Muir Russell Report: Jones and the CRU Vindicated (Again)

This afternoon the Muir Russell led Independent Climate Change Email Review delivered it’s report. This is the last and most extensive of the investigations set up in the wake of the Climactic Research Unit email hack/leak which occurred last November (to conveniently become an international news scandal casting doubt on the scientific basis of anthropogenic climate change just before world leaders held the COP15 conference to negotiate – or rather fail to negotiate – a successor to the Kyoto Protocol).

The other investigations, by the House of Commons select committee, the Oxburgh Report, and the  inquiry by Penn State University into the conduct of Michael Mann, one of the scientists prominently featured in the emails, had all previously  found that Phil Jones and the CRU had not falsified data, engaged in research misconduct, or corrupted the peer review process as had been claimed by climate sceptics and mainstream media outlets (ranging from the Daily Mail to the Guardian in terms of political affiliation).

So what has the Muir Russell investigation concluded? Well…

Climate science is a matter of such global importance, that the highest standards of honesty, rigour and openness are needed in its conduct. On the specific allegations made against the behaviour of CRU scientists, we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt. In addition, we do not find that their behaviour has prejudiced the balance of advice given to policy makers. In particular, we did not find any evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments.
On the allegation of withholding temperature data, we find that CRU was not in a position to withhold access to such data or tamper with it. We demonstrated that any independent researcher can download station data directly
from primary sources and undertake their own temperature trend analysis.
On the allegation of biased station selection and analysis, we find no evidence of bias. Our work indicates that analysis of global land temperature trends is robust to a range of station selections and to the use of adjusted or unadjusted data. The level of agreement between independent analyses is such that it is highly unlikely that CRU could have acted improperly to reach a predetermined outcome. Such action would have required collusion with multiple scientists in various independent organisations which we consider highly improbable.
The overall implication of the allegations was to cast doubt on the extent to which CRU‟s work in this area could be trusted and should be relied upon and we find no evidence to support that implication.

The central implication of the allegations here is that in carrying out their work, both in the choices they made of data and the way in which it was handled, CRU scientists intended to bias the scientific conclusions towards a specific result and to set aside inconvenient evidence. More specifically, it was implied in the allegations that this should reduce the confidence ascribed to the conclusions in Chapter 6 of the IPCC 4th Report, Working Group 1 (WG1). We do not find that the way that data derived from tree rings is described and presented in IPCC AR4 and shown in its Figure 6.10 is misleading. In particular, on the question of the composition of temperature reconstructions, we found no evidence of exclusion of other published temperature reconstructions that would show a very different picture. The general discussion of sources of uncertainty in the text is extensive, including reference to divergence. In this respect it represented a significant advance on the IPCC Third AssessmentReport (TAR).

On the allegation that the phenomenon of “divergence” may not have been properly taken into account when expressing the uncertainty associated with reconstructions, we are satisfied that it is not hidden and that the subject is openly and extensively discussed in the literature, including CRUpapers.

On the allegations in relation to withholding data, in particular concerning the small sample size of the tree ring data from the Yamal peninsula, CRU did not withhold the underlying raw data (having correctly directed the single request to the owners). But it is evidently true that access to the raw data was not simple until it was archived in 2009 and that this delay can rightly be criticized on general principles. In the interests of transparency, we believe that CRU should have ensured that the data they did not own, but on which their publications relied, was archived in a more timely way.

On the allegations that there was subversion of the peer review or editorial process we find no evidence to substantiate this in the three instances examined in detail. On the basis of the independent work we commissioned (see Appendix 5) on the nature of peer review, we conclude that it is not uncommon for strongly opposed and robustly expressed positions to be taken up in heavily contested areas of science. We take the view that such behaviour does not in general threaten the integrity of peer review or publication.

On the allegations that in two specific cases there had been a misuse by CRU scientists of the IPCC process, in presenting AR4 to the public and policy makers, we find that the allegations cannot be upheld. In addition to taking evidence from them and checking the relevant records of the IPCC process, we have consulted the relevant IPCC review Editors. Both the CRU scientists were part of large groups of scientists taking joint responsibility for the relevant IPCC Working Group texts, and were not in a position to determine individually the final wording and content.

So in line with the other three reports, the Muir Russell inquiry’s main findings are that 1) The CRU scientists are honest researchers 2) The various allegations of data manipulation and/or fraud are entirely baseless 3) The HadCRU temp record has not been tampered with, and that any competent researcher could reproduce the CRU’s results. Essentially this is another through vindication of the work undertaken by Jones and the CRU.

However, despite entirely clearing Jones and the CRU of the major accusations leveled at them by bloggers and journalists over the past nine months, it did make some criticisms of the way the CRU and UEA had acted with regards to complying with FoI requests, reporting that

But we do find that there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness, both on the part of the CRU scientists and on the part of the UEA, who failed to recognise not only the significance of statutory requirements but also the risk to the reputation of the University and, indeed, to the credibility of UK climate science.

and that

On the allegation that CRU does not appear to have acted in a way consistent with the spirit and intent of the FoIA or EIR, we find that there was unhelpfulness in responding to requests and evidence that e-mails might have been deleted in order to make them unavailable should a subsequent request be made for them. University senior management should have accepted more responsibility for implementing the required processes for
FoIA and EIR compliance.

It must be remembered when contemplating what the findings of the report mean, that the allegations against Jones and the CRU which had been widely disseminated across both the Internet and print media, were that they had falsified data to make their results concur with a preconceived position, that they had corrupted the peer review process preventing scientists with alternative views from having their work published in prestigious journals, that they had infiltrated and distorted the IPCC so that the IPCC’s major reports reflected their alarmist position (based on their falsified data) and that the CRU email leak was a smoking gun which laid bare the fraudulent work of these dishonest scientists. The Muir Russell report’s findings on all of these charges are that these claims are entirely baseless. That is (or ought to be) the story here.

The international ‘scandal’ surrounding the CRU leak was most certainly not based around the notion that honest, credible scientists who otherwise worked within best practices were based at an institution which didn’t deal entirely correctly with freedom of information requests made by bloggers they didn’t like (due to a history of the bloggers making inaccurate claims about their work). The headlines were based around the notion that the scandal cast doubt upon whether the planet was in fact warming as a result of human activity, not around how senior management at a university dealt with FoI requests.

As Raymond Bradley, director of the Climate System Research Center at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst states with regard to the scandal and the subsequent inquiries

The report by Sir Muir Russell et al confirms what everybody who has worked with Phil Jones and Keith Briffa knew all along – they are honest, hard-working scientists whose reputations have been unjustifiably smeared by allegations of unscrupulous behaviour. These allegations are soundly rejected by the report. If there is a scandal to be reported at all, it is this: the media stoked a controversy without properly investigating the issues, choosing to inflate trivialities to the level of an international scandal, without regard for the facts or individuals affected. This was a shameful chapter in the history of news reporting, and a lesson for those who are concerned about fair and honest communication with the public.

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Climategate: More Garbage from the Guardian

Yesterday I wrote about the Penn State University investigation into Michael Mann’s research conduct which stemmed from the Climate Research Unit email hack widely known as Climategate, and criticising media outlets such as the Guardian, which gave a huge amount of coverage to the ‘scandal’ whilst then failing to give anything like equal attention to the three subsequent investigations which have found that there was no research misconduct on the part of climate scientists, and absolutely no evidence of fraud, data manipulation or inventing climate change to receive funding money.

Today, Fred Pearce, who wrote an utterly abysmal 10 part special on Climategate for the Guardian, and has now written a book on the subject, has a new piece linked off the front page of the paper. Shockingly, this latest piece on Climategate repeats the claims that

Critics say the emails reveal evasion of freedom of information law, secret deals done during the writing of reports for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a cover-up of uncertainties in key research findings and the misuse of scientific peer review to silence critics.

However Pearce decides to entirely omit from his report that three independent investigations have found every one of these claims not to be true. One would have thought that mentioning that the scientists have now been vindicated by three separate investigations into the accusations Pearce restates would be an important part of the story, but apparently this is not the case. He does mention the Muir Russell investigation, the fourth inquiry which is due to report its findings on Wednesday, and then says that

whatever Sir Muir Russell, the chairman of the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland, concludes on these charges, senior climate scientists say their world has been dramatically changed by the affair.

Unbelievably it would seem that Fred Pearce thinks that it doesn’t matter whether climate scientists are guilty of research misconduct, fraudulently manipulating data or any of the other charges of which they have been accused. In the surreal world of the mainstream media, what matters is not the facts surrounding the issue, and certainly not the results of independent investigations into these matters, but the number of bogus accusations already made by journalists and bloggers.

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