Sir Muir Russell chairman of the the UEA review, centre
It has just been announced that Sir Muir Russell will chair the UEA’s much trailed ‘independent inquiry’ into the CRU scandal, except that the word inquiry is not being used any more. Apparently we are to have an ‘independent review’ instead.
This is surprising because as recently as last night, Professor Acton who is the Vice-Chancellor of the university was indeed talking about an inquiry. Is the change of name because ‘inquiry’ is a rather emotive term suggesting wrongdoing while ‘review’ implies that there is nothing much to worry about? If the latter is the case then the outlook for climate science in general and CRU in particular is very bleak indeed.
Here is the beginning of the press release:
Sir Muir Russell to head the Independent Review into the allegations against the Climatic Research Unit (CRU)
Today the University of East Anglia (UEA) announced that Sir Muir Russell KCB FRSE will head the Independent Review into allegations made against the Climatic Research Unit (CRU).
The Independent Review will investigate the key allegations that arose from a series of hacked e-mails from CRU.
http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2009/dec/homepagenews/CRUreview
It would seem that someone is rather preoccupied with ‘allegations’.
Surely an inquiry review should not be primarily concerned with allegations, but with what has actually happened at CRU. The allegations are only a symptom.
This wording suggests that someone thinks that, if there had been no allegations, then there would be no problems. Given the content of the emails, wouldn’t you expect UEA to recognise that they must find out just what has been going on at the CRU over the last decade? This possibly Freudian slip would seem to indicate a mind-set at UEA that has yet to appreciate the full implications of this scandal.
The term ‘independent’ occurs no less than ten times in a not particularly long press release. Could it be that someone is trying to make a point against very heavy odds? It is an absurd notion that a review with terms of reference deriving from the UEA can be considered credibly independent, and at this stage it is not a review, or even an inquiry, that is needed anyway. What is needed is an investigation.
The emails are discontinuous and fragmentary. There must be far more material on the CRU servers that is relevant to this scandal and which the hacker or whistle-blower did not release. This must be investigated, not reviewed. Every dark corner must be searched, every lead examined and every doubt considered. Feet held to the fire if necessary. Motives should be questioned and careers put on the line if that is the only way to get at the truth, however traumatic that process may be. Reviews do not usually do this, inquires may do it sometimes, but only investigations are dedicated to such methods. The university does not seem to be thinking in terms of an investigation at all.
These are the terms of reference set out in the press release:
1. Examine the hacked e-mail exchanges, other relevant e-mail exchanges and any other information held at CRU to determine whether there is any evidence of the manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice and may therefore call into question any of the research outcomes.
2. Review CRU’s policies and practices for acquiring, assembling, subjecting to peer review and disseminating data and research findings, and their compliance or otherwise with best scientific practice.
3. Review CRU’s compliance or otherwise with the University’s policies and practices regarding requests under the Freedom of Information Act (‘the FOIA’) and the Environmental Information Regulations (‘the EIR’) for the release of data.
4. Review and make recommendations as to the appropriate management, governance and security structures for CRU and the security, integrity and release of the data it holds.
http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2009/dec/homepagenews/CRUreview
Sir Muir will have the discretion to amend or add to the terms of reference if he feels necessary, devise his own methods of working, and call on appropriate expertise in order to investigate the allegations fully.
These seem to give the chairman ample powers to investigate should he choose to do so, yet the term isn’t used once; he will merely examine and review, unless he amends his terms of reference as he is empowered to do.
Whether this framework encompasses manipulation and politicisation of the IPCC process is questionable, yet there is important evidence in the emails that this has happened. As to the allegations that Sir Muir is supposed to review, how does he establish precisely what these are? No official body has alleged anything against CRU so far as I am aware. Are we to suppose that the newly appointed chairman will spend days trawling the sceptical blogosphere searching for allegations to investigate? Or will someone at the university provide him with a list of what, in their view, are allegations that should be considered? A process in which the accused would, in effect, decide what the charges are.
According to his Wikipedia entry, Sir Muir Russell took a first in physics at the University of Glasgow and then went straight into the civil service. A good science degree, but no experience of research, may not be the ideal qualification for dealing with some of the world’s most influential climatologists. The extraordinary arrogance expressed in many of the emails suggests that they see themselves as an unassailable elite that simply doesn’t need to answer questions posed by lesser mortals.
Sir Muir’s carrer has been a distinguished one, but not without its problems. As Permanent Secretary at the Scottish Office he was blamed for the vast overspend on the building of the Scottish Parliament. He was also slated by an inquiry (not a review apparently) for failing to tell politicians what was going on. Later, as Principle of the University of Glasgow, he ran into trouble over mishandling staff relations, attempting to close an outlying campus, and accepting pay rises in excess of inflation. In 2007 he was appointed to the Advisory Board of Scottish Power , a company described as being ‘well placed to take a central position in Scotland‘s greener future’. A visit to their website suggests that they may be doing quite well out of climate change.
At the present time, inquiries have rather a tainted reputation in this country. Four attempts to find out just how we got involved in the Iraq War have produced findings that appear to fly in the face of the facts. Now a fifth attempt is under way. Meanwhile the controversy continues to fester. It is very, very important that the process which the University of East Anglia has set in motion today works first time. Sadly, there seems little prospect of this.
I’ve just watched Professor Robert Watson, who seems to be acting as spokesman for UEA, being interviewed on Newsnight in the company of Benny Peiser. The presenter challenged Benny when he referred to what had happened at CRU as a scandal. The reply he got was unequivocal: he described it as the biggest scientific scandal in living memory. The presenter then asked Watson three times whether he agreed. Watson couldn’t bring himself to use the word ‘scandal’, mumbling that it was all unfortunate and regrettable. It seems that the people at CRU have yet to come to terms with what has happened, and they are the people who are taking decisions about who should lead this review and what the terms of reference should be. Only when they accept the enormity of this event, and their colleagues in the rest of the climate research community do the same, will remedial action be possible. This requires a thorough, transparent and clearly independent investigation followed by rebuilding confidence over a long, long period.
One of the most troubling aspects of this affair is that UEA is saying things like this:
What is most important is that CRU continues its world leading research with as little interruption and diversion as possible.
It is an important step [Phil’s sidestep] to ensure that CRU can continue to operate normally and the independent review can conduct its work into the allegations
http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2009/nov/homepagenews/CRUupdate
It doesn’t yet seem to have dawned on these people that Phil Jones can never come back, that CRU’s reputation is in tatters, there will be no return to business as usual, and that any research associated with this establishment is now tainted. There must also be doubts as to whether CRU will survive. What funding agency is going to risk signing off grants to an institution where the biggest scientific scandal in living memory has just occurred?
It is most unlikely that this situation will change in the foreseeable future, whatever results Sir Muir Russell comes up with. It would seem possible that the university is under the impression that appointing an obscure civil servant to go through the motions of conducting a review will allow things to blow over in a few months. If this is so then they are in denial about the enormity of what is happening.
What’s missing?
Well any investigation of the science is missing.
That means the alarmists will say, look nothing is wrong with the science, or the report would have said it.
It’s a stitch up.
However, I suspect Jones will go for deceiving the VC
Look’s like the whitewash is on the cards and not only that, it seems they’re going to burn the more prominent CRU hack Warmists and have done with it.
Encouraging news from the US though, another member of Congress has joined Inhofe in calling for a Climategate investigation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0pRuhnFjas&feature=player_embedded
Liberal use of the word “hacked” seems to sprinkle the press release as well (including your article title). I think hack is an incorrect and deliberately emotive term – that also does not bode well.
The real scandal is again in the code and data management anyway – not the email exchanges.
Ian:
I don’t know whether using the word ‘hacked’ is incorrect or not at this point, but it is certainly a bit slack so I plead guilty. In mitigation it does get terribly tedious at the moment trying to find neutral synonyms to avoid typing ‘hacked or leaked’over and over again.
You may also be right about the bodies really being buried in the data folder. Even Susan Watts of Newasnight acknowledged that there are problems with the code yesterday.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00p92n6
But once again one does need fairly concise ways of referring to these things, and it is the emails that have come to represent the whole scandal; think of it as kind of shorthand.
i think you are going over the top. The University cannot be responsible for the actions or conduct of the IPCC, or peer-review processes elsewhere. It can only investigate those things that it is responsible for.
Hence the terms of the review. I am going to be interested in whether any of the behaviour in the emails in itself constitutes a breach of any of the terms of reference. There has to be a clear guidance/ code of conduct that can be breached, and the emails in themselves have to prove that the guidance/ code of conduct was breached.
I am consequently not so sanguine as you about this showing misconduct; as opposed to being embarrassing.
can you give examples to convince me ?
per
Per, in your #5, you wrote in part:
If you carefully read the following sequence of events involving UEA staff in authorship of the three levels of IPCC report drafts, including the use of non-peer-reviewed modifications over the original inconvenient data etc*, leading up to the final (undemocratic) SPM & WG1 reports in 2001 (aka 3AR or TAR), you may be surprised by a whole bunch of things:
IPCC and the “Trick” [Email]
[by] Steve McIntyre, posted on Dec 10, 2009 at 6:50 PM
read more@
http://climateaudit.org/2009/12/10/ipcc-and-the-trick/
This lead article concentrates on the Briffa (UEA) side of “Hide the Decline”, although some other issues are revealed. (which should not be allowed to deflect from the “hide the decline” context)
I earlier made a post concentrating on the other side of the cabal at PSU concerning the infamous hockey stick of Michael Mann in “hiding the decline”, to which Phil Jones refers, but which is different in detail.
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=237#comments
See comment 67
etc* If you show any interest in this brief and rather pregnant comment, please say so…. And I and/or Max Anacker at least, (we both professional engineers familiar with data analysis etc), will elaborate further.
hi there bob_FJ
i was aware of the CA piece; it may (or may not) go to showing some inappropriate behaviour at IPCC, but it seems to me that the procedures of IPCC are not a fit matter for the UEA to review. Even for IPCC, you would have to have an argument about whether the scientific issue is appropriate; and this is obviously arguable, even if not appealling.
as for your point about the Hockey stick of Mann, I cannot see that as relevant for the UEA review. Even if it were, I am unable to pick up sufficient clarity about what you are alleging. If there was a clear allegation of research misconduct, then that would be one thing. If it is an allegation of bad or incompetent practice, then that is a matter for peer review; and it got published in nature.
If you can give anything more specific, i would be interested to hear. Maybe i have misunderstood your points.
I have followed this for a while, since before CA began. I am really addressing what it takes for a review to be able to make an adverse finding. I think the FOI and data availability issues are going to be interesting.
Per:
Are you suggesting that my header post is ‘over the top’ or is it the comments that you are concerned about?
i note your piece is more measured. However, I am trying to work out what a review could conceivably do, and to be realistic; reviewing the IPCC processes, or coming to a judgment on scientific issues, would seem to be inappropriate tasks for a review. Given the remit, where could a committee find misconduct that rises to the level of something that must be criticised ?
Per, after having some difficulty understanding your issues, I revisited your #5, where you wrote in part:
And, in your #7:
I find what you wrote to be fairly uncontroversial, given the nominal terms of reference as stated in TonyN’s lead article. However, the relevant point I made was that UEA academics were involved in a sequence of events which according to the paper trail, to any other scientists, especially those in the applied fields, is fraudulent. (scientifically if not proven criminally). These events may be investigated on behalf of UEA, without necessarily enquiring into IPCC procedures. A clearly independent enquiry with wider terms of reference and expert analysis would of course be preferable.
You also wrote in your #7:
It is highly relevant because for instance, in the “hide the decline” Email, Phil Jones adopts Mann’s Nature “trick”. This refers to MBH 1998, the early version of the Hockey-stick*, as CONFIRMED at “Mann’s website” RC in: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/#more-1853
It is therefore important to understand that original “trick“ in its irrefutable context. (See my link in #6 to understand the three-part trick in full). BTW, the original trick is a little less blatant than in the case of the Mann-approved hasty revision by Briffa in the 3AR 2001 report. (Also found in the bewildering spaghetti graph Fig 6.10.b, in AR4, 2007.… I think…. if one can trace the individual pastel colours through!)
You additionally wrote in your#7:
Ah yes, but don’t forget that some of the Emails discuss referee and editorial selections or policies in journals that are favourable to the cabal of UEA & PSU etc, and what to do about those journals that are not favourable, and any scientific papers that are not welcome.
* As a point of clarification, MBH 98 was published in Nature, and the later version, MBH 99, which extended the proxy data further back in time was in GRL, and was later “enhanced” slightly, without correcting for 2000 trend, in 3AR, 2001. (splashed around in six chapters in 2001, but then dropped like a scalded cat in 2007)
** How the referees for Nature & GRL, (presumably familiar with the work of Overpeck. Briffa, and Esper etc), may have failed to notice the graphical fraud from about 1940 onward, is to me, an engineer, truly amazing!
Robin Guenier,
Did I miss something in Per’s 5, 7, & 9?
I guess you are more familiar than me with his language style and what his opinions might fully mean to a lawyer.
Bob_FJ
You wrote:
In its TAR report the hockeystick got star billing (a full page in the SPM report), with projected future warming grafted on for effect in a dazzling display of chartmanship.
It lost its star billing after being comprehensively discredited, but it did not die, Bob.
Lo and behold, instead of being “dropped like a scalded cat”, it is still shown in AR4, Chapter 6, as evidence for the IPCC claim that “the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the previous 1,300 years” (SPM 2007, p.9).
This piece of junk science just won’t die, because IPCC needs it (and its spaghetti copies) to sell its AGW pitch.
Max
Max, Reur #11;
I’ll respond over on the NS/Lyinas thread because I fear that if I get going on Fig 6.1 in AR4, that TonyN might scold me for wandering OT concerning “CRU whitewash?”.
I’ve had some exchanges on the RealClimate thread covering the email leaks; the site has become quite open to comments, with minimum “snipping”.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/12/cru-hack-more-context/comment-page-20/#comments
In trying to test how the AGW-faithful are perceiving the Climategate impact, I posted this (let’s hope it makes it through the input screen)
Hey guys,
Gavin has been very tolerant in allowing us to discuss a variety of interesting OT themes here, and even adding his own comments from time to time, but the exchange is becoming a bit repetitive.
Getting closer to the topic of this thread, I believe we should look at how the general public perception may have changed as a result of the Climategate leaks.
The perception following these leaks appears to be:
Through the machinations of a handful of very influential climate scientists acting in collusion to “hide the decline” in late 20th century temperature reconstructions, the world has been “tricked” into believing that “the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the previous 1,300 years”.
And to the current cooling, the quotation “we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty” leads to the public perception (a) that it is not warming at present despite record CO2 increase, (b) that climate scientists are unable to explain this and (c) that these facts represent “a travesty” to the climate scientists.
As Michael Gerson of the Washington Post put it:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/10/AR2009121003159.html
Gerson’s last sentence tells it all.
Does the perception represent reality? Has the general public lost its trust in climate scientists?
If so, what do the climate scientists (who are not acting as advocates) have to do to regain this public trust?
What do others here think?
Max
Related to the question of trust.
1. I’ve lost all trust in Politicians who tell me anything in light of their lies over expenses. There are only two sorts, those who were on the take, and those that let them get away with it.
2. I can’t separate the politicians desparation for taxation from climate science. It’s too much of a good excuse to tax more.
3. When New Scientist and the BBC get round to manufacturing arguments with skeptics to prove the skeptics wrong (they don’t allow free range for the other side) they’ve lost my trust. If they do this for climate science they will manipulate on other things.
4. We only have the words some that they aren’t doing the same as the CRU. Well open up all your emails, we will read them and make the judgement if you haven’t been doing the same. After all, if you haven’t anything to hide you won’t mind doing it. If you don’t we can draw the conclusion you’re in on it too.
Nick
Here are results from a poll conducted by the Triangle Business Journal from 5-15 December
To the question:
http://triangle.bizjournals.com/triangle/stories/2009/12/14/daily28.html
Max
Dear All
You maybe interested in this part of Sir Muir Russell’s career published on my website.
It is a letter sent to him regarding [Snip – this seems to be a purely personal matter with no bearing on the CRU emails – sorry]
Why would East Anglia University appoint someone like him, could it be to cover things up?
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University