Memorandum submitted by the Institute of Physics (CRU 39)
The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia
.
The Institute of Physics is a scientific charity devoted to increasing the practice, understanding and application of physics. It has a worldwide membership of over 36,000 and is a leading communicator of physics-related science to all audiences, from specialists through to government and the general public. Its publishing company, IOP Publishing, is a world leader in scientific publishing and the electronic dissemination of physics.
. The Institute is pleased to submit its views to inform the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee’s inquiry, ‘The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia’. What are the implications of the disclosures for the integrity of scientific research?

1. The Institute is concerned that, unless the disclosed e-mails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research in this field and for the credibility of the scientific method as practised in this context.

2. 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.

3. It is important to recognise that there are two completely different categories of data set that are involved in the CRU e-mail exchanges:

• those compiled from direct instrumental measurements of land and ocean surface temperatures such as the CRU, GISS and NOAA data sets; and
• historic temperature reconstructions from measurements of ‘proxies’, for example, tree-rings.

4. The second category relating to proxy reconstructions are the basis for the conclusion that 20th century warming is unprecedented. Published reconstructions may represent only a part of the raw data available and may be sensitive to the choices made and the statistical techniques used. Different choices, omissions or statistical processes may lead to different conclusions. This possibility was evidently the reason behind some of the (rejected) requests for further information.

5. The e-mails reveal doubts as to the reliability of some of the reconstructions and raise questions as to the way in which they have been represented; for example, the apparent suppression, in graphics widely used by the IPCC, of proxy results for recent decades that do not agree with contemporary instrumental temperature measurements.

6. There is also reason for concern at the intolerance to challenge displayed in the e-mails. This impedes the process of scientific ‘self correction’, which is vital to the integrity of the scientific process as a whole, and not just to the research itself. In that context, those CRU e-mails relating to the peer-review process suggest a need for a review of its adequacy and objectivity as practised in this field and its potential vulnerability to bias or manipulation.

7. Fundamentally, we consider it should be inappropriate for the verification of the integrity of the scientific process to depend on appeals to Freedom of Information legislation. Nevertheless, the right to such appeals has been shown to be necessary. The e-mails illustrate the possibility of networks of like-minded researchers effectively excluding newcomers. Requiring data to be electronically accessible to all, at the time of publication, would remove this possibility.

8. As a step towards restoring confidence in the scientific process and to provide greater transparency in future, the editorial boards of scientific journals should work towards setting down requirements for open electronic data archiving by authors, to coincide with publication. Expert input (from journal boards) would be needed to determine the category of data that would be archived. Much ‘raw’ data requires calibration and processing through interpretive codes at various levels.

9. Where the nature of the study precludes direct replication by experiment, as in the case of time-dependent field measurements, it is important that the requirements include access to all the original raw data and its provenance, together with the criteria used for, and effects of, any subsequent selections, omissions or adjustments. The details of any statistical procedures, necessary for the independent testing and replication, should also be included. In parallel, consideration should be given to the requirements for minimum disclosure in relation to computer modelling.

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

Not sure why we are digging up reports from 4 years ago, but good skeptic that you are, I’m sure you will welcome input from all perspectives on the issue at hand:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/mar/05/climate-emails-institute-of-physics-submission

“The submission, from the Institute of Physics (IOP), suggested that scientists at the University of East Anglia had cherry-picked data to support conclusions and that key reconstructions of past temperature could not be relied upon.

The evidence was given to the select committee on science and technology, which is investigating emails from climate experts at the University of East Anglia that were released online last year.

The committee interviewed witnesses on Monday, including Phil Jones, the scientist from the university’s climatic research unit (CRU), who is at the heart of the controversy.

The Guardian has established that the institute prepared its evidence, which was highly critical of the CRU scientists, after inviting views from Peter Gill, an IOP official who is head of a company in Surrey called Crestport Services.

According to Gill, Crestport offers “consultancy and management support services … particularly within the energy and energy intensive industries worldwide”, and says that it has worked with “oil and gas production companies including Shell, British Gas, and Petroleum Development Oman”.

In an article in the newsletter of the IOP south central branch in April 2008, which attempted to downplay the role carbon dioxide plays in global warming, Gill wrote: “If you don’t ‘believe’ in anthropogenic climate change, you risk at best ridicule, but more likely vitriolic comments or even character assassination. Unfortunately, for many people the subject has become a religion, so facts and analysis have become largely irrelevant.”
“

>>> particularly within the energy and energy intensive industries worldwide”, and says that it has worked with “oil and gas production companies including Shell, British Gas, and Petroleum Development Oman”,,,

lol, is that the best you can do?

So they called the CPU for fudging results ( a serious charge indeed), what was the end result?

It also seems that the Institute is a far more reputable organisation than the Guardian lol.

The_observer said:

>>> particularly within the energy and energy intensive industries worldwide”, and says that it has worked with “oil and gas production companies including Shell, British Gas, and Petroleum Development Oman”,,,

lol, is that the best you can do?

In what sense?

I mean, if you are asking is that the most valuable piece of information regarding climate change that I can find, then no, far from it.

But if the question is, is that the first google hit that provides relevant information about the random 4 year old press release you posted, then yes, it fits the bill quite well.

Either way, the 3 minutes I have spent on this question is 3 minutes too long.

>>>So they called the CPU for fudging results ( a serious charge indeed), what was the end result?

Denial-ism

Ah Rev, evil big oil & gas hey.

sling mud?

A Government Response to a report from the UK Science and Technology Committee was prepared by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), a department that has been highly committed to climate intervention, as was Chris Huhne, its then Secretary. Huhne is a controversial figure, who subsequently resigned as Secretary when charged with obstruction of justice on an unrelated matter, eventually sentenced to eight months in jail. He has also been in the news as a lobbyist for a biomass company.

http://www.iop.org/news/13/may/page_60200.html

Study reveals scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change

16 May 2013 | Source: Environmental Research Letters

A comprehensive analysis of peer-reviewed articles on the topic of global warming and climate change has revealed an overwhelming consensus among scientists that recent warming is human-caused.

The study is the most comprehensive yet and identified 4000 summaries, otherwise known as abstracts, from papers published in the past 21 years that stated a position on the cause of recent global warming – 97 per cent of these endorsed the consensus that we are seeing man-made, or anthropogenic, global warming (AGW)

>>>>>>>>>http://www.iop.org/news/13/may/page_60200.html

Study reveals scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change

16 May 2013 | Source: Environmental Research Letters

A comprehensive analysis of peer-reviewed articles on the topic of global warming and climate change has revealed an overwhelming consensus among scientists that recent warming is human-caused.

The study is the most comprehensive yet and identified 4000 summaries, otherwise known as abstracts, from papers published in the past 21 years that stated a position on the cause of recent global warming – 97 per cent of these endorsed the consensus that we are seeing man-made, or anthropogenic, global warming (AGW)
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Fuzzy math: In a new soon to be published paper, John Cook claims ‘consensus’ on 32.6% of scientific papers that endorse AGW
Posted on May 14, 2013 by Anthony Watts
You have to wonder how somebody can write (let alone read) the claims made here in the press release by Cook with a straight face. It gives a window into the sort of things we can expect from his borked survey he recently foisted on climate websites which seems destined to either fail, or get spun into even stranger claims. For example, compare these two passages of the press release:

Exhibit 1:

From the 11 994 papers, 32.6 per cent endorsed AGW, 66.4 per cent stated no position on AGW, 0.7 per cent rejected AGW and in 0.3 per cent of papers, the authors said the cause of global warming was uncertain.

Exhibit 2:

“Our findings prove that there is a strong scientific agreement about the cause of climate change, despite public perceptions to the contrary.”

And from that he gets a consensus? What is he smoking? Try getting a quorum or winning an election with those numbers. About that 0.7 percent, this might be a good time to remind everyone of this Climategate moment.

In July 2004, referring to Climate Research having published a paper by “MM”, thought to be Ross McKitrick and Pat Michaels, and another paper by Eugenia Kalnay and Ming Cai, Phil Jones emailed his colleagues saying:

“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”

>Consensus <

HA

More Evidence for a Low Climate Sensitivity

Loehle estimated the equilibrium climate sensitivity from his transient calculation based on the average transient:equilibrium ratio projected by the collection of climate models used in the IPCC’s most recent Assessment Report. In doing so, he arrived at an equilibrium climate sensitivity estimate of 1.99°C with a 95% confidence range of it being between 1.75°C and 2.23°C.

Compare Loehle’s estimate to the IPCC’s latest assessment of the earth’s equilibrium climate sensitivity which assigns a 66 percent or greater likelihood that it lies somewhere in the range from 1.5°C to 4.5°C. Loehle’s determination is more precise and decidedly towards the low end of the range.

The second entry to our list of low climate sensitivity estimates comes from Roy Spencer and William Braswell and published in the Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences. Spencer and Braswell used a very simple climate model to simulate the global temperature variations averaged over the top 2000 meters of the global ocean during the period 1955-2011. They first ran the simulation using only volcanic and anthropogenic influences on the climate. They ran the simulation again adding a simple take on the natural variability contributed by the El Niño/La Niña process. And they ran the simulation a final time adding in a more complex situation involving a feedback from El Niño/La Niña onto natural cloud characteristics. They then compared their model results with the set of real-world observations.

What the found, was the that the complex situation involving El Niño/La Niña feedbacks onto cloud properties produced the best match to the observations. And this situation also produced the lowest estimate for the earth’s climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide emissions—a value of 1.3°C.

PRESS RELEASE – September 3rd, 2013
A major peer-reviewed paper by four senior researchers has exposed grave errors in a flawed paper by John Cook et al published in a new and unknown journal that had claimed a 97.1% scientific consensus that Man had caused at least half the 0.7 Cº global warming since 1950.

The new paper by the leading climatologist Dr David Legates and his colleagues, published in the respected Science and Education journal, reveals that Cook had not considered whether scientists and their published papers had said climate change was “dangerous”.
The consensus Cook considered was the standard definition: that Man had caused most post-1950 warming. Even on this weaker definition the true consensus among published scientific papers is now demonstrated to be not 97.1%, as Cook had claimed, but only 0.3%.
Only 41 out of the 11,944 published climate papers Cook examined explicitly stated that Man caused most of the warming since 1950. Cook himself had flagged just 64 papers as explicitly supporting that consensus, but 23 of the 64 had not in fact supported it.
Dr Legates said: “It is astonishing that any journal could have published a paper claiming a 97% climate consensus when on the authors’ own analysis the true consensus was well below 1%.
“It is still more astonishing that the IPCC should claim 95% certainty about the climate consensus when so small a fraction of published papers explicitly endorse the consensus as theIPCC defines it.”
Dr William Briggs said: “In any survey such as Cook’s, it is essential to define the survey question very clearly. Yet Cook used three distinct definitions of climate consensus interchangeably. Also, he arbitrarily excluded about 8000 of the 12,000 papers in his sample on the unacceptable ground that they had expressed no opinion on the climate consensus. These artifices let him reach the unjustifiable conclusion that there was a 97.1% consensus when there was not.
“In fact, Cook’s paper provides the clearest available statistical evidence that there is scarcely any explicit support among scientists for the consensus that the IPCC, politicians, bureaucrats, academics and the media have so long and so falsely proclaimed. That was not the outcome Cook had hoped for, and it was not the outcome he had stated in his paper, but it was the outcome he had really found.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/07/17/that-scientific-global-warming-consensus-not/3/

While real polling of climate scientists and organization memberships is rare, there are a few examples.

A 2008 international survey of climate scientists conducted by German scientists Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch revealed deep disagreement regarding two-thirds of the 54 questions asked about their professional views. Responses to about half of those areas were skewed on the “skeptic” side, with no consensus to support any alarm. The majority did not believe that atmospheric models can deal with important influences of clouds, precipitation, atmospheric convection, ocean convection, or turbulence. Most also did not believe that climate models can predict precipitation, sea level rise, extreme weather events, or temperature values for the next 50 years.

A 2009 report issued by the Polish Academy of Sciences PAN Committee of Geological Sciences, a major scientific institution in the European Union, agrees that the purported climate consensus argument is becoming increasingly untenable. It says, in part, that: “Over the past 400 thousand years – even without human intervention – the level of CO2 in the air, based on the Antarctic ice cores, has already been similar four times, and even higher than the current value. At the end of the last ice age, within a time of a few hundred years, the average annual temperature changed over the globe several times. In total, it has gone up by almost 10 °C in the northern hemisphere, therefore the changes mentioned above were incomparably more dramatic than the changes reported today.”

A March 2008 canvas of 51,000 Canadian scientists with the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysics of Alberta (APEGGA) found that although 99% of 1,077 replies believe climate is changing, 68% disagreed with the statement that “…the debate on the scientific causes of recent climate change is settled.” Only 26% of them attributed global warming to “human activity like burning fossil fuels.” Regarding these results, APEGGA’s executive director, Neil Windsor, commented, “We’re not surprised at all. There is no clear consensus of scientists that we know of.”

In 2009, eighty prominent scientists, researchers and environmental business leaders, including many physicists, asked the century-old American Physical Society (APS), the nation’s leading physics organization, to change its policy statement which contains such language as “Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate”, and “The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring.”
Instead, the group of scientists and academic leaders urged APS to revise its statement to read: “While substantial concern has been expressed that emissions may cause significant climate change, measured or reconstructed temperature records indicate that 20th 21st century changes are neither exceptional or persistent, and the historical and geological records show many periods warmer than today. In addition, there is an extensive literature that examines beneficial effects of increased levels of carbon dioxide for both animals and plants.”

A 2010 survey of media broadcast meteorologists conducted by the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication found that 63% of 571 who responded believe global warming is mostly caused by natural, not human, causes. Those polled included members of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the National Weather Association.

A more recent 2012 survey published by the AMS found that only one in four respondents agreed with UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claims that humans are primarily responsible for recent warming. And while 89% believe that global warming is occurring, only 30% said they were very worried.

Since 1998, more than 31,000 American scientists from diverse climate-related disciplines, including more than 9,000 with Ph.D.s, have signed a public petition announcing their belief that “…there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” Included are atmospheric physicists, botanists, geologists, oceanographers, and meteorologists.

Senator James Inhofe, Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works has observed: “The notion of a ‘consensus’ is carefully manufactured for political and ideological purposes. Senator Inhofe also points out, “While it may appear to the casual observer that scientists promoting climate fears are in the majority, the evidence continues to reveal that this is an illusion.

In 2007, Congress appropriated $5,856,000 for NAS to complete a climate change study. The organization subsequently sold its conclusions in three separate report sections at $44 per download.
What scientific understanding breakthrough did that big taxpayer-financed budget buy? Namely that the Earth’s temperature has risen over the past 100 years, and that human activities have resulted in a steady atmospheric CO2 increase. All professional scientists recognize that correlation does not establish causation.

http://judithcurry.com/2012/08/08/consensus-by-exhaustion/

‘Consensus’ by exhaustion
Posted on August 8, 2012 | 497 Comments
by Judith Curry

A recent piece by Ketan Joshi on a Guardian blog trots out, yet again, the notion of “an already well-established scientific consensus on the influence of human activity on climate change”. Inevitably, there is a link to the discredited Cook et al. paper pretending there is a “97% consensus” to the effect that most of the global warming since 1950 was manmade.

Unaccountably, there is no link to the subsequent paper by Legates et al. (2013), who showed that Cook et al. had themselves marked only 0.5% of the 11,944 abstracts they examined as explicitly endorsing the “consensus” as they had defined it.

David Wojick | June 1, 2011 at 2:33 pm | Reply

Robert, regarding your pointing people to (John Cooks) skepticalscience.com, here is my analysis of that site.
It presents a lot of skeptical arguments, over 100 last I looked. Each is followed by what purports to be a pro-AGW
rebuttal.
So far so good, but there is more, a lot more.

First note first that while the AGW arguments have loads of scientific references the skeptical arguments have few, if any.
This makes it look like science is heavily on the side of AGW. This impression is very false, and intentional. Here is the full picture.

Each skeptical argument is couched in lay terms, making the skeptics look ignorant. The AGW counter argument
is couched in scientifically sophisticated terms, with weighty references, making AGW look scientific.

What is not shown are the scientifically sophisticated skeptical responses to these AGW arguments, of which there are a great many,
also with loads of weighty references. In short the site is a one-sided sham.
However, I find the site useful as a way to begin to see the complexity of the scientific debate.
Let’s begin with the 100+ starting skeptical arguments, which by the way can easily be stated in more scientifically powerful ways. Many of the AGW counters to these initial skeptical arguments involve multiple arguments, often 3 or 4, so there are perhaps 300 AGW arguments at this level.

Seems like someone has borrowed the kids computer, plus is worried about losing his lucrative job in coal mining……..but he is really only justifying what he is doing to his kids future.

PermeateFree said:

Seems like someone has borrowed the kids computer, plus is worried about losing his lucrative job in coal mining……..but he is really only justifying what he is doing to his kids future.

Any reply to the substance of the posts?

ad hominen attacks don’t require much thought.

jjjust moi said:

PermeateFree said:

Seems like someone has borrowed the kids computer, plus is worried about losing his lucrative job in coal mining……..but he is really only justifying what he is doing to his kids future.

Any reply to the substance of the posts?

ad hominen attacks don’t require much thought.

Just like yours? This entire thread does not require much thought.

jjjust moi said:

PermeateFree said:

Seems like someone has borrowed the kids computer, plus is worried about losing his lucrative job in coal mining……..but he is really only justifying what he is doing to his kids future.

Any reply to the substance of the posts?

ad hominen attacks don’t require much thought.

Not much, but then again, neither does a bunch of cut ‘n’ pastes.