Penn State researcher and his CRU/IPCC colleague treated AGW like a religious "cause" despite warnings from peers
Anthropogenic global warming is a fascinating hypothesis that mankind may be able to systematically increase the Earth's temperature in the long term by burning deposits of hydrocarbon fuels. But the key thing to note is that despite the intriguing premise, little definitive information has been determined in this field even as politicization runs rife. In fact, researchers are still struggling to explain why warming has stalled in the last decade even as levels of carbon dioxide -- supposedly the most important greenhouse gas have rose.
I. Climatologists "Pull an Enron", Shred the Evidence
The recent
University of California, Berkley "BEST" study -- perhaps the most comprehensive climate
change investigation to date -- was blasted by AGW proponents. They were upset that the study -- funded in part by the charity of a major oil entrepreneur -- highlighted the fact that temperatures had flat lined over the past decade, and were more upset still that the study suggested that other factors like
sea currents could have driven the warming that occurred in the 1960s-1990s.
But newly reportedly leaked emails reveal that accusations of bias are perhaps a bit of projection. The new emails include discussions that sound as shocking or more so as the
infamous "Climategate" emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU).
The new emails revisit
embattled climate researcher-cum-AGW evangelist Phil Jones, a scientist working with the
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
In one email Professor Jones explains to researchers how to best hide their work to prevent anyone from being able to replicate it and find errors:
I've been told that IPCC is above national FOI [Freedom of Information] Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process. Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get – and has to be well hidden. I've discussed this with the main funder (U.S. Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.
Of course Phil Jones and his supporters will likely claim that the emails were taken out of context of some larger more appropriate discussion. But as a researcher it's pretty damning to make comments that even would seem to imply that you were engaging in trying to suppress peer review of questionable
data -- academic fraud.
Particularly trouble is the phrase "cover yourself", which suggest a conspiratorial, political undertone to what is supposed to be a transparent field of research.
The emails contain outright requests for the destruction of professional communications regarding research in an effort to cover up public scrutiny of public flaws. The leaks add yet another humiliating scandal to
Pennsylvania State University as they implicate prominent Penn State climatologist
Michael Mann even more directly than the last release.
Writes the Professor Jones to Professor Mann:
Mike, can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4 [UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 4th Assessment]? Keith will do likewise. … We will be getting Caspar [Ammann] to do likewise. I see that CA [the Climate Audit Web site] claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!
