“Climategate” smears found false – Mann cleared

The final investigation of Dr Michael Mann by the Pennsylvania State Unviersity has now reported. It has unanimously found that “after careful review of all available evidence, there is no substance to the allegation against Dr. Michael E. Mann, Professor, Department of Meteorology, The Pennsylvania State University.” (You can download the full report here – Final_Investigation_Report).

No surprise to anyone who has followed this whole “climategate” beat up with an objective eye. In this video interview from Climate Science Watch Mann gives his reactions and thoughts on the “climategate” campaign (from Interview with Michael Mann on the Penn State Final Report and the war on climate scientists).

Interview with Michael Mann on the Penn State Final Report and the war on climate scientists.

Its worth quoting from dean of the Graduate school, Henry C. Folley’s, letter reporting the findings:

Truth getting it’s boots on!

Sharon Begley introduced her Newsweek article Newspapers Retract ‘Climategate’ Claims, but Damage Still Done with:

‘A lie can get halfway around the world while the truth is still putting its boots on, as Mark Twain said (or “before the truth gets a chance to put its pants on,” in Winston Churchill’s version), and nowhere has that been more true than in “climategate.”‘

Yes, reaction to the “climategate” scandal and resulting climate denial offensive has been slow coming. Inevitable, I guess, becuase it has required investigation and reporting. We had the Pennsylvania State University inquiry which cleared Michael Mann (see Spinning exoneration of Dr. Michael Mann Into “Whitewash”) and the UK parliamentary and independent Royal Society inquiries which cleared Phil Jones and the Cimatic Research Unit at University of East Anglia (see Climate scientist Phil Jones exonerated and Officially a fake scandal from science perspective).

Now some of the main stream media newspapers are withdrawing articles they previously published misrepresenting the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate scientists and climate science in general. The UK Sunday Times published a correction acknowledging they had misreported the “Amazongate” story, had misreported Dr Simon Lewis, a Royal Society research fellow at the University of Leeds and leading specialist in tropical forest ecology. They had in fact changed their story after it had been checked by Lewis and admit their changes “did not give a fair or accurate account of his views.”

Similarly the German Frankfurter Rundschau has withdrawn a story attacking the IPCC over “Africagate.” What is the moral of all this – don’t trust any “climategate” story?

Lies sometimes survive exposure

However, these retractions haven’t come easily. They were the result of shoddy, if not completely biased, journalism and/or editing (see “AmazonGate”: how the denial lobby and a dishonest journalist created a fake scandal and Sunday Times admits ‘Amazongate’ story was rubbish. But who’s to blame?). The Sunday Times retraction only came after Dr Lewis made a complaint to the Press Council which was upheld. And the retractions have taken months to occur. As Sharon Begley says it is just simply psychology that people will often continue to believe a lie even after the truth has arrived.

Well – I guess it helps that these newspapers have published retractions and apologies. But what about all those blogs (including several New Zealand ones) and conservative newspapers and websites throughout the world who faithfully repeated the lie – but remain silent now?

That’s not ethical.

See also:

British Newspaper Apologizes to Climate Scientist – NYTimes.com

Permalink

Similar articles

Related articles by Zemanta

• Leakegate: A retraction (realclimate.org)
• UK Sunday Times Retracts Bogus ‘Amazongate’ Story, Apologizes to Simon Lewis (desmogblog.com)
• George Monbiot Rips UK Sunday Times For ‘Amazongate’ Lies And Stonewalling (desmogblog.com)

Officially a fake scandal from science perspective

Well, the latest report from inquiries into the “climategate” affair confirm that the scientific conclusions of climate scientists at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), University of East Anglia stand on “solid ground.”

The report is clear – relatively short and well worth reading. (Download Report of the International Panel set up by the University of East Anglia to
examine the research of the Climatic Research Unit). Here are the conclusions:

” We saw no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit and had it been there we believe that it is likely that we would have detected it. Rather we found a small group of dedicated if slightly disorganised researchers who were ill-prepared for being the focus of public attention. As with many small research groups their internal procedures were rather informal.

We cannot help remarking that it is very surprising that research in an area that depends so heavily on statistical methods has not been carried out in close collaboration with professional statisticians. Indeed there would be mutual benefit if there were closer collaboration and interaction between CRU and a much wider scientific group outside the relatively small international circle of temperature specialists.

It was not the immediate concern of the Panel, but we observed that there were important and unresolved questions that related to the availability of environmental data sets. It was pointed out that since UK government adopted a policy that resulted in charging for access to data sets collected by government agencies, other countries have followed suit impeding the flow of processed and raw data to and between researchers. This is  unfortunate and seems inconsistent with policies of open access to data promoted elsewhere in government.

A host of important unresolved questions also arises from the application of Freedom of Information legislation in an academic context. We agree with the CRU view that the authority for releasing unpublished raw data to third parties should stay with those who collected it.”

Chris Mooney interviews Michael Mann on “climategate”

This is an interesting interview (download MP3). Michael Mann has been vilified by climate change deniers. His work on the so-called “hockey stick” graph  is still being misrepresented despite being validated by the US National research council and other researchers.

He’s a bit of a lone voice at the moment but really worth listening to. Point of Inquiry recently interviewed him and describe the interview this way:

“In response to growing public skepticism—and a wave of dramatic attacks on individual researchers—the scientific community is now bucking up to more strongly defend its knowledge. Leading the charge is one of the most frequently attacked researchers of them all—Pennsylvania State University climatologist Michael Mann.

In this interview with host Chris Mooney, Mann pulls no punches. He defends the fundamental scientific consensus on climate change, and explains why those who attack it consistently miss the target. He also answers critics of his “hockey stick” study, and explains why the charges that have arisen in “ClimateGate” seem much more smoke than fire.

Dr. Michael E. Mann is a member of the Pennsylvania State University faculty, and director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center. His research focuses on the application of statistical techniques to understanding climate variability and change, and he was a Lead Author on the “Observed Climate Variability and Change” chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Scientific Assessment Report. Among many other distinguished scientific activities, editorships, and awards, Mann is author of more than 120 peer-reviewed and edited publications. That includes, most famously, the 1998 study that introduced the so called “hockey stick,” a graph showing that modern temperatures appear to be much higher than anything seen in at least the last thousand years. With his colleague Lee Kump, Mann also recently authored the book Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming. Finally, he is one of the founders and contributors to the prominent global warming blog, RealClimate.org.”

via Michael Mann – Unprecedented Attacks on Climate Research | Point of Inquiry.

Download MP3

See also:
Spinning exoneration of Dr. Michael Mann Into “Whitewash”
Climate change deniers’ tawdry manipulation of “hockey sticks”
Freedom of information and responsibility

Permalink

Similar articles

Related articles by Zemanta

• ‘Hockey stick’ graph creator Michael Mann cleared of academic misconduct (guardian.co.uk)

Spinning exoneration of Dr. Michael Mann Into “Whitewash”

Dr Michael Mann, Penn State University

I have read the full report of this inquiry Concerning the Allegations of Research Misconduct Against Dr. Michael E. Mann and find the whole business interesting. Here are my reasons – quotes are from the report:

1: No specific charges for Mann to confront

Instead the University had received:

“numerous communications (emails, phone calls and letters) accusing Dr. Michael E. Mann of having engaged in acts that included manipulating data, destroying records and colluding to hamper the progress of scientific discourse around the issue of anthropogenic global warming from approximately 1998. These accusations were based on perceptions of the content of the widely reported theft of emails from a server at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in Great Britain.”