Scientist in climate change 'cover-up' storm told to quit

The scientist at the heart of the climate change scandal was under growing pressure to quit last night. George Monbiot, a leading environmentalist, said Phil Jones should resign from the Climatic Research Unit over leaked emails that appear to show researchers suppressed scientific data. More emails came to light yesterday, including one in which an American climatologist admitted it was a travesty that scientists could not explain a lack of global warming in recent years. In another note, UK researchers dismissed the work of scientists challenging global warming as 'crap'.

Another appeared to call for pressure on the BBC after a reporter suggested that evidence for rising temperatures since 2001 was thin. In one of the most damning messages, Professor Jones appeared to respond to the death of a climate sceptic with the words 'in an odd way this is cheering news!'. The leak has been a huge embarrassment to the climate unit at the University of East Anglia, which is a global leader in its field. Although there is no hint of evidence that climate change is not real, the emails appear to show researchers manipulating raw data and discussing how to dodge Freedom of Information requests. Yesterday, Mr Monbiot, who writes on green issues, said the emails could scarcely be more damaging.

'I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I'm dismayed and deeply shaken,' he said. 'There are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. 'There appears to be evidence of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a Freedom of Information request.

Ruh-Roh. The snowball has started down the hill ...

Yep.......and the state-run media won't know what hit em'...

From Andrew Revkin, Environmental writer for the New York Times...

"The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here."

Here's a pic of Mr. Revkin....

If you search 'Revkin' here you will see that Mr. impartial environmental reporter appears 12 times in email streams. Here's a good juicy one from him:

From: Andrew Revkin <anrevk@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
>>>>Subject: sorry to take your time up, but really do need a scrub of this
>>>> singer/christy/etc effort
>>>>Mime-Version: 1.0
>>>>Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
>>>> boundary="=====================_67524015==_"
>>>>X-NYTOriginatingHost: [10.149.144.50]
>>>>
>>>>hi,
>>>>for moment please do not distribute or discuss.
>>>>trying to get a sense of whether singer / christy can get any traction
>>>>with this at all.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>*_ ANDREW C. REVKIN
>>>><http://www.nytimes.com/revkin>_*The New York Times / Environment / Dot

From: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Grant Foster <tamino_9@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: ENSO blamed over warming - paper in JGR
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 10:28:31 -0400
Cc: <trenbert@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, "J. Salinger" <j.salinger@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, James Annan <jdannan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, <b.mullan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, Gavin Schmidt <gschmidt@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>, <j.renwick@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>

good news Grant, we can trust him to be professional.

on a related note, a few folks have expressed concern that the galley-formatting of the
article w/out any label such as "submitted to JGR" is a bit misleading. some people think
the paper has already gone to press!

we should add a clear label such as "sub judice" or "submitted" to any posted and/or
circulating version of this,

mike

p.s. I've already had to correct both Andy Revkin and Joe Romm on this!

On Aug 6, 2009, at 7:19 PM, Grant Foster wrote:

Greetings,
I thought I'd let you all know that Steve Gahn has been assigned as editor for the
submission.
Sincerely,
Grant

On Sep 29, 2009, at 4:30 PM, Andrew Revkin wrote:

needless to say, seems the 2008 pnas paper showing that without tree rings still solid
picture of unusual recent warmth, but McIntyre is getting wide play for his statements
about Yamal data-set selectivity.
Has he communicated directly to you on this and/or is there any indication he’s seeking
journal publication for his deconstruct?
—
Andrew C. Revkin
The New York Times / Environment
620 Eighth Ave., NY, NY 10018
Tel: 212-556-7326 Mob: 914-441-5556
Fax: 509-357-0965
[2]http://www.nytimes.com/revkin

On Sep 29, 2009, at 5:08 PM, Michael Mann wrote:

Hi Andy,
I’m fairly certain Keith is out of contact right now recovering from an operation, and is
not in a position to respond to these attacks. However, the preliminary information I have
from others familiar with these data is that the attacks are bogus.
It is unclear that this particular series was used in any of our reconstructions (some of
the underlying chronologies may be the same, but I’m fairly certain the versions of these
data we have used are based on a different composite and standardization method), let alone
any of the dozen other reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere mean temperature shown in the
most recent IPCC report, which come to the conclusion that recent warming is anomalous in a
long-term context.
So, even if there were a problem w/ these data, it wouldn’t matter as far as the key
conclusions regarding past warmth are concerned. But I don’t think there is any problem
with these data, rather it appears that McIntyre has greatly distorted the actual
information content of these data. It will take folks a few days to get to the bottom of
this, in Keith’s absence.
if McIntyre had a legitimate point, he would submit a comment to the journal in question.
of course, the last time he tried that (w/ our ‘98 article in Nature), his comment was
rejected. For all of the noise and bluster about the Steig et al Antarctic warming, its now
nearing a year and nothing has been submitted. So more likely he won’t submit for
peer-reviewed scrutiny, or if it does get his criticism “published” it will be in the
discredited contrarian home journal “Energy and Environment”. I’m sure you are aware that
McIntyre and his ilk realize they no longer need to get their crap published in legitimate
journals. All they have to do is put it up on their blog, and the contrarian noise machine
kicks into gear, pretty soon Druge, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and their ilk (in this case,
The Telegraph were already on it this morning) are parroting the claims. And based on what?
some guy w/ no credentials, dubious connections with the energy industry, and who hasn’t
submitted his claims to the scrutiny of peer review.
Fortunately, the prestige press doesn’t fall for this sort of stuff, right?
mike
I’m sure you’re aware that you will dozens of bogus, manufactured distortions of the
science in the weeks leading up to the vote on cap & trade in the U.S. senate. This is no

On Sep 29, 2009, at 5:19 PM, Andrew Revkin wrote:

thanks heaps.
tom crowley has sent me a direct challenge to mcintyre to start contributing to the
reviewed lit or shut up. i'm going to post that soon.
just want to be sure that what is spliced below is from YOU ... a little unclear . ?
I'm copying this to Tim, in hopes that he can shed light on the specific data assertions
made over at climateaudit.org.....
I'm going to blog on this as it relates to the value of the peer review process and not on
the merits of the mcintyre et al attacks.
peer review, for all its imperfections, is where the herky-jerky process of knowledge
building happens, would you agree?

From: Michael Mann <mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Andrew Revkin <anrevk@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: mcintyre's latest....
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:27:25 -0400
Cc: t.osborn@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

HI Andy,

Yep, what was written below is all me, but it was purely on background, please don't quote
anything I said or attribute to me w/out checking specifically--thanks.

Re, your point at the end--you've taken the words out of my mouth. Skepticism is essential
for the functioning of science. It yields an erratic path towards eventual truth. But
legitimate scientific skepticism is exercised through formal scientific circles, in
particular the peer review process. A necessary though not in general sufficient condition
for taking a scientific criticism seriously is that it has passed through the legitimate
scientific peer review process. those such as McIntyre who operate almost entirely outside
of this system are not to be trusted.

mike

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.