From
Andrew Bolt
Saturday, November 21, 2009
These are the emails that should have Professor
Phil Jones most worried about his future.
Jones, head of the CRU unit whose emails were
leaked, has been under most fire so far over one email in particular in which
he boasted of using a ‘“trick" to “hide the decline” that would have
otherwise spoiled his graph showing temperatures soaring ever-upward.
But far more serious – at least in a legal sense –
may be his apparent boasting of destroying data to stop sceptics from checking
this alarmist work. If, as some emails suggest, he destroyed it to thwart FOI requests
from Professor Ross McKitrick and Steve McIntyre, who’d already exposed
as fake the Michael Mann “hockey stick”, Jones, one of the most active of
the IPCC lead authors, could even face criminal charges.
(Note: in saying that, I should add that these
emails may simply be poorly worded, out of context or even altered by the
whistleblower who leaked them. Jones may also not knowingly have done
anything wrong, and there is no proof that he did anything against the law.
UPDATE: Several updates on Jones below, including his “selfish” wish to see
global warming “regardless of the consequences” just to be proved right.)
Whether laws were broken or not, the emails prove
beyond doubt how resistant Jones and his colleagues were to having their work
properly scrutinised by anyone not of their “team”. No wonder, perhaps, when
the documents reveal Jones has so far attracted $25
million in grants.)
The most damning emails on this point are the
following, starting with 1107454306.txt, in which Jones refers to MM – McIntyre
and McKitrick (bold added):
At 09:41 AM 2/2/2005, Phil Jones wrote:
Mike, I presume congratulations are in order –
so congrats etc !
Just sent loads of station data to Scott. Make
sure he documents everything better this time ! And don’t leave stuff lying
around on ftp sites – you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs have
been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act
now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to
enquiries within 20 days? – our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first
request will test it.We also
have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard
about it – thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind
that. IPR should be relevant
here, but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at UEA who’ll say
we must adhere to it !
Jones admits he was warned by his own university
against deleting data subjected to an FOI request from McIntyre – or anyone:
From: Phil Jones
To: santer1@XXXX
Subject: Re: A quick question
Date: Wed Dec 10 10:14:10 2008
Ben,
Haven’t got a reply from the FOI person here
at UEA. So I’m not entirely confident the numbers are correct. One way of
checking would be to look on CA, but I’m not doing that. I did get an email from the FOI person here early
yesterday to tell me I shouldn’t be deleting emails - unless this was ‘normal’ deleting to keep emails
manageable! McIntyre hasn’t paid his £10, so nothing looks likely to happen re
his Data Protection Act email.
Anyway requests have been of three types –
observational data, paleo data and who made IPCC changes and why. Keith has got
all the latter – and there have been at least 4. We made Susan aware of these –
all came from David Holland. According to the FOI Commissioner’s Office, IPCC is an international organization, so is above any
national FOI. Even if UEA holds anything about IPCC, we are not obliged
to pass it on, unless it has
anything to do with our core business – and it doesn’t! I’m sounding like Sir
Humphrey here!
Makes you wonder very strongly what Jones is
trying to hide, doesn’t it? Also makes you laugh all over again at his
claim once that the data being sought had, sadly, been … um, lost.
In1212063122.txtm, Jones urges another colleague,
Michael “Hockey Stick”, Mann, to join in the deleting – at least of emails
about the IPCC’s controversial ARA report on man-made warming which Jones
co-authored, and which claimed warming was “unequivocal” and “most likely”
caused by humans:
From: Phil Jones To: “Michael E. Mann”
Subject: IPCC & FOI
Date: Thu May 29 11:04:11 2008
</MANN@XXX.EDU></P.JONES@XXXX.UK>
Mike,
Can you delete any emails you may have
had with Keith re AR4?
Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the
moment – minor family crisis.
Can you also email Gene and get him to do the
same? I don’t have his new email address.
We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945
problem in the Nature paper!!
Cheers
Phil:
For years Jones has made clear his determination
to keep crucial data from the eyes of sceptics:
From: Phil Jones To: mann@xxx.edu
Subject: Fwd: CCNet: PRESSURE GROWING ON CONTROVERSIAL RESEARCHER TO
DISCLOSE SECRET DATA
Date: Mon Feb 21 16:28:32 2005
Cc: “raymond s. bradley” , “Malcolm Hughes”
</MHUGHES@XXX.EDU></RBRADLEY@XXX.EDU></P.JONES@XXXX.UK>
Mike, Ray and Malcolm,
The skeptics seem to be building up a head of
steam here ! Maybe we can use this to our advantage to get the series updated !
Odd idea to update the proxies with satellite
estimates of the lower troposphere rather than surface data !. Odder still that
they don’t realise that Moberg et al used the Jones and Moberg updated series !
Francis Zwiers is till onside. He said that
PC1s produce hockey sticks. He stressed that the late 20th century is the
warmest of the millennium, but Regaldo didn’t bother
with that. Also ignored Francis’ comment about all the other series looking
similar to MBH.
The IPCC comes in for a lot of stick. Leave it
to you to delete as appropriate !
Cheers
Phil
PS I’m getting hassled by a couple of people to release the
CRU station temperature data.
Don’t any of you three tell anybody
that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act !
And when Jones is really forced to the point of
handing over his data, he considers ways to may checking it more difficult or
annoying:
Options appear to be:
Send them the data
Send them a subset removing station data from
some of the countries who made us pay in the normals papers of Hulme et al.
(1990s) and also any number that David can remember. This should also omit some
other countries like (Australia, NZ, Canada, Antarctica). Also could extract
some of the sources that Anders added in (31-38 source codes in J&M 2003).
Also should remove many of the early stations that we coded up in the 1980s.
Send them the raw data as is, by
reconstructing it from GHCN. How could this be done? Replace all stations where
the WMO ID agrees with what is in GHCN. This would be the raw data, but it
would annoy them.
But Jones figures a way out:
At 04:53 AM 5/9/2008, you wrote:
Mike, Ray, Caspar,
A couple of things – don’t pass on either…
2. You can delete this attachment if you want.
Keep this quiet also, but this is the person who is putting in FOI requests for
all emails Keith and Tim have written and received re Ch 6 of AR4. We think
we’ve found a way around this…
This message will self destruct in 10 seconds!
Cheers
Phil
Prof. Phil Jones
UPDATE
More from Don’t-Disclose Phil, who seems to have a
like-minded acolyte in Melbourne’s own Bureau of Meterology warmist David
Jones:
Email 1182255717.txt
Wei-Chyung and Tom,
The Climate Audit web site has a new thread on
the Jones et al. (1990) paper, with lots of quotes from Keenan. So they may not
be going to submit something to Albany. Well may be?!?
Just agreed to review a paper by Ren et al.
for JGR. This refers to a paper on urbanization effects in China, which may be
in press in J. Climate. I say ‘may be’ as Ren isn’t that clear about this in
the text, references and responses to earlier reviews. Have requested JGR get a
copy a copy of this in order to do the review.In the meantime attaching this
paper by Ren et al. on urbanization at two sites in China.Nothing much else to
say except:
1. Think I’ve managed to persuade UEA to
ignore all further FOIA requests if the people have anything to do with Climate
Audit
.2. Had an email from David Jones of BMRC,
Melbourne. He said they are ignoring anybody who has dealings with CA, as there
are threads on it about Australian sites.
3. CA is in dispute with IPCC (Susan Solomon
and Martin Manning) about the availability of the responses to reviewer’s at
the various stages of the AR4 drafts. They are most interested here re Ch 6 on
paleo.
Cheers
Phil
Wow. Which sites may they be? And what does it say
of David Jones that the reading of a single website renders you a non-person,
whose inquiries must invariably be disregarded?
UPDATE 2
How impartial a scientist is Phil Jones? How open
to evidence that he may be wrong? Gather from this confession to John Christy:
…If anything, I would like to see the climate
change happen, so the science could be proved right, regardless of the
consequences. This isn’t being political, it is being selfish.
Cheers, Phil
How typical for Jones to confuse “science” with
“hypothesis”.
UPDATE 3
The attempts to stop the publication of papers by
sceptics such as Chris de Freitas and Roger Pielke (sr?) are astonishing. This
is how the image of consensus was forged – in both senses of the word: From
Phil Jones to Michael Mann, dated July 8, 2004:
The other paper by MM is just garbage – as you
knew. De Freitas again. Pielke is also losing all credibility as well by
replying to the mad Finn as well – frequently as I see it. I can’t see either
of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out
somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !
The trouble is the so many climate scientists and
institutions are implicated in these emails, or are connected to those
involved, that who is left in the scientific community to hold Jones and his
mates to account? Who has even the will to strike against a high priest of the
warming faith?
Yet from the reaction even at RealClimate, it
seems even the
faithful must now hold their nose.
UPDATE 4
It seems that Phil Jones’ request to his
colleagues to delete emails followed an FOI request not from Steve McIntyre but
from engineer David
Holland. The following time-line (from
Bishop Hill) of Holland’s FOI requests to Keith Briffa, a lead author of
the IPCC’s key chapter 6 of ARA4, is especially damning:
May 5 – FOI request
May 6 – CRU Acknowledgement
June 3 – CRU Refusal Notice
June 4 – Holland Appeal
June 20 – CRU Rejection of Appeal
Fom the May 5 FOI request to the CRU, which
employs Briffa:
Dear Mr Palmer,
Request for Information concerning the IPCC,
2007 WGI Chapter 6 Assessment Process
Drs Keith Briffa and Timothy Osborn of your
Climatic Research Unit served as lead authors on the IPCC Fourth Assessment,
which by international agreement was required to be undertaken on an
comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis.1 On 31 March 2008, I
asked Dr Briffa for important specific information, not so far released, on his
work as a lead author to which I have had no reply or acknowledgement, but
have, through other FoI enquiries, been given a copy of his email dated 1 April
2008, to several other IPCC participants including Dr Philip Jones, and to
which my letter was attached. He told his colleagues his response to me would
be brief when he got round to it. Also included in the documents released to me
is an email dated 14 March 2008 to Dr Briffa, among others, from Susan Solomon,
Co-Chair of WGI, advising the addressees not to disclose information beyond
that (which I consider inadequate) already in the public domain.
Accordingly, I hereby request the following
information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and/or the Environmental
Information Regulations 2004:
But here, again, is CRU boss Phil Jones, just
three weeks after David Holland’s FOI request:
From: Phil Jones
To: “Michael E. Mann”
Subject: IPCC & FOI
Date: Thu May 29 11:04:11 2008
Mike,
Can you delete any emails you may have had
with Keith re AR4?
Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the
moment – minor family crisis.
Can you also email Gene and get him to do the
same? I don’t have his new email address.
We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945
problem in the Nature paper!!
Cheers
Phil
Prof. Phil Jones
UPDATE 5
No to disclosure to non-friends!:
From: Phil Jones
To: santer, Tom Wigley
Subject: Re: Schles suggestion
Date: Wed Dec 3 13:57:09 2008
Cc: mann, Gavin Schmidt, Karl Taylor, peter gleckler
Ben,
When the FOI requests began here, the FOI
person said we had to abide by the requests. It took a couple of half hour
sessions – one at a screen, to convince them otherwise showing them what CA was
all about. Once they became aware of the types of people we were dealing with,
everyone at UEA (in the registry and in the Environmental Sciences school – the
head of school and a few others) became very supportive. I’ve got to know the
FOI person quite well and the Chief Librarian – who deals with appeals. The VC
is also aware of what is going on –
Ain’t peer review grand? You only get to be
checked by the people you know will agree.
Incidentally, where in FOI legislation does it say
man-made warming sceptics are banned from using it?
There really is a lot of irony here.