December 2009

Let’s Not Call the Whole Thing Off

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent on December 2, 2009

in Blog

What does Senate Environment and Public Works chairwoman (I assume she doesn’t want to be called “chairman”) Barbara Boxer call Climategate?

“You call it ‘Climategate’; I call it ‘E-mail-theft-gate,'” she said during a committee meeting. “Whatever it is, the main issue is, Are we facing global warming or are we not? I’m looking at these e-mails, that, even though they were stolen, are now out in the public.”

Boxer showed her passion for law-and-order at today’s committee meeting.

Boxer said her committee may hold hearings into the matter as its top Republican, Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.), has asked for, but that a criminal probe would be part of any such hearings.

“We may well have a hearing on this, we may not. We may have a briefing for senators, we may not,” Boxer said. “Part of our looking at this will be looking at a criminal activity which could have well been coordinated.

“This is a crime,” Boxer said.

Considering that a lot of Climategate has to do with the muzzling of scientists that hold views contrary to alarmism, you might think the honorific-conscious senator would be concerned about the exclusion of their research from professional journals. After all, nearly four years ago she demanded an investigation into the Bush administration’s alleged silencing of NASA’s James Hansen:

In light of recent reports that the Bush Administration attempted to severely restrict NASA’s top climate scientist Dr. James E. Hansen from discussing his scientific findings on global warming, U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) today urged two Senate Committees to investigate the extent of the Administration’s efforts to censor scientists for political purposes.

Got that? TWO committees!! For ONE guy! Who lied about it!

Mann’s Mad Money

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent on December 2, 2009

in Blog

Since watching the Climategate scandal explode a week before Thanksgiving, debris from the mushroom cloud has rained upon the earth, and there are hints that some folks (other than me and my fellow climate realists) are getting curious about how the alarmists are funded. It used to be the narrative of the formerly mainstream media, when they deemed it worthy to include perspective from the “skeptic” side, always came with a “financed by Big Oil” disclaimer — whether it was true or not. Meanwhile the warmists’ financial gain from the game was irrelevant in the media’s eyes.

It’s been widely reported in the blogosphere about the millions of dollars in grants that East Anglia CRUnit director Phil Jones collected for his climate modeling, but so far I haven’t seen much detail about his fellow email correspondents. What about ’em?

Inarguably the next-largest culprit is Michael Mann, Mr. Nature Trick, who is not to be confused with the Nature Boy or the other “Heat“-making Mann. He has had his grants available for public viewing for a while, so I’m surprised I’ve not seen those spread around the ‘Net. They are right there listed in his curriculum vitae.

In these days of skulduggery and hack-for-a-hack frontier justice on the Wild, Wild, Web, it’s a good idea to replicate things. You never know when public records on display at a public university might suddenly disappear. So for the benefit of those interested in climate science transparency and even Mr. Mann himself (“I would be disappointed if the university wasn’t doing all [it] can to get as much information as possible” about the controversy), I will list here his funded proposals since 2006 from his CV:

2009-2013 Quantifying the influence of environmental temperature on transmission of vector-borne diseases, NSF-EF [Principal Investigator: M. Thomas; Co-Investigators: R.G. Crane, M.E. Mann, A. Read, T. Scott (Penn State Univ.)] $1,884,991

2009-2012 Toward Improved Projections of the Climate Response to Anthropogenic Forcing: Combining Paleoclimate Proxy and Instrumental Observations with an Earth System Model, NSF-ATM [Principal Investigator: M.E. Mann; Co-Investigators: K. Keller (Penn State Univ.), A. Timmermann (Univ. of Hawaii)] $541,184

2008-2011 A Framework for Probabilistic Projections of Energy-Relevant Streamflow Indices, DOE [Principal Investigator: T. Wagener; Co-Investigators: M. Mann, R. Crane, K. Freeman (Penn State Univ.)] $330,000

2008-2009 AMS Industry/Government Graduate Fellowship (Anthony Sabbatelli), American Meteorological Society [Principal Investigator: M.E. Mann (Penn State Univ.)] $23,000

2006-2009 Climate Change Collective Learning and Observatory Network in Ghana, USAID [Principal Investigator: P. Tschakert; Co-Investigators: M.E. Mann, W. Easterling (Penn State Univ.)] $759,928

2006-2009 Analysis and testing of proxy-based climate reconstructions, NSF-ATM [Principal Investigator: M.E. Mann (Penn State Univ.)] $459,000

2006-2009 Constraining the Tropical Pacific’s Role in Low-Frequency Climate Change of the Last Millennium, NOAA-Climate Change Data & Detection (CCDD) Program [Principal Investigators: K. Cobb (Georgia Tech Univ.), N. Graham (Hydro. Res. Center), M.E. Mann (Penn State Univ.), Hoerling (NOAA Clim. Dyn. Center), Alexander (NOAA Clim. Dyn. Center)] PSU award (M.E. Mann): $68,065

2006-2007 Acquisition of high-performance computing cluster for the Penn State Earth System Science Center (ESSC), NSF-EAR [Principal Investigator: M.E. Mann, Co-Investigators: R. Alley, M. Arthur, J. Evans, D. Pollard (Penn State Univ.)] $100,000

2003-2006 Decadal Variability in the Tropical Indo-Pacific: Integrating Paleo & Coupled Model Results, NOAA-Climate Change Data & Detection (CCDD) Program [Principal Investigators: M.E. Mann (U.Va), J. Cole (U. Arizona), V. Mehta (CRCES)] U.Va award (M.E. Mann): $102,000

2002-2005 Reconstruction and Analysis of Patterns of Climate Variability Over the Last One to Two Millennia, NOAA-Climate Change Data & Detection (CCDD) Program [Principal Investigator: M.E. Mann, Co-Investigators: S. Rutherford, R.S. Bradley, M.K. Hughes] $315,000

2002-2005 Remote Observations of Ice Sheet Surface Temperature: Toward Multi-Proxy Reconstruction of Antarctic Climate Variability, NSF-Office of Polar Programs, Antarctic Oceans and Climate System [Principal Investigators: M.E. Mann (U. Va), E. Steig (U. Wash.), D. Weinbrenner (U. Wash)] U.Va award (M.E. Mann): $133,000

2002-2003 Paleoclimatic Reconstructions of the Arctic Oscillation, NOAA-Cooperative Institute for Arctic Research (CIFAR) Program [Principal Investigators: Rosanne D’Arrigo, Ed Cook (Lamont/Columbia); Co-Investigator: M.E. Mann] U.Va subcontract (M.E. Mann): $14,400

2002-2003 Global Multidecadal-to-Century-Scale Oscillations During the Last 1000 years, NOAA-Climate Change Data & Detection (CCDD) Program [Principal Investigator: Malcolm Hughes (Univ. of Arizona); Co-Investigators: M.E. Mann; J. Park (Yale University)] U.Va subcontract (M.E. Mann): $20,775

2001-2003 Resolving the Scale-wise Sensitivities in the Dynamical Coupling Between Climate and the Biosphere, University of Virginia-Fund for Excellence in Science and Technology (FEST) [Principal Investigator: J.D. Albertson; Co-Investigators: H. Epstein, M.E. Mann] U.Va internal award: $214,700

2001-2002 Advancing predictive models of marine sediment transport, Office of Naval Research [Principal Investigator: P. Wiberg (U.Va), Co-Investigator: M.E. Mann] $20,775

1999-2002 Multiproxy Climate Reconstruction: Extension in Space and Time, and Model/Data Intercomparison, NOAA-Earth Systems History [Principal Investigator: M.E. Mann (U.Va), Co-Investigators: R.S. Bradley, M.K. Hughes] $381,647

1998-2000 Validation of Decadal-to-Multi-century climate predictions, DOE [Principal Investigator: R.S. Bradley (U. Mass); Co-Investigators: H.F. Diaz, M.E. Mann]

1998-2000 The changing seasons? Detecting and understanding climatic change, NSF-Hydrological Science [Principal Investigator U. Lall (U. Utah); Co-investigators: M.E. Mann, B. Rajagopalan, M. Cane] $266,235K

1996-1999 Patterns of Organized Climatic Variability: Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Globally

Distributed Climate Proxy Records and Long-term Model Integrations, NSF-Earth Systems History [Principal Investigator: R.S. Bradley (U. Mass); Co-Investigators: M.E. Mann, M.K. Hughes] $270,000

1996-1998 Investigation of Patterns of Organized Large-Scale Climatic Variability During the Last

Millennium, DOE, Alexander Hollaender Postdoctoral Fellowship [M.E. Mann] $78,000

For those keeping score, that’s almost $6 million total for various predictions, models and reconstructions over the last 13 years by Mann and his playmates. Note also the generally escalating grant amounts in recent years. A lot of that is from the government’s National Science Foundation and NOAA teats. Wouldn’t trains and Tinkertoys been just as much fun and cost a whole lot less?

Anyway, Pennsylvania State University, where Mann is currently housed, is investigating him now. Mann calls Climategate a “manufactured controversy.” Some alumni are calling for his ouster. Will he follow Phil? Maybe they can carry on their pen pal-manship somewhere else off the taxpayer dime.

Following the scientific method: an example

by Fran Smith on December 2, 2009

in Blog

Experiments in science that don’t reinforce scientists’ hypotheses can be vitally important in understanding complex systems. Serious scientists don’t fudge the results or hide the data.

Here’s a recent example of a global warming study to show the effects of CO2-caused ocean acidification on the shells of crustaceans.  Researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) found that, contrary to their expectations, many of the crustaceans built tougher shells in waters that were more acidified from higher levels of CO2.

According to the press release,

“We were surprised that some organisms didn’t behave in the way we expected under elevated CO2,” said Anne L. Cohen, a research specialist at WHOI and one of the study’s co-authors. “What was really interesting was that some of the creatures, the coral, the hard clam and the lobster, for example, didn’t seem to care about CO2 until it was higher than about 1,000 parts per million [ppm].” Current atmospheric CO2 levels are about 380 ppm, she said. Above this level, calcification was reduced in the coral and the hard clam, but elevated in the lobster.

The “take-home message, “says Cohen, is that “we can’t assume that elevated CO2 causes a proportionate decline in calcification of all calcifying organisms.” WHOI and the National Science Foundation funded the work.

Sounds like a useful project to add to the knowledge about CO2’s effects. Also, sounds like they’re following the scientific method.

H/T Julian Morris on Facebook

Daily Show’s Jon Stewart on Climategate rejection of “inconvenient” data

by Michael Fumento on December 2, 2009

in Blog

After playing a news clip stating, “University scientists say raw data from the 1980s was thrown out” Daily Show host Jon Stewart declared, “Why would you throw out raw data from the ’80s? I still have Penthouses from the ’70s! Laminated!”

VIDEO: Warmists Give Climategate The Cold Shoulder

by Richard Morrison on December 2, 2009

in Blog, Features

Bureaucrash Crasher-in-Chief Lee Doren and CEI Director of Energy & Global Warming Policy Myron Ebell take to the streets and offices of Washington’s environmental establishment as citizen reporters to find out what the global warming alarmists thinks of the Climategate scandal.

>>>Watch the video HERE.

Australian Senate Defeats Cap-and-Trade Bill

by Myron Ebell on December 1, 2009

in Blog

(This just in from our good friend, Ray Evans, in Australia.  Ray is an officer of the Lavoisier Group, a member of the Cooler Heads Coalition.  Their web site address is: http://www.lavoisier.com.au/index.php.  Ray and the Lavoisier Group have waged a brilliant and determined fight against cap-and-trade in Australia.  They deserve much of the credit for today’s stunning vote.)

Ray Evans reports:

1130 hrs AEST

The Australian Senate voted this morning to defeat, for the second time, the Rudd Government’s CPRS (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme) Bill thus creating a second trigger for a double dissolution election. A DD election means that every senate position is declared vacant, and that after such an election a joint meeting of both houses could pass the contested Bill by a simple majority.

In reaching this position the former Liberal Leader Malcolm Turnbull was deposed (he had declared his full support for the CPRS Bill) and by one vote his successor, Tony Abbott, a long-time if mostly silent sceptic, was elected as leader. The party room then declared overwhelming support (54 – 29) for deferring or voting down  the Bill.

The Liberal Party is now ready to fight an election on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) (an Australian version of cap-n-trade) which is at the heart of the CPRS Bill. Whether Prime Minister Rudd will call a DD election is open to doubt. But for the first time in Australian politics we have a situation where the electorate now gets to have a say. It has been a bad week for the chattering classes.

Climategate Claims Its First Casualty: CRU Pushes Phil Jones Out

by Myron Ebell on December 1, 2009

in Blog, Politics, Science

The Associated Press is reporting  from London that Professor Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia is temporarily stepping down as director of the Climatic Research Unit, which is at the center of the Climategate scandal.

No surprise there.  Jones has been a goner for days. What is surprising is the reason that the AP gives for his “temporary” removal from his directorship:

The university says Phil Jones will relinquish his position until the completion of an independent review into allegations that he worked to alter the way in which global temperature data was presented.
The AP story’s lead sentence is even more surprising:
Britain’s University of East Anglia says the director of its prestigious Climatic Research Unit is stepping down pending an investigation into allegations that he overstated the case for man-made climate change.
One wonders how long this reporter will last in the mainstream media. He’s clearly not with the MSM program to contain and sanitize this mushrooming scandal.
(Originally posted on Pajamas Media here.)

Climategate: The Washington Post in Denial

by Myron Ebell on December 1, 2009

in Blog, Politics, Science

(Note: this is a copy of part of a post on Pajamas Media, which can be found here.)

When I read the Washington Post’s disgraceful editorial the other day on the Climategate scandal, I thought of how far they have fallen since their big moment in the sun, Watergate.  In those heady days, Editor Ben Bradlee  and a team of crack investigative reporters led by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein exposed the Watergate coverup and brought down President Nixon.  Of course, they were then on the side of the permanent Washington establishment, who loathed Nixon (as he loathed them), just as they are now on the side of the permanent Washington establishment, for whom global warming alarmism is a deeply held commitment.

If it were up to the Washington Post and the New York Times and the three major teevee broadcast networks, the Climategate scandal would be last week’s news.  Their strategy is clearly to contain it and sanitize it.  The “world’s leading climate scientists” and the environmental pressure groups and the mainstream media have all agreed on their talking points.  Their story is: Critics are cherry-picking a few nasty e-mails and taking them out of context, but the vast edifice of scientific consensus is unshaken.  And they’re sticking to it.  But already this coverup isn’t working.  The blogosphere is pushing forward with new revelations and connecting the dots.  This is the work of tens of thousands of people, some of them with more scientific and statistical expertise than the tippity-top climate scientists at the Climatic Research Unit and the Goddard Institute of Space Studies.  And a lot more honest and dedicated to finding the truth, of course.

In the meantime, the Post editorial page editors are in denial.  Today, the Post published three letters in reply to their editorial article.  I’m not surprised that they didn’t print mine, which I sent the day the editorial was published.  I copy it below.  But they did print a letter from Associate Professor Michael E. Mann of Pennsylvania State University, one of the figures at the center of the Climategate scandal.  I am tempted to repeat Mary McCarthy’s remark about Lillian Hellman (“Every word she writes is a lie, including and and the“), but will restrain myself.

Mann’s effrontery knows no limits.  In his letter, he advises readers to go to RealClimate.org to get the straight dope on the scandal.  RealClimate is a a global warming alarmist propaganda effort run by Mann and several of the others implicated in Climategate.  Going to Real Climate is like going to Nixon’s White House Press Office to get clear about Watergate.

Here’s the e-mail of my unpublished letter:

From: Myron Ebell
To: letters@washpost.com
Sent: Wed Nov 25 15:40:28 2009
Subject: Letter in response to editorial article, “Climate of denial,” page A18, 25th November

25th November 2009

The Letters Editor
The Washington Post
Via e-mail

Sir or Madam,

Your editorial article “Climate of denial” is remarkably ill-informed and tendentious. The article begins by claiming that, “A hacker stole and released….” Do you have any evidence it was a computer hacker rather than a public-spirited whistleblower from within the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England who finally grew so disgusted by the ongoing scientific fraud that he made the documents public?

Second, after tsk-tsking at a few of the e-mails and rebuking the scientists involved in the scandal for not responding to the scandal effectively, the article then proceeds to claim that the vast scientific edifice supporting global warming alarmism is unshaken. This is outrageous. The scientists implicated are at the center of producing the U. N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Assessment Reports and are regularly referred to as some of the world’s top climate scientists. Have you looked at some of the three thousand files or just a few of the juicier e-mails? Here is just one comment in one of the files from the scientist working on one of the temperature datasets:

“What the hell is supposed to happen here? Oh yeah – there is no )’supposed’, I can make it up. So I have :-)…So with a somewhat cynical shrug, I added the nuclear option – to match every WMO possible, and turn the rest into new stations (er, CLIMAT excepted). In other words, what CRU usually do. It will allow bad databases to pass unnoticed, and good databases to become bad, but I really don’t think people care enough to fix ’em, and it’s the main reason the project is nearly a year late. ” (From the “Harry Read Me” file, which may be found at http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/HARRY_READ_ME-30.txt.)

Dozens of similar comments have already been noted in the files. How does the Post know that similar corruption is not to be found in other major research supporting the so-called scientific consensus? After all, a number of the scientists implicated are at other institutions, including the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies in NYC, and several U. S. universities.

There is certainly a climate of denial, and it includes the Post editorial page. Instead of joining the effort to stonewall this scandal, the Post should be leading the way and demanding that full civil and criminal investigations be undertaken of the scientists implicated. Or have you forgotten your role in Watergate?

Yours faithfully,
Myron Ebell.

Climategate: Finally the New York Times Takes It Seriously

by Myron Ebell on December 1, 2009

in Politics, Science

The nation’s best science reporter, John Tierney, today publishes a great piece on Climategate on the front page of the New York Times’s Science section.  He goes through some of the hilarious comments in one of the juiciest files unearthed in the scandal so far, the “Harry Read Me” file (which I earlier wrote about here). Anyone who thinks that the “world’s leading climate scientists” don’t have anything to hide might want to read Tierney’s article.  Forget about the likely possibility that fraud was being commited.  Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit, must have known that the data was a mess and hopelessly compromised by ad hoc fixes, yet presented the Hadley/CRU historical global temperature dataset as authoritative.  Phil Jones has now been removed as director of CRU. I think the new operating principle for dealing with climate research should be former President Ronald Reagan’s motto for dealing with the Soviet Union (AKA the Evil Empire): “Trust but verify.”   With emphasis on verify.

Myron Ebell Debates Climategate on Fox News

by Richard Morrison on December 1, 2009

in Blog, videos

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C70EK4RfPgA 285 234]

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