Report on East Anglia University climate research panel

As you know, the news media can exaggerate news reports or misunderstand them. Nevertheless, most of the times they have it basically correct. I am delaying my postings on denying communion to those who actively and directly are involved in abortion for this news flash from London. As you may remember, the climate scientists from East Anglia University were badly maligned when the computer storing their emails was hacked. An inquiry panel was set up. Here is the bottom line, the scientists themselves were cleared but not the United Nations. In the light of the totality of the emails, there was no attempt to hide their research results. The emails that were published by the hackers were selected. When the vast majority were reviewed, it was obvious that the scientists resisted temptation. The same does not appear to be true of the United Nations or other higher-level organizations.

Climate scientists at the centre of the row over stolen e-mails acted with integrity and made no attempt to manipulate their research on global temperatures, an external inquiry has found.

Their research was, however, misrepresented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which failed to reflect uncertainties the scientists had reported concerning the raw temperature data. . .

The panel was not asked to consider whether the unit’s findings were correct but to judge whether the scientists had conducted their research in an honest and robust manner.

The panel said it was “regrettable” that the IPCC, in its advice to governments on climate change, had failed to reflect uncertainties that had been clearly stated in the unit’s reports.

“Recent public discussion of climate change and summaries and popularisations of the work of CRU and others often contain oversimplifications that omit serious discussion of uncertainties emphasized by the original authors.

“For example, CRU publications repeatedly emphasise the discrepancy between instrumental and tree-based proxy reconstructions of temperature during the late 20th century, but presentations of this work by the IPCC and others have sometimes neglected to highlight this issue.”

However, the panel reserved its strongest criticism for the climate sceptics who had accused the unit of manipulating its findings.

It said the attacks on the unit’s work had been “selective and uncharitable”.

It added: “Although we deplore the tone of much of the criticism that has been directed at CRU, we believe that this questioning of the methods and data used… will ultimately have a beneficial effect and improve working practices.”

It is a mixed report. On the one hand, I am grateful that the basic ethical stance of the scientists was reaffirmed. When I was in the Armed Forces, soldiers grumbled all the time, but their grumbling was not a sign that they would not perform their duty. In the same way, the emails show a lot of grumbling and wishing, but the totality of the emails and the reports show that no data was deliberately withheld or suppressed. It was just grumbling and quoted quite out of context. As is typical of many of the deniers, the people who hacked the emails were quite willing to unethically edit what they handed out to the press in order to make the “other side” look unethical. To go farther, they were willing to immorally destroy reputations and careers simply to win their case.

On the other hand, their scientific report was not honestly represented by the United Nations. As is typical of many politicians, the data given to them by the scientists was inappropriately “simplified” in order to bolster the UN’s case. The information we have received does not reflect the doubts and skepticism of the scientists who were analyzing the data. Where they honestly reported that their interpretation of the data has several possible sources of error, the information fed to governments did not show any such doubt. Thus, on the one hand, I am proud that scientists, despite their frustrations and despite their expressed email wishes and grumbles, reported the data along with the doubts. On the other hand, I am chagrined by the unethical and inappropriate actions of the United Nations. Frankly, I would rather see the ethics of the scientists reaffirmed and the ethics of the United Nations doubted than the reverse. We have always known politicians to be less than reliable and less than honest. But, we rely on scientific research far more than we do on politicians.

This will prompt some strong reevaluation by governments of how they deal with data. On the other hand, this does not fully support the global warming skeptics either. It is a mixed report and neither side is fully supported. Perhaps that is just as well.