Talk about corruption, and dishonesty!

Despite clear evidence of corruption in the leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia denial is underway
One Climategate Email Trumps All the Denials
By Dr. Tim Ball Thursday, December 17, 2009
Despite clear evidence of corruption in the leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia denial is underway. But they cannot deny the contents of one email.

It was from Tom Wigley, CRU, to Michael Mann on June 25, 2009. Mann was worried about a call to testify at a Congressional hearing organized by the Chairs of the Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations about Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick’s (M&M) challenge to the hockey stick science.

Mike,

There are broader implications of this, so it is important to respond well. This is serious. They are on to us and you are batting for the team. It is a pity you have to be the guinea pig after what you have gone through already, but you have many supporters. Earlier emails determine McIntyre is a liar with an agenda and his attacks are wrong and unfair. They consistently portray themselves as victims. I would not advise a legal route. Wise, because AGW claims don’t bear legal scrutiny. It also implies guilt. I think you need to consider this as just another set of referees’ comments and respond simply, clearly and directly. But now they were not selecting the referees. These comments are unnecessary if you’re telling the truth. They are also parental in their tone, but Wigley is the grandfather of CRU, the IPCC and the entire climate science manipulation.

On the science side the key point is that the M&M criticisms are unfounded. It was clear they did not understand McIntyre and McKitrick’s challenge as this confirms. Although this may be difficult, remember that this is not really a criticism of you personally, but one aspect of a criticism of the foundations of global warming science by people both inside and outside of Congress who have ulterior motives. Wigley reassures, but he can’t accept there are legitimate scientific questions. A scientist believing the science is settled is troubling. There may, in fact, be an opportunity here. As you know, we suspect that there has been an abuse of the scientific review process at the journal editor level. The method is to choose reviewers who are sympathetic to the anti-greenhouse view. These last two comments are incredible. He is accusing others illegality, but it is precisely what they were doing. Recent papers in GRL (including the M&M paper) have clearly not been reviewed by appropriate people. Who are “appropriate people”? The ones they choose. Wigley ultimately got the GRL editor James Saiers fired.

Concerns about Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) were firmly entrenched and their ability to block other publications well established. Mar 31, 2004 Jones wrote to Mann,“Recently rejected two papers (one for JGR and for GRL) from people saying CRU has it wrong over Siberia. Went to town in both reviews, hopefully successfully. If either appears I will be very surprised, but you never know with GRL.”

We have a strong suspicion that this is the case, but, of course, no proof because we do not know *who* the reviewers of these papers have been. This was the charge made against those editors who published the articles the CRU gang produced. They refused to disclose the reviewers. The emails detail how they made sure “appropriate” reviewers were provided, knowing they would not be revealed. Perhaps now is the time to make this a direct accusation and request (or demand) that this information be made available.

If I were on the greenhouse deniers’ side, I would be inclined to focus on the wide range of paleo results and the differences between them as an argument for dismissing them all. Who are these people? There never were any who denied the greenhouse effect. Consider the illogic of this. Here he is playing Devils advocate and using the same illogic in all his other suggested defenses. He is saying, although all the other paleo constructions generally agree he would argue that they are all wrong. Amazing. I attach also a run with MAGICC using central-estimate climate nmodel parameters (DT2x = 2.6 degC, etc.—see the TAR), and forcings used by Caspar in the runs with paleo-CSM. I have another Figure somewhere that compares MAGICC with paleo-CSM.
The agreement is nearly perfect (given that CSM has internally generated noise while MAGICC is pure signal). The support for the hockey stick is not just the paleo reconstructions, but also the model results. They ignore the failure of models to recreate past climate conditions (validation). In several instances they accept model results over real data. As Dr Roy Spencer wrote,”But most of the talks presented followed the recipe that has become all too common in recent years: analyze the output of climate models that predict substantial global warming, and simply assume the models are somewhere near correct.” If one takes the best estimates of past forcing off the shelf, then the model results show the hockey stick shape.
But these are models that don’t include major forcings such as the Milankovitch Effect of changing Sun/Earth relationships. No tuning or fudging here; this is a totally independent analysis, and critics of the paleo data, if they disbelieve these data, have to explain why models get the same result. Because they’re programmed the same and leave out most forcings. Of course, von Storch’s model results do not show such good century timescale agreement, but this is because he uses silly forcing and has failed to account for the fact that his model was not in equilibrium at the start of the run (the subject of Tim Osborn et al.‘s submitted paper). This is a pain in the but (sic), but it will all work out well in the end (unintentional pun - sorry). How dare they ask questions? Good science will prevail. Finally an accurate comment, but as with all Wigley’s introverted expectations not as he anticipated. Best wishes.