[Vision2020] Hacked Climate Reseach Unit E-mails: 1,092 Responses to “The CRU hack”

[lfalen]

Ted
I think that you are wrong on Climate Change, but I will give you credit for having well reasoned arguments.
Roger
-----Original message-----
From: Ted Moffett starbliss at gmail.com
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 04:40:52 -0800
To: Paul Rumelhart godshatter at yahoo.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020]Hacked Climate Reseach Unit E-mails
: 1,092 Responses to “The CRU hack”

> Of course you know that unless verified by some means (have you?), the
> content of these hacked e-mails may have been altered or fabricated.  I
> therefore would not publicly post them with names of authors, given this may
> be putting false words into someones mouth, as it were.  Your posting of
> this hacked alleged e-mail and naming an alleged author is ethically
> questionable.
> 
> Your slant on this e-mail does not consider important issues. You did
> not apparently investigate the facts regarding the Soon and Baliunas paper
> in "Climate Research," that Mann allegedly referenced, given you wrote "I
> wonder if what they perceive as a "breakdown in the peer review process"
> actually means that papers by skeptical authors passed a rigorous scientific
> review. "
> 
> Encouraging scientific journals to follow rigorous review standards for
> publication of papers is a defense of the scientific method and the
> credibility of the scientific community.  There were egregious violations of
> the scientific review process that occurred in the publication of these
> "junk science" papers in question.  I offer a source lower down to
> elucidate.  When supposedly reliable scientific journals publish blatantly
> junk science, it undermines the credibility of the scientific community,
> just as when the New York Times publishes false facts, it undermines the
> credibility of journalism.
> 
> I see nothing wrong with a scientist encouraging other scientists to not
> submit to a journal that has a faulty paper review record. He is possibly
> doing them a favor!  The papers in question that were published were a
> "abuse of the peer review system," to quote you, insofar as it failed by
> publishing them!  Mann was trying to correct an abuse, it seems to me, not
> engage in one.  But I cannot vouch for his moral integrity.  He may be a
> scoundrel, even if a well published and brilliant scientist.  I have not
> investigated his life.
> 
> Where in this alleged e-mail is their discussion of "talking about arranging
> things so that "skeptical" authors can't submit papers to peer reviewed
> journals,..."  Maybe you did not post this content, or I missed it, but
> after carefully reading the e-mail content you did post I don't find such an
> assertion; and anyway no one can stop someone from submitting to a journal,
> unless engaging in criminal acts (extortion, violence, theft).
> 
> Perhaps you refer to the comment about appealing to the editorial board of
> the journal in question regarding their review process?  It seems Mann's
> alleged concern was warranted, even if there are ethical problems with such
> a suggestion.  The published Soon and Baliunas paper was such a serious
> breach of the scientific review process, that half the editorial board of
> the journal "Climate Research" resigned!  The managing director of the
> parent company for the journal in question protested... Read about it in the
> source quoted below:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallie_Baliunas#Controversy_over_the_2003_Climate_Research_paper
> 
> Shortly thereafter, 13 of the authors of papers cited by Baliunas and Soon
> refuted her interpretation of their
> work.[12]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallie_Baliunas#cite_note-11>There
> were three main objections: Soon and Baliunas used data reflective of
> changes in moisture, rather than temperature; they failed to distinguish
> between regional and hemispheric temperature anomalies; and they
> reconstructed past temperatures from proxy evidence not capable of resolving
> decadal trends. More recently, Osborn and Briffa repeated the Baliunas and
> Soon study but restricted themselves to records that were validated as
> temperature proxies, and came to a different
> result.[13]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallie_Baliunas#cite_note-12>
> 
> Half of the editorial board of *Climate Research*, the journal that
> published the paper, resigned in protest against what they felt was a
> failure of the peer review process on the part of the
> journal.[14]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallie_Baliunas#cite_note-13>
> [15] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallie_Baliunas#cite_note-14> Otto Kinne,
> managing director of the journal's parent company, stated that "CR [*Climate
> Research*] should have been more careful and insisted on solid evidence and
> cautious formulations before publication" and that "CR should have requested
> appropriate revisions of the manuscript prior to
> publication."[16]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallie_Baliunas#cite_note-15>
> ------------------------------------------
> 
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
> 
> On 11/23/09, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > It's not the personal attacks or the belittling of their enemies or their
> > frank admissions that they think certain researchers are idiots that bother
> > me.  As you say, they are human.  They seem to be under the impression that
> > their emails are private, yet they work for an organization that takes
> > millions in government money.  You would think they would have been more
> > professional in their correspondence with that fact in mind.  On the other
> > hand, I'm sure they didn't expect their systems to get hacked.
> >
> > What does bother me are a few specific emails that make it clear that they
> > are willing to abuse the peer review system in order to promote their
> > agenda.  For example, this one was allegedly written by Michael Mann, who as
> > you know is a frequent contributor to realclimate.org:
> >
> > "It is pretty clear that thee skeptics here have staged a bit of a coup,
> > even in the presence of a number of reasonable folks on the editorial board
> > (Whetton, Goodess, …). My guess is that Von Storch is actually with them
> > (frankly, he's an odd individual, and I'm not sure he isn't himself somewhat
> > of a skeptic himself), and without Von Storch on their side, they would have
> > a very forceful personality promoting their new vision. There have been
> > several papers by Pat Michaels, as well as the Soon & Baliunas paper, that
> > couldn't get published in a reputable journal.
> >
> > This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing
> > in the "peer-reviewed literature". Obviously, they found a solution to
> > that–take over a journal!
> >
> > So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering "Climate
> > Research" as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage
> > our colleagues in the climate research community 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…
> >
> > What do others think?
> >
> > mike"
> >
> > This is a clear abuse of the peer review system.  They are talking about
> > arranging things so that "skeptical" authors can't submit papers to peer
> > reviewed journals, so that they can come back and criticize them for not
> > having published in peer reviewed journals.  They are also talking about
> > freezing out a credited scientific journal because they let some papers by
> > "skeptical" authors slip through.  This includes stacking the deck by trying
> > to convince other members of the editorial board to reject such papers.
> >
> > That's not science.  That's politics.  "Peer review" is supposed to be
> > about the science, not agendas.  If these papers are so wrong, how are they
> > passing peer review in the first place?  Maybe it is the case that there was
> > a "breakdown in the peer review process" at this journal.  What should
> > happen is that these papers, which are assumed to be in error, will be
> > dissected, analyzed, and ultimately will have failed to have been
> > replicated. I wonder if what they perceive as a "breakdown in the peer
> > review process" actually means that papers by skeptical authors passed a
> > rigorous scientific review.  Note that not citing all papers in this journal
> > and refusing to have anyone publish there hurts the authors that have
> > nothing to do with this controversy.  Publishing papers and getting cited
> > are the bread and butter of scientific research, without it your career
> > aspects are greatly stifled.  But what does he care?  He's saving the world.
> >
> > The way it's supposed to work is that you undergo a scientific (not
> > political) review by your peers, after which (assuming you passed review) it
> > gets published.  Other scientists read your paper, and a few of them analyze
> > it and some others try to replicate the results.  If they find flaws in the
> > paper, the reputation of the journal that passed it suffers.
> >
> > This leads me to the second issue: lack of access to data.  There are a few
> > emails where the individuals involved appear to be discussing ways of
> > dodging FOIA requests for their data, and even lamenting the fact that some
> > journals require the data to be published with the paper.  Why the
> > secrecy?  This is science, funded by tax payers in the UK and the US.  It
> > should be transparent.  The data should be available to others.
> >
> > Anyway, lunch hour is over and I need to get back to work.
> >
> > Paul
> >
> > --- On Mon, 11/23/09, Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > From: Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com>
> > > Subject: [Vision2020] Hacked Climate Reseach Unit E-mails: 1,092
> > Responses to “The CRU hack”
> > > To: "Moscow Vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> > > Date: Monday, November 23, 2009, 10:02 AM
> > > The private communications of
> > > competitive professionals in any field would expose
> > > emotions, thoughts and behavior that would reveal them to be
> > > human beings, with the flaws many human beings possess.
> > > That climate scientists have these flaws is not in the least
> > > a surprise.  These flaws would still exist among scientists
> > > in climate science, whether the issue of
> > > anthropogenic climate change became a political or
> > > economic issue, or not.  A percentage of professionals in
> > > any field have lied, distorted data, plagiarized, attacked
> > > others in their field, became angry or vengeful, etc.
> > > Doctors engage in malpractice somewhere every day of the
> > > week, but this does not mean modern medical science is a
> > > hoax or a conspiracy.
> > >
> > >
> > > The Wall Street Journal piece on these hacked
> > > e-mails is lacking a thorough analysis of what these
> > > e-mails reveal or do not reveal, coming from climate
> > > scientists who understand these issues in detail, both
> > > professionally, scientifically and personally.  The
> > > Realclimate.org discussion of this issue offers a wide
> > > ranging and detailed analysis.  The thread became so long
> > > (1,092 responses to the original discussion) that
> > > Realclimate.org started a new thread under the same topic.
> > > Below is pasted in only the Realclimate.org comments before
> > > the discussions begin, for both threads.  The full
> > > discussions can be read at the website links:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/#more-1853
> > >
> > >
> > > The CRU hack
> > > Filed under:
> > >
> > > Climate Science— group @ 20
> > > November 2009
> > >
> > >
> > > As many of you will be aware, a large number of emails
> > > from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of
> > > East Anglia webmail server were hacked recently (Despite
> > > some confusion generated by Anthony Watts, this has
> > > absolutely nothing to do with the Hadley Centre which is a
> > > completely separate institution). As people are also no
> > > doubt aware the breaking into of computers and releasing
> > > private information is illegal, and regardless of how they
> > > were obtained, posting private correspondence without
> > > permission is unethical. We therefore aren’t going to post
> > > any of the emails here. We were made aware of the existence
> > > of this archive last Tuesday morning when the hackers
> > > attempted to upload it to RealClimate, and we notified CRU
> > > of their possible security breach later that day.
> > >
> > > Nonetheless, these emails (a presumably careful
> > > selection of (possibly edited?) correspondence dating back
> > > to 1996 and as recently as Nov 12) are being widely
> > > circulated, and therefore require some comment. Some of them
> > > involve people here (and the archive includes the first
> > > RealClimate email we ever sent out to colleagues) and
> > > include discussions we’ve had with the CRU folk on topics
> > > related to the surface temperature record and some
> > > paleo-related issues, mainly to ensure that posting were
> > > accurate.
> > >
> > >
> > > Since emails are normally intended to be private, people
> > > writing them are, shall we say, somewhat freer in expressing
> > > themselves than they would in a public statement. For
> > > instance, we are sure it comes as no shock to know that many
> > > scientists do not hold Steve McIntyre in high regard. Nor
> > > that a large group of them thought that the Soon and
> > > Baliunas (2003), Douglass et al (2008) or McClean et al
> > > (2009) papers were not very good (to say the least) and
> > > should not have been published. These sentiments have been
> > > made abundantly clear in the literature (though possibly
> > > less bluntly).
> > >
> > > More interesting is what is not contained in
> > > the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide
> > > conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding
> > > climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’,
> > > no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of
> > > the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from
> > > our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly
> > > paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on
> > > the plot though.
> > >
> > > Instead, there is a peek into how scientists actually
> > > interact and the conflicts show that the community is a far
> > > cry from the monolith that is sometimes imagined. People
> > > working constructively to improve joint publications;
> > > scientists who are friendly and agree on many of the big
> > > picture issues, disagreeing at times about details and
> > > engaging in ‘robust’ discussions; Scientists expressing
> > > frustration at the misrepresentation of their work in
> > > politicized arenas and complaining when media reports get it
> > > wrong; Scientists resenting the time they have to take out
> > > of their research to deal with over-hyped nonsense. None of
> > > this should be shocking.
> > >
> > > It’s obvious that the noise-generating components of
> > > the blogosphere will generate a lot of noise about this. but
> > > it’s important to remember that science doesn’t work
> > > because people are polite at all times. Gravity isn’t a
> > > useful theory because Newton was a nice person. QED isn’t
> > > powerful because Feynman was respectful of other people
> > > around him. Science works because different groups go about
> > > trying to find the best approximations of the truth, and are
> > > generally very competitive about that. That the same
> > > scientists can still all agree on the wording of an IPCC
> > > chapter for instance is thus even more remarkable.
> > >
> > > No doubt, instances of cherry-picked and poorly-worded
> > > “gotcha” phrases will be pulled out of context. One
> > > example is worth mentioning quickly. Phil Jones in
> > > discussing the presentation of temperature reconstructions
> > > stated that “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick
> > > of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20
> > > years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to
> > > hide the decline.” The paper in question is the Mann,
> > > Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original
> > > multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the ‘trick’
> > > is just to plot the instrumental records along with
> > > reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is
> > > clear. Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to
> > > a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than
> > > something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing
> > > problematic in this at all. As for the ‘decline’, it is
> > > well known that Keith Briffa’s maximum latewood tree ring
> > > density proxy diverges from the temperature records after
> > > 1960 (this is more commonly known as the “divergence
> > > problem”–see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been
> > > discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in
> > > Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those
> > > authors have always recommend not using the post 1960 part
> > > of their reconstruction, and so while ‘hiding’ is
> > > probably a poor choice of words (since it is ‘hidden’ in
> > > plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely
> > > appropriate, as is further research to understand why this
> > > happens.
> > >
> > > The timing of this particular episode is probably not
> > > coincidental. But if cherry-picked out-of-context phrases
> > > from stolen personal emails is the only response to the
> > > weight of the scientific evidence for the human influence on
> > > climate change, then there probably isn’t much to it.
> > >
> > > There are of course lessons to be learned. Clearly
> > > no-one would have gone to this trouble if the academic
> > > object of study was the mating habits of European
> > > butterflies. That community’s internal discussions are
> > > probably safe from the public eye. But it is important to
> > > remember that emails do seem to exist forever, and that
> > > there is always a chance that they will be inadvertently
> > > released. Most people do not act as if this is true, but
> > > they probably should.
> > >
> > > It is tempting to point fingers and declare that people
> > > should not have been so open with their thoughts, but who
> > > amongst us would really be happy to have all of their email
> > > made public?
> > > Let he who is without PIN cast the the first stone.
> > > Update: The official UEA statement is
> > > as follows:
> > >
> > > “We are aware that information from a server used for
> > > research information
> > > in one area of the university has been made available on
> > > public websites,”
> > > the spokesman stated.
> > > “Because of the volume of this information we cannot
> > > currently confirm
> > > that all of this material is genuine.”
> > > “This information has been obtained and published
> > > without our permission
> > > and we took immediate action to remove the server in
> > > question from
> > > operation.”
> > > “We are undertaking a thorough internal investigation
> > > and we have involved
> > > the police in this enquiry.”
> > >
> > > -----------------------------
> > >
> > http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack-context/
> > >
> > > The CRU hack:
> > > Context
> > > Filed under:
> > >
> > > Climate Science— gavin @ 23
> > > November 2009
> > >
> > >
> > > This is a continuation of the last thread which is getting a
> > > little unwieldy. The emails cover a 13 year period in which
> > > many things happened, and very few people are up to speed on
> > > some of the long-buried issues. So to save some time, I’ve
> > > pulled a few bits out of the comment thread that shed some
> > > light on some of the context which is missing in some of the
> > > discussion of various emails.
> > >
> > >
> > > Trenberth: You need to read his recent paper on quantifying
> > > the current changes in the Earth’s energy budget to
> > > realise why he is concerned about our inability currently to
> > > track small year-to-year variations in the radiative fluxes.
> > >
> > > Wigley: The concern with sea surface
> > > temperatures in the 1940s stems from the paper by Thompson et al (2007)
> > which
> > > identified a spurious discontinuity in ocean temperatures.
> > > The impact of this has not yet been fully corrected for in
> > > the HadSST data set, but people still want to assess what
> > > impact it might have on any work that used the original
> > > data.
> > > Climate Research and peer-review: You
> > > should read about the issues from the editors (Claire Goodess, Hans von
> > Storch) who resigned
> > > because of a breakdown of the peer review process at that
> > > journal, that came to light with the particularly egregious (and
> > well-publicised)
> > > paper by Soon and Baliunas (2003). The
> > > publisher’s assessment is here.
> > >
> > > I can update this if there is a demand. Please let me
> > > know in the comments, which, as always, should be
> > > substantive, non-insulting on on topic.
> > > ------------------------------------------
> > > Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
> > >
> > > -----Inline Attachment Follows-----
> > >
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>