http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/jul/07/climategate-scientists/print
Climategate: No whitewash, but CRU scientists are far from squeaky clean
The Russell review found the climate scientists had not lied – but
failed to criticise them properly for corrupting a scientific process
that demands complete transparency
* Fred Pearce
*
o Fred Pearce
o guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 7 July 2010 15.46 BST
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hacked climate science emails : A remote weather station on the edge of
Lake Vanda A remote weather station catches a morning sunrise in the
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Generally honest but frequently secretive; rigorous in their dealings
with fellow scientists but often "unhelpful and defensive", and
sometimes downright "misleading", when explaining themselves to the
wider world. That was the verdict of Sir Muir Russell and his fellow
committee members in their inquiry into the role of scientists at the
University of East Anglia in the "climategate" affair.
Many will find the report indulgent of reprehensible behaviour,
particularly in peer review, where CRU researchers have been accused of
misusing their seniority in climate science to block criticism. Brutal
exchanges in which researchers boasted of "going to town" to prevent
publication of papers critical of their work, and in which they
conspired to blacklist journals that published hostile papers, were
dismissed by Russell as "robust" and "typical of the debate that can go
on in peer review".
In the event, the inquiry conducted detailed analysis of only three
cases of potential abuse of peer review. And it investigated only two
instances where allegations were made that CRU scientists such as
director Phil Jones and deputy director Keith Briffa misused their
positions as IPCC authors to sideline criticism. On the issue of peer
review and the IPCC, it found that "the allegations cannot be upheld",
but made clear this was partly because the roles of CRU scientists and
others could not be distinguished from those of colleagues. There was
"team responsibility".
The report is far from being a whitewash. And nor does it justify the
claim of university vice-chancellor Sir Edward Action that it is a
"complete exoneration". In particular it backs critics who see in the
emails a widespread effort to suppress public knowledge about their
activities and to sideline bloggers who want to access their data and do
their own analysis.
Most seriously, it finds "evidence that emails might have been deleted
in order to make them unavailable should a subsequent request be made
for them [under Freedom of information law]". Yet, extraordinarily, it
emerged during questioning that Russell and his team never asked Jones
or his colleagues whether they had actually done this.
Secrecy was the order of the day at CRU. "We find that there has been a
consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness,"
says the report. That criticism applied not just to Jones and his team
at CRU. It applied equally to the university itself, which may have been
embarrassed to find itself in the dock as much as the scientists on whom
it asked Russell to sit in judgment.
The university "failed to recognise not only the significance of
statutory requirements" – FOI law in particular – and "also the risk to
the reputation of the university and indeed the credibility of UK
climate science" from the affair.
The university has responded by abolishing the role of director of CRU,
held by Jones until last November. Indeed CRU itself has lost its former
independence. Acton said Jones would now be "director of research" for
CRU, working within the university environment department.
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Climategate: No whitewash, but CRU scientists are far from squeaky clean
| Fred Pearce
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 15.46 BST on Wednesday 7
July 2010. A version appeared on p7 of the Main section section of the
Guardian on Thursday 8 July 2010. It was last modified at 17.16 BST on
Wednesday 7 July 2010.
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