Climategate whitewash excoriated by climate scientists Judith Curry

While bloggers like OpenParachute's Ken Perrott and Hot Topic's Gareth Renowden have tried to claim vindication from the Oxburgh whitewash, many actual scientists have seen the 'inquiry' for the scam that it is.

America's Judith Curry is one of those:

Criticisms of the Oxburgh report that have been made include:  bias of some of the members including the Chair, not examining the papers that are at the heart of the controversies, lack of consideration of the actual criticisms made by Steve McIntyre and others, and a short report with few specifics that implies a superficial investigation.  When I first read the report, I thought I was reading the executive summary and proceeded to look for the details;  well, there weren’t any. And I was concerned that the report explicitly did not address the key issues that had been raised by the skeptics. Upon reading Andrew Montford’s analysis, I learned:  “So we have an extraordinary coincidence – that both the UEA submission to the [UK Parliament's Science and Technology]  Select Committee and Lord Oxburgh’s panel independently came up with almost identical lists of papers to look at, and that they independently neglected key papers like Jones 1998 and Osborn and Briffa 2006.” I recall reading this statement from one of the blogs, which seems especially apt:  the fire department receives report of a fire in the kitchen; upon investigating the living room, they declare that there is no fire in the house.

There's far more at the Curry link above.

Comments

[AcidComments]

Yep.

Lord Oxburgh being a Club of Rome Stoolie. Along with a number of these Charaltan Icons behind the whole AGW/CC movement.

A typical Old Boy keep it in the family 'Whitewash' Job.

[Geoff]

Judith Curry's comments on Realclimate are a bit of an eye opener

http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=3846#comment-171284

It's interesting to see both Judith Curry and Peter Webster interacting with the Bishop Hill blog.

[Geoff]

Following on from above, Judith C says this in reference to the "dark side"
(the sceptics)

"my conclusion will be that the minds seem to be more open on the “dark side”.

Now, looking at some of the comments recently on HT and OP, I can agree with this.

For example, check out this little diatribe:

http://openparachute.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/climate-scientist-sues-newspaper-for-false-reporting/#comment-15851

[Ken]

BREAKING NEWS: Ian Wishart has commented on the climategate inquiries!!!!!

Taken you a while, hasn't it Ian? Did your mates in the ACT Party and The NZ Centre for Political Research order you to ignore these?? Hoping they would go away?

Suspicious that neither you or Richard Treadgold could bring yourself to comment. Even to repeat the "whitewash" stories that abound amongst the hysterical deniergate blogs.

And what miserable dregs do you trawl up? And even then you have to be careful to avoid quoting - for example:
"Even with the deficiencies of the Oxburgh report, I don’t disagree with their conclusion about finding no evidence of scientific misconduct: I haven’t seen any evidence of plagiarism or fabrication/falsification of data by the CRU scientists."

Just can't bring yourself to say it can you.

Climategate is a sham.

[(not so) Silent]

"Climategate is a sham."

Ken, are you saying all those emails are forgeries?

[Geoff]

Google says:

Results 1 - 6 of 6 for "Climategate is a sham". (0.32 seconds)

I guess Ken's post will make that 7

[Geoff]

Ian,
You might want to check out Tom Fullers latest piece on the Oxburgh/Mafia link.

http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2010m4d24-Global-warming-The-Oxburgh-Incident-and-the-Italian-Job

[singularian]

Ian - have you checked out Claes Johnsons site?

You should have a look too Ken, you might learn something, from a real scientist.

Anyone interested in the maths behind the IPCCs dire predictions should have a read.

[Ken]

Singularian - had a look at Johnson's site. Psuedoscience. Naive denier claptrap trying to put a sciency veneer on their denial.

Come on, surely you don't find this sort of rubbish satisfying? There is plenty of good stuff around. You could start with Andy Reisinger's book "Climate Science 101"

[AcidComments]

"plenty of good stuff around. You could start with Andy Reisinger's book "Climate Science 101""

Andy is a joke and a real pseudo scientist. IMO. He's Untrustworthy.

Heard some of his rubbish once again on National Radio last week. Same old out dated boring AGW/CC Propaganda rubbish of no real scientific significance. Going on about the completely inaccurate 'voodoo pulp fiction imagination science' Going on about this 'make believe science' of trying to keep temps from rising above 2C.

[Leon]

I have been hearing lots of people out and about commenting on how unusually warm it is for April.
Everything is now becoming weird or a cause for concern when it comes to the weather.
Mild weather often lasts through until the end of May.Do any of them know how to read a weather map? if so they would see we have had a large number of large high pressure systems over the country(a blocking high). Nope we need to pay more taxes to the IMF NOW!

[singularian]

Ha ha Ken - I find it interesting that in 16 minutes you can dismiss the thoughts of Claes Johnson, Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.

Not only do you dismiss them you also, in your indepth analysis of the mathematical equations he's using, show him to be completely wrong.

Your welding of 'Naive denier claptrap' is masterful. You truly are one of the great minds of our time.

16 minutes.

Just amazing.

[Ian Wishart]

Ken...you are truly hopeless.

The Climategate inquiry was a whitewash, as originally predicted, admitting through gritted teeth only the deficiencies that would be too embarrassing to ignore, such as the utter incompetence of climate scientists on statistical issues.

This, incidentally, has been one of my attack lines on NIWA that you carefully avoid. Climate scientists appear to have reinvented statistics - without reference to professionals - to justify how they do things.

NIWA told me its metholdology in regard to temp stations is "international best practice", which explains why CRU and Michael Mann have been ridiculed for not understanding even rudimentary statistical maths - the lot of them are flying blind.

The Climategate emails disclosed a criminal offence in regard to attempting to hide data from scrutiny, and the Oxburgh inquiry found that CRU didn't know how to handle the data it was trying to hide anyway.

That was obvious to the rest of us from the Harry-read-me.txt file.

Now, when are you going to front with an email - any email - that shows you asking a tough question of a NIWA scientist?

PS...don't make me laugh in regard to Reisinger. I caught him out misleading the media about climate change at the SMC briefing, and that's why my microphone was cut mid question.

[Geoff]

Seth Robert's blog draws some interesting comparisons with the Madoff case

http://www.blog.sethroberts.net/2010/04/24/harry-markopolos-meet-stephen-mcintyre/

Funny how Michael Mann only wants to chase the videos, not the real meat.

[Ken]

Ah, That's better Ian. More like what I expected. Grab the stats comment from the report and distort it. That is more your usual style. It's what other hysterical deniers have been up to.

Why has it taken you so long, though?

You have wasted all that time.

[Geoff]

Who are the "hysterical deniers" that Ken refers to?

[Geoff]

Tom Fuller is continuing on the Italian job over at WUWT

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/25/global-warming-the-oxburgh-inquiry-was-an-offer-he-couldnt-refuse/

[Geoff]

And yet more from Fuller in his interview with Richard Tol.

Prof Tol is not exactly an hysterical denier:

Quote:
"
Professor Tol: Climate change is a problem that should be solved. We cannot let the planet get warmer and warmer. There should be a carbon tax, which should be modest at present but rise steadily and predictably over time."

However, he interprets the Oxburgh exquiry thus:

Quote:
Professor Tol: The Oxburgh report confirms that the CRU is disorganised and not competent in statistical methods. As most of what they do is database management and statistical analysis, this is a harsh verdict"

http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2010m4d21-Global-warming-Examiner-exclusive-interview-with-Richard-Tol-IPCC-was-captured

[singularian]

Well Geoff - in regards to this thread - you'd have to say that Ken is the hysterical denier... wouldn't you?

I'm interested in where he thinks Claes Johnson is getting his maths wrong.

In fact I challenge Ken to tell us all - where the equations used by Professor Johnson are wrong.

He has dismissed it as Psuedoscience so I'm sure he can point out the flaws.

How about it Ken?

[Geoff]

I don't think it helps to provoke a flame war.
However, Richard Tol's comments show that it is possible to be openly critical of the IPCC and the CRU, and yet still pursue the AGW agenda.

Until this is acknowledged then I really can't see anyway out of this trench warfare mentality.