Exoneration?
The mainstream media and the Climategater scientists themselves claim complete exoneration by the various ‘inquiries’. Were they exonerated?
There was no exoneration by any objective analysis of the various inquiries. Ross McKitrick lays all this out in his article Understanding the Climategate Inquiries
“The evidence points to some clear conclusions.
The scientists involved in the email exchanges manipulated evidence in IPCC and WMO reports with the effect of misleading readers, including policymakers. The divergence problem was concealed by deleting data to “hide the decline.” The panels that examined the issue in detail, namely Muir Russell’s panel, concurred that the graph was “misleading.” The ridiculous attempt by the Penn State Inquiry to defend an instance of deleting data and splicing in other data to conceal a divergence problem only discredits their claims to have investigated the issue.
Phil Jones admitted deleting emails, and it appears to have been directed towards preventing disclosure of information subject to Freedom of Information laws, and he asked his colleagues to do the same. The inquiries largely fumbled this question, or averted their eyes.
The scientists privately expressed greater doubts or uncertainties about the science in their own professional writings and in their interactions with one another than they allowed to be stated in reports of the IPCC or WMO that were intended for policymakers. Rather than criticise the scientists for this, the inquiries (particularly the House of Commons and Oxburgh inquiries) took the astonishing view that as long as scientists expressed doubts and uncertainties in their academic papers and among themselves, it was acceptable for them to conceal those uncertainties in documents prepared for policy makers.
The scientists took steps individually or in collusion to block access to data or methodologies in order to prevent external examination of their work. This point was accepted by the Commons Inquiry and Muir Russell, and the authors were admonished and encouraged to improve their conduct in the future.
The inquiries were largely unable to deal with the issue of the issue of blocking publication of papers, or intimidating journals. But academics reading the emails could see quite clearly the tribalism at work, and in comparison to other fields, climatology comes off looking juvenile, corrupt and in the grip of a handful of self-appointed gatekeepers and bullies.
Is the science concerning the current concerns about climate change sound? Many people, starting with the members of the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, had hoped this question would be answered during the inquiry process, and there is a frequent refrain in the media that the investigations affirmed the science. But the reality is that none of the inquiries actually investigated the science. The one inquiry supposedly set up to address this, namely Lord Oxburgh’s, actually operated under a different remit altogether, despite multiple claims by the UEA that it was a science reappraisal panel.
Over the course of the five reviews, a few complaints were investigated and upheld, such as the problem of data secrecy at the CRU and the misleading nature of the “hide the decline” graph. And the IAC leveled enough serious criticisms about the IPCC process to substantiate concerns that the organization is unsound for the purpose of providing balanced, rigorous science assessments. But many other concerns were left unaddressed, or slipped through the cracks between the inquiries, or were set aside after taking CRU responses at face value.”
Steve McIntyre’s Brief submitted for the defendants in one Mann’s lawsuits addresses the key scientific aspects related to Michael Mann’s conduct and hockey stick research:
“Even before the release of the Climategate emails, numerous public concerns were raised about Mann’s conduct. Concerns about Mann’s research included:
Mann’s undisclosed use in a 1998 paper (“MBH98”) of an algorithm which mined data for hockey-stick shaped series. The algorithm was so powerful that it could produce hockey-stick shaped “reconstructions” from auto-correlated red noise. Mann’s failure to disclose the algorithm continued even in a 2004 corrigendum.
Mann’s failure to disclose adverse verification statistics in MBH98. Mann also did not archive results that would permit calculation of the adverse statistics. Climategate emails later revealed that Mann regarded this information as his “dirty laundry” and required an associate at the Climatic Research Unit (“CRU”) to withhold the information from potential critics.
Mann’s misleading claims about the “robustness” of his reconstruction to the presence/absence of tree ring chronologies, including failing to fully disclose calculations excluding questionable data from strip bark bristlecone pine trees.
Mann’s deletion of the late 20th century portion of the Briffa temperature reconstruction in Figure 2.21 in the IPCC Third Assessment Report (2001) to conceal its sharp decline, in apparent response to concerns that showing the data would “dilute the message” and give “fodder to the skeptics.”
Mann’s insistence in 2004 that “no researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge, ‘grafted the thermometer record onto’ any reconstruction. But it was later revealed that in one figure for the cover of the 1999 World Meteorological Organization (WMO) annual report, the temperature record had not only been grafted onto the various reconstructions—and in the case of the Briffa reconstruction, had been substituted for the actual proxy
Mann’s undisclosed grafting of temperature data for “Mike’s Nature trick,” a manipulation of data which involved: (1) grafting the temperature record after 1980 onto the proxy reconstruction up to 1980; (2) “smoothing” the data; and (3) truncating the smooth back to 1980. ”
Exoneration? Not even close.
https://judithcurry.com/2019/11/12/lega ... more-25412