Climategate: Oxburgh's "Trick To Hide the Trick."
14 Apr 2010
The Oxburgh report " is a flimsy and embarrassing five pages
http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/CRUstatements/Report+of+the...
They did not interview me nor, to my knowledge, any other CRU critics or
targets.
The committee was announced on March 22 and their "report" is dated April
12 - three weeks end to end - less time than even the Parliamentary
Committee.
They took no evidence.
Their list of references is 11 CRU papers, five on tree rings, six on
CRUTEM.
Notably missing from the "sample" are their 1000-year reconstructions:
Jones et al 1998,
Mann and Jones 2003,
Jones and Mann 2004, etc.
They did not discuss specifically discuss or report on any of the incidents
of arbitrary adjustment ("bodging"), cherry picking and deletion of adverse
data, mentioned in my submissions to the Science and Technology Committee
and the Muir Russell Committee.
I'll report on these issues later in the day as they'll take a little time
to review.
First, let's observe Oxburgh's trick to hide the "trick".
Long before Climategate, Climate Audit readers knew that you had to watch
the pea under the thimble whenever you're dealing with the Team. This is
true with Oxburgh of Globe International as well.
Oxburgh of Globe International alludes to the "trick..to hide the decline"
in veiled terms as follows:
"CRU publications repeatedly emphasize the discrepancy between instrumental
and tree-based proxy reconstructions of temperature during the late 20th
century, but presentations of this work by the IPCC and others have
sometimes neglected to highlight this issue. While we find this regrettable,
we could find no such fault with the peer-reviewed papers we examined."
Without specifically mentioning the famous "trick .to hide the decline",
Oxburgh subsumes the "trick" as "regrettable neglect" by "IPCC and others".
But watch the pea under Oxburgh's thimble.
"The Oxburgh Report regrettably neglected to highlight the fact that CRU
scientists Briffa and Jones, together with Michael Mann, were the IPCC
authors responsible for this "regrettable neglect" in the Third Assessment
Report. They also regrettably neglected to report that CRU scientist Briffa
was the IPCC author responsible for the corresponding section in AR4. "
Oxburgh pretends that the fault lay with "IPCC and others", but this
pretence is itself a trick.
CRU was up to its elbows in the relevant IPCC presentations that
"regrettably neglected" to show the divergent data in their graphics.
It is also untrue that CRU authors, in their capacity as IPCC authors,
"regrettably neglected" to show the divergent data in the IPCC graphics.
The Climategate emails show that they did so intentionally - see for example
IPCC and the Trick,
(
http://climateaudit.org/2009/12/10/ipcc-and-the-trick/)
which show awareness on the part of CRU scientists that showing the decline
would "dilute the message" that IPCC wanted to send.
The eventual IPCC figure, as reported here on a number of cases, gave a
false rhetorical message of the veracity of the proxy reconstructions.
ClimatAudit readers are also well aware that IPCC and Briffa were
categorically asked by one AR4 reviewer (me) to disclose the divergent data.
CRU's Briffa refused, saying only that it would be "inappropriate" to show
the data in the graphic. They didn't "neglect" to show the divergent data
from the Briffa reconstruction.
This was a considered decision, carried out in AR4 despite pointed
criticism.
Yes, the decline had been disclosed in the "peer reviewed literature".
Indeed, that was how I became aware of the trick - long before Climategate
and why, as an AR4 peer reviewer, I asked that IPCC not use the trick once
again in AR4.
IPCC presentations are how the climate science community speaks to the
world.
Climate scientists, including CRU scientists, have a far greater obligation
of full, true and plain disclosure in IPCC reports than even the specialist
literature.
Oxburgh pretends that (partial) disclosure of adverse results by CRU in
specialist literature is sufficient. It isn't. There was a continuing
obligation to disclose adverse results in IPCC graphics.
CRU "scientists" acted as IPCC authors. The complaint about the trick arose
out of how CRU "scientists" carried out their duties as IPCC authors.
In this respect, the Oxburgh report is a feeble sleight-of-hand that in
effect tries to make the public think that the "trick" was no more than
"regrettable neglect" by the "IPCC and others" - nothing to do with CRU.
In other words, Oxburgh is using a trick to hide the "trick".
Trick me once, shame on you.
UPDATE:
The Daily Telegraph reports:
Professor Hand did say that "inappropriate methods" were used by a separate
university to draw up the infamous "hockey stick" graph showing the rise in
global temperatures over more than 1,000 years.
Uh, memo to Oxburgh.
CRU produced its own hockey stick graphs in Jones et al 1998, Mann and Jones
2003, for example.
For some reason, Oxburgh and his associates "regrettably neglected" to
consider these articles.
http://climateaudit.org/2010/04/14/oxburghs-trick-to-hide-the-trick/
Warmest Regards
Bon_0
"It is a remarkable fact that despite the worldwide expenditure of perhaps
US$50 billion since 1990, and the efforts of tens of thousands of scientists
worldwide, no human climate signal has yet been detected that is distinct
from natural variation."
Bob Carter, Research Professor of Geology, James Cook University, Townsville
