De Freitas - CRU et al conspire

[marchesarosa]

web.env.auckland.ac.nz/people_profiles/defreitas_c/

Here is the story as revealed in the Climategate email releases

newzealandclimatechange.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/climategate-2-and-corruption-of-peer-review/

... The emails will track how annoyance at the publication of a ‘contrary’ article (by Soon and Baliunas) in a journal (Climate Research) develops into an attack on the editor, Chris de Freitas, an accomplished scientist. The attack includes a plot to see if they can get him sacked from his job at University of Auckland. Within the story, it is evident exactly what kind of ‘scientists’ the key authors are. The word scientist applied to these people has denigrated the meaning of the word.

Amongst those involved are Phil Jones, Michael Mann, Jim Salinger, Tom Wigley, Barrie Pittock, Mike Hulme + others. In addition Pachauri, the head of the IPCC is copied into many of the emails, meaning that he was fully aware that some of the key scientists in the IPCC were effectively out of control......

newzealandclimatechange.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/climategate-2-and-corruption-of-peer-review-part-ii/

..... The reason for their actions; he allowed the publication of a paper which contradicted the work of the team, and in particular published a paper which was supportive of the existence of the Medieval Warm Period. Michael Mann’s famous hockey stick chart saw this period disappear, and his ‘hockey stick’ chart was used by the IPCC as evidence of anthropogenic global warming.....

[marchesarosa]

Here is De Freitas's response to his clique of critics on 18 June 2003


I have spent a considerable amount of my time on this matter and had
my integrity attacked in the process. I want to emphasize that the
people leading this attack are hardly impartial observers. Mike
himself refers to “politics” and political incitement involved. Both
Hulme and Goodess are from the Climate Research Unit of UEA that is
not particularly well known for impartial views on the climate change
debate. The CRU has a large stake in climate change research funding
as I understand it pays the salaries of most of its staff. I
understand too the journalist David Appell was leaked information to
fuel a public attack. I do not know the source.

Mike Hulme refers to the number of papers I have processed for CR
that “have been authored by scientists who are well known for their
opposition to the notion that humans are significantly altering
global climate.” How many can he say he has processed? I suspect the
answer is nil. Does this mean he is biased towards scientists “who
are well known for their support for the notion that humans are
significantly altering global climate?

Mike Hulme quite clearly has an axe or two to grind, and, it seems, a
political agenda. But attacks on me of this sort challenge my
professional integrity, not only as a CR editor, but also as an
academic and scientist. Mike Hulme should know that I have never
accepted any research money for climate change research, none from
any “side” or lobby or interest group or government or industry. So I
have no pipers to pay.

This matter has gone too far. The critics show a lack of moral
imagination. And the Cramer affair is dragged up over an over again.
People quickly forget that Cramer (like Hulme and Goodess now) was
attacking Larry Kalkstein and me for approving manuscripts, in
Hulme’s words, “authored by scientists who are well known for their
opposition to the notion that humans are significantly altering
global climate.”

I would like to remind those who continually drag up the Cramer
affair that Cramer himself was not unequivocal in his condemnation of
Balling et al’s manuscript (the one Cramer refereed and now says I
should have not had published – and what started all this off). In
fact, he did not even recommend that it be rejected. He stated in his
review: “My review of the manuscript is mainly with the conclusions
of the work. For technical assessment, I do not myself have
sufficient experience with time series analysis of the kind presented
by the authors.” He goes on to recommend: “revise and resubmit for
additional review”. This is exactly what I did; but I did not send it
back to him after resubmission for the very reason that he himself
confessed to ignorance about the analytical method used.

Am I to trundle all this out over and over again because of criticism
from a lobbyist scientists who are, paraphrasing Hulme, “well known
for their support for the notion that humans are significantly
altering global climate”.

The criticisms of Soon and Baliunas (2003) CR article raised by Mike
Hume in his 16 June 2003 email to you was not raised by the any of
the four referees I used (but is curiously similar to points raided
by David Appell!). Keep in mind that referees used were selected in
consultation with a paleoclimatologist. Five referees were selected
based on the guidance I received. All are reputable
paleoclimatologists, respected for their expertise in reconstruction
of past climates. None (none at all) were from what Hans and Clare
have referred to as “the other side” or what Hulme refers to as
people well known for their opposition to the notion that humans are
significantly altering global climate.” One of the five referees
turned down the request to review explaining he was busy and would
not have the time. The remaining four referees sent their detailed
comments to me. None suggested the manuscript should be rejected. S&B
were asked to respond to referees comments and make extensive
alterations accordingly. This was done.

I am no paleoclimatolgist, far from it, but have collected opinions
from other paleoclimatologists on the S&B paper. I summarise them
here. What I take from the S&B paper is an attempt to assess climate
data lost from sight in the Mann proxies. For example, the raising on
lowering of glacier equilibrium lines was the origin of the Little
Ice Age as a concept and still seems to be a highly important proxy,
even if a little difficult to precisely quantify.

Using a much larger number of “proxy” indicators than Mann did, S&B
inquired whether there was a globally detectable 50-year period of
unusual cold in the LIA and a similarly warm era in the MWP. Further,
they asked if these indicators, in general, would indicate that any
similar period in the 20th century was warmer than any other era.
S&B did not purport to do independent interpretation of climate time
series, either through 50-year filters or otherwise. They merely
adopt the conclusions of the cited authors and make a scorecard. It
seems pretty evident to me that temperatures in the LIA were the
lowest since the LGM. There are lots of peer-reviewed paleo-articles
which assert the existence of LIA.

Frankly, I have difficulty understanding this particular quibble.
Some sort of averaging is necessary to establish the ‘slower’ trends,
and that sort of averaging is used by every single study – they
average to bring out the item of their interest. A million year
average would do little to enlighten, as would detailed daily
readings. The period must be chosen to eliminate as much of the
‘noise’ as possible without degrading the longer-term signals
significantly.

As I read the S&B paper, it was a relatively arbitrary choice – and
why shouldn’t it be? It was only chosen to suppress spurious signals
and expose the slower drift that is inherent in nature. Anyone that
has seen curves of the last 2 million years must recognize that an
averaging of some sort has taken place. It is not often, however,
that the quibble is about the choice of numbers of years, or the
exact methodology – those are chosen simply to expose ‘supposedly’
useful data which is otherwise hidden from view.

Let me ask Mike this question. Can he give an example of any dataset
where the S&B characterization of the source author is incorrect? (I
am not vouching for them , merely asking.)
S&B say that they rely on the original characterizations, not that
they are making their own; I don’t see a problem a priori on relying
on characterizations of others or, in the present circumstances, of
presenting a literature review. While S&B is a literature review, so
is this section of IPCC TAR, except that the S&B review is more
thorough.

The Mann et al multi-proxy reconstruction of past temperatures has
many problems and these have been well documented by S&B and others.

My reading of the IPCC TAR leads me to the conclusion that Mann et al
has been used as the basis for a number of assertions:

1. Over the past millennium (at least for the NH) the temperature has not
varied significantly (except for the European/North Atlantic sector) and hence
the climate system has little internal variability. This statement is supported by
an analysis of model behaviour, which also shows little internal
variability in climate models.
2. Recent globalwarming, as inferred from instrument records, is large and unusual
in the context of the Mann et al temperature reconstruction from multi-proxies.
3. Because of the previous limited variability and the recent warming that cannot be explained
by known natural forcing (volcanic activity and solar insolation changes) human activity
is the likely cause of the recent global change.

In this context, IPCC mounts a powerful case. But the case rests on
two main foundations; the past climate has shown little variability
and the climate models reflect the internal variability of the
climate system. If either or both are shown to be weak or fallacious
then the IPCC case is weakened or fails.

S&B have examined the premise that the globally integrated
temperature has hardly varied over the past millennium prior to the
instrumental record. I agree it is not rocket science that they have
performed. They have looked at the evidence provided by researchers
to see if the trend of the temperature record of the European/North
Atlantic sector (which is not disputed by IPCC) is reflected in
individual records from other parts of the globe (Their three
questions). How objective is their assessment? From a purely
statistical viewpoint the work can be criticised. But if you took a
purely statistical approach you probably would not have sufficient
data to reach an unambiguous conclusion, or you could try statistical
fiddles to combine the data and end up with erroneous results under
the guise of statistical significance. S&B have looked at the data
and reached the conclusion that probably the temperature record from
other parts of the globe follows the same pattern as that of the
European/North Atlantic sector. Of the individual proxy records that
I have seen I would agree that this is the case. I certainly have not
found significant regions of the NH that were cold during the
medieval period and warm during the Little Ice Age period that are
necessary offsets of the European/North Atlantic sector necessary to
reach a hemispherically flat pattern as derived by Mann et al.
S&B have put forward sufficient evidence to challenge the Mann et al
analysis outcome and seriously weaken the IPCC assertions based on
Mann et al. Paleo reconstruction of temperatures and the global
pattern over the past millennium and longer remains a fertile field
for research. It suggests that the climate system is such that a
major temporal variation as is universally recognised for the
European/North Atlantic region would be reflected globally and S&B
have given support to this view.

It is my belief that the S&B work is a sincere endeavour to find out
whether MWP and LIA were worldwide phenomena. The historical evidence
beyond tree ring widths is convincing in my opinion. The concept of
“Little Ice Age” is certainly used practically by all Holocene paleo-
climatologists, who work on oblivious to Mann’s “disproof” of its
existence.

Paleoclimatologists tell me that, for debating purposes, they are
more inclined to draw attention to the Holocene Optimum (about 6000
BP) as an undisputed example of climate about 1-2 deg C warmer than
at present, and to ponder the entry and exit from the Younger Dryas
as an example of abrupt climate change, than to get too excited about
the Medieval Warm Period, which seems a very attenuated version.

However, the Little Ice Age seems valid enough as a paleoclimatic
concept. North American geologists repeatedly assert that the 19th
century was the coldest century in North America since the LGM. To
that extent, showing temperature increase since then is not unlike a
mutual fund salesmen showing expected rate of return from a market
bottom – not precisely false, but rather in the realm of sleight-of-
hand.

Regards
Chris
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Bold highlights by Steve McIntyre

[marchesarosa]

Here's the start of another self-serving conspiracy initiated by Michael Mann to discredit Soon and Baliunas not by deconstructing their paper (if it were such "crap" that would be easy) but by trying to mobilise cronies in the science Establishment (National Academy of Sciences, AGU and AMU) and at Harvard to use dirty tricks to destroy the reputation of the pair who had the temerity to demonstrate that Michael Mann's Hockeystick was of very dubious provenance.

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from Steve Milloy
junkscience.com/2011/11/27/climategate-2-0-mann-suggests-harvard-take-action-against-soon-baliunas/


… simply for publishing a paper with a different view than his. Mann also fantasizes about action by the National Academy of Sciences!

From the Climategate 2.0 collection, Penn State hokey stick tyrant Michael Mann e-mails Tom Wigley complaining about two Soon-Balunias studies — and their association with Harvard:

… But the [Soon-Balunias] papers certainly got a lot more mileage than they should have. The fact that the forces of disinformation were able to get that much mileage out of these two awful papers written by those clowns should remain a real cause for concern. Their ability to repeatedly co-opt the Harvard news office remains a real problem. Nobody I’ve talked to at Harvard is happy about this, and there’s been talk of action on the part of various of the faculty, but nobody seems willing or able to mount enough of an effort to get anything done about this. Apparently there was a threat of a lawsuit against Harvard last time folks there tried to do something about Baliunas, and so they may have lost their nerve. But I know our Harvard colleagues are not happy about continually having their institutional name dragged through the mud. If someone has close ties w/any individuals there who might be in a position to actually get some action taken on this, I’d highly encourage pursuing this. Re, an NAS committee–this is an interesting idea. But I wonder if a committee on [Soon-Baliunas] would be overkill, perhaps giving these fools just the stage that they’re looking for. [Emphasis added]



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You can see all the associated emails from the rest of the Hockey Team by clicking on the link above

[marchesarosa]

Steve McIntyre turns his forensic attention to the conspiracy by the Hockey Team against Soon and Baliunas

Direct Action at Harvard
climateaudit.org/2011/11/28/direct-action-at-harvard/