Another Example Of Inappropriate Communications On A Climate Assessement

In Judy Curry’s post on Climate Etc titled

Climate Etc. at 2

there is a remarkable e-mail that Steven Mosher posted September 1, 2012 at 11:12 pm from those hacked from the University of East Anglia (i. e. what has been called “Climategate”).  Steven’s comment is presented below followed by my comment as to why this is significant [highlight added]

From: Phil Jones To: “Michael E. Mann” Subject: Empire Strikes Back – return of proper science ! Date: Fri May 20 13:45:26 2005

Mike,

REDACTEDJust reviewed Caspar’s paper with Wahl for Climatic Change. Looks pretty good. Almost reproduced your series and shows where MM have gone wrong. Should keep them quiet for a while. Also they release all the data and the R software. Presume you know all about this. Should make Keith’s life in Ch 6 easy ! Also, confidentially for a few weeks, Christy and Spencer have admitted at the Chicago CCSP meeting that their 2LT record is wrong !! They used the wrong sign for the diurnal correction ! Series now warms – not quite as much as the surface but within error bands. Between you and me, we’ll be going with RSS in Ch 3 and there will be no discrepancy with the surface and the models. Should make Ch 3 a doddle now ! Keep quiet about this until Bern at least. Can tell you more then. RSS (Carl Mears and Frank Wentz) found the mistake ! The skeptic pillars are tumbling ! Cheers Phil

I was at the Chicago meeting.  First the error that is mentioned in Phil Jones was actually  a minor one, and was corrected by Spencer and Christy immediately after it was identified at the meeting by the RSS group (Wentz and Mears). I felt it was odd that the RSS group presented this at the meeting rather than communicating prior to the meeting.

What is most disturbing, however, is that Phil Jones (who was NOT a member of the CCSP 1.1 Committee) found out about this issue, when the meetings of our Committee were supposed to be confidential.  Then, Phil Jones disseminated this information further to Mike Mann.

This is yet another example of the Old Boy’s network that, in my view, has undercut the credibility of climate assessments.

See also my posts (of which several provide additional examples of the inappropriate communication of Committee information to others outside of the Committee).

Further Evidence Of The Failure Of An Appropriate and Accurate Assessment Of Climate Science

An E-Mail Communication Between Phil Jones and Ben Santer Indicating Inappropriate Behavior By The US National Research Council

Conflict Of Interest Process with Respect To An NRC Review Panel Of A Draft Of The CCSP 1.1 Report

Further Documentation Of Inappropriate Behavoir By A Subset Of Members Of The CCSP 1.1 Committee And The NRC Review Committee

It has been over 7 years since the e-mail was sent by Phil Jones to Michael Mann. Unfortunately, it appears nothing has actually changed with respect to the Old Boy’s network.

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