Feb
British climate professor John Mitchell may face fraud charges
Now another senior British climate scientist–this time Professor John Mitchell, the Met Office’s Director of Climate Science, is about the face the full force of the blogosphere for contemptuous breaches of the UK’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Mitchell and the UK Meteorological Office have apparently been up to the same tricks as Professor Phil Jones of the now discredited UK Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia.
The Met Office is refusing to disclose Prof Mitchell’s working papers and correspondence with his IPCC colleagues in response to requests filed under the FOIA. The block has been endorsed in writing by Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth –- whose department has responsibility for the Met Office. Professor John Mitchell was joint chief fabricator of the absurd headline in the 2007 Nobel Prize-winning IPCC report: that the Earth is now hotter than at any time in the past 1,300 years. A claim totally at odds with the evidence presented in the IPCC’s First Report of 1990.
Documents obtained by The Daily Mail on Sunday reveal that the Met Office’s stonewalling was part of a coordinated, legally questionable strategy by climate change academics linked with the IPCC to block access to outsiders.
British climatologists have been at the heart of allegations of climate date fraud for several months since the Climategate scandal first broke. After it was announced by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) that although the CRU had broken the law by refusing to comply with dozens of FOIA requests over several years, head scientist, Phil Jones was branded a criminal by climate skeptics around the world.
Although Mitchell may also be beyond the scope of prosecutions under the FOIA laws, he may still be liable for charges of conspiracy to commit fraud as per the Fraud Act (2006) which is not subject to a time limit. Although his CRU co-conspirator Jones was wrongly reported to be beyond the reach of the law, according to the ICO (but not this article’s author), both he and Mitchell could be in court for conspiring to defraud taxpayers. Jones this weekend publicly anounced he had received death threats and contemplated thoughts of suicide because of the scandal.
Anyone who follows the highly-acclaimed Canadian climate analyst Steve McIntyre’s blog knows he did an excellent job in helping the climate science community identify the provenance of a graphic shown here, that was produced in 1990 by the propagandists of the junk science of man made global warming, the IPCC.
McIntryre examined the IPCC First Report that acknowledged the great significance of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) in the climatic record. But the MWP was all but written out of the climate history come the time of the 2007 IPCC Fourth Report as it would undermine the influence of human-produced carbon dioxide as a driver of climate being that the historical record suggests the MWP was as warm, if not warmer than modern temperatures.
The Daily Mail reports:
The Met Office’s first response to Mr Holland was a claim that Prof Mitchell’s records had been ‘deleted’ from its computers. Later, officials admitted they did exist after all, but could not be disclosed because they were ‘personal’, and had nothing to do with the professor’s Met Office job. Finally, they conceded that this too was misleading because Prof Mitchell had been paid by the Met Office for his IPCC work and had received Government expenses to travel to IPCC meetings.
The Met Office had even boasted of his role in a Press release when the report first came out. But disclosure, they added, was still rejected on the grounds it would ‘inhibit the free and frank provision of advice or the free and frank provision of views’.
The MWP controversy has been building up a head of steam since early drafts of the 2007 IPCC Fourth Report were fiercely contested by official IPCC reviewers, who cited other scientific papers stating that the 1,300-year claim and the graph were inaccurate.
Mitchell’s buddies have rallied to his aid to help break the FOIA laws in a repeat of the Phil Jones scandal. Some of the FOIA requests were made by the same person who has made requests to Phil Jones at CRU. He is David Holland, an electrical engineer familiar with advanced statistics who has written several papers questioning orthodox thinking on global warming.
But most climate commentators expect another public backlash as was seen after Climategate now that British public opinion shows less than 25% believe man is causing climate change. The fallout of the Climategate scandal is believed to be the cause of the fall in support for the theory of man made global warming. Leaked emails from the CRU exposed the myth of the so called ‘settled’ climate science that relied heavily on perversion of the peer-review process, conspiracy, subterfuge and law-breaking. Mitchell will now be girding his loins for the kind of stiff media kicking that assailed Phil Jones.
Professor Mitchell also approved the inclusion in the 2007 IPCC report of the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph, showing centuries of level or declining temperatures until a steep 20th Century rise.
By the time the 2007 report was being written, the graph had been heavily criticised by climate sceptics who had shown it minimised the ‘medieval warm period’ around 1000AD, when the Vikings established farming settlements in Greenland. Reviewers had cited other credible peer-reviewed scientific papers stating that the 1,300-year claim and the graph were inaccurate. But the final version, approved by Prof Mitchell, the relevant chapter’s review editor, swept aside all such concerns.
The Information Commissioner’s Office and the police have yet to comment on these latest revelations.
“Prof Mitchell had been paid by the Met Office for his IPCC work and had received Government expenses to travel to IPCC meetings”
So much for Australia’s Andy Pitman’s (lead author on AR4) assertion that “All of the efforts you do in an IPCC report is done out of hours, voluntarily for no funding and no pay..”
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s2800538.htm
I wonder how many other people “working” for the IPCC are actually being paid? Not that it’s a bad thing (I’d rather see them paid; it’s more incentive for diligence), just that it’s contrary to what Pitman says, and consequently a poor excuse for “losing” an argument.
Spot on, Dave. Pittman insists that he was not lying, and he seems to base this defense on some hair splitting difference between being paid through ARC grants for the IPCC work, as opposed to being paid directly by the IPCC itself. But this doesn’t wash. He clearly claimed that working on the IPCC reports was voluntary and unpaid work.
It is true that academics work long hours, and often out of normal working hours, at night, on weekends, and on holidays, but this is just par for the course. This is what you often do in academia if you are a serious researcher – you tend to keep no set hours. But to describe any of this like Pittman has done, when in fact he collected grants for his work on the IPCC reports and was collecting his regular salary and was being paid all expenses when on IPCC business, is misleading and an outright lie.
No doubt, many have told him so. Still, the man remains unconvinced and continues to deny he lied. Perhaps, this should not surprise us about the likes of him and Flannery. If they believe their alarmism, they will believe anything. Haven’t these junkies been taught about climate history in high school?
What’s the whole point of the FOIA if it isn’t being enforced? Shouldn’t it be as easy as copy/paste to get you the information? Yes, I know I’m an idiot for assuming it’s that easy, but if you know you are under the jurisdiction of the FOIA, shouldn’t you have some sort of preparation to handle these requests? Right now ‘preparation’ seems to stalling or blocking.
Also, couldn’t you somehow get a court order to get the info? I wonder why that’s not the case.
No plea bargaining please! We want a trial in which much more of the goingons will see the light of day and many more fraudsters will be revealed and forged documents and false affidavits will come out so that the modus operandi of those who had conspired against mankind will be available for all to see.
Small climate change world isn’t it…
Professor John Mitchell was Tim Mitchell’s PHD supervisor whilst tim was at CRU.
Tim Mitchell – Harry_Read_me.txt fame. (harry struggling with what tim did)
What was Tim Mitchell’s first degree was, comp science, statistics, mathematics, physics, meteorology.?
Geography:
“At Oxford University I read geography (1994-1997, School of Geography). My college was Christ Church. At Oxford I developed a special interest in the study of climate change.”
Think about Tim’s labyrinthine software suites… he ‘apparently’ wrote a LOT of code doing the hadcru datasets? (harry file)
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timm/personal/index.html
Tyndall centre:
NO LONGER IN POST
I left my position in the Tyndall Centre at the end of February 2004. I am no longer able to answer requests for data or information on the climate data-sets I have produced. all data enquiries should now be directed to the Climatic Research Unit at the same institution (UEA). The contact details you should use are as follows:
cru@uea.ac.uk
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/hrg.htm (opens in a new window)
Climatic Research Unit, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK.
If you are contacting us to request information about, or access to, one of the data-sets, then please go to the data-set request page.
Training
I was brought up and schooled in London.
At Oxford University I read geography (1994-1997, School of Geography). My college was Christ Church. At Oxford I developed a special interest in the study of climate change.
In 1997 I moved to Norwich to carry out the research for a PhD at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia. My subject was the development of climate scenarios for subsequent use by researchers investigating the impacts of climate change. I was supervised by Mike Hulme and by John Mitchell (Hadley Centre of the UK Meteorological Office). The PhD was awarded in April 2001.
Current Affiliation
Since 2000 I have worked at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. The Tyndall Centre is a consortium of research centres in the UK, set up to complement CRU and the Hadley Centre by investigating potential responses to climate change. I am based at Tyndall Headquarters, at the University of East Anglia.”
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There has been a lot of comment about quality of computer code, data handling, intregity and manipulation of data, inthe Harry_read_me.txt file…
How qualified – what computer programming standards, do you need fulfill individually and as a deprtment (at CRU) to write code for climate change research.
After all, If you are recieving government funding, surely the code, should be developed, audited, controlled as per HM governments standards for software development:
also wrote this:
Same Tim Mitchell:
“…Although I have yet to see any evidence that climate change is a sign of Christ’s imminent return, human pollution is clearly another of the birth pangs of creation, as it eagerly awaits being delivered from the bondage of corruption (Romans. 19-22).
Tim Mitchell works at the Climactic Research Unit, UEA, Norwich, and is a member of South Park Evangelical Church.
For an enhanced version of this article, with extra diagrams and links to further information, visit the website: http://www.uea.ac.uk/~f709762/climate/en-article.htm”
http://www.e-n.org.uk/p-1129-Climate-change-and-the-Christian.htm
manbearpig – south park connection as well – maybe the universe does have a sense of humour..
I can’t wait for the first one of these pricks to go to jail. We need to make sure there are people at the trial to through eggs at the jerk!
“Tim Mitchell works at the Climactic Research Unit”
Sublime.
Same Tim Mitchell personal beliefs below..
CRU/Tyndall website:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timm/research/index.html
It is no longer a novelty to think of the western world today as being ‘religious’; this may be seen in the widespread interest in:
extraterrestrials,
the occult,
Eastern religions,
‘New Age’.
This ‘religious interest’ clearly suggests that despite our unprecedented standards of living and our scepticism about any ultimate meaning in life, people today are still seeking for something in life deeper than material things, and more permanent than the here and now.
Of course, the fact that people are looking does not mean that there is necessarily something to be found, but I unashamedly claim that:
there is ‘something’ to be found;
the widespread ‘religious interest’ is a phenomenon that can only be explained by this ‘something’, and it can only be satisfied by this ‘something’.
This ‘something’ is presented to us in what has historically been called Christianity, which is based on two things:
a person,
a book.
The person is Jesus Christ, who is revealed to us in a book, the Bible.
To understand the message of the Bible about Jesus Christ, it is necessary to realise that the Bible starts from the assumption that God exists. No-one in the Bible attempts to prove the existence of God, although there is an abundance of evidence presented that shows that He does exist.
The Bible begins with the declaration that it was God who created the entire universe. This God, being ruler of the universe, does not exist merely in:
philosophies and religions,
the spirits of people,
books.
In fact, far from requiring humans in order to exist, it is He Himself who grants to humans life, breath and everything else that we require.
Having created a single race of humans, it is this God who has fixed the times, places and events of every individual’s life, carefully giving them opportunity to seek Himself. For He genuinely desires that each individual should seek and find Himself, coming into a personal relationship with Himself.
Of course, He is not actually far from any of us – after all, it is only by His minute-by-minute supply of life to us that we live! Thus we must not think of this God as being anything less than a living Person, nor of ourselves as being anything less than people created for a satisfying relationship with Him.
God has been merciful in telling us all this in the Bible, for we could never have found it out ourselves, and we do not deserve to know. For all of us have spent our lives rebelling against His authority and failing to obey His moral law. Now He commands every man, woman and child to ‘repent’ (to change one’s mind, purpose, and life) of their ‘sin’ (their rebellion and disobedience), for He has appointed a day in which He will judge the world, including every individual that has ever lived.
The standard by which He will judge the world will be a man – Jesus Christ – and that man will Himself be the judge. God has openly declared this, and assured us of its truth by raising Jesus Christ from the dead.
For having lived a perfectly righteous life in Palestine early in the first century AD, Jesus Christ was executed on a Roman cross on the orders of the Roman governor of Judea (a man by the name of Pontius Pilate), and his corpse was placed in a nearby cave. However, being God Himself, death could not hold Him, and He was raised from the dead, taking up life again with the body which previously had laid cold in the tomb.
Thus God has assured us that death is not the end of an individual’s existence, that He is in control of all events on this earth, and that He will one day call us to give an account of our actions.
However, this same Jesus Christ freely offers to all a way of escape from suffering the punishment due to us for our sins, and it is this that forms the central teaching of Jesus Christ himself and the entire Bible!
All this may prompt fury, astonishment or delight in you.
If you want to email me a comment or question, I will be delighted to reply as best I can. Alternatively, you may like to follow through an (offsite) web course that aims to explain Christianity simply. “
“Of course, the fact that people are looking does not mean that there is necessarily something to be found, but I unashamedly claim that:
there is ’something’ to be found;
the widespread ‘religious interest’ is a phenomenon that can only be explained by this ’something’, and it can only be satisfied by this ’something’.”
Wee bit circular don’t you think? It’s “something” because we really really want it to be “something and that can only be because it’s really “something”.
link: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timm/data/index.html
(Tim) I provide…
…a limited number of high-quality data-sets.
An important part of my work is to develop climate data-sets. My intention is that these data-sets will then be used by researchers investigating the impacts of climate change. Here I provide access to these data-sets.
There are two groups of climate data-sets, intended for two different groups of researchers:
country averages, intended for researchers from the social sciences who are working on international scales, comparing one country with another;
high-resolution grids of monthly climate (observed and future), intended for researchers from the environmental sciences who wish to combine climate data with environmental models.
Alternatively, view all available data-sets in a single table.
Of course, there are other legitimate uses for these data-sets, and researchers are welcome to employ them in any legitimate way.
A more minor data-set is the length of the thermal growing season in Central England. Latest chart (up to 2002).
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This is what Harry was dealing with to make hadcru 3.0
Tim and a few others see references,
produced the datasets for OTHER researcher to use, after they had done all the things we see in the Harry file to produce it………………!!!
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link: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~timm/data/index-table.html
Table of climate grids and derived data-sets
IMPORTANT: This table is out of date. Please use the CRU HRG page instead
This table presents the complete set of high-resolution climate grids available through the Climatic Research Unit and the Tyndall Centre, and some data-sets based on those grids. Some data-sets are available from this website; others are available from the Climatic Research Unit. Following the proliferation of gridded data-sets and their by-products, we have developed a consistent form of identification for these data-sets to provide greater clarity to users. We recommend that any users of these data-sets should use these labels to refer to these data-sets.
You must cite the referenced paper in any publications.
data-set space time variety variables reference availability
CRU CL 1.0 0.5° globe 1961-1990 climatology pre, wet, tmp, dtr, tmx, tmn, vap, spc, cld, frs, wnd New et al, 1999 this site
CRU CL 2.0 10′ globe 1961-1990 climatology pre, wet, tmp, dtr, rhm, ssh, frs, wnd New et al, 2002 this site
CRU TS 1.0 0.5° globe 1901-1995 time-series pre, tmp, dtr, wet, vap, cld, frs New et al, 2000 this site, but superseded by CRU TS 2.0 except for wet and frs
CRU TS 1.1 0.5° globe 1996-1998 time-series pre, tmp New et al, 2000; extended this site, but superseded by CRU TS 2.0
CRU TS 1.2 10′ Europe 1901-2000 time-series pre, tmp, dtr, vap, cld Mitchell et al, 2003 this site
CRU TS 2.0 0.5° globe 1901-2000 time-series pre, tmp, dtr, vap, cld Mitchell et al, 2003 this site
TYN SC 1.0 10′ Europe 2001-2100 scenarios pre, tmp, dtr, vap, cld Mitchell et al, 2003 this site
TYN SC 2.0 0.5° globe 2001-2100 scenarios pre, tmp, dtr, vap, cld Mitchell et al, 2003 this site
TYN CY 1.0 country 1901-1998 countries pre, tmp, dtr, wet, vap, cld, frs Mitchell et al, 2002 superseded by TYN CY 1.1
TYN CY 1.1 country 1901-2000 countries pre, tmp, dtr, wet, vap, cld, frs, tmn, tmx Mitchell et al, 2003 this site
TYN CY 2.0 country 2070-2099 countries pre, tmp Mitchell et al, 2002; extended this site
TYN CY 3.0 country 2000-2100 countries pre, tmp, dtr, vap, cld Mitchell et al, 2003 this site
Please note that all data-sets are limited to the land surface only; the ocean grid boxes are left blank. The ‘global’ domain also excludes Antarctica.
Labelling convention
The identifying label is made up of:
Institution of origin
CRU = Climatic Research Unit
TYN = Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
both at the University of East Anglia (UK)
Label denoting the type of data-set
CL = average climatology
TS = time-series
SC = set of scenarios
CY = set of country averages
Version number
Types of dataset
climate data-set nature purpose
CL (climatology) The average climate in the recent past. These are high-resolution grids. Allows spatial comparisons of environmental features; the dependency of certain features on climate may be assessed.
TS (time-series) Month-by-month variations in climate over the last century or so. These are high-resolution grids. Allows the comparison of variations in climate with variations in other phenomena.
SC (scenarios) A set of scenarios of possible climates in the future, using data from climate models. These are high-resolution grids. Allows environmental impact models to consider month-by-month changes in climate from the past, through the present, and into the future. Future uncertainties are represented through scenarios.
CY (countries) Country averages, based on aggregating grid cells together from the grids in CL, TS, or SC. Allows international comparisons to be made, in conjunction with socio-economic data such as GDP, population, land area, etc.
Variable abbreviations
label variable units
cld cloud cover percentage
dtr diurnal temperature range degrees Celsius
frs frost day frequency days
pre precipitation millimetres
rhm relative humidity percentage
ssh sunshine duration hours
tmp daily mean temperature degrees Celsius
vap vapour pressure hecta-Pascals
wet wet day frequency days
wnd wind speed metres per second
References
Mitchell, T.D., Hulme, M. and New, M., 2002: Climate data for political areas. Area 34, 109-112
WHOLE PAPER AS PDF
Mitchell, T.D., Carter, T.R., Jones, P.D., Hulme,M., New, M., 2003: A comprehensive set of high-resolution grids of monthly climate for Europe and the globe: the observed record (1901-2000) and 16 scenarios (2001-2100). Journal of Climate: submitted (August 2003)
New, M., Hulme, M. and Jones, P.D., 1999: Representing twentieth century space-time climate variability. Part 1: development of a 1961-90 mean monthly terrestrial climatology. Journal of Climate 12, 829-856
ABSTRACT (AND WHOLE PAPER FOR SUBSCRIBERS)
New, M., Hulme, M. and Jones, P.D., 2000: Representing twentieth century space-time climate variability. Part 2: development of 1901-96 monthly grids of terrestrial surface climate. Journal of Climate 13, 2217-2238
ABSTRACT (AND WHOLE PAPER FOR SUBSCRIBERS)
New, M., Lister, D., Hulme, M. and Makin, I., 2002: A high-resolution data set of surface climate over global land areas. Climate Research 21
ABSTRACT
Conditions of use
These datasets are provided for all to use, provided the sources are acknowledged. Acknowledgement must include the citation of the paper referenced. The website can also be acknowledged if deemed necessary. I will endeavour to update the majority of the data pages at timely intervals although this cannot be guaranteed by specific dates.
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How independent are the datasets (Hansen, Cru, GISS)…. These are the three lots of date sets… other climate researcher use and depend on…
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There are three centres which calculate global-average temperature each month.
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link: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/explained/explained5.html
•Met Office, in collaboration with the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UK)
•Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is part of NASA (USA)
•National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (USA)
These work independently and use different methods in the way they collect and process data to calculate the global-average temperature. Despite this, the results of each are similar from month to month and year to year, and there is definite agreement on temperature trends from decade to decade (Figure 1). Most importantly, they all agree global-average temperature has increased over the past century and this warming has been particularly rapid since the 1970s..”
“…Each of the three global temperature centres uses different observation sets, although there are large overlaps in the information used. Each centre also has its own methods for checking and processing data, as well as for making the final calculation.
The HadCRUT3 record, which is produced by the Met Office in collaboration with the Climatic Research Unit, takes in observations from about 2,000 land stations each month. The figures for each one are checked both by computer and manually to find and remove any problems. Sea-surface temperature observations come from about 1,200 drifting buoys deployed across the world’s oceans and around 4,000 ships in the Voluntary Observing Ship programme. There are also numerous moored buoys in the tropics and in coastal regions, principally around the US. Together they take around 1.5 million observations each month. These are checked by computer and any obviously inaccurate readings are excluded.
For all three global average temperature records, the 2009 value is based on data from January to October only…”
[...] I examine in the legal implications for fraud against Professor Phil Jones of the UK’s Climatic Research Unit under the Fraud Act (2006) here and here. [...]