Response to ClimateGate Inquiries

From Friends of Science a summary of Ross McKitrick's report "Understanding The ClimateGate Inquiries":

None of these inquiries were independent and none investigated the allegations or interviewed critics of the CRU or the IPCC. In summarizing, McKitrick says that the evidence shows that scientists manipulated IPCC reports with the effect of misleading readers, deleted emails to prevent disclosure of information in apparent violation of freedom of information laws, privately expressed doubts about the science, and took steps to block access to data or methodologies. 

One of the most notorious email revelations was the trick to hide the decline of proxy temperature data presented in WMO and IPCC reports for policy makers. The UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee concluded that this trick was not dishonest because Phil Jones of the CRU had discussed the decline relative to instrument data (the divergence problem) in a journal article. McKitrick writes “The fact that Jones had acknowledged the divergence in journal articles makes it worse that he hid the decline in official reports, as it proves that the deception was not inadvertent.” The divergence of proxy data from instrument data would prove to reasonable readers that the proxy data are not good temperature proxies, so the claim that the 20th century temperature increase is unprecedented cannot be supported. This destroys the foundation of the IPCC climate science.

Donate to Friends of Science.