Another 'Climategate' inquiry clears professors

An independent investigation of the British academics whose e-mails were at the center of the so-called "Climategate" scandal has cleared the researchers, The Guardian reports.

The panel found "absolutely no evidence of impropriety whatsoever," and said the science conducted by the researchers at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit was sound, according to the newspaper. The investigation noted record-keeping problems and chided the researchers for not using the best possible statistical techniques for some of its analysis.

Stolen e-mails leaked to the public around the time of the Copenhagen climate conference in December have been used by doubters of climate science to suggest that data were manipulated to show a more dramatic rise in global temperatures. One particular e-mail referred to a "trick" to "hide the decline" in global temperatures in a graph that merged data on tree rings with temperatures.

The Guardian, which has followed the case in minute detail, puts the e-mail phrases in context:

I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith [Briffa]'s, to hide the decline."

The decline being referred to was an apparent decline in temperatures shown in analysis of tree rings, which have historically correlated well with changes in temperature. That relationship has broken down in the past half century. The reasons are still debated.

The "trick" was a graphic device used by [Penn State University professor Mike] Mann in a 1998 paper in Nature to merge tree ring data from earlier times with thermometer data for recent decades. He explained it in the paper. Jones was repeating it in another paper. "This is a trick only in the sense of being a good way to deal with a vexing problem," Mann told the Guardian.

A House of Commons inquiry into the allegations also cleared the scientists.

Climate-science critics have leveraged the e-mails to cast doubt on the entirety of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that concluded that "most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase" in man-made greenhouse-gas concentrations.

-- Geoff Mohan

Related: Review panel clears researchers in 'Climategate' controversy

Comments

[John A. Jauregui]

Question: What are the chances an infinitesimal (.04%) trace gas (CO2), essential to photosynthesis and life on this planet, is responsible for runaway Global Warming?

Answer: Infinitesimal

The IPCC now agrees. See the IPCC Technical Report section entitled Global Warming Potential (GWP). And the GWP for CO2? Just 1, (one), unity, the lowest of all GHG. What’s more, all greenhouse gases combined constitute just 1% of the atmosphere. Of that 1%, water vapor, the most powerful greenhouse gas, makes ups 40% of the total. Carbon dioxide is 1/10th of that amount, an insignificant .04%. If carbon dioxide levels were cut in half to 200PPM, all plant growth would stop according to agricultural scientists. It's no accident that commercial green house owner/operators invest heavily in CO2 generators to increase production, revenues and profits. Prof. Michael Mann's Bristlecone tree proxy data proves nothing has done more to GREEN (verb) the planet over the past few decades than moderate sun-driven warming (see solar inertial motion) together with elevated levels of CO2, regardless of the source. None of these facts have been reported in the national media. Why?

[bofors]

Excuse me, did you really mean to type " independent investigation" with adding a qualifier like "ostensibly"?

Tell us, how did you possibly miss these facts about about Lord Oxburgh, the chief "investigator"?:

- Director of GLOBE, the Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment, which funds meetings for parliamentarians worldwide with an interest in climate change, and prior to the Copenhagen Summit GLOBE issued guidelines for legislators.

- Chairmanship of Falck Renewables, and chairmanship of Blue NG, a renewable power company.

- Advisor to Climate Change Capital, to the Low Carbon Initiative, Evo-Electric, Fujitsu, and an environmental advisor to Deutsche Bank.

What kind of a yellow journalist are you?