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| Response to Statement from the UK Government re: CRU Epetition. (pdf version) By Jonathan Drake
Towards the end of last year, 2009, an Epetition was created and
submitted by Mike Haseler to the UK Government regarding the Climate Research
Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA). Nearly 3300 signatures were attached to
it and the Government responded on 24th March 2010. The petition request was: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/UEACRU/
Quote: We the undersigned petition the
Prime Minister to suspend the Climate Research Unit at the University of East
Anglia from preparation of any Government Climate Statistics until the various
allegations have been fully investigated by an independent
body.
See link for full details.
To most casual observers, that would appear to be a reasonable request,
particularly given the apparent nature of the revelations. How did the Government react to
this?
On 24th March 2010, the Government responded with the following
statement: http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page22924
Quote: The Government believes that all these allegations should be investigated transparently. An independent review is currently examining the scientific conduct of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and is due to report its findings later in the spring. More information on the review can be found at: http://www.cce-review.org/. The University of East Anglia also recently announced that there will be a separate review to examine the CRU’s key scientific publications. The findings of both these reviews will be made public. The House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology is also investigating the matter. On 1 March the Select Committee heard evidence from a wide range of contributors, including Professor Jones, who has temporarily stepped down from his post as Director of CRU. CRU’s analysis of temperature records is not
funded by, prepared for, or published by the Government. The resulting outputs
are not Government statistics. Our confidence that the Earth is warming is taken from multiple sources of evidence and not only the HadCRUT temperature record, which CRU scientists contribute to. The same warming trend is seen in two independent analyses carried out in the United States, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Goddard Institute of Space Studies at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). These analyses draw on the same pool of temperature data as HadCRUT, but use different methodologies to produce analyses of temperature change through time. Further evidence of this warming is found in data from instruments on satellites, and in trends of declining arctic sea ice and rising sea levels. Science is giving us an increasingly clear
picture of the risks we face from climate change. With more research, we
can better understand those risks, and how to manage them. That is why the
Government funds a number of institutions, including the University of East
Anglia, to carry out research into climate change
science.
On first reading, ones immediate
reaction is that the response is another whitewash and the usual politically
biased mantra. However, a closer
inspection reveals a badly written and ill-conceived text. Rather than delving into the science, in
this case, I will concentrate on the statement mostly from a more journalistic
perspective and put it into context with some of the leaked email content and
other references.
Starting with the obvious, there is
this statement:
Quote: CRU’s
analysis of temperature records is not funded by, prepared for, or published by
the Government. The resulting outputs are not Government
statistics.
The
Government is happy enough to use, cite, and propagate these historic
temperature statistics to push the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) agenda and
it’s spin off policies, yet appears to want to have nothing to do with CRU. This is very evident on the Met Office
website: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/. However, the above
statement is inconsistent with this:
Quote: That
is why the Government funds a number of institutions, including the University
of East Anglia, to carry out research into climate change
science.
So, to paraphrase;
CRU’s analysis of temperature records is not funded by the Government but the Government funds a
number of institutions, including the University of East Anglia (UEA), of which
CRU is part. None of the Government
funding finds its way to the analysis of temperature records at CRU.
To coin a phrase from the Science Museum, London, Prove it!
Are these Government
statistics?
Quote: CRU’s analysis of temperature
records is not funded by, prepared for, or published by the Government. The
resulting outputs are not Government
statistics.
So, the CRU’s output is not published by the Government and not Government statistics? Prove it! Let’s see what the Met Office has to say about that: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2008/pr20081216.html
Quote: The Met Office Hadley Centre and the Climatic Research Unit of the
University of East Anglia maintain the global temperature record – HadCRUT3 – on
behalf of WMO.
The Met Office Hadley Centre is
the UK’s foremost centre for climate change research. Partly funded by Defra
(the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), the newly-established
Dept of Energy and Climate Change and the Ministry of Defence it provides
information to and advice to the UK Government on climate change
issues.
From this it is clear that CRU and the Met Office work closely together
on this dataset. The Met Office
provides information and advice to the Government and is funded by government
departments. It advices and
supplies the Government with information on climate change issues, one part of
which is the temperature record HadCRUT3 which is maintained in conjunction with
CRU. Now take a look at where this
information was obtained. Surely it
is coincidence that this is published on the official government Internet
domain, *.gov.uk?
So the HadCRUT3 statistics are nothing to do with the Government? Prove
it!
Okay, so let’s see what CRU has to say about their funding. From the CRU website: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/
Quote:
This
list is not fully exhaustive, but we would like to acknowledge the support of
the following funders (in alphabetical order): British Council, British Petroleum,
Broom's Barn Sugar Beet Research Centre, Central Electricity Generating Board,
Centre for Environment, Fisheries and
Aquaculture Science (CEFAS), Commercial Union, Commission of European Communities (CEC,
often referred to now as EU), Council for the Central Laboratory of the
Research Councils (CCLRC), Department of Energy, Department of the Environment (DETR, now
DEFRA), Department of Health, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI),
Eastern Electricity, Engineering and
Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Environment Agency, Forestry Commission, Greenpeace
International, International Institute of Environmental Development (IIED),
Irish Electricity Supply Board, KFA Germany, Leverhulme Trust, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF), National Power, National Rivers
Authority, Natural Environmental
Research Council (NERC), Norwich Union, Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, Overseas Development Administration
(ODA), Reinsurance Underwriters and Syndicates, Royal Society, Scientific
Consultants, Science and Engineering
Research Council (SERC), Scottish and Northern Ireland Forum for
Environmental Research, Shell, Stockholm Environment Agency, Sultanate of Oman,
Tate and Lyle, UK Met. Office, UK
Nirex Ltd., United Nations Environment Plan (UNEP), United States Department of
Energy, United States Environmental Protection Agency, Wolfson Foundation and
the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF).
So none of these and in particular those in bold typeface are or were UK government bodies and none of them are linked to UK government in any way? Prove it!
Of course, we could always see what the director of CRU, Phil
Jones, has to say. From the leaked
emails, 1228922050.txt:
(http://www.eastangliaemails.com/)
Quote:
From: Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk> ... Finally, I know that DEFRA receive
Parliamentary Questions from MPs to
It seems pretty
clear that CRU has had funds, directly or indirectly from UK government (UK
taxpayers) and that one of the money laundering routes has been through DEFRA,
under the guise of an award to UEA. Moving along, it is interesting that
the response mentions the phrase ‘climate change’ on more than one occasion but
never makes any linkage to human activities or increasing atmospheric level of
carbon dioxide. That in itself is
unusual. The agitprop normally
necessitates that asserted causation is included. Maybe the Government has realised that
everyone with an ounce of sense knows, climate is always changing; it always
has, and always will? Indeed the
only constant in climate is change.
Bearing this in mind, we find there
is an apparent change in emphasis to highlight risk instead, as can be seen
here:
Quote:
Science
is giving us an increasingly clear picture of the risks we face from climate
change. With more research, we can better understand those risks, and how
to manage them.
But those perceived risks are not detailed and certainly not differentiated from natural climate risk which has been happening since the beginning of time and certainly not influenced by humans. Of course the risks associated with a constantly changing climate have never been considered by scientists, thinkers, politicians or farmers at any other time in history, have they? The implication is that these risks are somehow different now, but there is no elaboration within the text. Anyway, the response then attempts to quell dissent and bolster its
authority by citing short term records from high-tech
instrumentation.
Quote: Further evidence
of this warming is found in data from instruments on satellites, and in trends
of declining arctic sea ice and rising sea levels.
The satellite temperature data is only available covering about 31
years. It shows no significant
increase over the last 12 years, more than a third of the record. They cite declining average - it is annually cyclic - Arctic sea
ice as evidence of the temperature trend.
The apparent decline is only seen in the old type satellites. It is consistent with instrument drift,
and inadequate validation processes. Just for the record, global sea ice shows
no significant trend despite the satellite measurement problems. Also Arctic sea ice extent has recently
been at a record high, for this time of year, according to the nine year AMSR-E
data from IRAC-JAXA, http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm.
Next we have this:
Quote: The
same warming trend is seen in two independent analyses carried out in the United
States, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the
Goddard Institute of Space Studies at the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA).
Does that confirm the warming trend or merely demonstrate that the
data has not been corrected adequately, or is, worse still, biased? The basic methodologies are quite
similar and therefore similar results should be seen with essentially the same
data. That does not necessarily
mean that they are correct. It is
also interesting that the Met Office is reappraising its
data.
However, putting that aside, let’s remind ourselves of what Phil
Jones, director of CRU has to say about the GISS reconstruction: 1254850534.txt
Quote: From: Phil Jones
<p.jones@uea.ac.uk>
[Emphasis
applied]
So here we have the revelation that GISS is inferior to CRU, some of the data is not used and adjustments are included, although the three sets agree on decadal scales over land. We need to remind ourselves that the Earth is two thirds covered by water,
so what about the rest? But the CRU
version is now in question and being investigated and an expert considers GISS
to be inferior. Apparently these
inconvenient facts are immaterial to the
Government.
Next, let us finish with the final line of the petition request: Quote:
We
call on the PM to suspend all further use of the climate research unit until all
pertinent allegations have been investigated and any action (if any) has been
taken.
This has been completely disregarded and thus goes unmentioned and
obviously, without action. Business
continues as usual at CRU.
Jonathan Drake
5/5/2010
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