I came accross a very good post over at Climate etc. regarding the ‘consensus‘. One of the most interesting arguments that I picked up was that we should not care about the consensus argument, as consensus is not the benchmark of good science. Judith Currie wades into the question with the following:

The climate community worked for 20 years to establish a consensus.  The impact of the consensus probably peaked in 2006-2007, at the time of publication of the AR4.  Courtesy of the CRU emails, we now understand the sausage making that went into creating the consensus.  Manufacturing a consensus in the context of the IPCC has acted to hyper-politicize the scientific and policy debate, to the detriment of both.  Its time to abandon the concept of consensus; consensus matters far less than simply being right and the arguments themselves that ought to be the focus for discussion.

My concern about the use of the supposed consensus to stifle the debate is more mundane. For most people, there is only a limited interest in the climate change debate. Unlike those who take an active interest, they are not going to delve into philosophy of science, or read the complex discussions about what is good and what is not good science. I suspect that, for many people, the idea of a consensus of scientists will simply be taken as being an indicator of the truth of the argument.

I agree that there is a difficulty of what the consensus might be about – e.g. the planet has warmed versus we are all doomed if we do not change our behaviour – but this is perhaps not how most of the public might see it. The way that the consensus is presented is that there is broad agreement on the latter of my two examples.

As such, I think the promotion of the idea of a consensus really matters. It is important that we take into account the nature of the interest of most people in the climate change debate, and recognise that those who are less interested will often only take home simple messages from what they hear/see/read. The message of a ‘consensus’ is powerful, and is therefore worth addressing.

Although the number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, many young scientists furtively say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted—or worse. They have good reason to worry. In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position. Fortunately, Dr. de Freitas was able to keep his university job.

It is indeed very sad that association with positions  contrary to some people might be met with this kind of behaviour. However, the letter also covers some other points worth mentioning. For example:

A candidate for public office in any contemporary democracy may have to consider what, if anything, to do about “global warming.” Candidates should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true. In fact, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed.

In September, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever, a supporter of President Obama in the last election, publicly resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) with a letter that begins: “I did not renew [my membership] because I cannot live with the [APS policy] statement: ‘The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.’ In the APS it is OK to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?”

I remember reading the Ivar Giaever open letter, and should really have posted/commented upon it. I have also read about other shenanigans in which some have tried to manufacture the consensus through manipulation of statistics for support for climate alarmism (sorry, no reference to hand).

My guess is that, without the fear of career damage, the quest for grants, the dubious ‘consensus’ would look even more threadbare than it already is. For example, many years ago I heard a BBC Radio 4 interview* in which an anthropologist was researching the impact of climate change on hunter gatherers in Scandinavia. The interviewer was interested in climate change, but it was very clear that all the anthropologist wanted to do was discuss the interesting facets of the culture of the people under study. No doubt, the addition of climate change in his application for a research grant was useful.

Perhaps one day it will be possible for climate science to return to ‘normal science’ (I am aware that this is a problematic phrase, but seeking to stop contrary views is not ‘normal’ science in any reasonable interpretation). It certainly seems that the right questions are now being asked. In some ways, this may be of benefit to the wider realm of science; as anyone who is involved in critical positions on any subject will tell you, the effort of getting critiques of established thinking is always a challenge. I can only hope that, in addition to all of the negative aspects of climate science, there is a possibility that it will, in the end, raise some fundamental questions and encourage a more open approach to science.

In the meantime, sadly, the climate debate will be restricted by an oppressive system that seeks to stifle any contrary views. To be more positive, this may be on the road to change…..

*I am sorry to have two items unreferenced. For the 2nd example, it really was a long, long time ago…..

Whilst the post argues that there were many problems in the Wikipedia entry on the incident, it focuses on the claim that all of the peer reviewers of the dissenting article rejected the article. This claim was patently false, and relied upon a single Guardian article, which flew in the face of all of the evidence that suggested the opposite.The story does have a (sort of) happy ending, in that the post led to a correction of the article in question:

UPDATE: Following a conversation on Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales’ talk page the error has been removed despite initial resistance from those who perpetrated the misinformation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Activism_at_Wikipedia.3F

Also, I’d like to thank Nona, who tried to correct the error earlier as an anonymous user.

I added ‘sort of’ to the happy ending, as these ongoing attempts to smear the good name of Professor de Freitas should not be occurring in the first place. It just serves to place emphasis on the way in which some people have no qualms about presenting lies in order to preserve their world view, and the hell with the personal impact on a perfectly reputable scientist.

Another point mentioned in the article, of which I was previously unaware, was that Michael Mann (of hockey stick fame, and who also engaged in the conspiracy to have Professor de Freitas sacked) had complained to the New Zealand Press Council about a New Zealand Herald article written by Professor de Freitas:

The grounds of Professor Mann’s complaint are that the two articles were inaccurate, lacked balance and showed excessive advocacy. Under lack of accuracy he said the overall tone of the articles left readers with the false impression that the jury was still out on global warming and climate change where, as far as the vast majority of the world’s climate scientists were concerned, it is not. He gave particular examples of the inaccuracies he observed, along the lines of those cited in his article.

Mann had written a rebuttal of Professor de Freitas’s article, and was essentially demanding that it be published. Unsurprisingly, the complaint was not upheld, and I liked this part of the ruling:

Advocates of a particular standpoint may not find the press always serving their purpose, but then the function of the press is to serve their readers in the broadest terms.

In the context of what I found in the Climategate emails, I found this new information to be quite revealing. It is yet more confirmation that Mann is quite obsessive about protecting his views on climate science from any challenge whatsoever. At least in this case he seeks to address the problem with scientific argument, which is better than attempting to blacken a person’s name ( or something of an improvement on trying to get an individual sacked for allowing dissenting views).

However, it does bring to mind the somewhat obsessive commentary on my Climategate articles by Chris C, who attempted to defend the attacks on Professor de Freitas. It crossed my mind at the time that this might be Mann posting under an alias, and the thought once again crosses my mind. Of course, I will never know, and can only speculate; it could be that Chris C was indeed just posting as ‘himself’.

Update: I just took a look at the  debate within Wikipedia on the question of the rejection by the reviewers. It is well worth a quick read….you will need to scroll down the page and will find the section. The attempts to defend the wrong information are somewhat comedic….

Year 2020: Domestic +27%, Medium-sized business + 34%, large energy intensive large industry +8-28%

As they reasonably argue, these increases in costs will simply make the UK less competitive, and will simply encourage businesses to move overseas to locations where there is no similar legislation. Even if accepting that carbon dioxide is a problem, the move of businesses to other locations makes no impact upon the total emissions.

Moving back to the subject of wind power, some selected quotes are given below:

As we have already pointed out the estimates by Mott MacDonald flatter wind-power as they made no allowance for any add-on costs. One of the main reasons is that wind-power is unreliable and requires conventional back-up generating capacity when wind speeds are, for example, very low or rapidly varying, which increases the overall costs of wind-power.

MacDonald assumed load factors of just 25-31% for onshore wind and 35-45% for offshore wind.4
However it should be noted that even these figures for load factors can give an impression of greater reliability than is actually the case. In spells of very cold weather associated with high pressure areas, when there is enhanced demand for electricity, there tends to be very little wind. This analysis was confirmed by BBC weatherman Paul Hudson, who wrote in January 2011:5
“…during the recent intense cold weather, it’s been our traditional coal and gas fired power stations that have been working flat out to keep our homes and businesses warm. And for the third winter running, the intense cold has gone hand in hand with periods of little or no wind. This should come as no surprise since prolonged cold is invariably associated with areas of high pressure”.

The following chart (chart 3) was included in this BBC report. Wind’s contribution to total electricity output (53,020 Megawatts) on 21 December 2010 was, according to the BBC, 0.04%. This insight is a useful answer to those who say “the wind is always blowing somewhere” in defence of wind-power. In Britain on very cold days it effectively is not. Twenty Megawatts of generation should also be seen in the context of the estimates for plant capacity.

They go on to cite research that finds that maintaining back up power for wind costs between 30-45% onto the costs of wind power. Their conclusion on the real costs of wind power is very clear:

The costing of wind-power electricity generation is clearly very complex. But one conclusion can safely be drawn and that is that wind-power is expensive – especially offshore. Under these circumstances it seems unwise to be embarking on a huge programme of investment in wind generated electricity, especially when the country is facing grave economic challenges. This analysis also ignores the perceived environmental costs of wind-power, especially onshore wind turbines.

Although I am not concerned with carbon dioxide emissions, it is still interesting to read this in the report:

In a comprehensive quantitative analysis of CO2 emissions and wind-power, Dutch physicist C. le Pair has recently shown that deploying wind turbines on “normal windy days” in the Netherlands actually increased fuel (gas) consumption, rather than saving it, when compared to electricity generation with modern high-efficiency gas turbines.7,8 Ironically and paradoxically the use of wind farms therefore actually increased CO2 emissions, compared with using efficient gas-fired combined cycle gas turbines (CCGTs) at full power.

In other words, even if looking at the ‘green’ justification for wind power, it seems that wind power is at best a dubious solution to energy provision.

For those that read my earlier posts on wind energy, this should all be familiar material. Problems of reliability of wind, need for back-up generation, and the location and connection of wind energy into the grid; they all make wind power  expensive. This is the conclusion of the report:

It is expensive and yet it is not effective in cutting CO2 emissions. If it were not for the renewables targets set by the Renewables Directive, wind-power would not even be entertained as a cost-effective way of generating electricity or cutting emissions.

From my perspective, the most interesting aspect of the report is the way in which wind power is in receipt of indirect subsidy, which are often not considered in the official reports and statistics. It is something that has (as far as I know) not been the subject of analysis in New Zealand, and I would be interested to see how wind power ‘stacks up’ here if such a study were undertaken. Perhaps such a study is overdue, as there is a big push for yet more wind power here.

At the very least, the economics of wind power are extremely questionable, and the potential costs are loss of competitiveness, and higher bills for consumers. Those higher bills, of course, will have greater impact upon those on low incomes, who spend a greater proportion of their income on necessities such as power for heating.

Note: If you have not seen it, there is a very good post on the manipulation of temperature data on the Climate Conversation Group. Well worth a read.

Since watching the tour presentation, I did not follow Gareth’s views on climate change, assuming that he would retain the moderate and (apparently) open-minded stance that I originally saw. However, in browsing the NZ Herald (for a different reason) I stumbled on an article by Gareth, and hence the title of the post:

Yesterday, we looked at how the race for resources is heating up in the Antarctic. That’s not the only thing getting hotter. In our 2009 book Poles Apart, written with John McCrystal, we surveyed the evidence for global warming. The balance of evidence points to warming as a result of burning fossil fuels.

To our far south lies Antarctica, a laboratory made in heaven for the study of climate change. The relatively untouched, icy environment is perfect for researching how the climate has changed in the past, as well as measuring the pace of change now under way. Nowhere on Earth is as sensitive to climate change as the polar regions.

Climate change deniers have enjoyed pointing out that, unlike the Arctic, Antarctica has not warmed much overall. Average temperatures across the continent haven’t really budged as yet, and in some areas like our own Ross Sea the extent of sea ice is actually increasing.

There it is; the expression ‘climate change deniers’! With this expression any semblance of balance or open mind is flung out of the window. His tour was accompanied by a book, which I will confess that I didn’t read. I took his position from the presentation he gave and, as I said it appeared balanced. I rooted around a little, and found an article from when his book was released, and it is interesting to see what he had to say at that time:

Gareth Morgan is alarmed at the level of vitriol being lobbed at him over his new climate change book. He says both sides are prone to losing their objectivity but this emotional outpouring shows exactly why it’s important to open up this discussion right now.

“We say in the book that the subject just gets peoples danders up and sure enough I’m getting it in the neck, again, from both sides,” says an exasperated Morgan.

“Still, at least when you’re getting it from both sides, you know you’re being balanced.

“Furious emails and blogs started coming through before the book was even out so I have no idea what they were basing their anger on. The alarmists are outraged because we, as lay people, have even deigned to wade into the debate. Aren’t we cheeky?

“You should see what’s on the blogs and the emails we’ve been getting. I’ve even lost a couple of KiwiSaver clients because they’re so brassed off with me. What’s that about? Where are their heads you may well ask. The emails to the TVNZ Sunday programme in response to their story were apparently toxic.

So here you have it; a claim of balance, claims that the debate is toxic, claims that he stands above such behaviour, and yet the use of the expression climate change denier. It doesn’t add up, does it? I am unaware of any serious skeptical argument that ever denies that the climate changes, but nevertheless this is how Gareth portrays the views of skeptics; it is an ugly term linked to holocaust denial and is fundamentally inaccurate and malicious.

The sad part is that, provided people keep open minds, and look at the evidence, and make their best judgement, it is easy to take the person as acting in good faith, and at least accept their point of view. However, when a person trots out expressions like climate change denier, it is only possible to conclude that they have no interest in seeing the other side of the argument, and that they have replaced reason with rhetoric, and debate with ad hominem attack. As such, I must sadly conclude that one of the people I viewed as one of the good guys in the debate, is sadly a disappointment.

If you’re worried about all the things you have to worry about, cheer up. Here’s one thing you won’t have to worry about any more. Global warming (remember, this was a prediction) will be the Great Disappearing Act of 2011. It will sink like a stone, exit stage left and generally melt away. Whoopee! [and]

We just don’t need to worry about it any more. That’s all. The prediction holds. Global warming has disappeared.

It is refreshing to see that such a piece published. My view is that there is a debate, and the media should address both sides of the debate. That is, that the media should cover both the alarmist and the skeptical view points evenly, or at least give some kind of balance. As such, I am in the surprising position of saying congratulations to the New Zealand Herald.

However, before getting carried away, a quick search for the term climate change also pulled up an article reviewing the year for the US, and which says (emphasis added):

Pipeline opponents, who included thousands of protesters outside the White House, blasted it as a retrograde step that deepened fossil fuel dependence even as a biblical succession of extreme weather – tornadoes, floods, fires, droughts and hurricanes – associated with climate change saddled the economy with 12 US$1 billion events.

There is no evidence that links these kinds of extremes with climate change (e.g. see here for a commentary on a recent IPCC report by Judith Currie). The New Zealand Herald is not alone in attribution of extreme weather events to climate change, which seems to be a commonplace in many media outlets. However, it is the kind of reporting that feeds into public alarm, and does so with no science to back up the alarm.

However, having put this niggle out of the way, the Jim Hopkins article is a good start. All we need now is some reporting on the findings of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition (regarding the dodgy dealings on the New Zealand temperature record), and perhaps some reporting on the murky involvement of NIWA employees in the manipulation of peer review.

However, all credit to the NZ Herald for publishing a view from outside the alarmist camp!

Happy New Year and let’s hope for more balance in 2012!

However, I have just engaged in an exchange of comments with someone who is actually trying to defend the team. He is not the first person to do so in the comments section (see my last comment below, this was a commentator called ‘Alex C), but nevertheless I am surprised that he is mounting such a determined defence. It is just plain odd. As such, I thought I would publish our small debate. It is interesting of itself, as I believe that it is illustrative of a willful disregard for the evidence of shabby behaviour on the part of the team. My point in posting the exchange is this; I simply cannot understand the motivations for defending the indefensible.  I am just plain puzzled.

The comments come at the end of the post, and I simply cannot see what the commentator is trying to achieve – people will have read the emails. Why are they defending the behaviour that they are defending? Do they really believe the arguments they are putting forwards? I genuinely cannot see why they continue to defend this. With this introduction over, I will paste in the comments (I will not block quote them to avoid block quotes within block quotes which will be hard to read):

———————————————————————————————

John C

————–

NZClimate:

We are dealing with a large number of countries with very different energy intensities. The big issue would seem to be outsourcing of heavy manufacturing. This makes the energy intensity of the country losing the manufacturing look better. Outsourcing transfers manufacturing to a country with a much higher energy intensity, so even with the new manufacturing, its ratio can still look better (lower). It is hard to measure the overall impact of outsourcing, except by looking at world total energy intensities rather than individual country amounts.

In both of the posts, Gail fills the pages with charts, data and analysis, so I cannot do justice to her work in a summary. However, there are two points (of three) that I found to be of particular interest, and I quote these below:

1. The industrialization of Southeast Asia has allowed importers from around the world to reduce their energy intensity of GDP, but much of the savings has been offset by greater energy use (largely coal) in Southeast Asia. On a CO2 basis, we are likely  worse off, because of this transfer.

2. There is no evidence that the Kyoto Protocol reduced worldwide CO2 emissions. In fact, to the extent that it encouraged outsourcing of industrial production to the Far East and made goods from the Far East more competitive, it may have contributed to rising world CO2 emissions. It would appear that a different approach is needed that recognizes the fact that fuels are part of a world market. Fuel savings in one part of the world are not necessarily helpful for the world as a whole.

I have not read much else from the blog, but I would guess from the general discussions that Gail is on the ‘warmer’ side of the climate debate. However, she is capturing something that I (from a skeptic standpoint) have always been concerned about. In some respects, the negative economic impact of climate change mitigation upon the developed world has been discussed before. For example, this UK economics blog discusses the issue of the original Climategate emails in the context of economics, and cites an article from Christopher Booker (I have not found the original) as follows:

The real gain to Corus from stopping production at Redcar, however, is the saving it will make on its carbon allowances, allocated by the EU under its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). By ceasing to emit a potential six million tonnes of CO2 a year, Corus will benefit from carbon allowances which could soon, according to European Commission projections, be worth up to £600 million over the three years before current allocations expire.

But this is only half the story. In India, Corus’s owner, Tata, plans to increase steel production from 53 million tonnes to 124 million over the same period. By replacing inefficient old plants with new ones which emit only “European levels” of CO2, Tata could claim a further £600 million under the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism, which is operated by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – the organisers of the Copenhagen conference. Under this scheme, organisations in developed countries such as Britain – ranging from electricity supply companies to the NHS – can buy the right to exceed their CO2 allocations from those in developing countries, such as India. The huge but hidden cost of these “carbon permits” will be passed on to all of us, notably through our electricity bills.

It is all fairly obvious really; if you enact these carbon dioxide emission schemes in a lopsided way, energy usage will shift to those countries that are low cost. In essence, these schemes are a driver of the hollowing out of developed country energy intensive manufacturing, and have no doubt been a contributor to the rapid growth of emerging economies. The great thing about Gails’ posts are that they present the case with such startling clarity.

The broad economic impacts of this shift in energy intensive manufacturing from developed economies are fairly obvious; negative impact upon balance of trade and less economic growth than would be the case if Kyoto had not been enacted.

This is all well and good to point out, but it is another element of the impact of this shift that worries me. Manufacturing jobs employ large numbers of workers who earn a good wage in comparison to service industries, for example in compared to shop workers. In particular, manufacturing tends to develop highly paid skilled workers, and this is a concern I would like to highlight. When policy such as Kyoto are enacted, they have real impact on both the economy but also the potential for ordinary people in a developed economy to have a better standard of living.

The trouble is that, for most people, their main source of news is a media that has accepted the climate alarmist story, and often reports on climate change in a way that is clearly biased towards alarm (I have written several posts on this subject). They entirely neglect the potential for negative consequences, even though those consequences will eventually impact upon their readers/viewers. There are a few lonely voices such as Christopher Booker who point out these real impacts but most people will never hear of such impacts (unless it is their job that is being lost).

Instead, what we have is promises of ‘green jobs’ and the media seem to go along with this. However, as every country is using the same promise, we come to a point where it becomes impossible for every country to generate enough of these ‘green jobs’ to offset the losses. More disturbingly, if those jobs (e.g. manufacture of wind turbines) are reliant on intensive energy use, they will in any case end up being outsourced to developing economies. As such, it is interesting to find that five out of the ten largest manufacturers Chinese and Indian, and that they together have a large market share. They are getting the benefits of these ‘green jobs’ but with none of the associated pain. And that pain is the loss of highly skilled, well paid manufacturing jobs in developed economies.

Note: For this post, I am not going into some of the complexities of the knock on impacts of loss of manufacturing,  or how the impacts of ‘green’ policy are calculated/considered, as I want to keep the post focused.

cc: “Thomas C Peterson” <Thomas.C.Peterson@noaa.gov>
date: Thu Jan  6 08:54:58 2005
from: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
subject: RE: Fwd: Monthly CLIMATbulletins
to: “Parker, David (Met Office)” <david.parker@metoffice.gov.uk>, Neil Plummer <n.plummer@bom.gov.au>

Neil,

Just to reiterate David’s points, I’m hoping that IPCC will stick with 1961-90.The issue of confusing users/media with new anomalies from a
different base period is the key one in my mind. Arguments about the 1990s being better observed than the 1960s don’t hold too much water with me.

There is some discussion of going to 1981-2000 to help the modelling chapters. If we do this it will be a bit of a bodge as it will be hard to do things properly for the surface temp and precip as we’d lose loads of stations with long records that would then have incomplete normals. If we do we will likely achieve it by rezeroing series and maps in an ad hoc way.There won’t be any move by IPCC to go for 1971-2000, as it won’t  help with satellite series or the models.  1981-2000 helps with MSU series and the much better Reanalyses and also globally-complete SST. 20 years (1981-2000) isn’t 30 years, but the rationale for 30 years isn’t that compelling. The original argument was for 35 years around 1900 because Bruckner found 35 cycles in some west Russian lakes (hence periods like 1881-1915). This went to 30 as it easier to compute.

Personally I don’t want to change the base period till after I retire !

Cheers
Phil

At 09:22 05/01/2005, Parker, David (Met Office) wrote:

Neil,

There is a preference in the atmospheric observations chapter of IPCC AR4 to stay with the 1961-1990 normals. This is partly because a change of normals confuses users, e.g. anomalies will seem less positive than before if we change to newer normals, so the impression of global warming will be muted. Also we may wish to wait till there are 30 years of satellite data, i.e until we can compute 1981-2010 normals, which will then be globally complete for some parameters like sea surface temperature.

Regards
David

On Tue, 2005-01-04 at 21:58, Neil Plummer wrote:

Hi Hama, Tom
(and David, Blair)

Re: the issue of using the 1971-2000 normals in CLIMAT rather than 1961-1990 normals.

Happy New Year!

I have copied the relevant text from CCl XIII below, which provides reasons for staying with the 1961-90 standard. My initial recommendation is the same as Tom’s, i.e. stay with the standard for now.

I think there are two main factors to consider here – capability and demand. While there are clearly advantages with widespread use of normals derived using the later period there must be the capacity to do so.Perhaps in the lead-up to CCl-XIV, OPAG 2 can find out the extent of the support for the change among users of CLIMAT and OPAG 1 can find out more about capabilities. (Note, however, that this is not strictly on issue for OPAG 1 according to the ToRs for the ICT and any of the ETs. Happy to assist though).

We may use the climate working groups in the Regional Associations to  assist with surveying members capabilities and could do the same regarding the demand question though I think Tom’s CCl/CLIVAR ET is best placed to give that guidance.

David, Blair – Interested in your thoughts on this matter.
Cheers
Neil

The email round commenced with a request for a clarification from the Turkish meteorological office on the . I will leave the technical points to other who have a better understanding of the issues that are being discussed. However, I was fascinated to see firstly that Phil Jones was putting confusing the media as a key concern. And then there is the worry of Parker that the impression of global warming would be muted! Note the use of the word ‘impression’. Does this sound like he is worrying about the science?

Again, here we have emails in their context, and the phrases in their full context, and two clear statements that the media and impressions are the priority over the science. Oh dear, oh dear….

Note: Two phrases which are highlighted, I will leave for others to consider who have the technical knowledge to do so.

The emails I detail are not the only ones showing this kind of outrageous behaviour. Steve McIntyre also details attempts to smear the good name of one of the authors of the paper that challenged the hockey stick. It is possible to see a pattern of behaviour. The problem is that the ‘team’ are still up to the same ugly tricks, despite the exposure of this behaviour in the Climategate emails. They are still using smear tactics, and still attacking the good name of Professor de Freitas. They appear to believe that they can act with complete impunity. I added the following as an update on the second of my posts, but I believe it deserves more attention. The quote comes from the ‘team’ website ‘RealClimate’, and a commentator asks a question, with a member of the ‘team’ responding:

Any context on this thread – which might be interpreted to constitute a coordinated effort to have someone dismissed for not following the party line?

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

[Response: The issue has nothing to do with not 'following the party line', but rather of being guilty of appalling editorial practices, whereby papers were published with claims that were not justified by the analysis, or that were accepted almost 'as is' regardless of the views of referees. Hans von Storch in email 2106: "For me it is important that we admit that the result of the review process of Soon & Baliunas was insufficient", and noting the pattern "We should have been more vigilant after we had seen that actually two critical comments were written on the first Soon paper" (also handled by de Freitas). The corruption here was de Frietas, not anyone who responded. - gavin]

It is apparent that this new attempt to smear Professor de Freitas is being replicated in comments on the Climategate emails. Wattsupwiththat linked to the posts made on this blog, and comments on the the Wattsupwiththat post included the following:

JPY says:

November 27, 2011 at 5:22 pm

It is not possible to demonstrate that this comment is made by one of the ‘team’, but  the commentator seems very knowledgeable about the background to the story, and follows the lead of RealClimate very closely. Also, anyone who read the post on the subject on this blog, and I mean anyone with any sense of decency, would surely not come to the conclusion shown by JPY in this comment. I cannot be sure, but my guess is that the comment above is from one of the ‘team’.

As a backgrounder, for those of you who are unfamiliar with RealClimate, it is run by the ‘team’ to promote their particular views of climate science. The Climategate emails (Email No. 4349 ) show that the ‘team’,  established the website with the intention that:

We are keeping the content strictly scientific, though at an accessible level.

If we compare the intention with the quote on RealClimate, we can see what their idea of ‘strictly scientific’ actually is. The person replying to the enquiry is Gavin Schmidt, and it is notable that other contributors to the site includes other ‘team’ members such as Michael Mann.

If there is any doubt that this is smearing of the good name of Professor de Freitas, he has recently posted the following email that demonstrates that the team were smearing his good name and reputation:

Thu, 3 July 2003 12:42:48 +0200
To CLIMATE RESEARCH
Editors and Review Editors

Dear colleagues,

In my 20.06. email to you I stated, among other things, that I would ask CR editor Chris de Freitas to present to me copies of the reviewers’ evaluations for the 2 Soon et al. papers.

I have received and studied the material requested.

Conclusions:

1) The reviewers consulted (4 for each ms) by the editor presented detailed, critical and helpful evaluations

2) The editor properly analyzed the evaluations and requested appropriate revisions.

3) The authors revised their manuscripts accordingly.

Summary:

Chris de Freitas has done a good and correct job as editor.

Best wishes,
Otto Kinne
Director, Inter-Research

It is very apparent from the email above that Professor de Freitas conducted himself in his role as a Climate Research editor in a way that was above reproach. However, this has not stopped RealClimate from continuing to smear his name, even going as far as accusing Professor de Freitas of ‘corruption’. Professor de Freitas, the subject of these smears and attacks is an accomplished scientist, as his record shows. For those who are not academics, his publication record, and his record in winning awards is indicative of a genuinely outstanding scientist.

My concern is this. Rather than the first Climategate emails acting as a check on the disgusting behaviour of the team, it seems to have just emboldened them. Whilst the Climategate emails were kept private, the RealClimate attempt to yet again blacken the name of Professor de Freitas is aired in public, with Schmidt even putting his name to the response to the comment. Following the first Climategate emails, several enquiries were conducted into the behaviour of ‘team’ members as a result of some of the revelations in the emails. However, as many who have examined the enquiries have found, they would be best described as ‘whitewash’ (just one example of why can be found here).

I believe that what we see on RealClimate is a direct result of the whitewash. The team have seen the media and establishment continue to support them in the face of their disgraceful behaviour, and they now arrogantly believe that they can act with impunity. This raises a troubling question. With Climategate 2, we can now see ever more clearly the extent of the disgraceful behaviour of the ‘team’. My worry is that, outside of the skeptical blogs, and a limited number of mainstream media commentators, will Climategate 2 really make a difference? More to the point, what can those of us that are concerned about this sordid behaviour do to ensure that, this time, something will actually be done about this terrible behaviour?

It is a question that those who are concerned about this shoddy behaviour should all be contemplating. Comments and thoughts welcomed.

Update, 1st December.

The attack on Professor de Freitas is once again intensifying. A post in Hot Topic says the following:

Unfortunately for Watts and the anonymous (and low profile) NZ blogger who wrote the article, a new analysis by John Mashey of 700+ papers published at Climate Research reveals that the tribalism on display came from a cabal of sceptical scientists, with Auckland University academic Chris de Freitas safely shepherding their papers — however poor the science they contained — through peer pal review.

The study cited in the post would be funny, if it were not for the fact that this is, yet again, an unwarranted attack. Richard Treadgold of the Climate Conversation Group kindly posted a comment to clarify the source and background to the latest attempt to smear Professor de Freitas:

Renowden examines “a new analysis by John Mashey of 700+ papers published at Climate Research” as though it were significant. But I’ve looked up this “paper”. It hasn’t been peer-reviewed or published in any decent journal, only published informally by his pals at the desmogblog blog.

Renowden usually insists on citations of only peer-reviewed material, just like the IPCC. But not on this special occasion.

Why do we pay either the analysis or Renowden’s comments on it the slightest attention? It’s all worth exactly what the blog site paid for the “paper”.

Enough said. However, there is a very small upside to the latest smear. I have seen from my site statistics that this latest smear is driving traffic to the posts on the original emails. Of course, for those people who follow the links to the original emails, they will get the chance to make up their own minds. When they see the emails and their contents in black and white, I have no doubt that they will see the work of the ‘team’ for what it is. As such, although the Hot Topic post and the ‘study’ are further examples of ugly behaviour, we can at least thank the authors for driving traffic to the information which will demonstrate that their latest smear is just that; a smear.