I’ll end with the final paragraph of the Nature editorial from back in December:
In the end, what the UEA e-mails really show is that scientists are human beings — and that unrelenting opposition to their work can goad them to the limits of tolerance, and tempt them to act in ways that undermine scientific values. Yet it is precisely in such circumstances that researchers should strive to act and communicate professionally, and make their data and methods available to others, lest they provide their worst critics with ammunition. After all, the pressures the UEA e-mailers experienced may be nothing compared with what will emerge as the United States debates a climate bill next year, and denialists use every means at their disposal to undermine trust in scientists and science.
http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0geu90_BN...st-phil-jones/
Wikipedia
Philip D. Jones (born 1952) is a climatologist at the University of East Anglia, where he works as a Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences. Jones holds a BA in Environmental Sciences from the University of Lancaster, and an MSc and PhD from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
His research interests include instrumental climate change, palaeoclimatology, detection of climate change and the extension of riverflow records in the UK. He has also published papers on the temperature record of the past 1000 years.
He is notable for maintaining the time series of the instrumental temperature record.[1] This work was featured prominently in both the 2001 and 2007 IPCC reports, where he was a contributing author to Chapter 12, Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes, of the Third Assessment Report[2] and a Coordinating Lead Author of Chapter 3, Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change, of the AR4.[3]
He headed the UEA's Climatic Research Unit jointly with Jean Palutikof from 1998-2004 and by himself from 2004.[4] He temporarily stepped aside from this position in November 2009 following a controversy over e-mails which hackers acquired and published.[5] The House of Commons' Science and Technology Select Committee inquiry concluded that there was no case against Jones for him to answer, and said he should be reinstated in his post.[6]
He is an ISI highly cited researcher.[7]
The March 20th -26th cover story of The Economist, “Spin, science and climate change,” deftly bypasses the politics surrounding ‘climategate’, to tackle the more important issue: whether any of this has any bearing on climate change science and policy. This is a refreshing bit of journalism that everyone should read.
This is, below, a post after the article. How true it is.
I know someone, a nonscientist and “skeptic,” who read the Economist piece and *only* took away, as truth, the few things that Eric notes as errors — for example, the misunderstanding that IPCC forecasts have that huge 1.1-6.4 degree uncertainty; that climate data were hidden; and so forth.
I’m learning not to underestimate how powerfully people can filter information, so they assimilate only those bits they believe confirm their prejudices
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...ot-disappoint/
The Oxburgh report on the science done at the CRU has now been published and….. as in the first inquiry, they find no scientific misconduct, no impropriety and no tailoring of the results to a preconceived agenda, though they do suggest more statisticians should have been involved. They have also some choice words to describe the critics.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...quiry-reports/
