Mann cleared, again

JA's version was funnier than yours.

Mann did get rapped for forwarding unpublished manuscripts without getting explicit permission from the authors. Which is about right, I think. You ought not do that, but it isn't worth any gnashing of teeth.

Anyway, the septics won't care, or rather, they'll have some fun with a couple Lindzen quotes.

Wasn't Lindzen paying attention?

[Remember, to keep L's self-image intact he has to be "above the fray" and indeed *not even interested*. L,I think, knows the real score - he isn't a McI - so he knew this was going to die into nothing, so in order to keep his dignity his reaction has to be something like "hmpf! what these whippersnappers get up to these days! still, who cares" -W]

_All available evidence_?

Sounds like an exagerated claim to me. In the context of the case under review, rather ironic.

It seems like, in the end, the biggest "crime" (and I admit to being duped by the "seriousness" climategate at first) - was that they seemed like dicks in some of their emails. Which is not too shocking in science. Imagine if Newton & Hooke had the ability to email - or heaven forfend, blog!

Carl: Fantastic idea for a series of blog posts! Newton blogging on Liebniz. Darwin on finches, etc and usw. I know it's been done in literature, but in blog format and informality?

Unfortunately Ari seems to have missed a very fundamental point - the sign-invariance one even though I hammered that several times.

That's true. I should have looked what others said about this before publishing that post.

But there's now an interesting situation. If the MEA algorithm really flips the negatively correlating proxies, then it might be that Tiljander proxies are flipped also. At least the relative X-ray density seems to correlate negatively with the recent instrumental temperature series, but I calculated that with a local measurement station data I fetched from GISS so I still have to check that using the same series as MEA did.

Carl C, yep. Not giving assholes the time of day makes you look like a dick -- to those that don't see the assholes for what they are.

More on Lindzen (and Morano): Both call the Mann exoneration a "whitewash". The difference is that Morano is way more over-the-top.

http://deepclimate.org/2010/07/02/morano-and-lindzen-mann-exoneration-a…

Lo and behold, Marc Morano of Climate Depot has come through right on schedule, even comparing Mann to disgraced investment fraudster Bernie Madoff and calling Mann the âposterboy of the corrupt and disgraced climate science echo chamberâ . And, the denialosphereâs star scientist, MIT meteorologist Richard Lindzen, has weighed in right behind him, echoing Moranoâs âwhitewashâ characterization.

Can the rest of the denialosphere be far behind? Oh, the sad - and presumably unintentional â irony of it all.

There - I put the italics on both paragraphs (scienblogs.com is a pain).

WMC,

My remark in Arthur's comments -- William Connolley's position is too subtle, nuanced, and complex for me to summarize -- refers in part to your acceptance of the uses of Tiljander's XRD and lightsum proxies in both Mann08 and Kaufman09.

In "Oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear," your fielded this question from commenter "Peter" --

Since Kaufman has issued a Corrigendum in which the upside down series is acknowledged, is he wrong or is Mann?

Your response was --

[He is right and Mann is right -W]

In Mann08, a higher value of the XRD proxy causes the reconstruction to report a higher temperature (than would be the case if that proxy had a lower value for that year). In contrast, in (corrected) Kaufman09, a higher value of the XRD proxy causes the reconstruction to report a lower temperature.

The same holds true for lightsum, as for XRD.

In my opinion, these two irreconcilable interpretations arose because the Tiljander proxies are not calibratable to the instrumental record, 1850-1995.

Mann08 failed to recognize that.

The point of the correction to Kaufman09 was for that later paper's authors to take this problem into account. To that end, they re-interpreted the Tiljander proxies, so that (1) they did not use the spurious correlation of the proxies to the 1850-1995 instrumental record, and (2) they altered the orientation of the XRD and lightsum proxies, such that they were consistent with the interpretation in Tiljander03 (i.e. such that higher proxy values correspond to lower temperatures).

I elaborated on the concept of "proxy orientation" in the post The Newly-Discovered Jarvykortta Proxy -- II.

These and related topics are being considered by Arthur Smith (Michael Mann's errors) and by Ari Jokimäki (Tiljander). I check those threads regularly, and would be willing to follow up at either place (so long as those hosts feel the discussion is on-topic).

I hope that helps clarify things.

Hi William,

I'm a little behind in my reading, but I thought the Lindzen bit was jolly too.

'When told that the first three allegations against Dr. Mann were dismissed at the inquiry stage of the RA-lO process, Dr. Lindzen's response was: "It's thoroughly amazing. I mean these are issues that he explicitly stated in the emails. I'm wondering what's going on?"'

I agree. At one point I started a list of my own of the number of provable acts of dishonesty and unethical conduct revealed plainly and unambiguously in the Climategate emails -- Mike Mann being by far the most consistently guilty party. I don't have the time to dig back through it all again right now, but I have to ask you guys (and I don't mean you personally but in fact all of you bloggers -- Romm, Gavin, Rabett and the rest) where you all think you're going with this?

[It is a shame that you don't make your exciting list available, but rather prefer to continue the innuendo and smears -W]

As politicians, you're must be all very good scientists...

[Sorry, that is incoherent. What are you trying to say? -W]

If you were politicians, you would have adopted a stance of distancing; moving forward; demonstrating lessons learnt; damage control in order to somehow regain the public trust. Instead, you've all joined hands and patted yourselves on the backs, apparently completely oblivious to the fact that these victories you're claiming are completely pyrrhic and serving nothing but to further alienate an already outraged general public.

[You need to get out more and stop reading the right-wing blogs so much, I think. Face it: the "mountain" of emails has turned into a molehill; the people you've relied on have turned out to have grossly exaggerated -W]

I know people from the general public and it's accepted as fact by all that Climategate was a scandal. Witness Jimmy Wales weighing in favour of this position in Wikipedia. Or the comedian Jon Stewart's take. You don't need to be a scientist to see that Mike Mann is a repugantly unethical individual. Phil Jones at least did the right thing, and showed contrition. Mann instead pointed the finger at Jones! Unbelievable.

[By golly! A comedian says we're all guilty? Then is must be true. Please, can *you* at least try to be serious?

But in one area I do agree with you: there was a scandal in this matter: that so many newspapers and blogs were fooled by a few determined septics into believing twaddle; even now that it has been revealed to be all nonsense you are still determined to believe these lies -W]

Climategate happened. Every time you bring it up -- "Mann is cleared again! And again! And again!" -- you simply state to the public that you haven't learnt a thing. The source material is there. Mann's behind the scenes lying is there, indelibly written into the historical record. Historians will come back to this and they'll judge him on the primary source material -- not Penn State whitewashes.

Guys, wake up...

[Ah, whitewash. I was waiting for you to say that. No comment on the affair from the septics is complete without an accusation of whitewash. What you mean is: we know the answer, because divine revelation has revealed it to us. You want people to keep having inquiries until you get one you like. Please, wake up -W]

"an already outraged general public"

Say what?

"Mann's behind the scenes lying is there"

Say what?

Could we have a little less wishful thinking, please?

William, I'm not going back through the Climategate emails again at this point, and I'm not going to clarify my typo, where my meaning was still clear. But I'll recall a single example from the Climategate letters: Mann acknowledges privately the validity of some of M&M's objections in one email and then in a later email to the press (Revkin) he asserts that their research is _completely_ fraudulent. That's called: lying. Don't you think? There were plenty of other examples. But look, who cares what I think? Why not see that so many other scientists -- Judith Curry, Hans von Storch, Eduardo Zorita, Roger Pielke Sr, Richard Lindzen, indeed all panelists from the MIT Climategate debate arrived at the same conclusion of unethical behaviour evidenced in the Climategate emails, so that included Kerry Emmanuel, Ron Prinn, and two social scientists whose names I can't recall. I mean, the list goes on. No one cares whether Mann's technically guilty of academic misconduct. Why continue to applaud what is an obvious lack of ethics? Who are you guys trying to kid? It's yourselves right?

[Alex, this is all a bit pointless: you're just mudflinging. If you actaully care about this you have to provide refs for your statements, not just half-remembered stuff.

As for the climategate debate, I think you're lying. I haven't listened to the video, but http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/climategate-story-1215.html says Kerry Emanuel, the Breene M. Kerr Professor of Meteorology, fears that Climategate was a âpremeditated distraction from the main issuesâ of climate science. Emanuel said heâs concerned with the identity and motives of the hackers, citing the very rich âmachineâ of global warming deniers as a possible culprit. As for the e-mails, he thinks they show nothing more than âhumans â a few with failings. Mostly, it shows scientists hard at work.â

So, do you still maintain your words? Please, next time actually give sources -W]

I also hope you're able to complete that incomplete thought of mine in that stream of consciousness style response that just came out, as well as the previous typo (or let us edit comments after posting). :)

I'm looking forward to seeing you attempt to support your blatantly libelous allegations against Mann, Alex. It had better be good. Facts matter.

While Alex frantically scrambles through stolen emails to find support for his gross libel of Michael Mann, a word from me about the rest of the week.

In December the University of East Anglia commissioned Muir Russell to head an inquiry into allegations of impropriety made by some people who read the stolen emails. The inquiry got going in early spring and received two tranches of public submissions in April. Its scope is to examine the emails and any other data held by the Climatic Research Unit for evidence of any unethical tampering or suppression of evidence, to review procedures for data handling and ensure they comply with best practice, to review compliance with the University's FOIA procedures, and to review and make recommendations on data integrity and security.

I expect the inquiry, which delivers its report on Wednesday, to clarify a lot of subjects on which I and a number of other cautious people have been unable to comment for lack of pertinent information. Let's wait and see.

[I'd forgotten about MR. Will be interesting -W]

On her "Adventures in ethics and science" blog, Janet D. Stemwede provides a an interesting and scholarly summary of the inquiry report released last Thursday, July 1.

It's in three parts, the first two of which she has already posted.

http://scienceblogs.com/ethicsandscience/2010/07/in_search_of_accepted_…

http://scienceblogs.com/ethicsandscience/2010/07/in_search_of_accepted_…

You'll have to fish around for the third parrt, whenever it's published.

The usually yelling and screaching idiots haven't yet found that blog so it's a very sedate affair.

--) Emails:

1107899057.txt:
Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2005 15:54:15 -0500
To: Andy Revkin
From: "Michael E. Mann"
Subject: Re: FW: "hockey stock" methodology misleading
Hi Andy,
The McIntyre and McKitrick paper is pure scientific fraud. I think you'll find this
reinforced by just about any legitimate scientist in our field you discuss this with.

By 4th Feb 2005 Mann knew this statement was false. How do I know?

1108399027.txt, private correspondence between Tom Wigley and Mike Mann, Wigley to Mann:

Re WSJ. They say ...
"Statistician Francis Zwiers of Environment Canada, a government agency,
says he now agrees that Dr. Mann's statistical method "preferentially
produces hockey sticks when there are none in the data."
Dr. Mann, while agreeing that his mathematical method tends to find
hockey-stick shapes, says this doesn't mean its results in this case are
wrong. Indeed, Dr. Mann says he can create the same shape from the
climate data using completely different math techniques."

Note, Dr. mann agrees, 14th Feb 2005 that 'his mathematical method tends to find hockey-stick shapes'. Wigley says it is 'worrying' that 'Statistician Francis Zwiers of Environment Canada' agrees with M&M 'but it seems that you do too.' Mann in his response then directs Wigley to... William Connolley's Wikipedia page, and shrugs this off. He says, 'it clear that the take-home point is robust'.

It is quite clear that Mann knew these statements to Andy Revkin accusing them, libelously Tony Sidaway, of 'pure scientific fraud' were in fact falsehoods.

--) MIT Climategate Debate: watch it.

And yes, my timeline was off (14th Feb is, to be sure, 10 days after 4th Feb, even though the emails appear in a different order in the FOIA.zip due to parts of them being there because others forwarded/replied to them). The email of 14th couldn't, therefore, be held up as evidence in court as 'proof' that he was lying. However, there is overwhelming evidence earlier in the dump that he knew by 4th Feb 2005 that there was slightly more to M&M than 'pure scientific fraud'. No amount of spinning is ever going to remove this. Perhaps I'll dig some more to see what can be deductively 'proved'.

[Errm, so is that it? Your very best evidence is that he might have lied to a journalist? -W]

Like William, I'm unimpressed by this, Alex. Please don't abuse public forums to conduct libelous smear campaigns if you don't want to be seen as an odious twat and treated accordingly.

I will return to the subject matter of William's posting, and to the broader issue, in a couple of days, after the Muir Russell investigation has delivered its report and I have had time to digest it.

For completeness, here is a link to the third in the series of postings by Janet D. Stemwede summarising the content of the July 1, 2010 on ethics charges against Dr. Mann, which completely vindicated him on the charges.

http://scienceblogs.com/ethicsandscience/2010/07/in_search_of_accepted_…

Please see my earlier postings for links to the first two parts.

>Errm, so is that it? Your very best evidence is that he might
>have lied to a journalist? -W

And that is precisely my point. By celebrating Mann's victory you're now dangerously close to suggesting that, amongst many other things, it's okay to lie to journalists. "Who cares, eh, if you lie to a mere journalist occasionally? We're all righteous Greens after all!" Are you happy with that impression?

[I think what you're demonstrating is an inability to read what people write, so it isn't suprising you're confused on these many issues. I didn't say lying was good. We all learn at our mothers knee while she bakes apple pie that lying is bad. We also know full well that we all lie when the occaision suits us, as do our politicians. Attemptnig an absolute moral prohibition on lying is absurd.

What I said, and I'll say it again in the hope that you might understand, is that you really need, after all this time and effort, to have come up with something *better* than that. You need falsifiction of data, etc etc, and you have *none* of that. Your lot - the septic side - has persisently overblown this issue for its own ends.

And before you say "but they aren't my side" please explain why you show such a total lack of interest in the many proven errors in the UAH MSU record - errors which *did* affect the political process badly. Somehow you and all the fake "auditers" care nothing about that -W]

And his page here http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/myths-vs-fact-reg…, still _today_, over five years later, the first ranking page on google if one types in the keywords 'Mann hockey stick', repeats the same lies!

[I'm not aware of any lies on that page. You can, if you wish, quote statements you think are wrong there - that would be better than this constant repetition of the word "lie" in an effort to make mud stick -W]

William,

This discussion has become intriguing.

> I didn't say lying was good. We all learn at
> our mother's knee while she bakes apple pie
> that lying is bad. We also know full well
> that we all lie when the occasion suits us,
> as do our politicians. Attempting an absolute
> moral prohibition on lying is absurd.

You appear to be saying -- i.e. the cynicism suggested in '[w]e all learn at our mother's knee while she bakes apple pie' -- that it's a 'pie in the sky' ideal to aspire not to lie (acknowledging that you *could* mean something else).

But the next bit makes that sympathetic reading harder to accept. 'We also know full well that we all lie when the occasion suits us, as do our politicians'. I would define this as 'opportunistic lying'. We do *not* all do that. Indeed, in my professional experience it's very uncommon. No one is perfect, of course, and I am fallible in many ways, but 'thou shalt not lie' is ingrained more deeply into our collective psyche. I forgive many things, but draw the line at personal dishonesty.

[Nonsense. I lie to my children: I told them that Father Christmas was going to bring them presents. This is commonplace. Or do you not classify that as lying? -W]

You continue, 'Attempting an absolute moral prohibition on lying is absurd.' At this point, is this really what you mean? I'll say nothing further to give you the chance to clarify.

[Yes. See the above -W]

You continue:

> Your lot - the septic side - has persisently
> overblown this issue for its own ends.
>
> And before you say "but they aren't my side"
> please explain why you show such a total lack
> of interest in the many proven errors in the
> UAH MSU record - errors which *did* affect
> the political process badly. Somehow you and
> all the fake "auditers" care nothing about
> that.

You presume a great deal here. The UAH controversy dates to around 2005 right?

[Wrong. It dates back far before then -W]

In the 2004 Australian general election, I was busily being outraged by our then prime minister John Howard's apparently stubborn refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol (amongst many other things he did that angered me). I voted from the Greens in the Senate and for Labor in the lower house -- as I had voted more or less in all elections since 1993, when I first enrolled to vote. Since 2002 I have financially supported the WWF and UNICEF as much as I can comfortably afford. I still do that, despite my global warming skepticism (although I can no longer vote for the Greens).

It wasn't until mid-2006 that my team leader, a retired geophysicist, blurted out one evening over drinks that 'global warming is complete nonsense'. That marks the point at which I became curious about the climate change debate, because I have a background in history and philosophy of science, and scientific controversies fascinate me.

By the end of 2006 I had become deeply skeptical -- largely after reading Lindzen's 2005 paper, 'Understand common climate claims'. I couldn't find any faults in the paper myself, and scientists who I pressed the matter with evaded the questions.

[AFAIK you've never brought this up before. I don't know the paper. Is it exciting? Is it... this one?. If so, Predictions based on these models are greatly in excess of what has been observed. Thus, if predictions based on these models are correct (after all stopped watches are right twice a day), then manâs greenhouse emissions have accounted for about 6 times the observed warming over the past century with some unknown processes canceling the difference is in there and is twaddle. As you well know, the GCMs match reality well -W]

I am not a 'septic', and feel 'skeptic' even is mischaracterising my position. The destruction of our environment deeply upsets me. I have the view that climate change alarm diverts all attention from the non-hypothetical challenges where real action could produce real results, and quickly. Logging of old-growth forests in Australia could be stopped, but the federal government can politically only prioritise a few issues if they are to retain any hope of remaining in power (and of course they can't achieve anything if they don't retain power -- the conservatives would get back in). The koala is nearly extinct in my state of New South Wales. And that's because we've cut down all their trees. The issues they've prioritised are climate change, and fighting the Japanese on scientific whaling. I blame the scientists for this.

[Yeah yeah yeah. But you're confused: your logic is about as convincing as Bellamy's (his is "(1) I don't like wind farms (2) wind farms are there partly to stop GW (3) therefore GW is false". Your logic is "there are problems more important than GW therefore GW is false" (I caricature) -W]

On the UAH controversy, I am not aware of any suggestions that Christy et al. did anything other than make an honest mistake, as is normal in the progress of science -- although I must disclaim that as it was before my time, I'm not fully across the details of the dispute. As far as I know, UAH fully cooperated with the RSS team that was set up to have their datasets independently checked, and they promptly conceded their error when it was uncovered. Thus, they still enjoy a very good professional relationship with the RSS team -- as well as the respect of most scientists. What is it that we should be 'auditing' today? They are regarded by both sides as quite reliable, correct?

[See - you don't care. You obsess over Mann et al. and as for UAH *you just don't care*. What explains this disparity of interest? I think, it is the lies you've been fed. You have the dates wrong. As for the full cooperation: no: for *years* UAH were issuing erroneous data, without any release of their code (as far as I know it still isn't), which was being abused by the Bushy type politicians, and which both S and C were hyping to congress. As for the "regarded as quite reliable" - this too is very clearly indicative of your biases. The early S+C UAH series is trash. No-one usues it. *Unlike* MBH98-99 which is still quite usable. However, you refuse to judge them on the early stuff, only on the corrected version. You don't do the same to MBH -W]

Finally I have to note that you've *silently* edited my last post, and taken what was a careful, considered response, and left the appearance of a frivolous, half-hearted one. That's really disappointing. If you posted at Steve McIntyre's blog, or at Anthony Watts' blog, or at Lucia Liljegren's blog, they would never do that to you.

[WTF are you on about? You previous comment in this thread, July 7, 2010 7:33 PM, is unedited except I've added comments. Your previous comment, as far as I can see, is this. Ditto. Please clarify -W]

Best,
Alex

>WTF are you on about? You previous comment in
>this thread, July 7, 2010 7:33 PM, is unedited
>except I've added comments. Your previous
>comment, as far as I can see, is this. Ditto.
>Please clarify

My humble apologies, I'm over worked presently and completely forgot I wrote separate comments. Guess I'm getting a little paranoid. Anyhow.

>Nonsense [on lying]. I lie to my children: I
>told them that Father Christmas was going to
>bring them presents. This is commonplace. Or
>do you not classify that as lying?

I do not classify it as 'opportunistic lying', I do not regard it as unethical, and neither do you. It is not lying to a journalist about your professional enemies. You know full well this is no comparison.

[Fine: this is as I suspected. You, like everyone else, make a distinction: sometimes when you don't tell the truth it is technically lying but no-one cares. This is why saying "look! look! he was lying. Therefore he was bad" makes no sense. Context is all -W]

>Wrong. [The UAH controversy] dates back far before [2005].

It had resolved itself by around 2005 though right? What I'm trying to say is that this was before my time. I wasn't following the debate at that stage. I simply accepted in those days as a matter of fact that humans were causing global warming. Now, there is no controversy. More on this below.

[Well, that depends who you are. There are plenty of CA readers who would disagree. Prez Bush would disagree. But scientifically, yes -W]

>Yeah yeah yeah. But you're confused: ... Your
>logic is "there are problems more important
>than GW therefore GW is false" (I caricature)

You don't caricature; you presume -- and wrongly.

>See - you don't care. You obsess over Mann et
>al. and as for UAH *you just don't care*. What
>explains this disparity of interest? I think,
>it is the lies you've been fed. You have the
>dates wrong. As for the full cooperation: no:
>for *years* UAH were issuing erroneous data,
>without any release of their code (as far as I
>know it still isn't), which was being abused
>by the Bushy type politicians, and which both
>S and C were hyping to congress. As for the
>"regarded as quite reliable" - this too is
>very clearly indicative of your biases. The
>early S+C UAH series is trash. No-one usues
>it. *Unlike* MBH98-99 which is still quite
>usable. However, you refuse to judge them on
>the early stuff, only on the corrected
>version. You don't do the same to MBH.

You are right that I don't care and I've given already a very good reason why I don't care. I don't care, because this matter is resolved. It is just history now. The matter of Mann et al. -- the matter of their *attitude* -- is not resolved. As I said, S & C are respected by their colleagues at RSS. They made a mistake and this mistake is acknowlegded by all. Even the likes of Monckton! There is simply nothing here to discuss. The Mann vs McIntyre dispute on the other hand is far from resolved. We still have blog warfare damaging the fabric of your science daily. Grenades lobbed from one side to the other without any genuine attempts at engagement. (Well, to be fair, most of the grenades come from McI but his expertise is impressive and his points often deserve answers that we never get.)

[No, you're wrong again. McI etc etc are still obsessing over a 1998 paper. If the S+C error is now uninteresting because too old, so is MBH'98 -W]

Contrast the unedifying RealClimate vs Climate Audit warfare with UAH vs RSS civility. It's chalk and cheese. One shows scientists being professionals, the other reveals scientists appearing to behave like children.

[Err, you've lost me there. UAH admitted, mostly, that RSS was right (they still quibble mind you: the UAH series has a lower trend than RSS). But taht was a disagreement between scientists, in the scientific literature. Comparing that to a discussion on blogs is very odd. I admit you're right: McI is freuently rude and offensive, but I don't see why you blame RC for that. You'r attempted "everyone is being childish" framing is just carelessness on your part: you can't be bothered to work out who is right -W]

*This* is my point.

As for me, the layperson, I just want the truth. But since all of McIntyre's criticism go unanswered, the *impression* will remain that RealClimate are hiding things from us. Thus, my skepticism endures.

[McI's criticism has been answered, multiple times. If you haven't read it yet, what is the point of repeating? -W]