The Real Climategate Scandal

This week the New York Times reported a British Panel Clears Scientists in climategate. "A British panel on Wednesday exonerated the scientists caught up in the controversy known as Climategate of charges that they had manipulated their research to support preconceived ideas about global warming."

A week ago they reported on a different inquiry, Climate Scientist Cleared of Altering Data. "An American scientist accused of manipulating research findings on climate science was cleared of that charge by his university on Thursday, the latest in a string of reports to find little substance in the allegations known as Climategate."

There have been four reviews total that all found the science to be accurate, the researchers committed no wrongdoing, but could have responded to the controversy more openly.

I wondered if Fox News would report the findings or just leave their viewers with the false impression of their accusations when the scandal broke. So I searched Fox News for "climategate" and didn't find any mention of the report this week. It was called the "Russell Panel Report" so I searched for that and got hits for lots of reports. So I searched for "Russell Panel" and didn't find anything. Then I searched for "Muir Russell" and found this, British Panel Criticizes 'Climate-gate' Scientists but Clears Them of Bias.

"A British report released Wednesday on the "Climate-gate" scandal criticizes a key group of scientists for lack of transparency and other problems with how they presented their data, but it concludes that their underlying scientific work is sound -- and one of the top scientists is getting his job back."

The rest of the article consists of mostly secondary information that's pretty useless. So Fox News can say the reported it, but in the context of Internet news, they buried it in the middle so no one will see it.

In searching I also found this editorial by Lawrence Solomon in Canada's conservative National Post. It’s official, there’s no consensus on climate change.

His article is a biased misinterpretation of all the information. I give him one credit, he linked to the full report. Here's the 160 page pdf. I mostly just read the 7 page Executive Summary and I know he's full of shit. I was going to just give some examples, but couldn't stop myself.

Solomon's column is summarized as "A panel criticizes the Climategate scientists for being defensive and unhelpful, for withholding data, for providing misleading information, for having been “blinded … to the possibility of merit” in the claims of their critics.". Here are the three things the panel choose to highlight in their summary findings: "we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt.", "we did not find any evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments.", "But we do find that there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness".

See how accurately Solomon captures the sentiment? (for the challenged, that's sarcasm.)His second paragraph is "The conflicting takes by the press are understandable. The British panellists, established by East Anglia University, saw too little evidence to declare the Climategate scientists at CRU guilty on most counts, and they saw too much to be always confident of their innocence."

He writes that the report "deals overwhelmingly with one theme: How best to conduct a scientific debate? The report does not attempt to judge whether the Climategate scientists were right or wrong on the science". That's accurate, but it leaves some doubt as to the merits of science. He leaves out entirely this tidbit from paragraph 5 of the summary: "In response, the UEA commissioned two inquiries. The first led by Lord Oxburgh, into the science being undertaken at CRU, has already reported. This document is the report of the second inquiry – The Independent Climate Change E-mails Review – which examines the conduct of the scientists involved and makes recommendations to the University of East Anglia."

See there was this whole other panel that addressed the merits of the science. According to Mr. Solomon, "there’s no consensus on climate change". This panel's report is only 9 pages. It says: "The Panel was not concerned with the question of whether the conclusions of the published research were correct. Rather it was asked to come to a view on the integrity of the Unit’s research and whether as far as could be determined the conclusions represented an honest and scientifically justified interpretation of the data." Which makes sense, it's science's job to see if the science is right, they can only judge the scientific validity of their study. It concluded:

"We saw no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit and had it been there we believe that it is likely that we would have detected it. Rather we found a small group of dedicated if slightly disorganised researchers who were ill-prepared for being the focus of public attention. As with many small research groups their internal procedures were rather informal." It went on to say they should collaborate with statisticians and the data sets should be more available to review.

Back to Mr. Solomon. He says "The report, in other words, dissects the nature of the scientific debate over global warming — the word “debate” appears more than 50 times in the report." So it seems by counting the occurrances of a word we can tell what the report implies. Well he's right, the 160 page pdf contains the word "debate" 52 times. Though one is in an URL in a footnote. And um, one is in a section title, and so it also appears in the table of contents. And 15 more are in the appendixes. If the word only appears 34 times in the report proper, does that mean they find the debate less legitimate?

He cites these quotes: "In its successive assessment reports, the IPCC has sought to achieve a scientific consensus, but many continue to challenge the basis of its work and its conclusions, it states. The IPCC’s failure to establish a consensus led to a debate that “became highly polarized in websites, journals and conferences across the world. As a result, the work conducted by CRU became the focus of intense scrutiny and challenge, with multiple demands from both fellow scientists and laymen for background information and data.”

This is all from paragraph 5 of the background section. He says, "The global warming debate, the report makes clear, is real and legitimate, conducted by respectable parties who have every right to challenge the science and to hold the climate science establishment accountable." which the report does not at all say. It merely says that there is debate and the information should be open.

The report does not say the debate is legitimate or that it is conducted by respectable parties. It avoids characterizing it except to say it's non-traditional scientific debate. From the summary: "One of the most obvious features of the climate change debate is the influence of the blogosphere. This provides an opportunity for unmoderated comment to stand alongside peer reviewed publications; for presentations or lectures at learned conferences to be challenged without inhibition; and for highly personalized critiques of individuals and their work to be promulgated without hindrance. This is a fact of life, and it would be foolish to challenge its existence. The Review team would simply urge all scientists to learn to communicate their work in ways that the public can access and understand. That said, a key issue is how scientists should be supported to explain their position, and how a public space can be created where these debates can be conducted on appropriate terms, where what is and is not uncertain can be recognised." It also says regarding avoiding the appearance of coverups: "Like it or not, this indicates a transformation in the way science has to be conducted in this century."

Solomon says "The panellists criticize the Climategate scientists for being defensive and unhelpful, for withholding data, for providing misleading information, for hiding behind claims of peer review science, for having been “blinded … to the possibility of merit” in the claims of their critics, for needlessly exacerbating antagonism among the parties through their behaviour, and even for breaking the law. The conduct of the Climategate scientists, the panellists decided, not only brought them and their university into disrepute, but it also harmed the cause of science."

I believe he's referring to chapter 4, paragraph 15, here it is in full: "The Chapters which follow address specific behavioural allegations based in particular on a comparatively small number of e-mails. Despite the fact that all the e-mails released are unlikely to be representative of the larger set on the CRU back-up server, there nevertheless would appear to be a pattern of behaviour. There is little doubt about the polarisation of views in the world of climate science, which has overstepped the line dividing heated scientific debate from outright hostility. One camp comprises the main authors of the e-mails in paragraph 3, who are acknowledged leaders in majority climate science as indicated by the roles they all played in the IPCC. The other camp is their critics, for whom pejorative terms such as 'prat, dishonest, appalling, rubbish and crap' were used by some CRU members to refer to them or their work. More generally the majority climate scientists appear to have been united in their defence against criticism. Whilst perhaps understandable, given the nature and methods of criticism, some of which impugns their personal integrity as well as challenging their work, this may have blinded some CRU members to the possibility of merit therein. Such denial then fuelled yet further antagonism. There needs to be better communication, as well as greater openness enabling more scientific debate. We comment on this in Chapters 5 and 10."

His "even for the breaking the law" claim must refer to the issues about the Freedom of Information Act requests for the information and the delay in releasing the information. By summing it up that way it seems to imply criminality which the report does not do. Again from the summary "On the allegation that CRU does not appear to have acted in a way consistent with the spirit and intent of the FoIA or EIR, we find that there was unhelpfulness in responding to requests and evidence that e-mails might have been deleted in order to make them unavailable should a subsequent request be made for them. University senior management should have accepted more responsibility for implementing the required processes for FoIA and EIR compliance."

Here's how Mr. Solomon ends his column: "Most of all, the report provides a blueprint for acting honourably in the Age of the Internet, stressing “the importance of capturing the range of viewpoints” by being open and helpful rather than defensive and obstructionist. “Like it or not,” it says, “this indicates a transformation in the way science has to be conducted in this century.”

Notice that "like it or not" quote I listed above, it's from paragraph 36 of the summary. The "capturing the range of viewpoints" quote is from paragraph 38. The contexts are related but different. Here are the full paragraphs with 37 as well:

"36. Openness and Reputation. An important feature of the blogosphere is the extent to which it demands openness and access to data. A failure to recognise this and to act appropriately, can lead to immense reputational damage by feeding allegations of cover up. Being part of a like minded group may provide no defence. Like it or not, this indicates a transformation in the way science has to be conducted in this century."

"37. Role of Research Sponsors. One of the issues facing the Review was the release of data. At various points in the report we have commented on the formal requirements for this. We consider that it would make for clarity for researchers if funders were to be completely clear upfront in their requirements for the release of data (as well as its archiving, curation etc)."

"38. The IPCC. We welcome the IPCC‘s decision to review its processes, and can only stress the importance of capturing the range of viewpoints and reflecting appropriately the statistical uncertainties surrounding the data it assesses. Our conclusions do not make a judgement on the work of IPCC, though we acknowledge the importance of its advice to policy makers."

The report stresses (and paragraph 37 comments on) that science should be open with it's datasets which is a relatively new and current issue for science in general. I agree that datasets should be available, especially with publicly funded research. Mr. Solomon conflates the quotes to make his point, implying that the report called the scientists "obstructionist". Using his own metric, I note that the word "obstructionist" and all of its variants appear precisely zero times in the report.

To use this report as the basis of an article titled "It’s official, there’s no consensus on climate change" is just complete and total bullshit. "The ranks of scientific skeptics have, in fact, dwindled considerably in recent years. The cumulative evidence for anthropogenic global warming is now so broad, diverse and compelling that 98 per cent of 1,200 climate scientists recently surveyed believe in it."

That quote comes from The Nova Scotia News which talks about The real Climategate scandal. "Specifically, large swaths of the public and many opinion leaders continue to doubt the reality of climate change. The reasons for this are complicated, but a major factor is that uncertainties regarding the status of climate science have been systematically exaggerated, and controversies over the credibility of climate science have been intentionally contrived. The perpetrators of this misinformation about climate science include diverse individuals and organizations, although most share either an ideological resistance to government regulations or have vested economic interests in carbon-intensive industries."

But it's the utter failing and complicity of news organizations to allow this charade of a "debate" to continue. If there's anything we should be able to agree on, it's that we should not make the planet uninhabitable (for humans, before we can leave it).