U.N. climate chiefs apologize for glacier error

[airdvr 200]

CNN) -- The U.N.'s leading panel on climate change has apologized for misleading data published in a 2007 report that warned Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035.

In a statement released Wednesday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said estimates relating to the rate of recession of the Himalayan glaciers in its Fourth Assessment Report were "poorly substantiated" adding that "well-established standards of evidence were not applied properly."
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/01/20/glacier.himalayas.ipcc.error/index.html

Oops...sorry...we're not all gonna die!

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[captain1976 0]

Its part of that whole global warming scam.

http://abfreedom.blogspot.com/2007/01/polar-bears-and-global-warming-scam.html

Real people never bought this scan as it was never based on legitimate research.

And I suspect there won't be many people disputing this as its typical of liberals to run for cover when they are proven wrong, which is most of the time. With their tails between their legs they quickly changed the scam to "global climate change".

You live more in the few minutes of skydiving than many people live in their lifetime

[hwt 0]

The U.N.simply wants to take money from people who have and give to the people who have not .It is a well thought out scheme which the Progressive / Communist party has endorsed because this is the best way to socialize the entire Globe.
Notice how they changed it from "Global warming " to climate change when the warming trend went the other way? The democrats do not want an investigation into weather or not the "hacked e-mails"show fraud because the fraud would have been exposed.
Scott Brown saved us from the Democrats plan to taxing us to death

[pbwing 0]

Are you seriously quoting ABFreedom as a some sort of authoritative source on climate change - or anything else for that matter??

The group (World Glacier Monitoring Service)that pointed out the error in the report is not saying anything about the glaciers are not melting. In fact, in their last report, they have indicated that glacial mass continues to decrease.

WGMS is merely pointing out that the science in the report was flawed, not that AGW doesn't exist.

[roostnureye 2]

Quote

The U.N.simply wants to take money from people who have and give to the people who have not .It is a well thought out scheme which the Progressive / Communist party has endorsed because this is the best way to socialize the entire Globe.
Notice how they changed it from "Global warming " to climate change when the warming trend went the other way? The democrats do not want an investigation into weather or not the "hacked e-mails"show fraud because the fraud would have been exposed.
Scott Brown saved us from the Democrats plan to taxing us to death

^^^bump^^^ thank you for being a patron of the true United States!!! we dont need these guys "pulling the wool over our eyes" anymore!!

Flock University FWC / ZFlock
B.A.S.E. 1580
Aussie BASE 121

[lawrocket 3]

Problem: something was put in a report that was not "poorly substantiated" but "unsubstantiated."

The statement was made without support. Somebody put it in there without evidence to support it. It's that simple.

Glaciers are ablating? They might be gone by 2350? Most people would say, "okay. So you want $45 trillion right now?"

Ah. A little typo to 2035 - that'll scare people. Taking it from an advocacy group instead of science? Good.

The system of checks failed. There was a breakdown. It was apologized for, which is good.
The problem is the eroded credibility.


I think there is a bigger thing going on. People worldwide are beginning to openly question it. It was not the right thing to do to challenge AGW. One would face villification. One would be called a "flat earther."

Now there are things occurring that are causing doubt. There are some shady looking e-mails. This shows an ouright lie. There will be more.

I cannot help but consider that arrogance has much to do with it. Those who challenge are idiots. They are contrarians. They wouldn't understand. They don't know what's going on. Etc.

Well, there eventually comes a time when there would be expected to be some results of the predicitions of doom and gloom. Those things that were predicted 20 years ago to affect everyone in 20 years? Not seeing it.

Eventually, people begin to question when the results are not felt. "You said I'd feel it by now. I don't."

People are now questioning. They are looking for it. there is an increasing scrutiny on proponents. is it fair? Well, Professor Hansen himself has said that now it's time to be more realistic. He made bogus predictions to get political ground. Now he's backing off.

When people wonder whether they have been played, they start to air grievances. They start to ask more questions and scrutinize. For the AGW paradigm to survive, they vetter show some results.

And they better be fucking flawless because they are under the proctoscope.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[GeorgiaDon 340]

So is NASA also part of the "global conspiracy" as well?

NASA Research Finds Last Decade was Warmest on Record, 2009 One of Warmest Years

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

[wolfriverjoe 1,368]

The real problem is that we are doing serious damage to the environment. I believe that by the time that damage is obvious, it will be too late and irreversible.

But until the damage is obvious, too few people will be willing to make the sacrafices necessary to stop it.

So the data is "massaged" to make it look worse than it is. So maybe people will start to do something.

Good intentions, but we all know where they lead.

It now looks like the AGW proponents are "crying wolf", and destroying their credibility.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[rushmc 18]

I made another post earlier this week where a prediction is made (within the articel I posted) that NASA will be shown to be doing shit simular to the last scandel

Time will tell

One thing is for sure
Hansen is not as pure in his postions as the wind driven snow

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[lawrocket 3]

Quote

So is NASA also part of the "global conspiracy" as well?

NASA Research Finds Last Decade was Warmest on Record, 2009 One of Warmest Years

Don

Check out who heads NASA-GISS.
In the event that you do not think that NASA is a political institution, I'd suggest you brush up on civics. NASA gets its funding through the political process. It is a governmental agency.

What? A government agency would put forth untruths?

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[jakee 1,276]

Quote

Real people never bought this scan as it was never based on legitimate research.

'Real people'? What do the majority of 'real people' know of current scientific research, legitimate or otherwise, on this or any other subject?

And who are the fake people?

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[rehmwa 2]

wow, a "glacier" error

sounds big

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[lawrocket 3]

Quote

The real problem is that we are doing serious damage to the environment. I believe that by the time that damage is obvious, it will be too late and irreversible.

But until the damage is obvious, too few people will be willing to make the sacrafices necessary to stop it.

Right. Because it is not worth it to most people. That's why they heighten it by alarmism. Dubya did it with the Iraq war. Propoganda is important. That Iraw had WMDs was a political reality. That's all you need.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[rushmc 18]

Opp, its happening yet again!

Quote

Gene J. Koprowski

- FOXNews.com

- January 28, 2010
U.N.'s Global Warming Report Under Fresh Attack for Rainforest Claims

A United Nations report on climate change that has been lambasted for its faulty research is under new attack for yet another instance of what critics say is sloppy science -- guiding global warming policy based on a study of forest fires.

A United Nations report on climate change that has been lambasted for its faulty research is under new attack for yet another instance of what its critics say is sloppy science -- adding to a growing scandal that has undermined the credibility of scientists and policymakers who back the U.N.'s findings about global warming.

In the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), issued in 2007 by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), scientists wrote that 40 percent of the Amazon rainforest in South America was endangered by global warming.

But that assertion was discredited this week when it emerged that the findings were based on numbers from a study by the World Wildlife Federation that had nothing to do with the issue of global warming -- and that was written by a freelance journalist and green activist.

The IPCC report states that "up to 40 percent of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation" -- highlighting the threat climate change poses to the Earth. The report goes on to say that "it is more probable that forests will be replaced by ecosystems ... such as tropical savannas."

But it has now been revealed that the claim was based on a WWF study titled "Global Review of Forest Fires," a paper barely related to the Amazon rainforest that was written "to secure essential policy reform at national and international level to provide a legislative and economic base for controlling harmful anthropogenic forest fires."

EUReferendum, a blog skeptical of global warming, uncovered the WWF association. It noted that the original "40 percent" figure came from a letter published in the journal Nature that discussed harmful logging activities -- and again had nothing to do with global warming.

The reference to the Brazilian rainforest can be found in Chapter 13 of the IPCC Working Group II report, the same section of AR4 in which claims are made that the Himalayan glaciers are rapidly melting because of global warming. Last week, the data leading to this claim were disproved as well, a scandal being labeled "glacier-gate" or "Himalaya-gate."

The Himalaya controversy followed another tempest -- the disclosure of e-mails that suggested that leading global warming scientists in the U.K. and the U.S. had conspired to hide a decline in global temperatures.

"If it is true that IPCC has indeed faked numbers regarding the Amazon, or used unsubstantiated facts, then it is the third nail in the IPCC coffin in less than three months," Andrew Wheeler, former staff director for the U.S. Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, told FoxNews.com. "For years, we have been told that the IPCC peer review process is the gold standard in scientific review. It now appears it is more of a fool's gold process."

Wheeler, who is now a senior vice president with B&D Consulting's Energy, Climate and Environment Practice in Washington, said the latest scandal calls into question the "entire underpinnings" of the IPCC's assessment and peer review process.

The U.N. did not return calls seeking comment on the scandal.

Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice chairman of the IPCC, was quoted in the European press as saying, "I would like to submit that this could increase the credibility of the IPCC, not decrease it. Aren't mistakes human? Even the IPCC is a human institution."

But not everyone agrees. Ross McKitrick, a professor of economics at the University of Guleph in Ontario, said the U.N. needs to start from scratch on global warming research and make a "full accounting" of how much of its research findings have been "likewise compromised."

McKitrick said this is needed because the U.N. acknowledged the inaccuracy of the data only now that its shortcomings have been exposed. "They are admitting what they did only because they were caught," he told FoxNews.com. "The fact that so many IPCC authors kept silent all this time shows how monumental has been the breach of trust."

Lubos Motl, a Czech physicist and former Harvard University faculty member, said the deforestation of the Amazon has occurred, but not because of global warming. He said it was due to social and economic reasons, including the clearing of cattle pastures, subsistence agriculture, the building of infrastructure and logging.

"Such economically driven changes are surely unattractive for those of us who prefer mysterious and natural forests," says Motl. "But they do help the people who live in Latin America."

The rapidly accumulating scandals surrounding climate change research appear to be driving the public away from its support for government measures to intervene. On Wednesday, Yale University and George Mason University released a survey showing that just 57 percent of respondents believe global warming "is happening." That was down 14 percentage points, from 71 percent, in October 2008. Fifty percent of people said they were "very" or "somewhat" worried about global warming, down 13 points from two years ago.

Another poll released Monday by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press asked respondents to rank 21 issues in terms of their priority. Global warming came in last.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[masterrig 1]

Quote

The real problem is that we are doing serious damage to the environment. I believe that by the time that damage is obvious, it will be too late and irreversible.

But until the damage is obvious, too few people will be willing to make the sacrafices necessary to stop it.

So the data is "massaged" to make it look worse than it is. So maybe people will start to do something.

Good intentions, but we all know where they lead.

It now looks like the AGW proponents are "crying wolf", and destroying their credibility.

All this 'global warming' alarmist talk and these guys can't even give an accurate, daily weather forcast!


Chuck

[rushmc 18]

time to bump this one up

Quote

Jones and his Chinese-American colleague Wei-Chyung Wang, of the University at Albany in New York, are being accused of scientific fraud by an independent British researcher over the contents of a research paper back in 1990.

From their peer reviewed work maybe?




[url]http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/dispute-weather-fraud

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

• Quote

[rushmc 18]

It never seems to end

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/leaked-emails-climate-jones-chinese

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[riddler 0]

Since, for the deniers, the politics is more important than the actual science, I figured I would use a political site to counter this argument:

Factcheck

You guys always use this in the political debates, so you must respect their opinion. Here's what they say:

Quote

Hacked e-mails show climate scientists in a bad light but don't change scientific consensus on global warming.

In late November 2009, more than 1,000 e-mails between scientists at the Climate Research Unit of the U.K.’s University of East Anglia were stolen and made public by an as-yet-unnamed hacker. Climate skeptics are claiming that they show scientific misconduct that amounts to the complete fabrication of man-made global warming. We find that to be unfounded:

The messages, which span 13 years, show a few scientists in a bad light, being rude or dismissive. An investigation is underway, but there’s still plenty of evidence that the earth is getting warmer and that humans are largely responsible.

Some critics say the e-mails negate the conclusions of a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but the IPCC report relied on data from a large number of sources, of which CRU was only one.

E-mails being cited as "smoking guns" have been misrepresented. For instance, one e-mail that refers to "hiding the decline" isn’t talking about a decline in actual temperatures as measured at weather stations. These have continued to rise, and 2009 may turn out to be the fifth warmest year ever recorded. The "decline" actually refers to a problem with recent data from tree rings.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[rushmc 18]

Quote

Since, for the deniers, the politics is more important than the actual science, I figured I would use a political site to counter this argument:

Factcheck

You guys always use this in the political debates, so you must respect their opinion. Here's what they say:

Quote

Hacked e-mails show climate scientists in a bad light but don't change scientific consensus on global warming.

In late November 2009, more than 1,000 e-mails between scientists at the Climate Research Unit of the U.K.’s University of East Anglia were stolen and made public by an as-yet-unnamed hacker. Climate skeptics are claiming that they show scientific misconduct that amounts to the complete fabrication of man-made global warming. We find that to be unfounded:

The messages, which span 13 years, show a few scientists in a bad light, being rude or dismissive. An investigation is underway, but there’s still plenty of evidence that the earth is getting warmer and that humans are largely responsible.

Some critics say the e-mails negate the conclusions of a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but the IPCC report relied on data from a large number of sources, of which CRU was only one.

E-mails being cited as "smoking guns" have been misrepresented. For instance, one e-mail that refers to "hiding the decline" isn’t talking about a decline in actual temperatures as measured at weather stations. These have continued to rise, and 2009 may turn out to be the fifth warmest year ever recorded. The "decline" actually refers to a problem with recent data from tree rings.

Of course nothing changes the "scientific consensus" now does it. Not lies, manipulated data, removed data, flawed models, moved whether stations, pressure to keep differing peer reviewed studies from publications, pressure to silence non-believers and the list could go one.

You AGW religious followers can not be moved from your religious opinions.

All you have to do is admit you do not (or can not stand) an open debate. There is now proof of this now however,isn't there.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[airdvr 200]

Quote

Since, for the deniers, the politics is more important than the actual science, I figured I would use a political site to counter this argument:

Factcheck

You guys always use this in the political debates, so you must respect their opinion. Here's what they say:

Quote

Hacked e-mails show climate scientists in a bad light but don't change scientific consensus on global warming.

In late November 2009, more than 1,000 e-mails between scientists at the Climate Research Unit of the U.K.’s University of East Anglia were stolen and made public by an as-yet-unnamed hacker. Climate skeptics are claiming that they show scientific misconduct that amounts to the complete fabrication of man-made global warming. We find that to be unfounded:

The messages, which span 13 years, show a few scientists in a bad light, being rude or dismissive. An investigation is underway, but there’s still plenty of evidence that the earth is getting warmer and that humans are largely responsible.

Some critics say the e-mails negate the conclusions of a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but the IPCC report relied on data from a large number of sources, of which CRU was only one.

E-mails being cited as "smoking guns" have been misrepresented. For instance, one e-mail that refers to "hiding the decline" isn’t talking about a decline in actual temperatures as measured at weather stations. These have continued to rise, and 2009 may turn out to be the fifth warmest year ever recorded. The "decline" actually refers to a problem with recent data from tree rings.

Funny...I thought Factcheck simply investigated whether a supposed event or claim was true or false.

Guess they haven't gotten the news yet...http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/25/pew-poll-global-warming-dead-last-down-from-last-year/

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[rushmc 18]

And they just keep coming dont they

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/02/hacked-climate-emails-flaws-peer-review

And this is about the holly grail you AGWing supporters like to flaunt. "Peer reviewed" papers

Quote

Climate change emails between scientists reveal flaws in peer review

A close reading of the hacked emails exposes the real process of science, its jealousies and tribalism



Scientists sometimes like to portray what they do as divorced from the everyday jealousies, rivalries and tribalism of human relationships. What makes science special is that data and results that can be replicated are what matters and the scientific truth will out in the end.

But a close reading of the emails hacked from the University of East Anglia in November exposes the real process of everyday science in lurid detail.

Many of the emails reveal strenuous efforts by the mainstream climate scientists to do what outside observers would regard as censoring their critics. And the correspondence raises awkward questions about the effectiveness of peer review – the supposed gold standard of scientific merit – and the operation of the UN's top climate body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The scientists involved disagree. They say they were engaged not in suppressing dissent but in upholding scientific standards by keeping bad science out of peer-reviewed journals. Either way, when passing judgment on papers that directly attack their own work, they were mired in conflicts of interest that would not be allowed in most professions.

The cornerstone of maintaining the quality of scientific papers is the peer review system. Under this, papers submitted to scientific journals are reviewed anonymously by experts in the field. Conducting reviews is seen as part of the job for academics, who are generally not paid for the work.

The papers are normally sent back to the authors for improvement and only published when the reviewers give their approval. But the system relies on trust, especially if editors send papers to ­reviewers whose own work is being criticised in the paper. It also relies on anonymity, so reviewers can give candid opinions.

Cracks in the system have been obvious for years. Yesterday it emerged that 14 leading researchers in a different field – stem cell research – have written an open letter to journal editors to highlight their dissatisfaction with the process. They allege that a small scientific clique is using peer review to block papers from other researchers.

Many will see a similar pattern in the emails from UEA's Climatic Research Unit, which brutally expose what happens behind the scenes of peer review and how a chance meeting at a barbecue years earlier had led to one journal editor being suspected of being in the "greenhouse sceptics camp".

The head of the CRU, Professor Phil Jones, as a top expert in his field, was regularly asked to review papers and he sometimes wrote critical reviews that may have had the effect of blackballing papers criticising his work.

Here is how it worked in one case.

A key component in the story of 20th-century warming is data from sparse weather stations in Siberia. This huge area appears to have seen exceptional warming of up to 2C in the past century. But in such a remote region, actual data is sparse. So how reliable is that data, and do scientists interpret it correctly?

In March 2004, Jones wrote to ­Professor Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University, saying that he had "recently rejected two papers [one for the Journal of ­Geophysical Research and one for Geophysical Research Letters] from people saying CRU has it wrong over Siberia. Went to town in both reviews, hopefully successfully. If either appears I will be very surprised".

He did not specify which papers he had reviewed, nor what his grounds for rejecting them were. But the Guardian has established that one was probably from Lars Kamel a Swedish astrophysicist ­formerly of the University of Uppsala. It is the only paper published on the topic in the journal that year.

Kamel analysed the temperature records from weather stations in part of southern Siberia, around Lake Baikal. He claimed to find much less warming than Jones, despite analysing much the same data.

Kamel told the Guardian: "Siberia is a test case, because it is supposed to be the land area with most warming in the 20th century." The finding sounded important, but his paper was rejected by Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) that year.

Kamel was leaving academic science and never tried to publish it elsewhere. But the draft seen by the Guardian asserts that the difference between his findings on Siberia temperatures and that of Jones is "probably because the CRU compilation contains too little correction for urban warming." He does not, however, justify that conclusion with any data or analysis.Kamel says he no longer has a copy of the anonymous referee judgments on the paper, so we don't know why it was rejected. The paper could be criticised for being slight and for not revealing details about its methods of analysis. A reviewer such as Jones would certainly have been aware of Kamel's views about mainstream climate research, which he had called "pseudo-science". He would also have known that its publication in a journal like GRL would have attracted the attention of professional climate sceptics. Nonetheless, the paper raised important questions about the quality of CRU's Siberian data, and was a rare example of someone trying to replicate Jones's analysis. On those grounds alone, some would have recommended its publication.

Kamel's paper admits the discrepancy "does not necessarily mean the CRU surface record for the entire globe is in error". But it argues that the result suggests it "should be checked in more regions and even globally". Jones was not able to comment on the incident.

Critics of Jones such as the prominent sceptical Stephen McIntyre, who runs the Climate Audit blog have long accused him of preventing critical research from having an airing. McIntyre wrote on his web site in December: "CRU's policies of obstructing critical articles in the peer-reviewed literature and withholding data from critics have unfortunately placed issues into play that might otherwise have been settled long ago." He also says obstructing publication undermine claims that all is well in scientific peer review.

Dr Myles Allen, a climate modeller at the University of Oxford and Professor Hans von Storch, a climate scientist at the Institute for Coastal Research, in Geesthacht, Germany signed a joint column in Nature when the email hacking story broke, in which they said that "no grounds have arisen to doubt the validity of the thermometer-based temperature record since it began in about 1850." But that argument is harder to make if such evidence, flawed though it might be, is actively being kept out of the journals.

In another email exchange CRU scientist Dr Keith Briffa initiates what looks like an attempt to have a paper rejected. In June 2003, as an editor of an unnamed journal, Briffa emailed fellow tree-ring researcher Edward Cook, a researcher at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York, saying: "Confidentially I now need a hard and if required extensive case for rejecting [an unnamed paper] – to ­support Dave Stahle's and really as soon as you can. Please."

Stahle is a tree-ring professor from the University of Arkansas. This request appears to subvert the convention that reviewers should be both independent and anonymous.

Cook replied later that day: "OK, today. Promise. Now, something to ask from you." The favour was to provide some data to help Cook review a paper that attacked his own tree-ring work. "If published as is, this paper could really do some damage," he said. "It won't be easy to dismiss out of hand as the math appears to be correct theoretically, but it suffers from the classic problem of pointing out theoretical deficiencies, without showing that their improved [inverse regression] method is actually better in a practical sense."

Briffa was unable to comment. Cook told the Guardian: "These emails are from a long time ago and the details are not ­terribly fresh in my mind."

Jonesdid not restrict his harsh criticism of papers he saw as flawed to pre-publication reviews. He and Mann also had a reputation for harsh criticism of journals that published papers they disagreed with.

In March 2003, Mann discussed encouraging colleagues to "no longer submit [papers] to, or cite papers in" Climate Research. He was angry about that journal's publication of a series of sceptical papers "that couldn't get published in a reputable journal", according to Mann. His anger at the journal had evidently been building for some time, but was focused in 2003 on a paper published in January that year and written by the Harvard astrophysicists Willie Soon and Sally Balunias. The pair claimed that Mann's famous hockey stick graph of global temperatures over the past 1,000 years was wrong. After analysing 240 studies of past temperatures from tree rings and other sources, they said "the 20th century is neither the warmest century over the last 1,000 years, nor is it the most extreme". It could have been warmer a thousand years before, they suggested.

Harvard press-released the paper under the headline "20th century climate not so hot", which would have pleased lobbyists against the climate change consensus from the American Petroleum Institute and George C Marshall Institute, both of which had helped pay for the research. Mann told me at the time the paper was "absurd, almost laughable". He said Soon and Balunias made no attempt in the paper to show whether the warmth they found at different places and times round the world in past eras was contemporaneous in the way current global warming is. If they were just one-off scattered warm events they did not demonstrate any kind of warm era at all. Soon did not respond to Guardian requests to discuss the paper.

The emails show Mann debating with others what he should do. In March 2003, he told Jones: "I believed our only choice was to ignore this paper. They've already achieved what they wanted – the claim of a peer-reviewed paper. There is nothing we can do about that now, but the last thing we want to do is bring attention to this paper"

But Jones told Mann: "I think the sceptics will use this paper to their own ends and it will set [the field of paleoclimate research] back a number of years if it goes unchallenged." He was right. The Soon and Balunias paper was later read into the Senate record and taken up by the Bush administration, which attempted to get it cited in a report from the Environmental Protection Agency against the wishes of the report's authors.

Persuaded that the paper could not be ignored, Mann assembled a group of colleagues to review it. The group included regular CRU emailers Jones, Dr Keith Briffa, Dr Tom Wigley and Dr Kevin Trenberth. They sent their findings to the journal's editorial board, arguing that Soon's study was little more than anecdote. It had cherry-picked data showing warm periods in different places over several centuries and had provided no evidence that they demonstrated any overall warming of the kind seen in the 20th century.

The emails reveal that when the journal failed to disown the paper, the scientists figured a "coup" had taken place, and that one editor in particular, a New Zealander called Chris de Freitas, was fast-tracking sceptical papers on to its pages. Mann saw an irony in what had happened. "This was the danger of always criticising the sceptics for not publishing in the peer-reviewed literature. Obviously, they found a solution to that – take over a journal." But Mann had a solution. "I think we have to stop considering Climate Research as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. ­Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues … to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board."

Was this improper pressure? Bloggers responding to the leaking of these emails believe so. Mann denies wanting to "stifle legitimate sceptical views". He maintains that he merely wanted to uphold scientific standards. "Please understand the context of this," he told the Guardian after the scandal broke. "This was in response to a very specific, particularly egregious incident in which one editor of the journal was ­letting in a paper that clearly did not meet the standards of quality for the journal."

Naturally de Freitasdefends his actions during the incident. "I was never ever found to have done anything wrong, even in the rumpus over the Soon and Balunias paper. All accusations against me were fully investigated and my performance as editor of this journal was shown to be flawless."

But many on the 10-man editorial board agreed with Mann. They concluded that their colleague de Freitas had ignored the anonymous advice of four reviewers to reject the paper. There was a revolt. Their chief editor von Storch wrote an editorial saying the Soon paper shouldn't have appeared because of "severe methodological flaws". After their publisher Otto Kinne refused to publish the editorial, von Storch and four other board members resigned in protest. Subsequently Kinne himself admitted that publication had been an error and promised to strengthen the peer review process. Mann had won his argument.

Sceptical climatologist and Cato Institute fellow Pat Michaels alleged in the Wall Street Journal in December last year that the resignations by von Storch and his colleagues were a counter-coup initiated by Mann and Jones. This is vehemently denied by von Storch. While one of the editors who resigned was a colleague of Jones at CRU, von Storch had a track record of independence. If anything, he was regarded as a moderate sceptic. Certainly, he had annoyed both mainstream climate scientists and sceptics.

Also writing in the Wall Street Journal in December, he said: "I am in the pocket of neither Exxon nor Greenpeace, and for this I come under fire from both sides – the sceptics and alarmists – who have fiercely opposing views but are otherwise siblings in their methods and contempt ... I left the post [as chief editor of Climate Research] with no outside pressure, because of insufficient quality control on a bad paper – a sceptic's paper, at that."

The bad blood over this paper lingered. A year later, in July 2004, Jones wrote an email to Mann about two papers recently published in Climate Research – the Soon and Balunias paper and another he ­identified as by "MM". This was almost certainly a paper from the Canadian economist Ross McKitrick and Michaels that returned to an old sceptics' theme. It claimed to find urbanisation dominating global warming trends on land. Jones called it "garbage".

More damagingly, he added in an email to Mann with the subject line "HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL": "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin [Trenberth] and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer review literature is!"

This has, rightly, become one of the most famous of the emails. And for once, it means what it seems to mean. Jones and Trenberth, of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, had recently become joint lead authors for a key chapter in the next IPCC assessment report, called AR4.

They had considerable power over what went into those chapters, and to have ruled them out in such a manner would have been a clear abuse of the IPCC process.

Today, neither man attempts to deny that Jones's promise to keep the papers out was a serious error of judgment. Trenberth told the Guardian: "I had no role in this whatsoever. I did not make and was not complicit in that statement of Phil's. I am a veteran of three other IPCC assessments. I am well aware that we do not keep any papers out, and none were kept out. We assessed everything [though] we cannot possibly refer to all literature … Both of the papers referred to were in fact cited and discussed in the IPCC."

In an additional statement agreed with Jones, he said: "AR4 was the first time Jones was on the writing team of an IPCC assessment. The comment was naive and sent before he understood the process."

Some will not be content with that. Jones had been a contributing author to IPCC assessment reports for more than a decade and should have been aware of the rules.

Climate Research is a fairly minor journal. Not so Geophysical Research ­Letters, published by the august American ­Geophysical Union (AGU). But when it began publishing what Mann, Wigley, Jones and others regarded as poor quality sceptical papers, they again responded angrily. GRL provided a home for one of a series of papers by McIntyre and McKitrick challenging the statistical methods used in the hockey stick analysis. When Mann's complaints to the journal were rebuffed, he wrote to colleagues in January 2005: "Apparently the contrarians now have an 'in' with GRL."

Mann had checked out the editor responsible for overseeingthe papers . a Yale chemical engineer called James Saiers, and noted his "prior connection" with the same department at the University of Virginia, where sceptic Pat Michaels worked.

He added, "we now know" how various other sceptically tinged papers had got into GRL.

Wigley appeared to agree. "This is truly awful," he said, suggesting to Mann: "If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted."

A year after the row erupted, in 2006, Saiers gave up the GRL post.Sceptics have claimed that this was due to pressure from Wigley, Mann and others. Saiers says his three-year term was up. "My departure had nothing to do with attempts by Wigley or anyone else to have me sacked," he told the Guardian. "Nor was I censured, as I have seen suggested on a blog posting written by McKitrick."

As for Mann's allegation, Saiers does not remember ever talking to Michaels "though I did attend a barbecue at his home back in the early 1990s. Wigley and Mann were too keen to conclude that I was in league with the climate-change sceptics. This kerfuffle could have been avoided if the parties involved would have done more to control their imaginations".

There is also links at the site that bring into question many more of the supporters points

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[lawrocket 3]

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Hacked e-mails show climate scientists in a bad light but don't change scientific consensus on global warming.

Consensus is good science. Nice of you to highlight that.

Consensus is a political idea. It belongs in politics.

AGW is now a political and legal fact. It turns out, that's all you need, isn't it?

Quote

Climate skeptics are claiming that they show scientific misconduct that amounts to the complete fabrication of man-made global warming. We find that to be unfounded:

Yes. A few zealots argued that. Most rational folks merely thought it made climate sicentists look infantile and childish, as well as positional. There was a helluva lot of smoke in those e-mails.

Quote

Some critics say the e-mails negate the conclusions of a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but the IPCC report relied on data from a large number of sources, of which CRU was only one.

I find that conclusion preposterous. There merely call into serious question the veracity of the scientists.

Quote

Of course nothing changes the "scientific consensus" now does it.

Nor is scientific certainty subject to popular vote.

Quote

You AGW religious followers can not be moved from your religious opinions.

Both sides fail to look at reason. Instead they argue.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[riddler 0]

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You AGW religious followers can not be moved from your religious opinions.

Sure we can - as soon as more relevant scientists say that climate change is NOT happening, than those that say it IS happening, I'm happy to change my position, as well. Right now, the deniers look like a few crackpots, while the majority of credible scientists say climate change is happening.

Of course, many opponents want to point out the fact that I can change my position as a flaw, but I think it's part of the scientific process. Those are mostly the same people that think that one scientists emails, some taken out of context, are enough evidence to throw all of the data from everyone else out the window.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[rushmc 18]

Quote

Quote

Hacked e-mails show climate scientists in a bad light but don't change scientific consensus on global warming.

Consensus is good science. Nice of you to highlight that.

Consensus is a political idea. It belongs in politics.

AGW is now a political and legal fact. It turns out, that's all you need, isn't it?

Quote

Climate skeptics are claiming that they show scientific misconduct that amounts to the complete fabrication of man-made global warming. We find that to be unfounded:

Yes. A few zealots argued that. Most rational folks merely thought it made climate sicentists look infantile and childish, as well as positional. There was a helluva lot of smoke in those e-mails.

Quote

Some critics say the e-mails negate the conclusions of a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but the IPCC report relied on data from a large number of sources, of which CRU was only one.

I find that conclusion preposterous. There merely call into serious question the veracity of the scientists.

Quote

Of course nothing changes the "scientific consensus" now does it.

Nor is scientific certainty subject to popular vote.

Quote

You AGW religious followers can not be moved from your religious opinions.

Both sides fail to look at reason. Instead they argue.

You meant this for riddler coorect?

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 18]

Quote

Quote

You AGW religious followers can not be moved from your religious opinions.

Sure we can - as soon as more relevant scientists say that climate change is NOT happening, than those that say it IS happening, I'm happy to change my position, as well. Right now, the deniers look like a few crackpots, while the majority of credible scientists say climate change is happening.

Of course, many opponents want to point out the fact that I can change my position as a flaw, but I think it's part of the scientific process. Those are mostly the same people that think that one scientists emails, some taken out of context, are enough evidence to throw all of the data from everyone else out the window.

There are many many "relevan scientists who disagree with the AGW tenant. But all your side does is deomonize and claim they are on the take

As for out of context? well, there have been 3 articles out of the UK THIS week that may counter your attempt to mis-direct here

But I expect no less when ones religion is
questioned.

So, I have to wonder what your motivations are.
As for mine? I just want the truth. And for the AGWing crowd that seems to be something they cant handle

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln