New ‘catastrophe’ climate report authored by discredited scientists

It couldn't have been a better case of worst timing – a long anticipated climate change scare report designed to boost public support for Copenhagen has been released amid a scandal that has destroyed its credibility before it even hit reporters' desks worldwide.

The Copenhagen Diagnosis, a round-up of the latest gut feeling 'science' about global warming, is co-authored by Michael Mann, inventor of the fake hockey stick temperature graph and star of the Climategate emails.

And not just him. Quite a few of the names on the list made an appearance in the emails in some way shape or fashion.

As I mentioned to a commenter in a previous thread, appeals to authority when the authors include anyone associated with Climategate just are not going to work any more:

Thomas, waving any kind of "summary" produced by members of "The Team" or their hangers on at the top echelons of climate science will, from now on, only get you laughed at I'm afraid.

None of these men have credibility, and their "peer reviewed" work is now officially suspect.

Sorry, them's the breaks.

I did ask Naish and Reisinger about the claims in this document (first raised two weeks ago at THAT briefing), particularly in regard to mass loss in Antarctica using GRACE, when to my knowledge GRACE does not give total coverage of the continent, and they decided not to answer.

Sorry. Alarmist studies have become the equivalent of bog paper in the eyes of most people this week. I'm not dismissing them out of hand, but frankly, how do we know we can trust the peer process they went through anymore?

You'd think, for example, that when the advisors to the UN IPCC boldly declared that modern warming was unprecedented, they would have more evidence behind the scenes than just reading chicken entrails and tea leaves. But no – check out Phil Jones' 'gut feeling':

Bottom line - their [sic] is no way the MWP (whenever it was) was as warm globally as the
last 20 years. There is also no way a whole decade in the LIA period was more than 1 deg C
on a global basis cooler than the 1961-90 mean. This is all gut feeling, no science, but
years of experience of dealing with global scales and varaibility. [sic]
Must got to Florence now. Back in Nov 1.
Cheers
Phil

Jones was wrong, incidentally. Despite his stomach churning, a number of studies have shown the MWP was warmer than now.

So how discredited are the men behind RealClimate and CRU?

The Guardian's George Monbiot, long a global warming sock puppet for these boys, has called on CRU director Phil Jones to do the only honourable thing left and resign, after his admission to TGIF last week that he was responsible for the emails.

Monbiot adds, and I quote:

I apologise. I was too trusting of some of those who provided the evidence I championed. I would have been a better journalist if I had investigated their claims more closely

The journal Scientific American, likewise, regards the conduct of the top climate scientists as a disgrace to science.

Little wonder, when yet another email displays just how casually CRU director Phil Jones sets himself up to "peer review" the work of his close colleagues – a blatant conflict of interest in my view:

From: Phil Jones <[email protected]>
To: "Folland, Chris" <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: FW: Temperatures in 2009
Date: Wed Jan 7 12:51:51 2009

Chris,
Apart from contacting Gavin and Mike Mann (just informing them)
you should appeal.
In essence it means that Real Climate is a publication.
If you do go to GRL I wouldn't raise the issue with them. Happy to
be a suggested reviewer if you do go to GRL.
Cheers
Phil
Chris,
Worth pursuing - even if only GRL.
Possibly worth sending a note to Gavin Schmidt at Real Climate
to say what Nature have used as a refusal!
Cheers
Phil
At 17:01 06/01/2009, you wrote:

How cosy it must be for the elite, knowing they will be favourably peer-reviewed by their friends as long as they keep paying homage to the human caused global warming scam.

Peer-review should be independent and objective. The scientist should never know, let alone be able to nominate, who reviews his or her papers. The lobbying, the schmoozing, the commonality of purpose, the use of their dominant clique to freeze out scientists they didn't agree with – this is why the Copenhagen Diagnosis is now worthless.

How do we even know it is accurate? Even their colleagues no longer trust Michael Mann, Jones and the rest of them:

Hans von Storch, editor at the time of "Climate Research," had his own objections to the paper mentioned by Dr. Mann, and resigned shortly after it was published, citing a breakdown in the peer-review process. But Dr. von Storch, now at the University of Hamburg's Meteorological Institute, said Monday that the behavior outlined in the hacked emails went too far.

East Anglia researchers "violated a fundamental principle of science," he said, by refusing to share data with other researchers. "They built a group to do gatekeeping, which is also totally unacceptable," he added. "They play science as a power game."

If their colleagues don't trust the scientists associated with The Copenhagen Diagnosis, why on earth should anyone else?

Comments

[Jan]

Is this why the Emission Trading Scheme in NZ and other countries are being rushed before the Copenhagen summit?

[anonymous]

Ian,
This may exist somewhere and maybe I just haven't seen it,but is there a summary anywhere of the funding that has gone to these scientists over the years to carry out their work. Not just Phil Jones etc, but all scientists involved in this scam?

[AcidComments]

Of Interest:

Climategate: hide the decline – codified

http://wattsupwiththat.com/
2009/11/25/climategate-hide-the-decline-codified/

[Thomas Everth]

Just for the record: The climate research and also the work of Mann is not discredited. To the contrary. For those who actually want to read past Ians bullying and posturing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy

Also the temperature record as described by the hockey stick was just recently vindicated by a completely different group:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=still-hotter-than-ever

Ian: Wishful thinking and shouting (howling at the moon) will not change anything.

[Ian Wishart]

Just for the record, under congressinal questioning the National Academy of Sciences people agree the Wegman report on Mann's hockey stick scandal was correct.

And Thomas, you may be unaware but Mann's colleague William Connolly is responsible for being Wikipedia's gatekeeper on climate change articles.

That would be "peer review" a work again right?

[Thomas Everth]

And on cherry picked quoting by Ian:

I read Monbiot's article from which Ian picks stuff:

"Climate sceptics have lied, obscured and cheated for years. That's why we climate rationalists must uphold the highest standards of science."

And further: "One of the most damaging emails was sent by the head of the climatic research unit, Phil Jones. He wrote "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

One of these papers which was published in the journal Climate Research turned out to be so badly flawed that the scandal resulted in the resignation of the editor-in-chief. Jones knew that any incorrect papers by sceptical scientists would be picked up and amplified by climate change deniers funded by the fossil fuel industry, who often – as I documented in my book Heat – use all sorts of dirty tricks to advance their cause."

[Thomas Everth]

It always pays to actually read the papers from which Ian quotes!

[Ian Wishart]

Thomas, let's take a little breath momentarily. The news value in Monbiot's words is not his usual behaviour of attacking skeptics. We all know that.

The news value is his attack on the dodgy scientists who pulled this stunt.

Anyone reading the article I linked to can get the full detail. The fact he still believes in AGW and hates skeptics doesn't change what he has said about the failings of CRU and co.

If you are going to criticise, try and keep a semblance of why all of us highlight new things.

[peter]

Very funny Thomas. Yes, howling at the moon is a favourite pastime for extreme right wing Christian fundamentalists.

Young earth creationists like Robk too, although to be fair Ian Wishart is not one of those.

Ian , I think you are an Intelligent Designer though are you not? And while not a young Earth creationist, you do believe in the literal truth of the entire bible still?

[Bamm Bamm]

ETS Ian?

Have the government people given it last rights yet?

[AcidComments]

"ETS Ian?

Have the government people given it last rights yet?"

Bamm Bamm.

Our pathetic pack of UN Loving tossers passed the ETS.

Nick Smith was always a lying creep IMO from way back.

Controversial ETS bill passed in urgency

Parliament voted 63 to 58 in favour of the climate change response bill early this evening after an acrimonious debate described by Climate Change Minister Nick Smith at one point as "rude and aggressive".

http://www.stuff.co.nz/
national/politics/3095679/Controversial-ETS-bill-passed-in-urgency

At least some of our OZ counterparts are kicking up a stink.

Ripples of Climategate? Liberal MP’s desert Turnbull in Australia over emissions trading scheme

http://wattsupwiththat.com/
2009/11/25/ripples-of-climategate-being-felt-worldwide-liberal-mps-desert-turnbull-in-australia-over-emissions-trading-scheme/

Liberals rebel over climate change and Malcolm Turnbull

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26406523-952,00.html

Kevin Rudd to force ETS vote amid Liberal turmoil

Mr Turnbull said the Liberal Party had agreed to a deal with Labor and must now follow through in good faith.

"We cannot be seen as a party of climate sceptics. We entered into a bargain. There was offer and there was acceptance.

After Liberal frontbencher Tony Abbott confirmed his resignation tonight, Senate leader Nick Minchin, Deputy leader Eric Abetz, Sophie Mirabella, Tony Smith were tipped to follow.

They join junior Liberal frontbenchers Mathias Corman, Mitch Fifield and Brett Mason who quit yesterday and opposition Senate whip Stephen Parry.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/tony-abbott-poised-to-resign-from-shadow-cabinet-over-ets/story-e6frgczf-1225804240855