. They would back-test for only a hundred years or so. For the 1000 or 2000 years prior to that, the regional climate goes from cold to hot, as we all believe, with a 200 or 300 yr period, as we all believe, but the northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere are 180 degrees out of phase with each other, probably Atlantic oscillation and the ninos. While this counter-intuitive (Mike’s words) notion should settle the MWP hockey stick brewhaha just as he has always claimed, but it’s out of the frying pan into the fire. The basis for last century’s model projections, the weight of the evidence as Ben called it, was the paleoclimate – but an intuitive paleoclimate not the one that Mike now believes. When the interviewer asked Mike if these new results would be in the Mike boggled a little and said not in the main report, perhaps in a side note. As sensible and scientific as I believe that answer is, the warmers may have a hard time getting it past Senator Inhofe and the other deniers in the current environment (financial meltdown due to the “quants”). Ben should have changed to the “weight of the evidence as we now see it” or words to that effect. 20/20 hindsight
RAM, Sue, and Phil are on record saying the models are wrong (much more politically correct words, of course). Too large a spread, too much climate sensitivity, and the wrong, or (regional) trend. RAM has left the global view for the rest of his career, he will concentrate on supplying stoves to India and China to mitigate the brown cloud. Phil has had his fill (8<)) of centre direction, wants to go back to being a scientist. Jim is ill, so rumors go, maybe dying of cancer – if true, an irreplaceable loss to the world.
Plenty of good warmers to fill what's becoming a leadership vacuum – go forit Ben, Gavin, whoever.
So Allen, keep up your good work, these guys can use your help. But be prepared for a tough sell, these folk are hard headed. For good reason, and rightly so, I might add. They've been carrying a torch for a long, long time.
FWIW, I'm neutral on ACC. I believe that, even if it's wrong, the risks of ignoring it are much too high. The science needs to be continued, expanded if possible in these sovereign debt times, The folk work too hard. More regional projects like Surya, less boondoggles like C&C, improved action oriented IPCC, …
That's it folks. As always, just my opinion, offered in gratitude to some people who are charging hard that I don't want to see go over a cliff.
> “Institure [sic] of Physics”
That doesn’t seem to be the American Institute of Physics.
So what organization are you actually quoting?
Citation needed.
The place Shaviv works, perhaps?
http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~shaviv/
Or the nuclear industry’s Institute of Physics?
http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/Institute_of_Physics
I’d bet on the latter, given their content.
You quote whatever that source is for:
> e-mails as published on the internet provide prima facie evidence …
That’s clearly baloney, because the people who posted them claim they were just a random sample from the stolen files. Clearly they’re not, given the obvious selection — but either a random or a cherrypicking selection isn’t “prima facie” evidence of anything except quoting material out of context.
It’s your job to cite a source, not ours to try to guess where you’re getting this stuff. You could tell us why you believe this source is credible, though.
Three cheers for Ben Santer. Hip Hip…………….???????
Would it save a little time if we all learned the Galileo Gambit?
Detailed implementation instructions are here.
Hank:
Institute of Physics sounds like a real hotbed of science:
Kenneth (#302) writes:
“It is my impression that McIntyre has a lot of integrity, and only wants to correct mistakes.”
My impression is the opposite.
http://climateaudit.org/2010/02/24/rob-bradley-climategate-from-an-enron-perspective/
http://shewonk.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/enron-and-the-zombie-fungus/
@Me 294 Dr. Santer received the McIntyre DOE FOIA request after the NOAA FOIA request, hence the learning about the FOIA today and discussing it for several weeks.
#289 Reasonable Observer
Again you make allegations about this blog that are not true – you make stuff up.
“I believe that this blog is contributing to the further deterioration of the credibility of climate science in a couple of ways. This lack of willingness to “show your work” as frequently supported by this blog is just crazy.”
Really? Obviously you missed this:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/
and this: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/wheres-the-data/
You sir have no credibility and are far from reasonable.
#252: votenotokyoto
There is not much science at WUWT. Scientific method uses data to arrive at a conclusion. Watts already has a conclusion and finds data to support it. Even worse, his supporting data doesn’t actually support him! Why? He rarely does any analyses.
I suggest you visit False Claims Proven False and Shame. These links show that Watts and D’Aleo’s claims about scientific fraud are unfounded. Watts should be cleaning up his mess but he won’t.
I used to post there as one of the few Loyal Opposition but after awhile I realized that Watts didn’t care about the truth and neither did most of his followers. There were a few folks there who did educate me about several issues but they were few and far between. After the Briffa and CRU hatchet job over there and the subsequent lack of an apology, I gave up.
Watts has no shame and cannot say “sorry” if his life depended on it. It is too bad because he has a huge following and if he could ever step back and just accept the obvious, he could really do some good.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc3902.htm
From the first sentence of the “Institute of Physics” submission:
Mmmm sounds like a real hot bed of research and science.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc3902.htm
[Response: IOP publish Physics World which is a respectable publication, so I wouldn’t write them off because of the organisational structure. They do appear to be extrapolating beyond their knowledge in this submission though. Many of the statements are of a form ‘if bad things were done, that would be bad’ – which is fine, but kind of avoids the essential question of whether anything bad was done. – gavin]
#315 “Institute of Physics sounds like a real hotbed of science” – yes, and that is of course the point. It is all of a par with “Clean Skies” and “No Child Left Behind”. The conservatives have learned that you can call something anything you like and it will be taken at face value by willing dupes, and by the mainstream media.
225:
Bob Close: “The IPCC practice of sexing up conclusions in legitimate research studies to suit particular political goals and frighten the public into submission is not to be condoned…”
Utter nonsense.
Bob Close: “…Now that various gross errors have been detected in the IPCC political reports…”
One error, or one and a half at most I believe. Just because it has ‘-gate’ at the end doesn’t mean Woodward and Bernstein are gonna come knocking at the door. I’m sure they’d be looking at the real villains in this story, and they don’t blog here.
“… particularly the temperature data manipulation to eliminate the Little ice age and other modern cooler periods…”
Uh oh.
“…as a concerned bystander in the AGW debate…I don’t admit to any predetermined disbelief in AGW,…”
I like New Scientist, too, Bob, so was it you there last October calling AGW a con and encouraging people to go to reputable sceptic sites, finishing off with “AGW is a non-event”? If so, have a read of this:
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2010/02/betroffenheitstroll.html
If not, I still disagree with what you said above.
Dr. Santer: Sharing your processed data with Steve McIntyre did not destroy your scientific reputation, but withholding such information did. First, withholding implies that you were afraid that your calculations might not withstand “audit” and that McIntyre ouldl find a mistake.
[Response: Not in the slightest. The point was that the whole calculation should be ‘audited’ from the raw data that was available to everyone. – gavin]
Second, on the “remote” chance that McIntyre found a disagreement, wouldn’t you want the scientific record to be corrected?
[Response: Of course. But the errors here were in the Douglass et al paper – and they still have not corrected them. Perhaps you should be talking to them instead. – gavin]
Results which represent consensus agreement from a variety of analysts are far more valuable to the scientific community than dueling publications like Douglas/Santer that don’t clearly resolve (or at least define) the issue. McIntyre’s analyses suggest a substantial difference exists between observations and models, but a differences that falls somewhat short of Douglas’s claim to statistical invalidation of models. This seems to be a sensible position. Unfortunately, it does mean that the uncertainty in models is so large that it is difficult to make any useful predictions about how much change is expected in any 20-year period. That problem could be solved by anyone with the resources to run a model a few hundred times, but those with the resources don’t want to invalidate their models.
[Response: This is just nonsense. The issue is not the defining the ensemble mean (for which more simulations might help marginally), but in the representation of the internal variability (which a hundred more runs will not improve). We run the models as often as resources allow, and efforts like CPDN have managed to run thousands of versions of their model. Your supposition as to the motives of the modelling groups is completely groundless. – gavin]
Third, if you do your work intending to share all immediate results and calculations with skeptics like McIntyre, you and your associates will work more carefully and produce more reliable science in a form that the whole community can use. (Your emails show that you and co-authors were convinced Douglas was wrong even before you began your data analysis. They also show that you rushed a paper out to refute Douglas and arranged for peer-review by scientists who were sympathetic to your views and “knew what to say”. This is precisely the situation where mistakes are most likely to be made – though McIntyre didn’t find any.) Fourth, your intermediate data was generated with public funds appropriated because of the serious impact climate change might have on the future of our planet. Both you and Douglas had obtained similar intermediate data, the scientific issue at hand was the best way to determine their statistical meaning, an area where Mr. McIntyre has significant expertise.
Before writing a post, I suggest you consult the record at ClimateAudit and the Climategate emails to avoid being caught making “mis-statements”. Mr. McIntyre does have a nasty (entertaining?) habit of exposing such contradictions, even when they are made unintentionally. For example, Mr. McIntyre’s blogging on your paper included computer code allowing readers to immediately audit his work and links to the data you released. He includes all critical remarks and makes corrections based on the feedback he receives.
Filed under shame.
Most Credible Climate Skeptic Not So Credible After All (Patrick Michaels)
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/02/pat-michaels-climate-skeptic
What is more on shame today?
Two of the most prominent claims of global warming denialists have been proven wrong.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/shame/
dhogaza 315
“Institute of Physics sounds like a real hotbed of science”
You’re making a fool of yourself.
The IOP is one of the UK’s oldest and foremost scientific bodies.
Most UK physicists working on climate change in the UK are likely to be members.
I doubt they’ll appreciate your cheap and ill-informed jibes.
Frank – theres no evidence Santer’s scientific reputation has been desotryed amongst his peers, ie those actually engaged in climate science.
The rest of your comment is along the lines of the usual ones from people woh fundamentally misunderstand science and approach it with an engineers viewpoint. And instead of trying to help understand this miscommunication issue and suggest how things acn be improved, they proceed to tell the scientists they are doing science wrong, and get huffy when the scientist get angry at being told what to do.
David C – then why did the IOP not actually speak to anyone engaged in climatology? I’ve read their submission, its just bluster and what if, no useful comment at all.
Kenneth (290) (as well as the moderators):
“It is normal scientific procedure to be able to reproduce other scientists results”
Every time this is brought up, can we please get statement to the effect that it does not mean copy their work, in the response?
#295, Daily Mail link
Yes I thought I’d post it as an example of absurd inconsistency. Jim is quite right!
Private Eye used to do spoof Mail covers on a regular basis, one of which from about 1987 springs to mind. At the time the Mail used to print any old stuff to get at the UK Labour party.
Private Eye’s spoof headline ran: “AIDS threat to Labour voters”! The syndrome was fairly new back then and the public didn’t know a lot about it. So the Eye spoof went on to suggest that it could be contracted by voting Labour in the forthcoming General Election, and the only way to minimise the risk was to vote Conservative!
Cheers – John
Gavin’s response to 321:
“….IOP publish Physics World which is a respectable publication, so I wouldn’t write them off because of the organisational structure. They do appear to be extrapolating beyond their knowledge in this submission though. Many of the statements are of a form ‘if bad things were done, that would be bad’ – which is fine, but kind of avoids the essential question of whether anything bad was done.”
I don’t know how you got that idea.
The IOP actually say:-
“The CRU e-mails as published on the internet provide prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law. The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital. The lack of compliance has been confirmed by the findings of the Information Commissioner. This extends well beyond the CRU itself – most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other international institutions who are also involved in the formulation of the IPCC’s conclusions on climate change.”
[Response: This is just not specific enough to warrant attention. With the one exception of the ‘delete the emails’ email (which I have said all along was ill-advised – even if no emails were deleted, and it’s not clear that any were), I don’t see what else they are referring to. The open exchange of data and materials is indeed vital – but it is not the CRU’s fault (as the FOI body eventually ruled) that some of their temperature data was covered by NDAs. And what is this ‘extension’ to international institutions? This is just an insinuation without evidence. I appear in some emails. Am I therefore guilty of impeding the free flow of scientific information? I would like you to demonstrate that if indeed you think that is what they are implying. The point is that there is plenty enough boilerplate outrage knocking around that appears to based on vague feeling that people have rather than specific issues. It’s not clear what the IOP are adding here. We’ve looked into almost everything that people have pointed to and shown that the accusations are usually completely baseless. – gavin]
guthrie wrote: “The rest of your comment is along the lines of the usual ones from people woh fundamentally misunderstand science and approach it with an engineers viewpoint.”
Actually Frank’s comment is along the lines of the usual ones from people who are reciting the scripted talking points they have been spoon-fed by the ExxonMobil-funded Ditto-Head denialist media, without really even understanding what they are talking about.
Does anyone else notice how all the Ditto-Head commenters are regurgitating the same list of talking points, using virtually identical language, using the same disingenuous, obviously coached posturing about being “concerned” about the “proper conduct of science”, pretending to advise climate scientists on how they need to “restore their reputation” and “regain public trust” by embracing ExxonMobil’s propaganda?
“I used to be an AGW believer but whatever-gate has really shaken my faith in you guys so you’d better get on the WattsUp bandwagon if you want to regain my trust.” Blah blah blah.
It is really hard sometimes to distinguish the “live” Ditto-Head commenters from spam-bots.
Really, after reading the recent Guardian pieces on climate-related science, I think it is about time someone laid down some lawsuits on the media for its completely inept reporting.
Michael
Reasonable Observer says: 26 February 2010 at 4:09 PM
“destroy your scientific reputation”
You do realize your head is full of jangling echoes, don’t you? Santer’s reputation is not destroyed, except in the hallucinatory vision you’re part of.
“audit”
Every time I read “audit” I think of this:
http://denialdepot.blogspot.com/
“consult the record at ClimateAudit”
Oh, right, you remind us to ask, where are the results of the “audit”, finally?
BTW, that IOP thing was posted today at WUWT and sure enough it begins popping up in all the usual places, carried forth by a flock of squawking parrots. Enjoy your crackers, Polly.
The real problem; The FOIA.
I think you have to accept the following; FOIA exist.
If you work for a big institution receiving dollars
from the State (McIntyre does not) , or some other Government-associated institution, you are under the FOIA. Or?
So, when someone request information, you must give it to them.
You must follow the law of the land?
Next logical sequence is; Okay, information must be provided.
So, you have the choice;
Either make tools to easily provide it automatically,
or
provide it manually in a case by case basis.
If you choose the latter, it will choke you.
So the logical choice is to choose the first.
SQL databases, C#, you name it, You get money from the government.
Just an honest advice.
Thanks.
Color me confused.
Is there more than one Institute of Physics?
If so, from which is the bafflegab about CRUhack and its aftermath?
If we really care, that is…
prokaryote says:
26 February 2010 at 6:22 PM
“Filed under shame.
Most Credible Climate Skeptic Not So Credible After All (Patrick Michaels)”
They thought Michaels was somewhat credible up until this year? He lost all credibility as far as I’m concerned with his dishonest congressional testimony in 1998.
Anyway, regarding FOIA requests, I’ve always wondered what one does if a request arrives for data archived prior to the neat little Windows PCs that folk use today. Thinking back to the days of tapes and continuous-reel “computer-paper”.
Something like “Thankyou for your request. And to what address would you like the lorry to be sent?” springs to mind.
Cheers – John
“David B. Benson says:
26 February 2010 at 7:25 PM
Color me confused.
Is there more than one Institute of Physics?
If so, from which is the bafflegab about CRUhack and its aftermath?”
The quote is from the UK’s Institute of Physics “response to a House of Commons Science and Technology Committee call for evidence”. The pdf is available here: http://www.iop.org/activity/policy/Consultations/Energy_and_Environment/file_39010.pdf
Kenneth @335:
Or not. Only information that meets specific criteria is covered by FOIA.
Honest, perhaps, but not sufficiently informed.
Deniers: “Galileo, Galileo, Galileo!”
Climate science: “Eppure riscalda!”
Dave G (339) — Thank you.
David Benson,
It is this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Physics
This is real and not some astroturf thing, and DavidC appears to be right, pretty much any UK physicist would be a member.
However I would question whether they really signed off on this and whether they had a real mandate from the membership. It appears to have been quietly released (I don’t see any mention on the iop.org main news feed or press releases for example). That said, it is on their site, and it is really emanating from within the IOP. But the statement itself is so perfectly in line with ‘sceptic’ talking points, why isn’t it primetime news for their members, many of whom would I daresay be pretty surprised to hear that this is their submission?
This seems to me like it was largely written by a ‘sceptic’, specifically one who fully swallows the climate audit line. Point 4 in particular makes this obvious – nobody talks like that unless they are immersed in the blogs.
The only names actually attached to the submission are those of Peter Main and Tajinder Panesor. Main wrote the covering letter and Panesor is shown as the author of the PDF. There is a ‘sceptic’ called Peter Main posting online – of the ‘AGW is nonsense’ variety – and I wonder if it is the same guy or just a coincidentally shared name. Tajinder Panesor organised an IOP seminar about the predictive power of models with Lindzen and Piers Corbyn speaking for the ‘sceptic’ side – though what Panesor’s own views are I have no idea.
They say they had input from the ‘science board’ and the ‘energy group’, but what input? Did they sign off on it?
An obvious question is whether these people really speak for “The Physicists” or if it is simply a guerilla effort from the usual small bunch of geezers.
Here is the full list of submissions made to the Science & Technology Select Committee:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/contents.htm
Cheers – John
JRC
I never, never claimed there were no cybercrime convictions.
I never claimed there were no convictions for unauthorized access.
I never claimed there were no email convictions on private networks.
If anyone had asked me, I would said sure, but what you’re complaining about was somebody reading the climate scientist’s email which had been sent on the internet.
Of course there are no convictions for reading someone’s internet email.
1) Internet email is not like a sealed letter unless its encrypted. It’s like a postcard. Ever hear of a postperson being convicted for reading a postcard? Of course not, if that’s all that was done. If the postal delivery take some illegal action using the information from the post card they can be prosecuted for that action, but not for reading the card or even for gossiping about what was read. Same with email on the internet.
If you wish privacy for internet for internet email encrypt it. That’s what Jones et al. should have done if they wanted their conversations to remain private.
So was a crime committed in this case. Maybe, but the crime was accessing the servers, if the access was unauthorized. We are pretty sure that it was, at least for loading the emails into the RealClimate server(s). Since we do not know who DeepThroat was (yet), that will be hard to tell. We may have to fire someone for violating some provision of his or her employee contract (or just because we don’t like this person) but we can’t charge a crime. Even then we have to very careful to say alleged crime because the suspect is innocent until proved guilty.
OK, suppose we want to go ahead with a criminal charge. First we have to find a prosecutor who believes there is enough evidence (that a judge will accept and defense counsel will not debunk) to convict, i.e. convince all 12 jurors the person is guilty. Very tough since it is hard for all 12 Joe 6-packs, the jurors, to beyond a reasonable doubt.
That said, Phil et al. can sue the suspect. (Anyone can sue anybody any time.) For damages, but not for stealing. Stealing is a crime and I tried to cover that above. BTW that’s the OJ case, OJ did not murder, he killed 2people but he didn’t murder them. Murder is a crime.
Not very likely. So unlikely that you can’t find a conviction for READING someone else’s internet email.
Even I am getting tired of this. I did like your links though, I scanned and bookmarked them.
Thank you.
Dave G says: 26 February 2010 at 7:42 PM
> The quote is from the UK’s Institute of Physics
Yep. Private company, do note.
They interviewed Gavin last year:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/40528
Wrong but useful Oct 1, 2009 12 comments
> Many policymakers have traditionally seen climate models as
> irrelevant, but Gavin Schmidt argues ….
The real problem: you don’t understand FOIA. When someone requests information, you must follow the law. *sometimes* following the law means you must give it to them. *sometimes* it means you must reject the request.
It seems something happened while I blinked. I could have sworn there was a “science” section on the various news websites, like http://www.CNN.com. I just went there to check something out (I think the last time I visited may have been some 3 or 4 months ago), and no “science” section. They had “Health,” and “Sports,” and “Winter Olympics,” but no “Science.”
Even their “Tech” section is a misnomer, since it only has to do with information technology, and nothing to do with technology in genertal (which would include everything from Oldawan choppers to wind-generators and solar panels).
So that’s it. The world has decided it can do without science.
Hard come, easy go.
Gavin in response to Frank (#324) says: “This is just nonsense. The issue is not the defining the ensemble mean (for which more simulations might help marginally), but in the representation of the internal variability (which a hundred more runs will not improve).”
Furthermore, even disregarding the (very real!) complication of internal variability, this notion of defining the mean to such high certainty that it would disagree with observations is a red herring. Imagine that we ran the climate models that the IPCC AR4 report used enough to pin down the mean for the equilibrium climate sensitivity in them to be (3.2347 +/- 0.0001) C where the “uncertainty” quoted is the standard error in that mean value. Would subsequent evidence that the climate sensitivity of the real climate system is not actually in this very narrow range be of interest to anybody? I for one will categorically state that I am 99.99% certain that the ECS in the real climate system is in fact outside of the standard error for the mean from the climate models determined to this precision. But, so what?…Because the IPCC didn’t claim that the equilibirum climate sensitivity is (3.2347 +/- 0.0001) C. They say it is likely in the range of 2.0 to 4.5 C, which is a number that you get by assuming that it is the standard deviation…and not the standard error…in the mean (of all the different models) that the IPCC thinks is a reasonable metric of uncertainty. (In fact, even the standard error of the climate models is smaller than this range…You have to go out to ~2 standard deviations to get a range this broad; I think the 2.0 to 4.5 C range actually encompasses all of the ~20 models that the IPCC used for which the ECS has been determined.)
John Mason says:
26 February 2010 at 8:04 PM
“Here is the full list of submissions made to the Science & Technology Select Committee:”
I’m just wading through the links and there’s some fascinating stuff in there. Edward Dilley sent the committee two books, one by Ian Plimer and the other by Christopher Booker. These are the two most ridiculous deniers on the planet, in my view, yet Mr Dilley calls the books “excellent at putting climate change in true perspective”. Plimer thinks the Sun is made of iron and Booker thinks that asbestos is chemically identical to talcum powder. Maybe I should write a sceptic book – I’m as scientifically illiterate as both Plimer and Booker.
I’m sure there will be other gems in the list.