Has the IOP finally come clean and broken ranks?

[Questioning_Climate]

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa...uc3902.htm

This is the IOP response to the UEA emails for the parliamentary inquiry:

Quote:Memorandum submitted by the Institute of Physics (CRU 39)





The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia



The Institute of Physics is a scientific charity devoted to increasing the practice, understanding and application of physics. It has a worldwide membership of over 36,000 and is a leading communicator of physics-related science to all audiences, from specialists through to government and the general public. Its publishing company, IOP Publishing, is a world leader in scientific publishing and the electronic dissemination of physics.



The Institute is pleased to submit its views to inform the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee's inquiry, 'The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia'.



The submission details our response to the questions listed in the call for evidence, which was prepared with input from the Institute's Science Board, and its Energy Sub-group.





What are the implications of the disclosures for the integrity of scientific research?



1. The Institute is concerned that, unless the disclosed e-mails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research in this field and for the credibility of the scientific method as practised in this context.



2. The CRU e-mails as published on the internet provide prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law. The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital. The lack of compliance has been confirmed by the findings of the Information Commissioner. This extends well beyond the CRU itself - most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other international institutions who are also involved in the formulation of the IPCC's conclusions on climate change.



3. It is important to recognise that there are two completely different categories of data set that are involved in the CRU e-mail exchanges:



· those compiled from direct instrumental measurements of land and ocean surface temperatures such as the CRU, GISS and NOAA data sets; and

· historic temperature reconstructions from measurements of 'proxies', for example, tree-rings.



4. The second category relating to proxy reconstructions are the basis for the conclusion that 20th century warming is unprecedented. Published reconstructions may represent only a part of the raw data available and may be sensitive to the choices made and the statistical techniques used. Different choices, omissions or statistical processes may lead to different conclusions. This possibility was evidently the reason behind some of the (rejected) requests for further information.



5. The e-mails reveal doubts as to the reliability of some of the reconstructions and raise questions as to the way in which they have been represented; for example, the apparent suppression, in graphics widely used by the IPCC, of proxy results for recent decades that do not agree with contemporary instrumental temperature measurements.



6. There is also reason for concern at the intolerance to challenge displayed in the

e-mails. This impedes the process of scientific 'self correction', which is vital to the integrity of the scientific process as a whole, and not just to the research itself. In that context, those CRU e-mails relating to the peer-review process suggest a need for a review of its adequacy and objectivity as practised in this field and its potential vulnerability to bias or manipulation.



7. Fundamentally, we consider it should be inappropriate for the verification of the integrity of the scientific process to depend on appeals to Freedom of Information legislation. Nevertheless, the right to such appeals has been shown to be necessary. The e-mails illustrate the possibility of networks of like-minded researchers effectively excluding newcomers. Requiring data to be electronically accessible to all, at the time of publication, would remove this possibility.



8. As a step towards restoring confidence in the scientific process and to provide greater transparency in future, the editorial boards of scientific journals should work towards setting down requirements for open electronic data archiving by authors, to coincide with publication. Expert input (from journal boards) would be needed to determine the category of data that would be archived. Much 'raw' data requires calibration and processing through interpretive codes at various levels.



9. Where the nature of the study precludes direct replication by experiment, as in the case of time-dependent field measurements, it is important that the requirements include access to all the original raw data and its provenance, together with the criteria used for, and effects of, any subsequent selections, omissions or adjustments. The details of any statistical procedures, necessary for the independent testing and replication, should also be included. In parallel, consideration should be given to the requirements for minimum disclosure in relation to computer modelling.





Are the terms of reference and scope of the Independent Review announced on 3 December 2009 by UEA adequate?



10. The scope of the UEA review is, not inappropriately, restricted to the allegations of scientific malpractice and evasion of the Freedom of Information Act at the CRU. However, most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other leading institutions involved in the formulation of the IPCC's conclusions on climate change. In so far as those scientists were complicit in the alleged scientific malpractices, there is need for a wider inquiry into the integrity of the scientific process in this field.



11. The first of the review's terms of reference is limited to: "...manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice..." The term 'acceptable' is not defined and might better be replaced with 'objective'.



12. The second of the review's terms of reference should extend beyond reviewing the CRU's policies and practices to whether these have been breached by individuals, particularly in respect of other kinds of departure from objective scientific practice, for example, manipulation of the publication and peer review system or allowing pre-formed conclusions to override scientific objectivity.





How independent are the other two international data sets?



13. Published data sets are compiled from a range of sources and are subject to processing and adjustments of various kinds. Differences in judgements and methodologies used in such processing may result in different final data sets even if they are based on the same raw data. Apart from any communality of sources, account must be taken of differences in processing between the published data sets and any data sets on which they draw.



The Institute of Physics

February 2010

[Richard111]

Nice to know there are people out there with integrity and prepared to speak up when confronted by unsupported scientific theories.
A charity yet! My non-faith in human nature needs to be reviewed.

[JohnWho]

Whoa!

The IOP is telling it like it is, aren't they?

The way I read it, the IOP is describing science conducted the way it should be, and not the "false climate science" that the Warmists have been pushing on all of us.

[Questioning_Climate]

It is all the more remarkable after the propaganda piece they pushed out to coincide with Copenhagen:
http://www.iop.org/News/Community_News_A..._38336.pdf
http://www.iop.org/Media/Press%20Release...38339.html

And no, they did not consult the membership. The board simply issued that statement. Many members including myself were outraged and I know of a number that considered letting their membership lapse.

Hopefully, the board has seen the light but I think political pressure will build again and some back-peddling will ensue.

---

Here is another example where they could not resist the bandwagon:

The Institute of Physics manifesto for the UK General Election of 2010
11 February 2010

http://www.iop.org/aboutus/file_39015.pdf

Quote:We ask for:
...
* an integrated model for funding and managing research in national
priorities such as climate change. Consideration should be given to
addressing the grand societal challenges through focused programmes,
directed by relevant government departments and appropriately resourced to
achieve practical solutions on realistic timescales;
...

[Derek]

This would of been unthinkable untill Climategate.

How can the board fip flop so much without so much as a word to the membership. ?

It does seem they have grasped the nettle firmly, they have also named a few,
and described the width of investigation they think is needed.

Why have they gone so far, so quickly, now. ?
Was it to get it out before they were silenced / made to back peddle.
Or, are they taking what would appear to be a heroic stand. ?

The press over here has been tip toeing around the subject,
is this the sort of respected basis from which to launch a full blown public attack.
Election time is coming, and "we" ain't been voting in large numbers.

[Sunsettommy]

I am not sure they really changed all that much.They could be doing that to head off any blowback with the media and us.

I find it hard to believe that they changed that fast and that deeply,to think they really changed much.

Time will tell on how much change they have that is real and sincere.

[HarpoSpoke]

Whether or not they are sincere....it's in print for all to see now.

Especially noted this:

Quote:The CRU e-mails as published on the internet provide prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law. The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital. The lack of compliance has been confirmed by the findings of the Information Commissioner. This extends well beyond the CRU itself - most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other international institutions who are also involved in the formulation of the IPCC's conclusions on climate change.

Throws a little water on the suggestions that this is confined to a small number of "unimportant" CRU scientists.

[Questioning_Climate]

But the warmists will say "Ah, yes, but the IOP don't know what they are talking about because they are not climatologists, they are physicists!"

[Derek]

I look forward to that day, and the ensueing discussion about the physics of climatology between a climatologist and a physicist.
I really do.

Maybe then a climatologist could discuss the statistics used in climatology, with a statistician.

and then a climatologist could discuss the history of climate with a paleoclimatologist.

hopefully followed by a climatologist discussing with a programmer the codes used in climate models, particularly to see if they are up to commercial standards.

I have probably missed out a few other subject areas that climatologists really should discuss with real experts from those fields,
but so have the climatologists...

[Questioning_Climate]

The answer is they are playing games:
http://www.iop.org/News/news_40679.html

Quote:IOP and the Science and Technology Committee’s inquiry into the disclosure of climate data

2 March 2010
Institute of Physics News
Institute of Physics News

The Institute of Physics recently submitted a response to a House of Commons Science and Technology Committee call for evidence in relation to its inquiry into the disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

The Institute's statement, which has been published both on the Institute's website and the Committee's, has been interpreted by some individuals to imply that it does not support the scientific evidence that the rising concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is contributing to global warming.

That is not the case. The Institute's position on climate change is clear: the basic science is well enough understood to be sure that our climate is changing – and that we need to take action now to mitigate that change.

More information about IOP's views

The Institute's response to the Committee inquiry was approved by its Science Board, a formal committee of the Institute with delegated authority from its trustees to oversee its policy work.

It reflected our belief that the open exchange of data, procedures and materials is fundamental to the scientific process. From the information already in the public domain it appears that these principles have been put at risk in the present case, and that this has undermined the trust that is placed in the scientific process.

These comments, focused on the scientific process, should not be interpreted to mean that the Institute believes that the science itself is flawed.

[JohnWho]

Quote:That is not the case. The Institute's position on climate change is clear: the basic science is well enough understood to be sure that our climate is changing – and that we need to take action now to mitigate that change.

Quote:It reflected our belief that the open exchange of data, procedures and materials is fundamental to the scientific process. From the information already in the public domain it appears that these principles have been put at risk in the present case, and that this has undermined the trust that is placed in the scientific process.

These comments, focused on the scientific process, should not be interpreted to mean that the Institute believes that the science itself is flawed.

So, even though certain scientific principles were violated, the resulting science is not flawed?

In that case, why worry about the process at all, since manipulation of data, improper use of the "peer review" process, and basing conclusions on politics rather than science all result in acceptable science to the IOP?

The science has problems but the conclusions are sound?

Huh?

[Questioning_Climate]

There is a strong environmental element within the IOP as seen by their promotion of RC on the environmental forum/blog. It is quite a feat for them to have managed such a dispassionate statement for the enquiry. It is quite evident that this latest offering has been forced by politics, not least because the Guardian newspaper published it virtually simultaneously.

I pretty much agree with your analysis John Who.

[Derek]

So, they are saying just the process is flawed -and not the results...
This is the result of the behind the scenes pressure to support rather than question AGW,
we all knew (and said it would happen before the fact) here would be applied.

[Richard S Courtney.]

Friends:

In case you are interested. The following is the Submission (but not its appendices) that I made to the Select Committee.

Richard

A Submission to the Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee from Richard S Courtney

1.
This submission concerns the importance of an email (see Appendix A) from me that was among the files hacked (?) from CRU. It demonstrates that in 2003 the self-titled ‘Team’ knew the estimates of average global temperature (mean global temperature, MGT) were worthless, and they acted to prevent publication of proof of this.
2.
Climate change ‘attribution studies’ use computer models to assess possible causes of global climate change. Known effects that cause climate change are input to a computer model of the global climate system, and the resulting output of the model is compared to observations of the real world. Anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) global warming (AGW) is assumed to be indicated by any rise in MGT that occurred in reality but is not accounted by the known effects in the model. Clearly, any error in determinations of changes to MGT provides incorrect attribution of AGW.
3.
The various determinations of the changes to MGT differ and, therefore, there is no known accurate amount of MGT change. But the erroneous MGT change was being input to the models (garbage in, GI) so the amount of AGW attributed by the studies was wrong (garbage out, GO) because ‘garbage in’ gives ‘garbage out’ (GIGO). The attribution studies that provide indications of AGW are GIGO.
I and others tried to publish a discussion paper (see Appendix B) that attempted to explain the problems with analyses of MGT. We compared the data and trends of the Jones et al., GISS and GHCN data sets. These teams each provide 95% confidence limits for their results. However, the results of the teams differ by more than double those limits in several years, and the data sets provided by the teams have different trends. Since all three data sets are compiled from the same available source data (i.e. the measurements mostly made at weather stations using thermometers), and purport to be the same metric (i.e. MGT anomaly), this is surprising. Clearly, the methods of compilation of MGT time series can generate spurious trends (where ‘spurious’ means different from reality), and such spurious trends must exist in all but at most one of the data sets.
4.
So, we considered MGT according to two interpretations of what it could be; viz.
(i) MGT is a physical parameter that – at least in principle – can be measured;
or
(ii) MGT is a ‘statistic’; i.e. an indicator derived from physical measurements.
These two understandings derive from alternative considerations of the nature of MGT.
5.
If the MGT is assumed to be the mean temperature of the volume of air near the Earth’s surface over a period of time, then MGT is a physical parameter indicated by the thermometers (mostly) at weather stations that is calculated using the method of mixtures (assuming unity volume, specific heat, density etc). We determined that if MGT is considered as a physical parameter that is measured, then the data sets of MGT are functions of their construction. Attributing AGW – or anything else – to a change that is a function of the construction of MGT is inadmissable.
Alternatively:
If the thermometers (mostly) at weather stations are each considered to indicate the air temperature at each measurement site and time, then MGT is a statistic that is computed as being an average of the total number of thermometer indications. But if MGT is considered to be a statistic then it can be computed in several ways to provide a variety of results, each of different use to climatologists. (In such a way, the MGT is similar in nature to a Retail Price Index, which is a statistic that can be computed in different ways to provide a variety of results, each of which has proved useful to economists.) If MGT is considered to be a statistic of this type, then MGT is a form of average. In which case, the word ‘mean’ in ‘mean global temperature’ is a misnomer, because although there are many types of average, a set of measurements can only have one mean. Importantly, if MGT is considered to be an indicative statistic then the differences between the values and trends of the data sets from different teams indicate that the teams are monitoring different climate effects. But if the teams are each monitoring different climate effects then each should provide a unique title for their data set that is indicative of what is being monitored. Also, each team should state explicitly what its data set of MGT purports to be monitoring.
6.
Thus, we determined that – whichever way MGT is considered – MGT is not an appropriate metric for use in attribution studies.
7.
However, the compilers of the MGT data sets frequently alter their published data of past MGT (sometimes they have altered the data in each of several successive months). This is despite the fact that there is no obvious and/or published reason for changing a datum of MGT for years that were decades ago: the temperature measurements were obtained in those years so the change can only be an effect of alterating the method(s) of calculating MGT from the measurements. But the MGT data sets often change. The MGT data always changed between submission of the paper and completion of the peer review process. Thus, the frequent changes to MGT data sets prevented publication of the paper.
8.
Whatever you call this method of preventing publication of a paper, you cannot call it science.
But this method prevented publication of information that proved the estimates of MGT and AGW are wrong and the amount by which they are wrong cannot be known.
(a) I can prove that we submitted the paper for publication.
(b) I can prove that Nature rejected it for a silly reason; viz.
“We publish original data and do not publish comparisons of data sets”
© I can prove that whenever we submitted the paper to a journal one or more of the Jones et al., GISS and GHCN data sets changed so either
the paper was rejected because it assessed incorrect data
or
we had to withdraw the paper to correct the data it assessed.
But I cannot prove who or what caused this.
9.
It should also be noted that there is no possible calibration for the estimates of MGT.
The data sets keep changing for unknown (and unpublished) reasons although there is no obvious reason to change a datum for MGT that is for decades in the past. It seems that – in the absence of any possibility of calibration – the compilers of the data sets adjust their data in attempts to agree with each other. Furthermore, they seem to adjust their recent data (i.e. since 1979) to agree with the truly global measurements of MGT obtained using measurements obtained using microwave sounding units (MSU) mounted on orbital satelites since 1979. This adjustment to agree with the MSU data may contribute to the fact that the Jones et al., GISS and GHCN data sets each show no statistically significant rise in MGT since 1995 (i.e. for the last 15 years). However, the Jones et al., GISS and GHCN data sets keep lowering their MGT values for temperatures decades ago.
10.
Methods to correct these problems could have been considered 6 years ago if publication of my paper had not been blocked.
11.
Additionally, I point out that the AGW attribution studies are wrong in principle for two reasons.
Firstly, they are ‘argument from ignorance’.
Such an argument is not new. For example, in the Middle Ages experts said, “We don’t know what causes crops to fail: it must be witches: we must eliminate them.” Now, experts say, “We don’t know what causes global climate change: it must be emissions from human activity: we must eliminate them.” Of course, they phrase it differently saying they can’t match historical climate change with known climate mechanisms unless an anthropogenic effect is included. But evidence for this “anthropogenic effect” is no more than the evidence for witches.
Secondly, they use an attribution study to ‘prove’ what can only be disproved by attribution.
In an attribution study the system is assumed to be behaving in response to suggested mechanism(s) that is modelled, and the behaviour of the model is compared to the empirical data. If the model cannot emulate the empirical data then there is reason to suppose that the suggested mechanism is not the cause (or at least not the sole cause) of the changes recorded in the empirical data.
It is important to note that attribution studies can only be used to reject hypothesis that a mechanism is a cause for an observed effect. Ability to attribute a suggested cause to an effect is not evidence that the suggested cause is the real cause in part or in whole. (To understand this, consider the game of Cludo. At the start of the game it is possible to attribute the ‘murder’ to all the suspects. As each piece of evidence is obtained then one of the suspects can be rejected because he/she can no longer be attributed with the murder).
But the CRU/IPCC attribution studies claim that the ability to attribute AGW as a cause of climate change is evidence that AGW caused the change (because they only consider one suspect for the cause although there could be many suspects both known and unknown).
Then, in addition to those two pieces of pure pseudo-science – as my paper demonstrated – the attribution studies use estimates of climate changes that are known to be wrong!
12.
None of this gives confidence that the MGT data sets provide reliable quantification of change to global temperature.

[Derek]

(03-04-2010 03:33 AM)Richard S Courtney. Wrote:  Friends:

In case you are interested.

Yes, we are very interested.

(03-04-2010 03:33 AM)Richard S Courtney. Wrote:  © I can prove that whenever we submitted the paper to a journal one or more of the Jones et al., GISS and GHCN data sets changed so either
the paper was rejected because it assessed incorrect data
or
we had to withdraw the paper to correct the data it assessed.
But I cannot prove who or what caused this.
9.
It should also be noted that there is no possible calibration for the estimates of MGT.
The data sets keep changing for unknown (and unpublished) reasons although there is no obvious reason to change a datum for MGT that is for decades in the past. It seems that – in the absence of any possibility of calibration – the compilers of the data sets adjust their data in attempts to agree with each other.

Will Climategate, and the CRU / HADcrut FOI requests / opening up of the data sets provide the "reasons" and timings of the chnages to the relevant data sets,
if not the emails "organising" these events.
Will it enable a comparison, so the resulting stopping of publication "reasons" can be seen for what they were and still are. ?

Would there be any comparisons (ie same methodology used) with what happened before your 1999 paper,
this is just a hunch on my part, as the same people / institutions were involved, or rather to be highly embarressed (read exposed) by your work / paper.